The Max Tax Distribution List
Well, this is interesting. Not only did Bad Max send the MaxTax plan out with the name of WellPoint’s former VP still on it, but he distributed it to the industry hacks too. Only the industry hacks.
QUESTION: The Finance Committee — well, actually, Senator Baucus’s draft has been, now, bouncing around for a few days on Capitol Hill.
First, has the president seen it (inaudible) his outline?
GIBBS: I don’t — I don’t believe — I don’t believe anybody here has — I’m — we’ve seen what we’ve read in the paper, but I do not believe that we’ve seen paper on the plan.
QUESTION: I understand it’s bouncing around K Street.
GIBBS: Not surprisingly, but I have not seen it here.
[snip]
QUESTION: What did you just mean…
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: I’m sorry. What did you just mean by it’s bouncing around K Street ?
GIBBS: I was told that — that K Street had a copy of the Baucus plan, meaning, not surprisingly, the special interests have gotten a copy of the plan that I understand was given to committee members today.
QUESTION: And…
GIBBS: It wasn’t cryptic. It’s who…
QUESTION: I mean, who is that a…
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Are you impugning somebody here? I mean, it sounded like you were impugning, like, well, K Street has it. I mean, what…
BTW, it was none other than Chuck Todd worried that mean Robert Gibbs was "impugning" the parasites from K Street. I’m glad you’re looking out for the important issues, Chuck.
And, as Kagro X added, Bad Max didn’t share a copy with Harry Reid, either.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he had not seen Baucus’s draft either, when asked during a briefing at the White House after a meeting with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Now, I know that Obama and (particularly) Reid have made a career of letting people walk all over them. But this is the kind of thing that might really piss them off–particularly the control freaks at the White House.
I mean, embarrassing the President like this, regarding the plan he’s been pitching since June? And Rahm’s lackey (and Bad Max’s former lackey) Jim Messina didn’t tell his bosses about this?
Bad Max released this without sharing–I mean, sharing with any but his clients on K Street. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I get the feeling that the White House was none too happy about that.
I hope someone at the WH either reads here or has the sense to check the document properties on that. (I don’t think Max is smart enough to clean it up, and anyway it’s too late to hide that now.)
I’d think something that was that obviously written by a lobbyist would get roundfiled, but I don’t trust Rahm on that. Or most of the other people who hang out around the Executive Offices. (And not the people who hang out around the executive orifices, either.)
Maybe it is chess.
Oh, it’s not chess. If we win this, we win it because a bunch of people worked their fucking ass off.
More like . . . rugby?
More like Obama’s penny-ante, chickenshit version of poker where he plays not to win or lose, but just to have a seat at the same table with the players.
and screamed our asses off
some of even wore our fingers to nubbs writing about it
(an some of us jes donated money to the writers)
we can’t stop now, we just learned to fight …
I know that, EW, and thanks so much to you and JANE. There are so many others to thank too.
I should have said that the stupid is just too unbelievable for anyone with a normal body temperature, and that Gibbs comment dismissed much of it on the get-real front.
Let’s see . . .
The Baucus Caucus has been at work for how long, and (surprise, surprise) the first words on paper out of Baucus’ office come out the day before Obama’s speech. As soon as I heard about it, I though it sounded like Max saying to the world ”I am TOO still relevant in this discussion.”
Gibbs was providing the official (and entirely predictable) WH response to this kind of play: ”Max Who?”
What Gibbs was too polite to say was that just because Rahm is part of the Baucus Caucus, you still have to route copies of your work to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
And I’m sure that Gibbs’ comment about K Street has nothing whatsoever to do with Liz Fowler’s friends there.
Oh, Lordy.
Isn’t that the answer? Shit–K Street probably had it, or saw it, prior to Baucus himself. K Street is one of Liz fowler’s BFFs, because ’she’s the one who give’s money away’.
I am actually encouraged by this news. It makes the Baucus proprosal all that less serious. I had originally thought it was scribbled on a cocktail napkin over the weekend. I did not realize it had been typed up and presented to the insurance crowd for their approval. May the force be with them. NOT.
The proposal is serious — there’s no doubt about it. The people crafting it are, however, another question entirely.
