It would be irresponsible NOT to speculate.I think Bunning's absence must involve at least one male prostitute and a barn yard animal.

To Steve Benen and all of the commentors on this blog (including, maybe even especially the rethug trolls):

May the spirit of this season be with you. Peace on earth and good will toward others. If we would have and demonstrate good will toward others, peace on earth would be possible.

Have a peaceful and joyous season...

With a tip of the hat to the Clown Car ClusterF*ck, I can only say: (A) Merry Christmas! and (B) Bah! Humbug!

Give credit where credit is due. I often complained about the Dems not being organized, and particularly complained about Harry Reid. Well he and they got it done. The bill is not as pretty as I'd hope it would be, but seeing how ugly the Senate institution is right now, passing anything at all is a big accomplishment. Merry Christmas.

the bill sux, is just a giveaway to the insurance industry and fails to do what every civilized country on Earth has done: Make health care a human entitlement and NOT FOR PROFIT.

Setting aside the dubious constitutional grounds for the bill (neither I nor my income is an item of commerce until and unless I choose to enter the market, else, congress could mandate how you spend every single dime you make), forcing people to buy something they can't afford and (have you seen what will pass for a minimum health care policy under this bill?????) which will NOT provide more than asprin/band aid medical care is FAIL.

Fuck the Congress, fuck this bill and fuck the insurance industry.

First item of business for the new year: abolish the filibuster! Sorry, but if you abuse it you lose it, and the Republicans abused it to the point of the ridiculous.

Well, let's hope it can be fixed in committee.

Merry Christmas Steve et al.

Season's greetings to all.

However, the healthcare bill is an abomination. I don't know how any Democrat with some populist cells left in his/her brain could possibly support it. This is the triumph of corporatism, and the delivery of the American people to the tender mercies of the greedy and corrupt insurance industry.

If there is a painfully bad or wrong way to do something the American Congress, especially the Senate, will find it. And they have in this case.

The intro to story on front page of my paper sucks, referring to a bill that "barely has enough support to ensure passage." The true story is the bill passed with super majority support and 100% support of senators engaged in improving the immoral, unsustainable status quo. Even the repubs acknowledge current system is broken, though they put politics above policy making.

Jim Bunning has been speaking and presenting himself for a good few years as a man not comfortable , or well in his mind .
The caution of issuing of ill defined fatwa's upon unnamed personalities by senator's on the senate floor , cannot be stressed enough . This should be a reminder when casting voo doo type wishes , to isolate and define the object of their holy ill will . It will never do to leave these decisions to the mighty one . The mighty one , as far as is known is mighty innocent , and is not a registered voter . The power should not be left in the control , after all , of an innocent who might construe facts as having a meaning coinciding with passing of events or their content .

When are you going to get on that blogger conference call to remind Jane Hamsher that Bernie Sanders is not the enemy, the perfect is the enemy of the good, Medicare and SS didn't cover nearly as many people when they were first enacted as they do now and that given his druthers, Grover Norquist would in normal times want to drown government in a bathtub and see thousands die without government subsidized health care, Steve?

Orrin Hatch reading Hamsher on the Senate floor is a perfect illustration of how she is a dumbass dupe and is playing into tea bagger hands.

None of us should stand by and let her be the "voice of reason" on Fox.

Second the motion @ December 24, 2009 at 8:17 AM |

@laurie: "Even the repubs acknowledge current system is broken, though they put politics above policy making."

No, Laurie, they don't acknowledge that. Have you not heard some of the quotes from Cantor, Shelby, etc.? If they did think that, then they would have done something about it as they had 6 years of controlling the chambers and the White House simultaneously (obviously, the minority party Dems would have wanted to pursue reform, so the dynamic wouldn't be the same as it is now with this whole "60 votes is magic" thing). It's also why I get into debates with my GOP friends and they think that doing nothing is better than anything that Congress will do, even though they have absolutely no idea what is in any of the legislation and how it improves their lives.

i will spend tonight and all day tomorrow with three grandchildren who will remind me why we can't stop fighting against the destructive and de-humanizing powers all around us.

but the grandkids mostly reveal to me the greatest joys of life. and i hope everyone gets some of that this week and next.

Man, I'm stupid. It's taken me until now to realise that a corollary to raising the filibuster to the level of "inevitable" is that the Vice President now has one less power to make use of. The position has now become (gasp!) exclusively executive.

