Welcome to today's RedState Morning Briefing Summary (RMBS FAQ). Also see the "talking points summary" at the bottom. I try to summarize the major wingnut talking point and provide counterpoints.
What's on today's Morning Briefing is interesting because of what isn't on it. There were a lot of posts over the weekend on "Climategate," but none made the Morning Briefing. I'm wondering if this indicates that Erick realizes that "Climategate" is a non-story, or it he's just focusing on other stuff.
It's hard to tell, as this would require understanding a rather dysfunctional mind.
Senate Republicans Fiddle While America Burns
Right now in America, the people of this great nation are staring down the loaded barrel of government-run healthcare. If this bill passes, it is no less than the end of America as we know it. You know it. Most Americans knows it.
- This is the same prediction that the right-wing made about Medicare in the 1960's. Of all the things that happened in the 1960's, I would dare to say this is pretty low on the list of things that ended America as they knew it.
- Depending on how you ask the question, you can get a poll that shows that a majority of Americans are — in some unspecified way — unhappy with what Congress is doing with health care reform. You cannot, however, get more than about 25% of the people to say that it is going to destroy America. You know it. Most Americans know it.
Front-pager hogan continues with an anecdote about John Kyl:
Consider the comments of the number two Senate Republican, Jon Kyl, yesterday on Bill Bennett’s radio show, being hosted by Rick Santorum (hat tip to mayhem in comments of one of Erick’s post, here). In response to the question, "what is your strategy, to the extent you can share it," Kyl said, "actually, I think we can be fairly upfront about it. Our strategy is not actually to delay and not take votes." He added, "our strategy is to have a lot of good amendments and highlight the problems in the bill," and "it is not our strategy to somehow slow things down."
This is what happens when Senators sit around their offices with overpaid, but largely incompetent staff in fancy rooms scattered about the Capitol – and they listen to pollsters and political strategists talking about how unpopular this bill is, but stressing that Republicans "need to be for something."
I might be reading this wrong, but I think that the Republicans may realize that being 100% obstructionist is going to cost them eventually. Next year, when people ask, "What did the Republicans do in the last two years?" the answer had better not be, "Grind the country to a halt by opposing everything." hogan even complains that the Republicans don't have an alternate plan. You noticed that too, hogan?
"There is a worry that Sen. Nelson means business," — Dem Aide says
Dan Perrin has finally stopped calling the Senate Health Care reform bill a "vapor bill," but now he's focused on Ben Nelson's "Stupak" move. If you're interested — and I sure as hell am not interested — here's his take on it:
The pro-abortion forces know that there is a good chance the bill will not go to conference, where the leadership can change it at will. The first thing that would go would be the abortion restrictions — but having a House-Senate conference is not a certainty. The fastest way to the President’s desk, is to send the Senate bill directly to the House for an up or down vote – if it passes.
As you, dear reader know, I do not think the bill will make it past the Senate floor, but many on both sides disagree — pessimistic opponents and rose-colored-glasses-wearing-proponents. I am mentioning the "ping-pong" strategy of skipping conference because the pro-abortion forces cannot take the risk that Senator Nelson’s demands make it into the bill and the bill goes to the House, without going to (as they see it) the cleansing conference. (I am assuming, in this the bill will die prediction, that the Senate GOP Leadership stops their insane agreements to Senator Reid’s unanimous consent requests. As long as ObamaCare is on the Senate floor, Republicans must stop agreeing to any unanimous consent agreements regarding votes on amendments — but more on this in another post.)
I don't know how likely any of these scenarios is. I do know that the right wing bloggers have made a habit of declaring things dead prematurely. Meanwhile Senator Gillibrand's recommended diary suggests that we can get through this issue with a reasonable outcome.
This just seems like wishful thinking on Perrin's part:
The dirty little secret among the Democratic Senate leaders is that their consensus call on the abortion issue, their collective and conventional wisdom was that they could roll the pro-abortion Senators. Maybe they could have if Stupak had not passed the House, but now the pro-abortion forces must win. They have no choice. (From their perspective, they are incredulous that they are facing massive abortion restrictions when their friends and allies are running the show — President Obama is in the White House and the Democrats control both Houses of Congress. Political shock to any constituency usually means anger.)
Senator Nelson, however, is effectively kicking sand in their face by making sure that God and everybody knows that he is going to prevent abortion being funded by taxpayer funds in this bill.
When Breaking Out the Guillotine, it is Best to Chop Off All Heads at Once. The Costs of Cleanup are Cheaper.
Erick starts off talking about how from 2002-2008 the Republican party has achieved a historic complete takeover of the State of Georgia. He then calls for a complete scrapping of the entire Republican leadership. Why? Because they are all hopelessly corrupt.
Georgia Speaker Glenn Richardson two weeks ago announced he had tried to commit suicide. The Speaker went through a very messy divorce. His best friends were all killed in one day in a plane crash together. He had undertaken an affair with a lobbyist that did not work out well. He admitted to suffering severe depression. People were willing to give him a second chance.