Bad Max is clearly relishing his gatekeeper power: “Nothing’s gonna happen in the Senate on health care unless and until I say something’s gonna happen in the Senate on health care.” In fine Washington tradition, Gibbs said “Oh, really? That’s news to us.”
The WH still needs Baucus, but they’re reminding him that Baucus needs them as well.
I noticed tonight on KO that Lawrence O’Donnell was a little unsure about the impact the internet is going to have on the manufacturing of consent that will be neceassary in his view to pour out the public option. Olbermann suggested we might need to man the barricades if there is not one, but he did it so quietly, I am not sure many caught it.
Yeah but O’Donnell predicted there would be no way Obama would back the PO.
True. O’Donnell is looking at it in the ‘93 light, and was acting confident because he knows how legislation works, but he kept bringing up the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, intimating that they may just have an effect. I certainly hope so. Unfortunately there is always Rahm. Why doesn’t Glenn Bleeech pick on him and get him tossed out?
Because he and Rahm are on the same side? No? Well, neither are on OUR side, so I gotta wonder.
I keep holding out hope. Must be the other pixie dust.
Just hope, not reason.
We’ll know for sure tomorrow night.
What could possibly be the most accurate sexual metaphor for this degree of ritual humiliation of the Obama Administration and the Democratic majorities by K Street?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you – The Aristocrats!
I don’t believe it for one minute. Nobody at the White House saw this document? Reid and Pelosi didn’t either? What a load of …
Nobody wants to admit having seen this because it doesn’t have a public option, but I think not only have they seen it but they’ve known what was going to be in it for a long time now.
Does the “routing” mean that K Street was able to make last minute changes before the “public” version was released? After all, good little boys check with their masters before doing anything rash, and we certainly learned from this that Max has no masters in the White House or Congress…
Jim, I think Fowler should be asked: Did you contact anyone the industry or K-Street about this bill, and if so, who and when? Did anyone in the industry or K-Street have any input into this bill?
I’m wondering if “drafts” circulated back and forth between Fowler and K Street would be subject to FOIA filings.
Hopefully, a lawyer type will fill us in on that. Hopefully a filing can be made.
Why Jim, all of the copies of those “drafts” mysteriously disappeared …
Or they will.
Aw … shucks.
Who could have imagined.
(Or else “they” are all considered “private” and legally “protected”. One notes that the “rule” of “law” appears to be working very well at the high-money level)
They rode in on the back of democratic traditions and values …
Perverted? Cynical? The whole thing?
Naw.
Couldn’t be. (Must be some of that there umpty-dimensional chess, I reckon)
;~(
DW
And we are an afterthought.
Well done, Jim.
Thanks for sharing.
Hope everybody reads your words.
DW
FOIA the drafts! Yes, they damned well better be there too!
No.
Congress is not subject to FOIA. The idea is that the drafting of laws ultimately must be public (i.e., when bills are voted on) and lawmakers can be held accountable for their votes at the polls. The executive branch, OTOH, needs more transparency so that all can be sure the laws are being administered as designed.
Thus, Baucus’ decision not to send the draft to the WH might help preserve any kind of exemption from FOIA.
Should he not be slapped because he sent deliberations out of committee to K Street before the normal and customary way?
I have a feeling this is precisely the normal and customary way of doing business with K Street. There’s a reason Baucus, PhRMA, hosptials, insurance, and Rahm got dubbed “The Baucus Caucus”.
Well, I have a new take on the Baucus Caucus. The President promised no more taxes or fees on the Middle Class. Now, nobody that I know of is suggesting we don’t pay our Medicare for all taxes. What I am saying is the Baucus K-Street bill is a tax that does not give people their money’s worth.
OK, no FOIA, but it is still OK to ask baucus directly, and it would also be possible to ask for his appointment calendar over the drafting period.
I still think one just asks Baucus and Fowler outright. Get them on record as to whether they did or didn’t share this during construction with KStreet/industry. Get them on record, then see if they told truth.
Speaking of Rugby, has anyone seen Looseheadprop?
Yes.
Where is LHP?
It seems a very long time since I’ve seen her moniker.
DW
Yeah does she have a new handle?