Has someone mentioned this to Dick Cheney? Seriously, someone mention it to Dick Cheney. Make sure he's well-fed though, I guess toss him a baby, or something.

"The only senator not to vote was Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky, who's been absent for much of the week for unstated reasons."

I'd say the reason that Bunning wasn't there is that the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee treated him like sh*t and he decided to scr*w them by denying them a 40th vote against the bill.

It was actually pretty moving to listen to the roll call on the vote. When it was 59 - 39 I was wondering which member of the Democratic Caucus was holding out to be the 60th vote to secure passage. Turns out it was Bernie Sanders just being late for the vote (probably because of the as let uncleared roads in the D.C. area).

It would be irresponsible NOT to speculate.I think Bunning's absence must involve at least one male prostitute and a barn yard animal.
Posted by: par4

Jim Bunning's absence doesn't involve barnyard animals, it involves his being completely cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

However, the healthcare bill is an abomination... This is the triumph of corporatism, and the delivery of the American people to the tender mercies of the greedy and corrupt insurance industry.
Posted by: rRk1 on December 24, 2009

At this point, us bill critics are simply pissing and moaning. We will have to just suck it up and look on the bright side. In four years, many more people will have access to healthcare. In ten years, even more people won't be able to afford it, and maybe then, some true cost controls will be demanded. Until then vote for the lesser of two evils.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

I am thoroughly amazed the vote was 60-39. The Dems stayed united, a Christmas miracle.

the perfect is the enemy of the good

i've heard this a million times these last two weeks.

you know what else is the enemy of the good? the bad!

and you know what is an even bigger enemy of the good?

the ugly!

yglesias thinks anyone who's not happy about this bill is perverse...well, color me perverse.

and that's what this bill is: bad and ugly.

"the U.S. Senate did something it's never done before: it passed a sweeping health care reform bill."

That was not "health care reform". That was insurance reform, heavily weighted to the insurance corporations.

How is swapping some minor and weak consumer protections (the most important of which do not kick-in until 2014) for a government mandate that everyone must purchase over-priced health insurance policies from the for-profit private-sector health insurance corporations with no cost-containment and no reign on runaway premium increases "health care reform" ?

Guess which shitty end of that stick the American people get to grab onto ?

I would like to take this opportunity to predict that the corporate media will continue to declare the "health care" bill dead in spite of any votes that take place in the halls of government.
The pundits and the propagandists and the publicists continue to hew to the belief that if they say it enough times it will come true. It has been their nightly prayer for half a year so far. I don't expect them to stop any time soon.

These so-called "Christian" politicians (and one "observant" Jew) have done everything humanly possible to see to it that the lives of the American people will be held hostage by the big insurance and pharmaceutical companies forever - or until a revolution comes along. Not much is going to change in the meantime - and it will be a very mean time, I assure you. We will continue to die two years younger than they do in Europe. We will continue to have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the industrialized world. Have yourselves a merry little Christmas.

We celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace while waging two senseless wars at such a safe distance from our shores, most of us don't even bother to pay attention to them. We will continue to throw away our national treasure on the military industrial complex while the well being of our children is gambled away in the plutocracy's crap game. We are a nation addicted to weapons of war. Let's face it, that's never going to change. If tomorrow our armaments industry ceased to be, the entire American economy would implode before sundown. So much hypocrisy. So little space. Santa Claus is coming to town.

"Blessed are the peacemakers.
for they shall be called sons of God."

Jesus of Nazareth

Oh, and did I mention that I hate Santa Claus? I really do, you know. I say this without any fear of coal in my stocking. You see, I haven't received a thing from the hideous old freak since 1966. That was the year I spiked his hot cocoa with a generous portion of Old Granddad. Santa, although a rather large person, doesn't hold his alcohol too well. I found this out the hard way. After leaving our presents under the tree, he took off from the roof or our home and crashed into the Finkle house across the street. Two reindeer were killed. Horrible carnage.

To boil it down to the unpleasant essentials, although I love the story of the nativity and the true meaning of Christmas, I'm beginning to despise the Christmas holiday - but that's just me. This year I am afflicted with Grinch Syndrome. Or might you call it, "Scrooge Disorder"? The problem is that I am - and always have been - at heart, an angry person. I try to cover up that rage with a facade of silliness, but that's basically who I am. As Frank Sinatra once sang in the very last recording he made for Columbia Records in 1952, "Don't try to change me now."

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Tom Degan