Well, I guess I eat crow (even though I'm vegetarian!). I was sure the Dems would totally fold after MA.

Maybe the Dems won't lose so huge in Nov.

Pelosi rules! Suck it, Teabaggers!

I guess over the last year too much skepicism has crept into my outlook. I'll believe it when I see the final vote, and the president's signature on the bill.

That all of healthcare reform should hinge on abortion is just plain sick.

The funny thing is...the EO changes nothing just pretty much states existing law. So he did all that to get...nothing really.

If this is a Mea Culpa thread, I must admit I thought any delay after the Mass. election would make things worse. Obama and Pelosi used the time wisely. Guess it's a good thing I don't have their jobs. (But I'm still ticked at not getting even considered for VP.)

Crow probably tastes ok if you marinade it long enough and use lots of garlic.

Dems lose huge in 2010
Not that it was provocative , Dems lose huge in 2010 , to simple folks as I know out here in rural Boston , but it is .
Good to see a nice healthy and nimble reflection , ayup .

The "gold urn bill" passes, I'll light a candle for Pelosi myself, for all I'm a dyed-in-the-wool, soulless commie atheist. She's a superb rat-harrier and I've always thought that it was a pity that Cheny and Bush couldn't have gone hunting together sometime in '06 or '07; she'd have made a good interim President.

As for Stupak... I'm still gonna send money to Saltonstall. I hope she screws him, but good, *and* forces him to carry the baby.

I admit I live in NY State so that this is rather foreign to me but if you have a democrat for your rep. who votes like a republican why don't you just vote republican to begin with? I would not be surprised if voters in these "blue dog" districts asked themselves this question in November. Looks like bait & switch to me.

For some reason, I've started humming Europe's "The Final Countdown" and can't get it out of my head.

"The funny thing is...the EO changes nothing just pretty much states existing law. So he did all that to get...nothing really."

Shhh... Don't tell him until after the vote is tken

I guess Jim DeMint just met his waterloo!

I'm not sayin' NOTHIN' until I see 216 (and would it be so bad to have more?) AYE's on C-SPAN, not just promises.

This is the extra point after the touchdown, guys. It's SUPPOSED to be a gimme, but don't exhale yet.

I just sent some $$ to Connie.

You know, for all the killthebillers' whining about a "lack of transparency" in the negotiations, I feel like I've not only seen the sausage being made, but also witnessed the animals being slaughtered and eviscerated. I'll definitely watch the DFH's on MSNBC tomorrow night, but after that I'm taking a looooong break from paying attention to politics.

Oh, and also... YES WE CAN!

It looks like five votes. Carney and Kaptur were already ayes. The other four, Mollohan, Rahall, Driehaus, and Dahlkemper also seemed gettable, and it's been pretty clear all day that even Stupak himself wanted to vote for the bill.

One question is what the hell is up with Dan Lipinski? He was supposed to be part of the Stupak bloc but apparently was not even a major part of the negotiations according to Stupak (I think Stupak said at the presser that Lipinski came into the room a couple of times but wasn't really involved.) Presumably he's still a no vote, which would make him the no from the most Democratic district (D+11) outside of Artur Davis. What a douchebag!

I still call him Stewprick.
What about the claim, all this will make it hard for insurance to cover abortion at all, because of the entangling with government policies? Don't sniff at the progressives saying this Bill had problems from their POV. Even so, I figure it's better to get it passed. Consider also, the difficulty of fighting all that misinformation, blue dogs, dirty tricks, just barely enough in Party to end debate, etc. I sympathize with left critics, and wonder if something better could really have been passed.

Stupak, during the press conference, said he thought the leadership had reached 216 even without him and his voting bloc. I'm fairly certain that isn't true

Does that mean the WH and the Dem leadership Prisoners-Dilemma'd him into submission?

OK let's see they have 220, before the Stupak deal they had at least 214 and maybe 216, There were 8 reps standing up there with him. At least two (your count) were faking it as they had already flipped to yes without the deal.

According to your calculation the correct number of Stupackers is 220-214, so you claim that, in the end, the Stupack was a six-pack.

Time for a celebratory beer (ok as you can guess from my typing I started the celebratory beer when at another site).

