C-SPAN 2 NOW - Big Fight over Medicare - Harry Reid just tore into McConnell

[givemebackmycountry]

I've never seen him so mad - Repukes playing parlor games again...
McConnell is a disgusting pig.

sorry edited for CSPAN-2

[skooooo]

1. you go home and explain how you were doing a brave thing....

Reid to someone else..

I'm looking at the senators here who are up for reelection to go home and explain to the people that they couldn't over ride the veto of
this weak President

[skooooo]

2. Webb talking about new program of Vet Benefits

[givemebackmycountry]

3. Hey skooooo

Glad your watching with me.
I got a feeling about this one... lot's of animosity.
I think this one is going to be ugly.

Harry was like... screw Bush, he's weak and irrelevant.

[skooooo]

4. It's kind of hard to follow..

..they're skipping around. But yeah, you get the sense that they're all tired and about this close to a fist fight..lol.

[skooooo]

5. Did you hear Robert Byrd's hardy "AYE!"

from the back of the room! That was good to hear. Keep on truckin' you old man! :)

[dflprincess]

6. Has Harry visited the wizard to get some courage?

n/t

[Mojorabbit]

7. I am hoping they don't cut payments

to physicians for medicare patients. My husband is seeing an enormous amt of people for free as it is and we just can't absorb another paycut in reimbursement from medicare. We have employees to be paid and both an office and home mortgage. He is coming home with boxes of tomatoes and sweet potatoes as payment now as it is and we can absorb some of it but not much more.

[SpiralHawk]

8. Republicon homelanders are "Starving the beast"

That's why our food is unsafe, FEMA is feckless, and every other aspect of our American government is in the crapper. All our tax money is being squandered on the republicon Oil Profits Crusade & Nation Building in the Middle East -- where the money is siphoned off by republicon cronies.

For the basic needs of the American taxpayer: doodley squat.

FROM WIKIPEDIA
"Starving the beast" is a fiscal-political strategy of some American so-called conservatives to use budget deficits via tax cuts to force reductions in the size (and effectiveness) of government. The term "beast" refers to government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, and Medicare.

US President George W. Bush has invoked the concept in reference to his administration's tax cuts. He has said "so we have the tax relief plan <...> that now provides a new kind -- a fiscal straightjacket for Congress.

[joanski0]

9. I saw that. The Republicans voted

against cloture on the Medicare Bill. Even Obama and Clinton showed up to vote. Cloture failed by one vote. I saw Kit Bond looking at Harry Reid and pointing at his watch. Harry Reid was holding the vote open waiting for Senators Obama and Clinton to come in and vote.

When it failed, Harry Reid had an absolute fit. He told the Republicans to go home and tell their constituents that they voted against Medicare because they were afraid of a President with a 29% approval rating. Tell them that they were afraid that a President with a 29% approval rating would veto it. Reid that that if Senator Kennedy was there, they would have had the 60 votes, but then the Republicans would have stripped one of their votes to make it 59 again.

I noted that Arlen Spector and Chuck Hagel voted against the bill. Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, Gordon Smith, Olympia Snow, Pat Roberts were among the ones who voted for the bill.