But then his ex-wife spoke out. She had the text messages and voicemails of a belligerent Speaker threatening to use his power to destroy her. What’s more, additional revelations into the Speaker’s affair showed that he might have used his power to help his mistress’s company — Atlanta Gas Light — get some sweet legislation passed.
Well, one bad apple and all that. Oh, wait, there's Richardson's replacement, Mark Burkhalter:
A few years ago, Mark Burkhalter, took a lobbyist funded trip to Daufuskie Island, SC with a group of strippers. He claimed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he sure enjoyed himself.
Burkhalter, who agreed to the deal to step aside in favor of Rep. Jerry Keen is now having second thoughts and is considering staying on as Speaker, image problems be damned.
Georgia House Republicans would be wise to throw him out. He is no friend of social conservatives and truly is no real friend to fiscal conservatives — he’s from the school of Republican thought that believes he represents the highest bidder.
And strippers. Lots of strippers.
But wait, there's more. It's quite a rundown of rotten-to-the-core George Republican politics — and from someone who knows. I was a little surprised to see such candor by the guy who volunteers to help cover Mark Sanford's ass, but maybe he learned his lesson after being burned by that.
If you read one RedState article this year, I recommend this one.
Will Google be Neutral and Transparent with its new service?
Will Neil Stevens ever shut his yap?
Stevens starts by explaining something that undermines his own previous attacks on Google:
Up until now, Google has been able to avoid being hoisted by its own Net Neutrality due to the fact that the firm has not been directly involved as an ISP, but rather has been a partner of ISPs such as T-Mobile. We can point out all we want how they have more money and more market power than any ISP, but until they started providing the services that ISPs provide, we could only get so far.
Here is the rest of his article (he kept it short):
But now, the day comes that Google gets further into the ISP business. Google is launching its own public DNS server. Ignore the misleading Register header, but read the content. The Google Public DNS is a direct launch of a service that ISPs provide, and that puts Google even further into the role of a gatekeeper. They can already make a site disappear from the Internet from the perspective of their searchers, with no transparency in the process whatsoever. Now they can make a site entirely inaccessible to its users because without a DNS lookup, your webpage, your email, your everything will create error messages instead of connectivity.
So here’s the question: Will Google obey its own Google/Obama/Genachowski Net Neutrality principles, or will Google Public DNS be as non-neutral and non-transparent as every single other service Google provides? Will Google deny DNS forwarding for any domain they deem a ’spammer’ and deny ‘Pagerank’ to?
The world awaits an answer.
There are some legitimate concerns about Google's plans, but Stevens doesn't capture any of them. Interestingly, Google's DNS service explicitly rejects pulling some of the slimy ad-revenue tactics of other DNS's. Specifically, if you try to resolve a DNS name that doesn't exist, it won't spoof an answer with the intent of driving you to an ad-laden landing page.
DeVore for California
Apparently, Republican hopeful and former destroyer of Hewlett Packard, Carly Fiorina, gave what Erick thought was a great speech on health care reform. I don't know what she said, but I assume it went like this: "No, no, no."
In any case, it's a speech that apparently served her well in the Republican eye, and that bothers Erick. Erick knows something we know, and apparently the California RNC doesn't: Carly Fiorina is a train wreck of a candidate.
Carly Fiorina gave a very good Republican response today on health care. It cannot be denied. I am glad she is on our side.
I do not dislike Carly Fiorina. I don’t really know her, though we’ve met a couple times. She seems like a very nice person. One day I’m sure she will be an excellent elected or appointed official.
Today is not that day in my mind.
I have tried to stay out of California. My gut tells me California is a sink hole that Republicans will not get out of. Barbara Boxer, as obnoxious as she is, is probably safe, though I understand the rationale of giving her a run for her money to distract the DSCC. However, as the NRSC has already broadcast that this is their goal, the DSCC will probably not be distracted.
Carly Fiorina gave a very good speech today, but I think it was inappropriate of the Republicans to put her, a candidate in a highly contested primary, up as their spokesman on health care.
Erick then goes on to promote her challenger Chuck Devore. Erick's admission that he thinks the race is a lost cause suggests that Fiorina won't be Scozzafavaed, but remember, Erick didn't start that, Club for Growth did. If they choose to work their magic in the California Senate race, I'm sure that Erick will hop on board.
Talking Point Roundup
Here are the big topics they are trying to push today. The "score" is the count of Morning Briefings on which the talking point has appeared. The higher the score, the more desperately they are pushing the talking point. The "HM?" column has a star if the talking point has made it to the Saturday Hatemailapalooza.
Score | HM? | Talking Point | Counterpoint |
---|
16 | * | Health care is doomed | RedState is now pushing two somewhat divergent narratives. The first is that Republicans are failing to take the initiative to kill health care, and the second is that it's going to fail anyway. The cause of the failure is expected to be Democratic infighting over abortion language. |
7 | | Net neutrality | Net neutrality is about how traffic is routed over the Internet. It has nothing to do with the Domain Name Service (DNS) except that ISPs not only carry traffic but provide DNS. Now that Google wants to set up its own DNS service, then... well, nothing. Another failed attack on Google on behalf of the telcos |