The Congress is back in session and doing the dirty work for the Medical Industrial Complex.
mcconnell $3.3M, hatch $2.9M, baucus $2.8M, grassley $2.7M,
lieberman $2.6M, burr $2.4M, ensign $2.4M, cornyn $2.2M, kyl $2.1M,
conrad $2.1M, cantor $1.8M boehner $1.7M, coburn $1.2M were
paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform.
Follow the Money: Link
Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!
Sign Single-Payer Petition: Link
Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.
SEMPER FI!
“Not surprisingly, but I have not seen it here.”
So Gibbs just admitted that K Street is running the Republic.. and not his boss? He accepts that it is acceptable that lobbyists get copies of the result of the most important legislative negotiation of our era DAYS before the White House does? Wow. I guess we learn something new every day. Now tell me please: just who is running this country?
I think Chuck Todd thought that Gibbs was saying the media leaked the proposal to the lobbyists, but Gibbs didn’t say that.
Also, it’s inconceivable that people in the White House, and their cut out, who have been working with Baucus, were not aware of or receive the proposals. The idea the WH only read about it in the media is preposterous.
Another republican sex scandal. Spanking even! Orange County, CA.
Chuck Todd voluntarily had his brain scooped out with a melon baller and had the void filled with a one pound turd from consortium of lobbyists.
What a tool.
-G
reminds me so much of an honor society kid, the one none of the others liked because he was obnoxious to us and obsequious to the advisor
thanks for this EW, missed it yesterday
Rahm also needs to understand that we did not vote for him. His ideas of how to run this ship is not even a life preserver.
Just sent one of my frequent e-mails to the WH. Told them they were a joke and that Baucus and the Blue Dogs were running things. I asked if anyone there was in charge.
Good! I wish you had asked if the President has a Communications team set up. They seem to be AWOL!
If Obama doesn’t kick Baucus to the curb now, then he never will.
Max Baucus is turning out to be the moral equivalent of Bernie Madoff. Both ruined a lot of people for personal enrichment. Max’s actions leave a lot of people sick, suffering and bankrupt. Bernie just left his folks bankrupt. Perhaps Max is even worse than Bernie.
Help me out here: Is Baucus really this whorey and arrogant? Is Chuck Tool…excuse me, Chuck Todd really this stupid and…um…tooley? I mean…this stuff is getting way out on the raggedy edge…
To answer your questions, yes and yes.
The French Beard AKA
FuckChuck Wad is bought and paid for, like Ed Henry, Chip Reid, Major Garrett, etc. …Yes, Yes, and indeed it is.
If Glen Beck was able to force Van Jones to resign what would it take to get Chuck Todd to do the same?
After all I’ve read on the health care issue including Matt Taibbi’s article “Sick and Wrong” it sounds like we’ll be getting a bill that could have George W’s name on it instead of BO.
The media isn’t helping. They continue the shell game by focusing on the “controvery” of a public plan. There’s nothing controversial about a program like Medicare. What should really be considered controversial is the unprecedented plan to force citizens to purchase a product from a private company. There is absolutely nothing “free-market” about a mandate.
The media is also covering opposition to healthcare reform in a way that implies that all opposition is to the public plan. In reality half the opposition is from people who want single-payer or, at minimum, a public plan option.
Todd was spewing his uber insider village wizzdom last night on Charlie Rose. Clutching the First Amendment, corporate media has its long knives out against the republic.
Journalism has moved up to become the second oldest profession.
the outing, it worked
per TPM
Shorter Max: “I don’t need them Repugs to screw my fellow Dems !”
Jason Rosenbaum’s has a new cross-post up on FDL’s front page: “Obama, Lieberman Express Support for Triggers”
GIBBS: I was told that — that K Street had a copy of the Baucus plan, meaning, not surprisingly, the special interests have gotten a copy of the plan that I understand was given to committee members today.
Close but in need of further decoding. The special interests wrote the original and sent the Gang of Six a courtesy copy.
BINGO.
This is quite possibly closer to reality, imo. Fowler just got rehired after 2 years Wellpoint VP-marketing. She is naturally going to be talking to a ton of those folks. To clearly draw the line connecting those dots really undercuts the senate bill.
iow, yeah, there’s a distribution list, but whose is it–k street’s, or Baucus’?