I recognize that there are people who have legitimate beefs with the Senate bill and with the notion that the House should just pass it. But for those Democrats who think it’s okay to punt now on health care reform, I think this question is in order.

I post a lot of goofball music videos I know, but hearing this one sends chills up my spine.

Everybody on the internets is linking to this E. J. Dionne piece, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading:

The core problem is that the House Democrats no longer trust the Senate Democrats. And let’s be honest: There is no reason in the world for House Democrats to trust the Senate Democrats at this point, or even to feel very kindly disposed toward them.

That’s why there is resistance in the House to the most straightforward solution, which is for the House to pass the Senate health-care bill and send it to the president, and then to use the reconciliation process (which requires only 51 votes in the Senate) to pass the changes in the bill that House and Senate negotiators have agreed to—or, at least, as many of those changes as is procedurally possible. They can’t get all the changes into law that way, but they could get a lot of them.

The catch is that the House Democrats don’t believe the Senate Democrats will necessarily keep their word and pass the reconciliation bill containing the amendments. And it’s not only the question of trust: anyone who has watched the Senate for the last year can be forgiven for wondering if it is even functional enough (given Republican obstruction and a lack of cohesion in the Democratic caucus) to keep a promise sincerely made.

Update. A Sully reader replies to a different statement, but what he says is also a good reply to House Dems:

With all due respect, this totally ignores the fact that 100% of Senate Democrats support healthcare reform (all 59 of them), but because of the antiquated, undemocratic filibuster rule, which is being used as a daily weapon by Senate Republicans, we aren’t able to pass it. As a Chief of Staff to a Democratic Senator….

The “all 59 of them” line is a big disingenuous, but there’s not much doubt there are 53 or more Senators who are on the same page with the House. If this can be boiled down to the proverbial up-or-down-vote, then it’s silly for House Democrats to pretend they’ll be punched in the neck and slapped in the face as they slide under the bus.

The big event around the Cole household will be the first hour of the Hope for Haiti concert followed by Caprica on SyFy at nine. You?

My dinner is not as exotic as Tim’s. I’m having a cold cut sub and a pickle from the deli.

BTW- This is another Evelyn DeHais graphic (link in the blogroll) that we will probably use for Cafe Press.

If it isn’t obvious, yeah, I’m tired, emotionally drained and probably getting a little punchy. I’m going to take a nap. Then I’ll play Dragon Age for an hour and then cook some beef bourgignon and a creme brulee.

Open thread.

Someone help me set up an ActBlue page and someone else help me figure out how to set up a petition for a new Speaker. This is how we win.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) released a statement today in which, broadly speaking, he endorses passing the Senate bill along with a separate amending bill which would pass the senate through reconciliation and passing yet another bill which would pass other popular reforms later in the year.

Follow the link to read the whole statement.

Jerry Nadler would make an excellent candidate to lead the House. The guy has balls and a knack for getting the message right.

***Update***

Don’t get me wrong about Pelosi. She managed the caucus well enough, up until that minor Chernobyl incident three days ago. When we say that nobody thought about what to do if Coakley lost ‘nobody’ means Pelosi, Reid and Barack Obama. That shit won’t fly. My vote goes to any Democrat who rescues this miasmatic tailspin.

***Update 2***

The more I read about Jerry Nadler the more I like the guy.

***Update 3***

ATTENTION: The Pelosi stuff is obviously a distraction, so forget that I ever said it. Take it as a sign of how hungry I am right now to see someone take ownership of a concrete plan to move the ball those last five yards into the endzone.

***Update 4***

I just spoke with Nadler’s office. Josh Marshall interpreted his statement right the first time. The plan would package passing the Senate bill with a promise from the Senate to fix some things through reconciliation. That strikes me, emphatically, as the way to go.

Now it’s nap time.

Just called Rep. Mollohan’s office, and his staffers claim that he has no position because Pelosi said the bill will never come to the floor. I asked her where Pelosi had said that, and she said yesterday.

Even the staffers have no idea what Pelosi said- she specifically did not rule out ever bringing the bill to a vote, she said she does not have the votes for it to pass right now.

The staffer kept asking me if there is a specific issue in the Senate bill- as if that mattered, because the conference is dead. I then told her that you all are going to get massacred in the fall if nothing passes and quite frankly, you will deserve it.

