American Morning
Blizzard of partisanship
The Senate voted overnight to end debate on the health care reform bill. Republicans, who didn't cast a single vote in favor, say the bill and the whole process was ugly. CNN's Jim Acosta reports.
Avlon: Wingnut's fright-wing politics
Editor’s note: John P. Avlon is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast. Previously, he served as Chief Speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://am.blogs.cnn.com/files/2009/12/klein-norris-art.jpg caption="Ezra Klein and Chuck Norris (Photos: YouTube.com/Getty Images)"]
By John Avlon, Special to CNN
With health care on Capitol Hill, wingnuts have been busy trying to scare up support for their all-or-nothing vision of the bill.
On the left, Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein went the mass murder metaphor route against the liberals’ least favorite senator this week, Senator Joe Lieberman. He’s an independent who’s acting too independent for them, refusing to reflexively sign on to the Democrats’ bill and therefore blocking their attempt to get a 60-seat, filibuster-proof vote count.
Lieberman says that he’s trying to make sure the bill is fiscally responsible and lowering the Medicaid buy-in age to 55 is unlikely to make a system that is already going broke more solvent.
Klein saw something more sinister: “At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.”
The hundred thousand deaths estimate is based on an Urban Institute report that lack of insurance contributed to 137,000 people in the first half of this decade, but trying to hang that report around Lieberman’s neck is absurd, unfair and more than a little unhinged. It’s a fear-smear that aims for the same emotions as the summer’s "death panel" claims, with the opposite intention.
On the right, action star turned conservative columnist Chuck Norris offered a Yule-tide take on the health care bill from a fright-wing perspective.
“As we near the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have happened if Mother Mary had been covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor and uninsured teenage woman had been provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy? Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind if their parents had been as progressive as Washington's wise men and women! Will Obamacare morph into Herodcare for the unborn?”
That’s right, health care reform could kill Christmas.
And Chuck Norris fans won’t want to miss next week’s column, titled “Away with the Manger,” which he promises will show how “the feds are whitewashing America's Judeo-Christian heritage via a progressive, politically correct and pro-Muslim platform.”
The week’s news also provoked a bonus round of wingnut irony. Conservative protestors on Capitol Hill staging a “die-in” to illustrate the impact of what they call government-run health care. It’s the same street theater tactic that Code Pink used to protest war during the Bush administration. The right wing is reading “Rules for Radicals.”
Somehow the extremes always end up resembling each other and the result is always an assault on common sense.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Avlon.
Obama considering sweeping deficit action
By Ed Henry, CNN
Washington (CNN) - President Obama is seriously considering an executive order to create a bipartisan commission that could weigh sweeping tax increases and spending cuts to try to slash the soaring federal deficit, CNN has learned.
Documents obtained by CNN show that top advisers to the president have been privately weighing various versions of a commission, and opinions differ about how to structure it. Officials say that some inside the administration are pushing for a narrow mandate because it's too complicated to tackle reform of the tax system and possible spending cuts to various popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare all at once.
"Each major category of fiscal policy - Social Security, Medicare, discretionary spending, revenues - raises a complex and idiosyncratic array of policy problems and prescriptions," according to the documents detailing some of the administration's deliberations. "Achieving consensus on any one of these issues - much less all of them simultaneously - may be more than the political system can reasonably accommodate."
But officials told CNN that other advisers to the president are pushing for the commission to have a broad mandate to put all of these big issues "on the table" at the same time.
Read more: Obama weighs creating commission to propose tax hikes, spending cuts
Obama: Banks 'don't get it'
President Obama is going toe-to-toe with big banks today. With very little leverage and even less to offer, he'll meet with the heads of twelve giant banking firms.
Here's his pitch: make less money, and lend more of it to the American people. It's a tough sell, for sure. Our Suzanne Malveaux has the report.
New health care pact doomed?
"A good, solid B+." That's how President Obama is grading himself for his first year in office. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, he said that could improve to an "A" by creating jobs and getting health care done.
The president also told CBS' "60 minutes" he expects a health care reform bill to be on his desk sooner than people think. Today, though, there are new hurdles in the Senate. Our Jim Acosta has the report.
Avlon: Wingnut's Facebook rant is fear-smear
Editor’s note: John P. Avlon is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast. Previously, he served as Chief Speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://am.blogs.cnn.com/files/2009/12/wingnuts-reid-wiseman-art.jpg caption="Sen. Harry Reid and Mayor Russell Wiseman (Photos: Senate.gov / Townofarlington.org)"]
By John Avlon, Special to CNN
Wingnut comments are often characterized by unhinged anger and a complete lack of historic perspective – and that’s what we saw this week from Arlington, Tennessee Mayor Russell Wiseman on the right, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the left.
Mayor Wiseman was sitting down to watch "The Charlie Brown Christmas Special" with his children when he found the program pre-empted by President Obama’s speech at West Point announcing the troop surge in Afghanistan.
His conclusion? The timing was a deliberate affront to Christians and the Constitution from a “Muslim president.” His next move was to post his feelings on Facebook.
“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'....”
In an extensive thread unearthed and excerpted by the Memphis Commercial Appeal this week, Mayor Wiseman went on to widen his attacks, writing: “...you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful.”
At another point he wrote, “you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different.”
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