1. Wow.
2. Jibing Joe Lieberman, the democrat nominee for veep in 2000, vows to support a GOP filibuster to halt Harry's hopes, the leader's likeliest alleyway to legislation, the states opt-out, adopted just yesterday after months of manifest turmoil.
3. Health care's dead.
4. Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu also expressed "deep reservations" with Reid's most recent resolve.
5. And they're just the Senators upset enough to speak out.
6. Lieberman is, in a sense, the reverse Olympia Snowe, that is, he provides cover for more than a dozen dems to dance away to freedom.
9. Others Senators known to worry over Reid's resolution include Dorgan, Pryor, Webb, Warner, Kohl, Bill Nelson, Cardin, Carper, Hagan, Johnson, Feinstein, Feingold, McCaskill, Conrad and Byrd.
10. And that's in addition to Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh, Ben Nelson and Jibing Joe the Jilter.
11. Reid can try to start again, but this late in the game to begin anew APPEARS too improvisational.
12. You can't reform 16% of the US economy like this on the fly.
13. You must LOOK, at least, like you know what you're doing.
14. Reid declared yesterday the opt-out his best shot.
15. Within 24 hours, it's belly up.
16. The "wizard vote counter" can't add to 60.
17. Kent Conrad was correct all along, the votes simply aren't there.
18. Too many troubles---like a half trillion dollars of marasma to Medicare and Medicaid, mandates and fines on individuals who can't afford em, accounting gimmickry most disingenuous, burdens on states already bankrupt, taxes on small business in the midst of Depression...
19. But resentment surely played a major role, mature members being asked to stick their necks out for a piece put together in private by a piddly cabal of loser elites, behind the leader's locked door, with NO input from those respectables ultimately required to pay the supreme price for the plan's problems.
20. Bayh echoed the noncomformist from Connecticut, declaring that unless the $40B tax on device makers is removed, "they would definitely not have my support" to bust an opposition filibuster.
Reid's Push for Public Option Creates New Barriers for Bill - WSJ.com
21. Lieberman spoke equally evilly against the trigger.
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Lieberman rejects public option, won’t vote for cloture - Blogs from CNN.com
22. Reid reacted to Lieberman's bombshell most revealingly: "Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems," lamented the leader who lost his way.
23. Wow, quite an admission.
24. There are other health care developments today, but Lieberman's lob leaves them moot.
25. The House, according to head counting Hoyer, is significantly short of 218 for Plan Pelosi.
Hoyer: Probably More Votes For Less-Robust Public Option In House | TPMDC
26. The sticking point he points to is the party's split over compensation rates for doctors.
27. The house bill embraces scheduling most sought after by progressives and painful to physicians---those tied to miniscule Medicare measures.
28. But Congressman Stupak is serious about his bid to bring to the floor a bill that would de-fund abortion.
29. Lieberman's loudly declared alignment provides the bluedog the cover libs looked for from Snowe.
30. Pelosi's piece has no more possibility of passage downstairs than Reid's does in the upper house.
31. It's time for the relevent-minded to discuss Afghanistan---health care is history.
32. October is already the deadliest month in the history of the Afghan War, with 22 brave soldiers bereaved since Sunday, the third time in the last four months a new record for carnage has been established.
October deadliest month for US in Afghan war - Yahoo! News
