James Perry wants to be the next mayor of New Orleans, but right now, he's an underdog. And because of the city's unique election schedule -- the primary's being held next February -- he doesn't have much time to introduce himself to voters.
So Perry and his campaign have come up with an interesting solution -- an ad that doesn't hold back in expressing what it says are the views of city residents. When a narrator, describing other candidates, says, "Political insiders and career politicians," a woman's face appears onscreen and she says, "What? Are you shitting me?" (The word "shitting" is bleeped out, as are all the other curse words in the add.) Then, a man comes on and asks, "Are you fucking kidding me?" He's followed by another man who simply says, "What the fuck?"
The spot is certainly an attention-grabber, even without the promse Perry makes at its conclusion -- he says he'll cut the city's murder rate by 40 percent or he won't run for re-election. In some cases, a campaign might put an ad like this out solely for the media attention; while that certainly seems to be a factor here, Perry's reportedly spending $60,000 for airtime as well.
Video is below, with a tip of the hat to my former colleague Vincent Rossmeier.
Say this for Glenn Beck: When the guy goes on the road, he doesn’t hold out on his fans. The Fox News host put on a show this weekend in The Villages, Fla., and he played all his classics:
You get the drift. There are vast, sinister and -- most important -- vaguely specified forces out there, about which you should feel massive unease. But don’t fear, America. Beck has a plan. In fact, he has The Plan. He’s assembling a team of advisers (not to run for president, he makes clear), and he’s reading up. Explains Beck:
Here’s how it’s going to work: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years. And I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about a hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Progressive Movement. And they thought, if we just do this, and this, and this and this, over time, if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia. Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand… We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I am developing a 100-year plan for America. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.
Apparently, Beck is going to hold seven rallies around the country, where he’ll impart the lessons he’s learned about history and policy. “You’re going to learn about history, you’re going to learn about finance, you’re going to learn about community organizing… And then, come August 28 -- I would like you to make your plans now, to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC… We’re going to Washington together, where I will outline the steps that we need to take.”
OK, so it seems like Beck did hold out on his fans in one big way. I’ve now watched the speech all the way through, and it’s not at all clear what The Plan is. Keep listening to Beck until next summer apparently, and then there’s a new Plan.
This is pretty basic out-of-power movement stuff. MoveOn.org and Democracy for America spent the Bush years holding activist training meetings and rallies also. What’s interesting here is how badly Beck wants to think in continents and feel in centuries, rather than the grubby, day-to-day, unexciting facts of real-world politics. He’s identified a purely imaginary, epic-scale villain, and is pitching his otherwise kind of run-of-the-mill activist exercise as correspondingly high drama. Beck sees a dictator and his unthinking followers on the left, and wants to respond with an instructional national meeting where he can “outline the steps that we need to take.”
Also, just to be clear: If you're the person who told Beck about the 100-year socialist takeover plan, President Obama is very upset with you. Way to ruin it for everyone.
The Senate vote on Democrats' healthcare reform bill Saturday night was close -- maybe too close. Majority Leader Harry Reid won an important victory, no doubt, but he had only the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and move the legislation to the floor, no more. He may not have all 60 when the next cloture motion, the one to break a Republican filibuster and force an up-or-down vote, comes around.
One member of the Senate's Democratic caucus, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., has already said he intends to support a filibuster if the bill includes a public option. And he's not the only one saying something like that -- Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska are also talking defection.
That means that unless Reid can work out some sort of deal, he'll need to look for votes elsewhere: specifically, across the aisle. The New York Times reported Monday that he's already done that; along with the White House, he's courting Maine's two senators, Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Both voted with their party on Saturday, but both have also shown signs that they're willing to defect for the right bill. Snowe, for instance, became the only Republican to have voted for any of the Democrats' proposals when she supported the Finance Committee's version of reform legislation.
And Collins is quoted in the Times as saying, "“I have ruled out voting for this bill, but I still very much want to vote for a bill and that is why I am continuing to have discussions. I still cling to the belief that it is possible for a group of us to come together and rewrite the bill in a way that would cause it to have greater support.”
It's done: Senate Democrats gathered 60 votes and got their healthcare reform bill through the first test it will face.
All 60 members of the Senate's Democratic caucus stuck together for this vote, a cloture motion that opens debate on the legislation. Similarly, all 39 of the Republicans who voted opposed the motion. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, was the lone senator not voting.
Actual debate on the bill won't begin until after Thanksgiving, and it won't be easy. Already, two members of the Democratic caucus -- Sens. Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln -- have threatened to support a Republican filibuster if it includes a public option, and more could follow.
Later Saturday night, the Senate Democrats' healthcare reform bill will pass its first test. Majority Leader Harry Reid officially has the 60 votes needed to win on a cloture motion that will open debate on the legislation. The last two members of the Democratic caucus to announce their intentions, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, both said Saturday that they'll be voting with their party.
But this is just one procedural vote. The more daunting hurdle of the cloture vote to break a filibuster and hold an up-or-down vote on the bill itself still lies ahead, and there Reid may have serious trouble, especially if a plan to create a government-run insurance provider -- the public option -- remains in it.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who is a member of the Democratic caucus, has already said he'll vote to filibuster a bill that contains any form of the public option. (He is voting for cloture tonight, but not, he says, the next time around.) And on Saturday, Lincoln too threatened to support a filibuster of the legislation if it includes the public option.
