The Vernal Equinox

I received a type of e-mail that is supposed to be nostalgic. From the references, I take them to be momentos from the "silent generation", those of my sister's age. The best of these come with full-color photos of 1950 cars and gas stations; the worse come with lines like "Remember when only girls won earrings" and Beatles were "bugs".

Last night I had a craving for Matzos, which occurs periodically and is deadly in Virginia. While surfing the net, I came across the nostalgia I like a blog buried deep in the DailyKos. "You Don't Have to be Jewish...To Like Levy's". It was a history of Levy's Jewish Rye complete with the best ads for it. The one I never had seen was Buster Keaton, holding a sandwich made with Levy's. The blogger also mentioned the late Leo Steiner of the Carnegie Deli who was eulogized by Henny Youngman as the "deli lama". I remember spending a New Year's Eve with my wife at the Carnegie Deli and Henny Youngman appeared and really did say," Take my wife....Please." So today I will search for my Matzos.

At 8:24am, The Democrats announced they had the votes to pass healthcare reform. So gathering at the Capitol now are pro-health care reform demonstrators.

Yesterday, Steny Hoyer gave a great speech to the Democratic Caucus. He started by pointing out that both Barack Obama and John McCain ran on health reform in 2008 and this was clear and transparent throughout the campaign. He then laid out the long history of health reform efforts in the country, mentioning all Presidents except for Reagan and George W. He spent a long time quoting from all the Presidents citing this as the long overdue domestic reform needed in the country. The longest and most articulate quote came from Richard Nixon, whom Steny didn't name. He just mentioned the year it was said. Ironically, this year's bill resembles very closely the deal Nixon offered Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy in his Memoirs wrote that it was the worst mistake he made by turning it down.

Without the much vaunted teleprompter, the descendent of the Mayflower, President Obama made an emotional but, I found, a subdued speech. He tried to remind the Democratic Caucus why they initially entered public life and the ideals they once had before all the compromises were made and big money was floating around. I found his quote from Abraham Lincoln eerie and somewhat macabre. The media found it inspiring, which is more than they've said positively lately. I thought the quote came from the depressed and melancholic Lincoln. Hopefully, it doesn't reflect President Obama mindset these days.

While I enoyed my rap on "deem and pass", the Democrats abandoned it yesterday.

The Senate promises to be the next fault line. Orrin Hatch has mentioned several times in the last two days that the House will have to pass the bill another time after Republicans in the Senate get through with it. So somewhere lurks the threat that the Republicans maybe,I stress, maybe found the single line in the bill where they will get approval from the Parliamentarian. Harry Reid told the House that he was prepared for all the ambushes. Let's hope.

I can't help believing that some Republicans in the Senate will vote for the bill. Olympia Snowe successfully added dozens of her amendments--actually good ones--to the bill. Voinovich is retiring and has blasted the GOP for being prisoners of the South. Susan Collins only flirts with nuttiness and did vote for the stimulus package. And can Scott Brown really vote against it given that he is running again in 2012 in Massachusetts and that this was Ted Kennedy's dying wish?

The Catholic Hospitals, 90,000 Nuns, the National Catholic Reporter endorsed the bill. But we know no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. The Bishops Conference issued at statement at 9:41 Saturday night that argued against the bill. They claimed by an amazing feat of deduction that there is a way that federal funds can be used for abortion. The logic was so tortuous I couldn't understand. They asserted that the Hyde Amendment is the "law of the land", which it is not. It has to be renewed periodically. The law of the land is Roe v Wade, which isn't mentioned by the Bishops. They did have one good point that immigrants aren't covered and that they support universal health care for everybody. Their position is single-payer without abortion.

About abortion. 88% of American counties have no abortion providers of any kind. One out of three American women will have to have a procedure during their lifetime that the pro-life crowd calls an abortion. Their definition is so elastic as to cover some rather mundane and routine procedures. We are now seeing states trying to implement laws to protect "eggs". Next we'll see a state like Oklahoma declare that conception begins with ejaculation. The rights obtained by women under Roe v. Wade have been dramatically curtailed and are even under graver assault today.

In August I wrote how pathetic and sad it would be if violence broke out over enlarging the number of people receiving health care in the country. Yesterday, people threw bricks through the windows of the Buffalo office of Representative Louise Slaughter. Slaughter is the nickname for a parliamentary procedure the Democrats were expected, but did not use. Jon Voight's teabagger rally, which drew about 10,000--if they want to claim 100,000 go ahead,even if it's totally false-- acted in a classy manner by screaming racial epithets against civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis and calling Barney Frank the "F"word as the two walked on the nice Spring day from the Capitol to their offices. The crowd spit on members of the Black caucus and the Free Republic declared "they should have been dragged behind cars". Bayard Rustin would have said," It just made me feel young again." John Lewis was classy in his response.

At first teabaggers denied such incidents, claiming that someone would have had it on tape if it occurred and that it was the result of liberal lies. Problem--only minutes later Democratic Underground posted a video of the incident. Then the line was that the victims deserved it.

No Republican denounced this until shamed by house members on the floor. Only then did Eric Cantor and Mark Pence, who had spoken at the rally, utter an equivocal apology, saying it was the action of a few people--with the rest of the crowd holding signs portraying Obama as Hitler.

The sign that caught everyone's attention was" If (Sen.) Brown can't kill it, This (A Brownie automatic) will." My wife said that if she wanted to avoid the teabaggers all you had to do was walk fast. They tend to be the far side of 60. If these people are the conservative side of Baby-Boomers, shouldn't they have their own Kent State? Where are all the union guys with baseball bats?

Britt Hume reminds us that the Obama Presidency will be crippled if healthcare passes. Let's see, a tenacious President fighting for what he believes and whom the public widely believes is honest and sincere passes his signature piece of legislation and is seen as a loser? OK,I think Britt should go back to converting Tiger Woods to Christianity.

David Plouffe got the better of Karl Rove on this issue today as he explained that Democrats can campaign on what they are for, while Republicans are stuck with what they are against. What David didn't factor in was that the plurality of the country are independents now, followed by Democrats. Does anyone think the vile hate of the Republican streetgangs, the teabaggers, is really going to make an independent want to vote for these people? Most people really don't like to vote for creeps. Even the media, which has egged these people on, are beginning to turn against them after yesterday's spitting episodes.

Doonesbury came out of retirement with a cartoon on the teabaggers with a radio announcer interviewing them, asking their leader about the incoherence of protesting taxation with elected representation and protesting tax cuts.

Where was Pat Roberston yesterday as a 5.5 earthquake rocked Cuba around Gitmo? Did someone make a pact with the Devil like the Haitians did? Who would they be? Would be name of the person start with the letter C and not be Castro? Maybe Cheney.

Bibi is coming to town and he looks like he's ignoring the advice of his neo-con allies. While he said he wasn't going to stop the settlements, he is reported carrying proposals to release Palestinian prisoners, ending the blockade of Gaza, and initiating talks over the core issues in the dispute. I guess he read the Israeli polls and didn't listen to Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol.

Below the radar, the United States and Russia are very close to a nuclear arms reduction treaty. This would be a singular achievement of the Obama Administration, even though we no longer have the attention span to believe this is important. It probably will not be ratified by the Senate as it will become the rallying cry of the Republicans ,who claim Obama is weak on security. It will be the last missing agenda item of the Reagan Administration. Actually the administration should pitch it as part of Reagan Centennial celebration and get Nancy to speak about it as "Ronnie's last wish". Then watch the conservatives who opposed it back then, howl with indignation.