Good afternoon, Daily Kos readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
As always, this column originally appears at Congress Matters and contains The Most Important News of the Day™.
Here are some of my own thoughts...
I guess today's big news is Rep. Parker Griffith's (AL-05) party switch. The former Blue Dog is now officially a Republican.
A freshman Democrat, Griffith was elected to the 5th district in 2008 to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Bud Cramer. He won with 51 percent despite the fact that President Barack Obama took just 38 percent of the vote in the north Alabama district. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dropped more than $1 million in independent expenditures to keep the seat.
"Democrats of every stripe and philosophy sweated and bled for this man," said Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham of Griffith. "He narrowly became a Congressman through the hard work, votes and financial contributions of thousands of Democrats. Today, they feel betrayed."
And the Alabama Democrats want their money back:
The Alabama Democratic Party feels disappointed and betrayed by U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith's decision to leave the party and has asked for thousands of Democratic donation dollars back, according to a statement from Chairman Joe Turnham.
I have a feeling that his 16 supporters who gave him $6,562 on ActBlue would like their money back, too.
And what does RNC chairman Michael Steele have to say about people who switch parties? Via Media Matters:
Political expediency and self preservation is the order of the day and this is what we're seeing,'' Steele said. "That's fine, that's absolutely fine, but don't sit there with the sanctimonious, high-minded, 'Oh, I found religion..."
"I'm not buying that,'' he said. "This is self preservation in the first order it's a cold crass political calculation."
Just kidding. That's what he had to say about Arlen Specter becoming a Democrat.
If there is any doubt, though, that the Republican Party is still actively eating their own, here is Erick Erickson of RedState:
He voted for Pelosi for Speaker. He’s actually been more regularly with Pelosi than Jim Marshall (D-GA). We can pick this guy off and get a real Republican in that seat.
Again, changing the letter next to your name does not magically make you one of us.
And the Club for Growth:
Griffith's voting record is far from conservative, too. Granted, he voted against the Big 4 - Obama's first budget, the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and ObamaCare. However, his vote on the budget is slightly deceptive since he originally voted for 9 of the 12 spending bills that make up the budget. And he voted against all the Stimulus amendments that would reduce its size.
And via Politico:
Ironically, a National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman called Griffith a "woefully ineffective advocate for Tennessee Valley jobs" after the decision was announced in September.
Finally, Talking Points Memo reminds us that...
The Republican Party is taking a great moral leap in welcoming Rep. Parker Griffith to the caucus -- accepting someone who they believe deliberately gave poor care to cancer patients in order to make money off of them, and who hates America and sympathizes with radical Muslims on top of that. At least, that's what their ads against him in 2008 said!
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In more relevant news, it looks like the health care reform bill will go to conference rather than the ping-pong process. Senate leaders, including Harry Reid and Max Baucus say that President Obama will have a health care bill to sign before his State of the Union address:
Senate Democratic leaders plan to cut their holiday recess short and begin talks with their House counterparts immediately after Christmas in the hope of producing a final bill by mid-January.
~snip
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has already alerted the conferees to the Senate-House negotiations of their role. But Reid in a Tuesday press conference declined to discuss his behind-the-scenes preparations for the final talks.
Obviously, this is timed to be politically significant. President Obama would much rather address the nation with a finished health care bill than not. If he does not have that bill signed before his address, likely on Jan. 19, it will be a symbolic failure. It is probably not much of a stretch to predict that the GOP will be in full on obstruction mode after Christmas.
The New York Times has more on merging the bills.
On the other hand, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is show signs of not playing the role of Grinch this year:
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave his first public indication that Republicans, faced with certain defeat in their effort to block the legislation, would consider yielding some of the debate time that will follow the Wednesday afternoon vote.
By rule, Republicans could force another 30 hours of debate before final passage of the historic legislation, which probably would mean no roll-call vote until after 9 p.m. Christmas Eve. But McConnell acknowledged that he and Reid were "working on an agreement that would give certainty" to when that final vote would occur, a signal that senators might not have to wait until late Thursday night to finish up the first Dec. 24 session in 46 years.