I do not think you can underestimate how rudderless the House is right now- and the more they panic, the more they will run for the hills. The Democrats are so screwed.

Looking at our updated list of where Reps stand, and judging by your own feedback and the insidery stuff that Josh Marshall posts, I do not think that most House Democrats have a fucking clue what they are going to do.

Get on the horn and make a suggestion. (202) 224-3121. Instructions for first-timers here.

My friend who used to work for Daschle emailed me the following uplifting message about Congressional Democrats:

I love the understatement of medical terms—someone who’s shown up in the Emergency Department raving about messages they’re getting via their fillings has “decompensated”. True, but there’s so much more.

Like the person sitting in the corner of a padded cell picking at imaginary insects on their body, the Democratic caucus has decompensated. The notion that they’ll be able to regroup and do something is about as reasonable as the view that someone in a rubber room will walk out tomorrow and go back to their old job as if nothing happened. And a stern talk from Daddy Obama isn’t going to fix shit.

They don’t even have the excuse that their brain chemistry is broken. They are just feckless cowards, and they deserve everything they’re going to get.

Update. I don’t hate the Senate bill but I respect this sentiment from geg6:

I hated the fucking Senate bill. Hated it with a passion. But even I could see what would happen should it not pass and I was willing to get past my hate and get on board and phone my congressional delegation to urge them to support it and fix it later. I GOT PAST MY DISTASTE FOR GOOD OF THE MANY.

TPM is doing the same thing Tim is, trying to track where House members stand. So where do they stand? Everywhere:

It is over, folks. Everyone yelling at Obama and Reid and Pelosi to show leadership should take a deep breath and realize that when the House is this divided, there is really not much threats and the bully pulpit can do. I don’t see how you put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

But what about the magical reconciliation, which some of you insisted for months was the way to go bet never once would show me the 50 votes? I hope you can appreciate this:

There was some talk among Senate leadership on Thursday of putting together a letter signed by 51 Democratic senators pledging to pass a cleanup bill if the House would pass the Senate bill. But that effort fizzled when support for it didn’t materialize, insiders said.

“The Senate moderates’ viewpoint is, ‘We passed our bill. We’re not going to spend three weeks on some other bill,’” said a Democratic lobbyist who represents clients pushing for reform.

“There’s a real possibility it doesn’t get through,” said another Democratic lobbyist.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said one possibility involved having the Senate pass the cleanup bill first. But there’s a question as to whether the Senate can amend a bill that is not yet law, officials said. Reid would also want some assurances ahead of time from the parliamentarian that key elements of the cleanup bill would not be struck from the bill, officials said.

House Democrats are angry with the Senate for passing a bill that divided their base, angering labor unions with a tax on expensive health plans and progressives by abandoning the public option. House members are frustrated that the Senate assumes they will roll over whenever the upper chamber demands it and that they took until late December to pass a bill.

This. Is. Over.

Just bury it and let’s get talking about midnight basketball and after-school programs.

(But, by all means, keep calling. Miracles do happen, and the Kossacks are not giving up.).

Actually an email. I left out which Congresswoman to protect the emailer’s anonymity.

Called XXXX’s office again [district removed; ed.]. This time I got someone who knew something.

He told me that she has no final position. It’s going to depend on how Pelosi and Obama choose to do things, if they want to push things through or wait until Brown is seated.

He didn’t know what exactly was going on with the many discussions they were having on the subject, but said there had been a lot of meetings. He said they were closed-door, members-only meetings and he didn’t know exactly how it was being discussed.

He said there had been a lot of constituent calls in the last few days on the subject. He asked specifically what I was for. I told him I was for passing the Senate bill; it wasn’t perfect but it was the best we had and hopefully it could be fixed down the road.

He said the calls were very much appreciated and helped the Congresswoman to shape her opinion. PLEASE KEEP CALLING!

Your Congressman’s office would also love to hear from your friends, family, coworkers, fellow parishioners and anyone you email on a regular basis. Just a thought.

Chat about whatever.

Shocking report from the WSJ:

Corporations, labor unions and other political entities are gearing up to play a larger role in influencing elections in 2010 and beyond after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down elements of campaign-finance law.

