Titus, Berkley make sense; Heller, by contrast, is a Republican

"Today America is less free," said Dean Heller in response to House passage of "the Pelosi healthcare takeover bill."

Meantime, back in the reality-based community, Nevada is fortunate to have two other members of the House of Representatives who aren't knee-jerk wingnuts. And in a welcome demonstration of decency and sense, both Dina Titus and Shelley Berkley voted for the bill.

Now all eyes turn to Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and the rest of the radical moderates in the Senate whose passion for being perceived as centrists is in itself a form of ugly extremism. (Putrid Joe Lieberman is not included in that group, because his filthy and disgusting behavior long ago descended to venal and twisted motivations against which mere political posturing seems noble).

But in the meantime, good on Dina and Shelley -- especially Dina, who resisted the urge to cave lest someone in the media call her a liberal or a socialist or whatever. Many of her Democratic colleagues who, like Titus, will be in tough reelection fights next year trembled before the might of the right's talking points and fearfully voted against the bill.

Titus is smarter than they are. Her reelection depends on the health care reform bill becoming law. As Ezra Klein wrote a while back...

But the question isn't whether Republicans understand the power of successful opposition. It's whether Democrats understand the dangers of failure. And that's most true for the Democrats who are most likely to weaken the effort: The Democrats who are cool to health-care reform because they fear the conservative tilt of their state are the Democrats who will lose their seats if Obama loses his momentum and the Democratic majority begins to lose on its major initiatives. Legislative defeats will not threaten Henry Waxman's seat. But it will imperil Mary Landrieu's. And Ben Nelson's.

Breathless assertions to the contrary from the local wingnut newspaper and its frothing publisher notwithstanding, the House Democrats who voted against the bill are the ones who made a stupid mistake, not Titus. Voting for health care reform is not just good policy, it's good politics.

Unless of course you're Dean Heller. 

In that case, "policy," good or otherwise, is an inconsequential abstraction that can't compete in significance with ranting and raving about taxes and big government like a teabagger because the bumpkins in your congressional district eat that shit up. 

It's hard to believe that he used to be considered a sane, even moderate Republican. But after the Sharron Angle primary scare of 2006, Heller scampered to the hard right and hasn't looked back. He was letting the fruitcake wing of his party set his agenda for him long before anyone started demanding that Barack Obama provide his real Kenyan birth certificate. A Republican ahead of his time, Heller was assuring his own irrelevance well before it became the party's distinguishing characteristic. Now he's pointless, except for the point atop his shiny tinfoil hat.

Comments

[dave404]

Heller isn't opposed to federal oversight of health care, nor spending federal dollars on health care...oh, Heller ("As a fiscal conservative, I have fought for lower taxes, to reign in wasteful spending, and for smaller government"), doesn't like earmarks, so these must be some kind of gift from the Chinese to Heller to dispense with as he pleases?

Renown Health Women’s and Children’s Center, Labor and Delivery Dept. [private hospital]
Renown Regional Medical Center, Reno, NV 89502
Rep. Dean Heller (NV-2) requests $800,000 (Requested)
*In order to serve the Washoe County and Northern Nevada region, Renown Health must expand and renovate their current facilities in the Women's and Children's Center to meet these needs.

Nephrology Center of Excellence
St Mary’s Regional Medical Center, Reno, NV 89503 [private hospital]
Rep. Dean Heller (NV-2) requests $800,000 (Requested)
*This center will provide residents of Northern Nevada and Northeastern California the option of accessing kidney transplants at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center.

[dave404]

University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, NV, for the Center for Molecular Medicine, including equipment...$571,000

Carson Tahoe Regional Healthcare/CTRH Dayton Hospital, for purchase of equipment...$571,000

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center, for facilities and equipment...$383,000

Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease, Sparks, NV for facilities and equipment...$192,000

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center, Reno, NV for facilities and equipment...$190,000

Pershing County General Hospital and Nursing Home, Lovelock, NV for facilities and equipment...$190,000

Yeah, who knew that "granting massive government intrusion" and "massive government expansion and higher taxes is not the reform our nation needs."

[atdleft]

And don't forget to also thank Shelley and Dina for voting NAY on the arcane and authoritarian Stupak (read "STUPID") Amendment! Although it unfortunately passed, there's hope we can get it removed in Conference. If it remains in place, women won't even be able to pay for their own reproductive health care under any of the plans offered in the exchange!

Perhaps one thing we need to do next, hopefully once the Senate passes its health care bill, is urge Obama & Reid to remove the Stupak Amendment from the final bill.

[Goldy]

I am a fervent believer in universal access to affordable health insurance for all Nevadans first and then the rest of America.

But I want to give opponents an equal opportunity to gain my support. Therefore, using the actual policy in the bill, here is how you can get me:

* Make my income $500,000 per year
(The bill would then affect me adversely and I would then be furious that .02% of my income went to helping someone else beside me.)
* Guarantee I never get sick (Then I can just be pissed that I have to pay anything for those damned sick people.)
* Make my employees lazy and unproductive.
(Then I won't feel guilty when I deny them a health insurance plan and I won't have to compete with anyone for the good employees by offering benefits.)
* Make sure I never expand my business beyond the boarders of the U.S. (Then I won't have to compete with other businesses that have government subsidized benefits.)
* Make sure I never sell my insurance company stock. (Then I would be pissed when the stock takes off because they make out so well under the new government plan.)

So, here I am, open-minded and willing to convert to the other side. Just meet my criteria and I'm ready for the crazy to wash right over me.

[....Temujin... Khan..of..the..Yakka..Mongols...]

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...Pours Goldy a stiff one.
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