The Once and Future Impeachment of Barack Obama

In those early days Obama and his coalition thought that this was the road to GOP cooperation AND the way around the difficult issue of Democratic complicity in the whole mess.

It turned out to be a bad strategy.

Hello and major, jumbo sized, mega-greetings. You are a brave soul. I post at Fox, and Red State. I use a different screen name there. I want my progressive philosophy to have some voice. I must tell you that posts at both sites are often censored. Yep. They post and are taken down. I was banned from the Conservative Thinker. I posted there for nearly a year but eventually I was dismissed for being too negative. Well, I was very negative. That is what the word “opposed” implies does it not?

Here at the Planet that will not happen in matters of content. Even the most liberal of us MUST abide by the rules of respectful public discourse. IF, you find yourself subject to anything else, you need to report that at the Help Desk immediately. Ad Lib, our primary admin, is about as even handed as you can get.

Having said that….you also need to know that some folks are REALLY going to push back HARD while others will push back REALLY, REALLY HARD.

So be prepared.

When I post a Conservative site, I have three rules:

1) Provide a clear thesis; a easily understood controlling idea.
2) Build a case making fact based statements in support of my thesis.
3) Provide a real world narrative with sources when necessary.

SO…..let me begin.

Why has the GOP not passed one its counter-ACA plans in the House? They have passed dozens of other bills, most pertinently its ACA repeals, which have had no chance of seeing light of day in the Senate.

The pattern has been the same. A group of House members fashion their own reform measure. The measure gets trotted out with lot of hoopla by the member. The Speaker and Majority Leader acknowledge it. It goes to Committee and….nothing.

The most recent example was last Fall when the Republican Study Committee, a very large group representing both wings of the GOP, the institutionalists and the tea party, proposed its “The American Health Care Reform Act”

http://rsc.scalise.house.gov/solutions/rsc-betterway.htm

It is in four committees now and there have been NO hearings, no action.

WHY?

The way I see it is this. They know that their own bill would not pass in their own GOP controlled House. They have no alternative to offer that they can get their own caucus to support. All they can agree to is to repeal what they do not like.

The RSC bill has a number of aspect worth considering. I have written on this. A number of Dems in the House have referred to elements in the bill they like. But……it goes no where.

On the page I cited earlier there is this interesting tidbit. In a large black box at the top of the page, the RSC notes that Obama has said he would work with anyone on good ideas in a December statement. Now, the RSC bill was submitted to the House in September. The RSC places the responsibility for the bill not making progress on HIS not having sat down and spoken with them.

What’s missing. They claim that a majority of the their house caucus supports the bill. Ok. Prove it. Bring it to the floor. At that point, a bill, approved by the majority of the House (which I think could well include a number of Dems), would provide a sound counter-proposal to weaknesses in the ACA and the basis for Obama working with their leadership and with the Senate leadership.

Why aren’t they doing that?

1) When push comes to shove, they will not enough votes from their own caucus to pass the bill which means they would have to look to the Dems AND THAT IS FORBIDDEN by the most conservative, the tea party.

2) It contains a number of items that most of their members really do not want to passed. For example: The bill has provision that “Spurs competition to lower health care costs by allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines and enabling small businesses to pool together and get the same buying power as large corporations.” Bottom line: the big insurance companies and their lobbies do not want this as it will cut into their bottom line. They are among the big money donors and their clout is enormous.

3) If the bill moves forward and becomes the basis for a Senate reconciliation bill then the GOP will be seen as working with the Dems, being bi-partisan. For many of their incumbents that is a death curse.

4) By creating another false narrative- Obama and the Dems are stopping us- they get to raise more money off of it and continue to lift up their targets of choice: Obama, Pelosi, Reid.

Ok, your turn.

AH HAH….found your reply. Yes the threads end after they step in three times. What you do is go back to the top of the thread and do what I am doing here….drop in early and an e mail alerts you that you have a reply. Here it is. My reply are ALL CAPS….

=====================here’s your comoment======

Weird, I can’t find a “reply” button on your latest post, so I had to use the “reply” button on mine above it. There’s probably a better way to be navigating around here that I haven’t figured out yet.

