If you can't cancel one health insurance plan, cancel them all.

[Dimocritus]

It wasn't meant to be sarcastic.

And don't think I don't know the shit you pulled at GLP, asshole.

I've been there... Once. I've never even registered or anything. Going to a web site is "pulling shit?"

[Corvidia]

And it's legal!  Someone needs to turn this fucker around because we obviously took a wrong turn somewhere and are lost in the fucking woods. 

We could just eat these guys.

I would go back to eating meat for this. And the bankers. And possibly Congress.

This letter-writing campaign sounds like a very interesting idea.

[Cramulus]

So what are we going to do with this information?

I feel a congratulatory letter coming on.   

I will totally get down with an ironic letter writing campaign

[Jenne]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/22/politics/main5408951.shtml

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is feeling the heat from his liberal colleagues to include a government-run health insurance plan, or "public option," in the Senate health care bill.

Now, as Reid and other negotiators move closer to unveiling their health care plan, liberal advocacy groups are ratcheting up the pressure, saying they will run Reid out of Washington if he does not bring a public option to the Senate floor. With a tough re-election bid ahead of Reid next year, the liberal "Netroots" could potentially make good on their threat. Coming from a purple state, that puts Reid between a rock and a hard place -- and has some local progressive activists at least somewhat worried.

One television ad pressuring Reid to support the public option is already out: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is running a spot for at least five days in Las Vegas called "Is Harry Reid Strong Enough?"

"I'm your typical swing voter," Lee Slaughter, a Las Vegas nurse says in the ad. "I voted for Republicans for president, and I voted for President Obama. I also voted for Senator Harry Reid many times. But in 2010, I'll only be voting on one issue. I'm watching to see if Harry Reid is strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public health insurance option into law."

FDL Action, the political action committee for the progressive group FireDogLake, is also planning to pressure the majority leader on the subject. The group has already targeted a handful of other moderate Democrats for not supporting a public option, like Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, who has since come under a firestorm of scrutiny from all directions.

The message from the left is that a large Democratic majority in Congress is meaningless if the caucus is unwilling to support liberal causes.

"I'll take a Chuck Schumer-run Senate with 57 Democrats (bye bye Reid, Lieberman, and Lincoln) than a Harry Reid-run one with 75 Democrats," Markos Moulitsas Zúniga wrote last week on the liberal blog network Daily Kos.

Bob Fulkerson, the state director for the nonprofit Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, disagrees with that reasoning.

"Certainly we'd all like to see a barrage of progressive legislation get passed left and right, but even if we elected a more liberal senator than Reid -- likely impossible given Nevada's conservatism -- that would do nothing to change the dynamics of the Senate, where there's a number of conservative Democrats and Independents," Fulkerson told CBSNews.com. "And, would these lefty blogger types be happy with a right-wing senator to replace Reid who is openly hostile to all of our interests? Because that's where their strategy could lead."

Reid wouldn't necessarily hold up against a Republican opponent any stronger than a new Democratic candidate would, contends Ben Tribbett, executive director of the Accountability Now PAC. In fact, he said, having a relatively unknown Democrat in the race could be a good thing.

"There's an oft-quoted statistic that 98 percent of incumbents win re-election, but that's not the case with Senate incumbents in recent years," he told CBSNews.com. "People are able to mobilize earlier, and a lot of those incumbent advantages no longer exist."

Excluding senators who never draw strong challenges, he said, the chances for re-election are closer to 50-50. Furthermore, Tribbett said, a Republican candidate would be able to raise more money running against Reid than against another Democrat.

"Harry Reid's only chance to win this election is representing his own base and bringing a strong public option on the floor," he said.

Indeed, if liberals in Nevada do not get behind Reid next year, he could see his four-term Senate career come to an end. A recent Mason-Dixon poll showed the Nevada senator trailing two possible, relatively unknown, Republican challengers. Real estate developer Danny Tarkanian led Reid 48 percent to 43 percent in a hypothetical matchup, while those polled favored former GOP party official Sue Lowden over Reid by 49 percent to 39 percent.

Finally some liberals with some brass balls.

[Jenne]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102202820.html?hpid=topnews

Ok, seems to me the House Dems have more of a plan than the Senate Dems.  As in:  the House Dems are trying harder to change things for the greater good and the Senators are more invested in compromising the shit out of any real reform.

Anyone else get that sense?

[AFK]

Yep.  Also, Harry Reid is a piece of shit.  I ready somewhere he has some kind of "non-aggression" pact with John Ensign, which is why he hasn't called that piece of crap out for being a piece of crap.  Also, he has received money from Ensign's parents.  Can we move Alan Grayson to Las Vegas please? 

[Jenne]

Well, sounds like he's getting pressure from his homebase to get his head out of his ass.