Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Dick Durbin of Illinois have been working intensely on a jobs bill for more than a month, talking with relevant committee leaders and other members and dispatching aides to dozens of other meetings in the hopes of crafting a bill that could get through the Senate quickly.
And when they walked into a meeting in the office of Reid (D-Nev.) on Jan. 22, they thought they were about to cross the finish line — the Dorgan-Durbin plan would be blessed by the small group of senators in the room, presented to the full Democratic Caucus on Jan. 28 and then taken straight to the floor for a vote.
But Montana Sen. Max Baucus had other ideas.
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, where the health care bill was debated for months last year, surprised the senators gathered in Reid’s office by suggesting he wanted a chance to mark up portions of the bill under his committee’s jurisdiction before it went to the floor, according to several people who attended the meeting.
Here is what I have to assume, Baucus wants to do what he did with the moderate health care bill: water it down, send it through weeks of useless negotiations and see how his constituents (aka industry and angry tea baggers from the right) feel about it before he comes up with a bill that no one likes. Now mind you, the President and the Democrats are under pressure to get more done for job creation. Durbin and Dorgan were proactive and Baucus inserts his ass on the tail end of the process (no pun intended). One of these kids is doin’ their own thing.
State of the Union Guest Cindy Parker-Martinez’s postion:
Cindy Parker-Martinez (Belle Isle, FL)
Cindy is a mother of two young children, who shared her story of the problems her family faces with the current health care system at a Health Care Community Discussion held at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, one of thousands of discussions held nationwide in December 2008. In April 2008, Cindy, her husband, and her son were all denied insurance coverage on the individual insurance market because of pre-existing conditions. Her 11-month old daughter was also denied coverage due to an insurance company age requirement of 12 months. Both Cindy and her husband are currently uninsured because they cannot afford the insurance offered at her husband’s employer. Although they previously paid their premium, they could not afford to keep up the monthly payments after receiving thousands of dollars in medical bills from her husband’s unexpected 6-day hospital stay for pneumonia. Their family’s income is too high for them to qualify for Medicaid. Cindy and her husband currently have no insurance and have thousands of dollars in medical debt.
I am officially not offended by the meaning of Harry Reid’s statement. As progressive who would like for the majority leader of the most exclusive club to make more new progressive laws than news, I am offended by the impolitic nature of this statement.*
He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama’s race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.
I agree with much of what John McWhorter says regarding this topic (especially being that he is linguist): yes there is Black English (Negro Dialect), yes its frowned upon in professional settings (as are many other non standard dialects), and no candidate is getting elected if his slogan was “H to the izzO, P to the izz-E, vote for Barry, ya’ll gots to feel me!!”.
Fifth: We have to really listen to what Reid said instead of getting carried away over the tangy, backwards flavor of the one word “Negro.” In mentioning that Obama doesn’t speak in “dialect,” Reid acknowledged something many blacks are hot and quick to point out, that not all black people use Black English. Okay, they don’t – and Reid knows. He didn’t seem surprised that Obama can not sound black when he talks – he was just pointing out that Obama is part of the subset of blacks who can. He knows there is such a subset. Lesson learned.
Indeed Reid implied that black dialect is less prestigious than standard, such that not speaking it made Obama more likely to become President. That is, he implied what we all think too: Black English is, to the typical American ear, warm, honest — and mistaken. If that’s wrong, okay – but since when are most Americans, including black ones, at all shy about dissing Black English? And who among us — including black people – thinks someone with what I call a “black-cent” who occasionally popped up with double negatives and things like aks could be elected President, whether it’s fair or not? Reid, again, deserves no censure for what he said unless we’re ready to censure ourselves too.
Reid apologized. Obama accepted. I would like to think Reid then asked if “this will be an issue in the future”. And Obama just said “Nah, we straight”.
And then he could tell the Majority Leader to “brush. that. dirt of ya shoulda’, Harry”.