Nowhere in my post did I say that GOP actions or inactions are the responsibility of the Dems. I do believe that both parties certainly take political realities into account whenever they do or don’t do something legislatively. A political reality, that you acknowledged in your response, is that the Dems won’t allow ANYTHING that repeals or replaces or amends any part of the ACA. Why did the GOP then vote ad nauseum for repeal? You contend it’s because that’s the only thing the GOP can agree on. I say it’s much simpler than that – it’s to make a political point that has an “upside” for the GOP with their voters. YOU ARE STILL AVOIDING MY QUESTION. THEY CAN MAKE THEIR POINT THAT THE ACA HAS TO GO. BUT WHY DID THEY NOT MAKE THE PONT THAT THEY HAD SOMETHING BETTER. BRING FORTH THE RSC REPORT, PUT IT ON THE FLOOR, SHOW IT OFF, AMEND IT, PASS IT AND THEN SEND IT TO THE SENATE….FORCE REID TO SAY NO….INDEED THAT IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY THE DEMS IN THE SENATE COULD IGNORE THE REPEALS- ALL THEY HAD TO DO IS SAY: SO WHAT IS THE GOP PROPOSING AS AN ALTERNATIVE……CRICKETS IN THE WAY OF LEGISLATION. SOME NICE GENERALIZED STATEMENTS BUT NO LEGISLATION. AND THE GOD DID IN FACT SAY, AGAIN AND AGAIN- WHY BOTHER CREATING AN ALTERNATIVE WHEN THE DEMS IN THE SENATE WILL NOT CONSIDER IT. IF THAT IS SO THEN WHY PUSH THE REPEAL FORWARD 50 PLUS TIMES?

Would there be infighting and political wrangling if the GOP proposed bill regarding health care actually had hearings? Of course, no doubt. And if it had a prayer of passing through the Senate and the President’s veto pen, that would be worth it. But it doesn’t, so there’s no political upside to having the fight and doing the wrangling. REFER TO MY PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH. IN 2011 RYAN PUT UP A BUDGET THAT ACTUALLY INCLUDED AN ALTERNATIVE AND THE ALTERNATIVE HAD TO BE CUT OUT BY THE GOP. WHY? THE COULD NOT GET ENOUGH SUPPORT FOR IT. THE BUDGET PASSED WITHOUT THE NEW HEALTH CARE STRUCTURE.

As you stated, the Hastert rule is an “informal governing principle”. It’s not hard and fast, and exceptions are made. The establishment GOP decides when to bring things up for a vote or not, and when it’s something they feel needs to be passed and/or considered, they know whether or not they have the votes within the entire HOUSE to pass it. If they NEED the votes, they’ll arm twist within their own party. If they don’t, because enough Democrats will vote in favor, they’ll allow those GOP to vote how they wish for political cover with their voters. Not much difference than in the Senate, where votes by Landrieu and others against the Dem majority are overlooked or excused by “look where they come from”. But when push comes to shove, they make the deals they need to pass SOMETHING. That’s why you have the ACA, because not enough DEMOCRATS wanted single payer or anything different. They had enough votes, numbers wise, to pass anything they wished, disregarding the GOP entirely. But the political reality was that they had to appease their own party members because there wasn’t party unity on what should be done. So they had to fight it out amongst their own party, and the fight is still resonating today. THIS IS GENERALLY ACCURATE. HERE IS MY POINT- THE GOP IS UNABLE TO PASS ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE ON ITS OWN. NOTHING. GOT AN EXAMPLE?

But you think the GOP, without having the ability to actually set and pass the agenda, should bloody themselves up and do the same. Sorry, they’re not that gullible. When push comes to shove and it COUNTS, they’re better at standing in lockstep than the Dems are – just look at what they’ve been able to block in the Senate by doing so. That, of course, you call obstruction. THE SENATE REGULARLY PASSES BILLS THAT THEY KNOW WILL NOT PASS IN THE HOUSE. YOUR POSITION IS NOT LOGICAL. IF IT WERE THE WAY THINGS ALWAYS RAN THERE WOULD BE NO BILLS FROM EITHER HOUSE UNLESS BOTH WERE CONTROLLED BY ONE PARTY AND THAT PARTY HAD CONTROL OF ITS OWN CAUCUS. ON AVERAGE ONLY HALF OF THE BILLS PASSED BY EITHER CHAMBER BECOME LAW.

Yes in 2010- a bunch of dems sat on their hands in the midterms because they always do ; some decided to voice their discontent with Obama and the Dems for not pushing the full liberal agenda hard enough, and some were won over to anti-ACA argument…

That election created the census based gerrymandering in the House we are stuck with until 2020. The electoral map always favors the GOP in the Senate since so many small states (by population) are red.

And now the new crusade is to link Electoral College votes to Congressional Districts and we know where that takes us.

I have expanded my list a bit.

The five great allies the GOP have are:

1) The low information base common to most voters.
2) Plenty of money to fill the ether with propaganda.
3) A zealous and energized base.
4) The apathy of some Democratic voters.
5) The ideology of other Democratic voters that complains the Party is not Liberal enough.