Cut Nelson Loose

Posted on 12/18/2009 at 11:04 am by Bob Cesca

Ben Nelson clearly smells blood in the water and is now overreaching. Jed Lewison reports:

Nelson is now demanding that the bill be “scaled back” to cover fewer than the 30 million promised by Pres. Obama, that its revenue provisions be eliminated, and that its Medicaid expansion be made voluntary.

When I read this, I just laughed. Cape Fear laughing.

Enough is enough. It’s time to slam the door in Ben Nelson’s bulbous Flintstone face, lock down Olympia Snowe and pass this son of a bitch.

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  • http://broadwaycarl.blogspot.com Broadway Carl

    What a dirty motherfucker. But I did call it ,back when we caved to Lieberman, I thought, “What’s to prevent Nelson from holding back his vote until the Stupak language is reinserted?”Goddammit!

  • ceu

    oh, it’s more than that that he wants, Carl.Daily Kos recapped itIn sum: unless Ben Nelson is bluffing, the only way he will vote for cloture is if abortion is restricted, the subsidies are whacked, the revenue provisions are nuked, and its Medicaid expansion is gutted. Oh, and he doesn’t think there’s any chance of it happening by Christmas.

  • Jan

    Well, if Reid caves into that the dems won’t vote for it, right?Right???Is it noon somewhere so I can proceed to drink liberally?

  • Allonfla

    Carl, Nelson would have done that anyway. He has been very uncooperative the entire time. Every time he speaks to the President he says some doofy shit like, “he made a compelling argument but…..” Joe Lieberman was a temporary distraction from Nelson, but he was dirty motherfucker from the start.

  • indyinwc

    I hear they’re trying to kill the bill with the weather. According to Bill Kristol, “There’s a really big snowstorm coming to D.C.tonight. It would be unsafe to ask all the staffers and Hill employees who’d be needed at the Capitol if Congress stays open all hours this weekend, as Harry Reid intends, to drive to and from work–especially since many will have to do so at night, and they won’t be well-rested. So from the point of view of public safety and personal well-being, Ben Nelson can do everyone a favor, announce today he won’t vote for cloture, and let everyone stay home this weekend.

  • http://nanotyrnns.blogspot.com/ Nanotyrannus

    Death by a thousand cuts.I mean, honestly, he just woke up and remembered something he forgot?Stall. Delay. Obstruct. Hem. Haw. Weasel. And on. And on. And on. Until everyone just gives up.And that was the plan all along. At every opportunity this shitbag has had the chance to insert whatever arcane and restrictive amendment he wanted, but now, just when it seems like we might move an inch forward…

  • Jan

    He and Lieberman are having a contest forWORST. SENATOR. EVER.

  • Canadian Simon

    Is Nelson bluffing? Maybe. Some people thought Lieberman was bluffing, too. How’d that turn out?

  • camel54

    It’s obvious this is just one tactic of Nelson’s overall goal of standing in the way. Abortion doesn’t mean anything to him or he would not have voted for the omnibus spending bill this past Saturday after it had abortion language stripped out of it.If Nelson is bowed to like Lieberman was, I swear to God I’m going to lobotomize myself with whiskey this holiday season so I no longer have enough of a brain to think about these things.Call Nelson. Call the White House. Donate to Move On. Let’s get this thing passed and then let’s work toward using reconciliation to add the things progressives want.Snowfall increasing by orders of magnitude. Trap ‘em there and make ‘em work.

  • IntoxiNation

    So if expanded Medicaid becomes optional, what about mandates? Here in Ohio you have to be at 100% of the FPL to be eligible for Medicaid. What about the person at 101% of FPL – will they now have to pay out of pocket for insurance? And if we cut the subsidies like he wants, how much will they have to pay out of pocket?Honestly this was my biggest fear when they caved to Lieberman. Everyone seemed to forget about Nelson and since Lieberman got what he wants, now it’s Ben’s turn.I really haven’t seen what Snowe wants or doesn’t want, so I don’t know if changing the bill to gain her support would be any better really.OTOH – last night I attended our monthly Democratic meeting. In November everyone was enthusiastic about HCR. Last night more than half (and I’m being nice here) were on the scrap it side. What makes that really shocking is that most of these people have never been on a blog. Hell I would say 25% of them don’t even have the internet (welcome to Farmville USA!), so the opposition to the bill by Democrats isn’t something confined to the netroots.

  • http://www.osborneink.com Matt Osborne

    I find it interesting that the WH fired back almost immediately last night.

  • eljefejeff

    fuck em all. Let’s just deal with the fact that we really only have a max of 58 democrats in the caucus, and even 8 of them aren’t reliable votes.Pass the main features of the bill any way we can even if we have to use Snowe, she agrees with that stuff, and use reconciliation to pass a public option, just don’t say anything until after it’s passed or we won’t even get LIEberman or Snowe on board

  • roxsteady

    Or just put in the public option or a Medicare buy in for all and force these dicks to actually filibuster. Let’s see how long their prostates can hold out before one of them wee wees all over themselves! Not to mention the spectical it would be. It won’t take long for the public to tire of watching this shit and start calling and jamming their phone lines and email.

  • ceu

    “It would be unsafe to ask all the staffers and Hill employees who’d be needed at the Capitol if Congress stays open all hours this weekend…”That’s true. So…either do it without the staffers or COTS for all! ‘Cause the chances are that the staffers have been using cots for a few weeks now.

  • Alan4s

    “It would be unsafe to ask all the staffers and Hill employees who’d be needed at the Capitol if Congress stays open all hours this weekend…”That’s true. So…either do it without the staffers or COTS for all! ‘Cause the chances are that the staffers have been using cots for a few weeks now.

    and they all have good health benefits to take care of them if they do have an accident, unlike a whole bunch of other folks who will have to drive to work in the snow to feed their families this weekend.

  • veralynn

    has Bill Krystol ever been to DC? They have a very good public transportation system. And if they need it after the metro stops, I think at 2 AM on the weekends, there are still taxi’s. And if they can’t afford a taxi (most staffers don’t make very much money) they can use cots like ceu said. And she’s right, they probably have been using them for a while.