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Senator Tom Coburn, the Scourge of Middle School Bathroom Lesbians, does not much like this health care bill that Democrats are FORCING DOWN AMERICA’S THROAT LIKE AN GINORMOUS RUBBERY STRAP-ON so he wants some of the guys who make copies and go on Jamba Juice runs to read the whole thing out loud. Possibly in funny voices. And using hand puppets.
The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover — and that’s just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor.
The Oklahoma Republican has threatened to invoke parliamentary rules to force the Senate clerk (or more likely, a team of clerks) to read the massive bill before the full Senate begins formal debate on the legislation.
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What’s even more interesting is that Senate Rule XIV (paragraph 2) states that every bill and joint resolution “shall receive three readings prior to its passage.”
That is, like, almost five whole days (with pee breaks included), which is fine with Tom Coburn since he has a lot of time on his hands these days not having to spend his evenings with John Ensign in the combination Confessional/Totally Kickass Foosball Room located at the C Street Spermatorium , counseling Ensign about how Jesus hates it when you covet your senior aide’s wife and then, you know, sex her up.
William Jacobson, who is a Close But No Cigar Almost Professor at Cornell Law School, thinks this (the out loud reading thing, not the covet/sex thing, although maybe) is a wicked cool idea:
Absolutely this should be done. This absurd legislation deserves the theater of the absurd.
A reading out loud of this monstrosity for a day or two will be a great visual and audio montage.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Reading out loud the hundreds of thousands of words in Harry Reid’s bill will be worth million of votes.
Because the whole thing will be televised on every television channel for five straight days and every TV show that currently fills up the wasted hours our empty American existence will be pre-empted.
Except for Tyra’s show. That bitch will cut you if you fuck with her programing. I’m serious. Really. You best back the fuck up when it comes to Tyra.
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And if they mispronounce a word on, say, page 734, do they have to go back to the beginning and start again? Will Miss McConnell be standing by, ruler in hand?
Harkin sez that the Republicans are welcome to it if they’re up for sitting in the Capitol for 34 hours straight.
Aren’t there TERRORISTS about to be tried/set lose in NY?
FUCK health care. TERRORISTS are on the lose!
The sad, dejected piece of mutant undead roadkill that is this health “reform” bill should be placed in a dark corner of the Capitol building and allowed to die a slow, miserable death.
But of course, now that he’s managed to defeat any attempt at actual reform with his inaction and his team of handpicked crack moderates have sabotaged any and all plans for real, you know, CHANGE, I’m sure Obama in the spirit of bi-partisanship will offer Senator Coburn to do his part and read at least the introduction aloud all by himself. Hey, he’ll end up owning this sucker right up until the end of his days as President, so he might as well get good and comfortable with the ugly bitch right now.
Okay, you want it read aloud?
Fine. I’ve got just the guy for the job.
Oh for fucks sake.
Occasionally, I have forgotten my guiding principle of “expect the worst and you will never be disappointed”. Fortunately, there’s the U.S. Congress to help remind me.
umm, are we disagreeing with thing’s rant or are we simply saying enjoy the snark and try and forget you are being fucked over?
Because we are being fucked over with this bill and that’s the truth.
The only possible counter-move would be to insist on EVERY bill be read out loud in it’s entirety. The R’s keep trying to make a big deal out of how big this bill is, but how many pages does an appropriations bill run?
The best that can be said of this bill is that it’s better than nothing.
I think that Gilbert Gottfried should read the bill aloud.
And what should we do? Wait 2 years, or 4 years, or 8 years for a “better” bill?
This bill is by no means perfect, but perfection with this bunch of bananas is not going to happen. We can scream and yell and march and threaten to sit out election after election until the ol’ boy blows the last trumpet, and it won’t change the fact that we aren’t going to get the bill we want.
If getting “half a loaf” is actually going to save some real, flesh-and-blood people now we take it and THEN we work hard to get better people in there to get the bill we want.
Don’t shoot for the moon.
It ain’t never gonna happen.
Anything’s better than what we got now.
My current attitude in three.