(Jmy - no, IMHO the EO gives "cover" to Stewprick to say he demanded a concession and seem to have made a difference. That way, dumb semi-conservative voters in his district can vote for him. Maybe I shouldn't blame him and it was just a game, that "Kabuki theater" cliche. Maybe the more important issue is the implication of the existing restriction itself, as some have argued.)

I think it's a certainty that Stupak BELIEVED that Pelosi WOULD HAVE the votes.

That's why he settled for a big nothing.

Obama agreed to issue an executive order that says that the law says what it plainly says. In substance: nothing.

Yes, Stupak got his kabuki. And yes, Obama agreed not to do a Bush-esque signing statement or Reagan-esque "executive non-compliance." So he got some political points.

But what he got -- zip. No sidecars, no legislative language.

Pelosi rules.

Looks to me as if Stupak gets to play "iceberg" to the GOP's "Titanic." He gets an EO specifically stipulating continued enforcement of Hyde (which none of the GOPers even tried establishing as a defense for their actions), and that should placate the US bishops and that Down-the-rabbithole-hue guy.

Note to Boehner: that icky feeling on your face is not egg; it's a year's worth of chicken droppings from the whole damned factory farm!

Wait! My comment is OT to thisthis post - but on HealthCare. Watching C-SPAN... BREAKING NEWS - as of 2:05 pm, the Republican congressman are NOT speaking with one voice.

My gosh - there's a member that said the bill is un-constitutional, not flawed! - end snark!

I love the smell of Republican anger in the afternoon. It smells like... victory.

HLA, if they get enough of their people to the polls this Nov. it will smell like s**t to you and like victory only to them. We've got to really get crackin, make sure to get patches for lousy loopholes and inadequacies in HCR. The MSM are not really helpful as claimed by the Right, and other issues cause difficulty.

Neil, I have to believe that a whole lot of Democrats, like me, have suddenly gotten VERY excited about November, while the Hatebaggers will retreat to their rooms to sit around in their pajamas eating ice cream straight out of the carton.

The Perfect is the enemy of the Good. Pass the bill, and move on to Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.

November is a looong way off, and TeaBaggers have short, short memories.

The fun begins in a couple of months. Once people start to see that they still have the same doctor, the support base for GOPers will begin to crack. Once the industry loses its antitrust protections, that base will crack further---and once people who couldn't get good coverage discover that they can, that base will splinter.

Passing the bill is only the first piece of the puzzle; the main event is going to be getting all of these people what they're entitled to---which will require mass quantities of advocacy programs, paperwork assistance, and to-&-from transportation.

Think along the lines of FEMA (the way it SHOULD work), combined with the Peace Corps, and the Marines landing at Iwo Jima....

Re the fight over abortion, John Cole (Balloon Juice) stated Friday: "In a country where abortion is legal, how did the anti-choice goons so thoroughly game the system that their one pet issue can not be funded federally? I have tons of things that are “moral issues” to me that are funded against my will, but no one gives a shit. And you know what- I’m ok with that, because I understand how our democracy works. You don’t get any trump cards. And unlike the anti-choice squad, my “moral issues” are not dictated to me by the lunatics at Focus on the Family or by the hypocrites in a couple thousand year old business run by old men who look the other way when child rape happens."

Ezra Klein on MSNBC called out the hypocrisy by abortion foes when he mentioned that most employer plans cover abortion, yet nothing is said. Why is that?

"Fourth Update: Stupak, during the press conference, said he thought the leadership had reached 216 even without him and his voting bloc. I'm fairly certain that isn't true -- the last I heard from a reliable source, Pelosi had 214, which is one of the reasons the White House was still working on finding a resolution with Stupak."

Really? Stupak was icing on the cake. Stupak made his vote much more important to the president and the Democratic party than any other vote.

Essentially they agreed to agree. The bill is a net plus for reducing abortions, not by making them illegal, but by removing an objectively rational reason to get an abortion. Also, over 500,000 additional children per year will be born with the benefit of pre-natal care.

Waybright, if the anti-trust measure stays solid I think you're on to something. I worry that legal challenges (like, having to buy) may be a problem, but few here seem to agree.

Employer plans: because the gummint isn't making you pay for abortion, "you could chose to work for someone else" etc.