Both will be tough nuts for Reid to crack. Lieberman's not up for re-election next year, and has already been taunting liberals by saying he's not afraid of possible retribution. Lincoln, on the other hand, is up for re-election -- and that's the problem. She's seriously vulnerable, and is looking at polling numbers that seem to indicate voting with her party to support a public plan would only put her in a more precarious position.
Earlier this week, Senate Democrats finally unveiled their healthcare reform legislation. Despite all the squabbling that's gone on over the public option the bill does, like its House counterpart, contain a plan for a government-run insurance provider. However, there are a number of important differences between the two proposals. Assuming Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid musters together the 60 votes necessary to get his version through the Senate, there are going to be a number of points that negotiators will need to work out in committee. Here are some of the most important differences between the bills.
Public Option: Will states be allowed to “opt out”?
Both bills include the creation of a government-run insurance provider to compete with private insurers. However, the Senate version would allow states to opt out of the public plan.
Abortion: The Stupak Legacy
To garner much-needed support from anti-abortion Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) allowed them to attach the infamous Stupak-Pitts amendment to her chamber's version of the bill. The provision would bar women who are receiving federal subsidies for their insurance from purchasing plans that cover elective abortions. It would also bar the public plan from offering abortion coverage. The Senate version takes a more moderate approach: Those receiving federal subsidies could buy insurance that covers abortion -- but insurers would have to place federal money in separate accounts and could only use private dollars to cover the procedure. The public plan could also offer abortion coverage, as long as it segregated federal subsidies in the same way.
Cost: The difference a year makes
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill would cost about $1.052 trillion and reduce the deficit by $138 billion. The CBO predicts that the Senate bill would cost $849 billion, while cutting $130 billion from the deficit. This difference is largely due to the fact that many major provisions in the Senate proposal would not go into effect until 2014 -- a year later than in the House bill.
Coverage: Universal? Not quite
For decades, the Democrats talked of providing universal healthcare. These bills come closer, but neither quite reaches that goal. Both, however, will significantly reduce the number of uninsured. Today, 83 percent of non-elderly legal residents have health insurance. (The elderly are covered by Medicare.) Under the House bill, 96 percent of that population would be covered by 2016. The Senate's legislation would expand coverage to 94 percent. Still, about 18 million people would remain uninsured under the House's proposal, as would about 23 million in the Senate's.
Paying the bills: What gets taxed
Under the House bill, much of the money to pay for the reforms would be raised through a 5.4 percent surtax on high-income people -- that is, individuals making more than $500,000 a year or couples with annual incomes in excess of $1 million. The Senate version, on the other hand, would impose a different series of new taxes including: A 40 percent tax on “Cadillac health plans” (employer-sponsored group plans with premiums of over $8,500 for individuals or over $23,000 for families); the introduction of annual fees for health care companies; an increase in Medicare payroll taxes from 1.45 percent to 1.95 percent for those earning more than $250,000 a year and the implementation of the so-called "Botox tax," which is a five percent tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures.
Employer mandates: Do companies need to offer health insurance?
The House bill stipulates that employers with payrolls of more than $500,000 must offer health coverage or pay a federal tax. The Senate version does not explicitly require employers to provide coverage; however, companies with 50 or more full-time employees would have to pay a penalty of $750 per employee if they fail to offer coverage and if any of their employees obtain federally subsidized care via the new health insurance exchanges.
Friday, Senate Democratic leaders agreed to include the Wyden amendment in their healthcare proposal. Under this provision, employers would have one of two options. Companies could offer their employees a single plan and give all eligible workers the option of accepting a voucher to independently purchase their own insurance. Alternatively, an employer could offer two or more health care plans, provided that at least one has a premium that costs no more than the average premium of the two least expensive health plans in the local exchange. The House bill includes no comparable language.
Individual mandates: Penalties for remaining uninsured
Both bills require most Americans to maintain a minimum level of health insurance. However, the penalties for not doing so are much stiffer in the House bill: Those who failed to acquire insurance would pay a tax equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income of over $9,350 for individuals or $18,700 for couples. Under Reid’s legislation, the penalties would start at $95 per person in 2014 and gradually go up to $750 a head in 2016.
Insurance Exchanges: State-based or national
Both bills would create some sort of health insurance exchange, a marketplace where individuals and small companies can shop for insurance and compare benefits and prices. The exchanges would put individuals into large risk pools, which are intended to provide them with leverage to purchase insurance at a lower cost. The House bill would create a national exchange, although states could petition to run their own exchanges as well. Under the Senate proposal, states would form their own exchanges. This, however, could prove problematic, as it is unclear whether state exchanges would be able to attract a sufficient number of enrollees to push for lower premiums.
Illegal Immigrants
The House bill would allow illegal immigrants to buy insurance from the exchanges, but would not allow them to obtain federal subsidies. The Senate version prohibits illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance from these exchanges, even if they could pay for their own coverage in full. This could have the effect of preventing illegal immigrants from buying individual insurance altogether.
War Room is written and edited by Alex Koppelman, with contributions from Salon reporters around the country.
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