I think they need to get this guy to read the bill. It will probably be just as comprehensible.
Ohhh, Spots, you magnificent bastard, you beat me to it. Damn Eastern time.
I think if we get the little South Carolina teen queen contestent (“the Iraq and such”) to read, spice it up with a couple of thousand repetitions of the word “also”, delivered with a wink here and there, it might actually elicit some Republican votes.
…but perfection with this bunch of bananas is not going to happen.
Ain’t it the truth? It’s surprising that they managed to stop taking campaign donations (Formerly known as bribes.) long enough to do what they did. Maybe this bill will act as a framework that can be improved and enhanced through amendments by future Congresses. With its passage we’ll at least have something to build on.
I wish I could share your optimism, but… 1) “If getting “half a loaf” is actually going to save some real, flesh-and-blood people now we take it — as far as I can tell, this particular half-loaf will largely transfer our money to the insurance companies so they can continue to deliver their crappy product — they’ll need to spend some time and resources formalizing all the loop holes their well-paid friends in Congress have put in so they can continue to deny treatment for pre-existing conditions (the cost for that exercise in bureaucracy will of course be passed on to all of us) and 2) “THEN we work hard to get better people in there to get the bill we want.” Uh, we did work hard to get people in there. We elected a guy who very specifically ran on a platform of real change — then he showed up for work, and suddenly his radical stance on health care was watered down to “okay, what if we put little smiley faces on the rejection letters, that should do it…”
The D’s had a solid majority & mandate — this was the time to do it, and do it right. They blew it. Do the math: even if Obama somehow squeaks out another term, he clearly has no desire for change, so that’s 2016 right there. Then we get 8 years of the Rethugs back in charge, so it’ll be 2024 at the earliest for another candidate to claim that he (or she) is the hopey-changey one that’ll do it right. That’s an awful long time for people to wait for decent health care…
Get that page guy to read it. The one who was on Maddow’s show. Whatever. I find myself doing what I did during the stimulus debate–mentally checking out. Tell me when something actually comes close to passing, and then I may give a damn again.
I thought TBogg comments were behind the cordon sanitaire, keeping them from being infected with the FDL-specific strain of Doomsday Virus.
Sure, you’re hungry, but, see, bananas aren’t worth eating unless they’re ripe, so you should really wait to eat them. The great thing about bananas is, the longer you wait, the more they ripen, so just keep waiting and eventually the banana will be just right. I mean, it’s not like they get bad or something. And nothing’s worse than eating an unripe banana. Not even starvation.
Bruce Tinsley wants this guy to be President.
Sorry, can’t follow the whole banana metaphor here.
But I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an FDL-specific strain of Doomsday Virus… But I’m not sure what you find so unreasonably doomsday-ish about my statement. It’s sort of fact-ish. Or are you telling me that you really believe that all of a sudden in the next year or two, Obama will realize what a sucky reform package this has become, stuff Emmanuel in the closet, and say, “hey, fellas, sorry, I guess I was asleep at the wheel for a bit. Let’s fix this whole health thing up nice — when I said Change what I really meant was…” Momentum is not really on his side in that scenario.
what thing said.
No, and I think we just found something that isn’t better than what we have now.
Just one example: The current version says you can shop in the ‘exchange’ for a plan if your employer ain’t offering insurance. What happens if your employer offers insurance but it now costs three times what it used to? The insurance companies have a perfect justification: we have to cover everybody because recission is not allowed anymore. So our risk has gone up and so does your premium.
Now what?
The perception that everything sucks and that you’re proud to be one of the first and noisiest to declare it… that’s the Doom Syndrome, Hamsher Variant. It’s hitting pandemic levels. That’s why TBogg is the only part of FDL that is remotely readable.
Except for Tyra’s show. That bitch will cut you if you fuck with her programing. I’m serious. Really. You best back the fuck up when it comes to Tyra.
Ha! Tyra’s a hoot. Her show comes on around 2:00 am in these parts, so I enjoy her when I’ve got insomnia. She rips somebody a new one on every show. Levi Johnston did some major squirming when he faced Tyra. I’m ascared of her.