The Supreme Court on Thursday made it easier for entities to influence elections for Congress and the White House by stripping away rules that limited their ability to fund campaign advertisements. The court also struck down a part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law that prevented independent political groups from running advertisements within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

No. Really?

I love the fiction we are ever going to alter what is going on during Wall Street. Does anyone here think the Goldman boys and their friends would flinch at the notion of dumping a couple billion in advertising to save their 150 billion in bonuses? Anyone?

Might as well make a separate post about this. Critics are perfectly right to point out that the Senate bill that I want to see passed is, at best, a shit-and-banana sandwich. That sounds pretty bad except that (1) if Democrats don’t pass it then they might as well stay home in November, and (2) the country is about to die from potassium deficiency. I cannot stress enough how badly we need that banana individual mandate and complete ban on pre-existing conditions and rescission. Medicare reimbursement problems, the excise tax and affordability questions are all problems that I think, meaning I genuinely believe, are worth the price to get the bill’s key components the bill enacted into law.

As I see it, Congress can repeal the shitty parts of the bill any time but no politician can take away the general right to health insurance and live. This is how it works everywhere else in the world: citizens constantly petition government to iron out problems but nobody ever, ever proposes to take the fundamentals away.

However, with reconciliation the Senate can theoretically wash most of the shit off any time they want. They can’t write a new bill, because the fundamentals in the bill we already passed won’t work in reconciliation, so the House still has to eat a shit and banana sandwich. Nonetheless the Senate can give us an almost complete win if they want it enough. Call your Senators.

(202) 224-3121

***Update***

Regarding what to say: we need a fix to Medicare reimbursement rates, the excise tax and affordability and (what the hell, why not) the Public Option passed through reconciliation. If the Senate commits then the House will almost certainly reciprocate and Democrats will look like winners who can deliver positive change or the country. If not then Democrats utterly fail and a Republican Congress will spend the next two or six years pawing through Obama’s underwear drawer for another whitewater/travelgate/OMFG he asked for dijon mustard he must be a French muslim terrorist spy.

From Roll Call via David Drayden and Atrios:

Ben Bernanke’s nomination to serve a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve appears to be in peril. Bernanke is up for a second term at the Fed; his current term expires in 10 days on Jan. 31. A handful of Senators had previously threatened to filibuster the nomination, but this week the number of opposing lawmakers appeared to grow, further dimming his prospects for installment.

I don’t know enough to say what kind of a job Bernanke has done. But there’s no doubt that twenty years and numerous hagiographies of Greenspan ended in disaster.

Phone your Representative. It feels better than yelling at pseudonyms on an internetblog.

Here is how you do it.

(1) Use a phone. Email has nigh on zero impact. Trust me on this. Letter mail gets read, but you don’t have time. Reach the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 .

(2) Remember, this person works for you. You pay his or her salary and you voted for them. You’re the boss here, or at least one of them, and it’s they who should worry about what you think of them.

(3) Identify your name and the town or neighborhood where you live zip code. If you are not a constituent don’t bother. Since you guys never listen to me, at least google a zip code in the appropriate district before you call.

(4) State the issue. This is easy: pass the Senate bill or the party gets it. We can (and certainly will) fix the shortcomings later.

(5) How strongly do you feel? Don’t apologize about feeling passionate or pissed off. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

(6) What are you going to do about it? (Updated from earlier) This part is not that relevant when they’re getting a ton of calls. Every teabagger threatens the end of the world, so they get pretty jaded about it.

One last, important point. We want to track where Representatives are swinging on this and who is willing to commit. However your Rep’s intern responds about the Senate bill, please email me or post it in the comments. We are most interested to know who is voting yes, who will vote no, who will not commit and whether the abortion language is a problem with conservative Dems.

***Update***

It can’t hurt to assure the intern that you hate the Senate too, and you’ll gladly get behind punishing those guys just as soon as we get this stupid bill passed and over with. House members are LIVID at the Senate right now.

***Update 2***

As BTD points out, it cannot hurt and may do a ton of good if you call your Senator as well. The ultimate win situation is to have the House commit to passing the Senate bill while the Senate commits to fixing its bill through reconciliation.

I may be too jaded to hope for that kind of win, but who knows. I would never feel happier to be wrong.