Breaking as of publication: The final vote is scheduled for 8 a.m. Christmas Eve.
And if there were any questions about whether there are sweetners in this bill, we present this nugget:
A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night.
The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.
Congratulations, UConn. You earned it.
For his part, President Obama says he has not compromised too much to get the bill passed.
"Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill," Obama said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Post about his legislative record this year. "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill."
I think I'll withhold judgment on that until something emerges from the Conference Committee.
Finally, for the comedy relief section of our health care round up, former Alaska Governor, former VP candidate and current GOP albatross Sarah Palin says that the death panels will be in the final bill. Her recent Tweet:
...merged bill may b unrecognizable from what assumed was a done deal:R death panels back in?what's punishment 4not purchasing mandated HC?
Remember kids. This person was very nearly a missed heartbeat away from the presidency.
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In other Executive-Legislative Relations news, President Obama won't leave for his holiday vacation in Hawai'i until the Senate wraps up its work for the week.
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Rudy Giuliani (Noun + Verb + 9/11) won't run for Senate, which should ease the mind of Kirsten Gillibrand.
The decision by Mr. Giuliani, 65, leaves Senator Gillibrand — who was appointed to her seat less than a year ago, has never run in a statewide election, and is still unfamiliar to many voters — without a high-profile Republican opponent as she faces election to the seat.
As recently as a week ago, a Quinnipiac University poll showed Mr. Giuliani leading Ms. Gillibrand in a hypothetical matchup, 50 percent to 40 percent.
Here is Senator Gillibrand's ActBlue page.
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Meanwhile, in the NRSC camp, there is a battle brewing over the California Senate primary.
DeMint has thrown his weight behind Chuck DeVore, a conservative Republican who is running against a more centrist candidate backed by Cornyn.
~snip
DeVore is running in the California’s Senate Republican primary against former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carly Fiorina, who has received fundraising help from Cornyn.
Good luck with that.
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Three quick notes on global warming:
Mother Jones tells us how big oil is spreading the denier fable worldwide.
Teluk, the founder of the Globalization Institute, a libertarian think tank, is Poland's most prominent climate change skeptic. He has become a hero to Polish conservatives, who have convinced their government to resist strong emissions cuts and block the European Union from giving climate change assistance to developing nations. A leading Polish financial newspaper recently named his institute the country's best think tank. But Teluk is hardly a homegrown climate skeptic. Much of his rhetoric, such as his claim that CO2 is good for you, echoes the well-worn claims of American skeptics. And much of Teluk's newfound visibility can be traced back to his long-standing ties with conservative patrons and energy interests in the United States.
Senator Diane Feinstein has introduced a bill to preserve a million acres of the Mojave Desert that would effectively stop plans to build solar and wind plants there. Environment vs. Environment? I suppose that better than some of the fights of the past that pitted environmentalists vs. polluters.
And noted "skeptic" George Will concern trolls the Copenhagen talks.
It would have been unprecedented had the president not described the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change summit as "unprecedented," that being the most overworked word in his hardworking vocabulary of self-celebration. Actually, the mountain beneath the summit -- a mountain of manufactured hysteria, predictable cupidity, antic demagoguery and dubious science -- labored mightily and gave birth to a mouselet, a 12-paragraph document committing the signatories to . . . make a list.
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In blogosphere news, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight took on a very major and very important polling firm and seems to have won.
In September, controversy swirled around public affairs and polling company Strategic Vision LLC following a rare censure from the American Association for Public Opinion Research and accusations of fraud from blogger Nate Silver. Yet the ensuing silence from Strategic Vision and its CEO, David Johnson, is even more troubling than the initial story.
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Finally, in The Most Important News of the Day™ The Washington Redskins proved last night that the RNC is not the most incompetent organization that exists inside the Beltway. Even if you aren't a football fan, check out what may be the worst play in NFL history. I promise that this will be an instant classic.