Wonkette
You may have noticed by now that your editor has a serious obsession with old dingbat Chuck Grassley and finds everything he does hilarious; sorry if you do not feel the same way. But just look at this guy! What IS it? Something to do with the fact that this barking, illiterate curmudgeon, who sleeps in an oversized cornhusk behind a maintenance door in the Third Street Tunnel, is STILL a leading negotiator on Health Care Reform. Take a guess what he was wheezing about during today’s crucial Finance Committee markup. Just take a guess. Now watch the clip. Oh, that’s right, blah blah blah, some Mexican or another might still get medical attention under the current legislation, harumph, and what about those Indians, harumph harumph harumph… IN OTHER NEWS: Max Baucus got into a fight with CBO Director Doug Elmendorf, you guys!
From the single most exciting live webpage on the Internet today, the Washington Post’s liveblog of this boring boring boring markup, we learn that Max Baucus — who has spent the last eight months in his role as chief health care guy fiddling with his dick and collecting health insurance company/Big Pharma donations up the wazoo, all the while begging Obama for more freaking time to reach a compromise with Chuck Grassley, who, as noted above, IS NOT MENTALLY FIT TO EVEN LEAVE HIS HOUSE — is mad at CBO director Doug Elmendorf for not having scored all 750 million-billion bills and amendments in the 14 total seconds his staff has had to look over them.
Things got a bit heated just now in the hearing room, generated from an unlikely source: the by-the-numbers, just-the-facts-ma’am director of the Congressional Budget Office, Doug Elmendorf. Asked by Olympia Snowe how many people the CBO was estimating would pay a penalty instead of buy health insurance, Elmendorf said he did not have the estimate handy, and went on to say that his office had been overwhelmed with work in the past few days. Faced with 500 proposed amendments to score, he said, his staff had not been able to analyze all of the modifications that Baucus had already made to the bill in recent days.
This did not sit to well with Baucus, who in increasingly testy tones made clear that the CBO better analyze the modified bill as it now stands as soon as it can, even if it means moving more quickly through the proposed amendments and dispatching of the ones that seem less pressing. “We urge you with all speed” to produce a final cost estimate of the revised bill, Baucus said. “I can’t overemphasize this enough.”
This rubbed the earnest Elmendorf the wrong way. He noted that his office had responded to countless requests from Baucus and other senators in the past 48 hours. “We’ve turned around a vast amount of material for you, but there are limits,” he said. He added, as if comparing the work of the CBO to driving a car or flying a plane, that there are “maximum limits of safe speed” that the CBO can work at before it imperils the quality of its analyses. “We’re not sitting around chewing things over.”
Baucus was unimpressed, noting again that the CBO had done “very little analysis” on his own modifications to the bill.
Jesus, Max Baucus! After all, if the CBO moved through this pile of work at “Max Baucus Speed,” they would just never finish, because global warming and/or the long-prophesied coup led by Trig Palin’s Clone Army is expected to kill us all by 2024, at the latest.
Liveblogging the Senate Finance Markup [WP]
Negotiator, Jim? NEGOTIATOR?!
Something tells me an army of Trig Palin clones would be, well, affable, and somewhat sweet. Also, you could distract them with cookies and cartoons.
I’m not ascared of them.
next time i want to knock myself out, i won’t listen to a minute-twenty-two of chuck grassley, i’ll just knock back a few shots of everclear, it’ll be more fun. way way way more fun.
“I can’t overemphasize this enough.”
Baucus is really dumb.
Grassley may seem extra dull-witted, but I live next to the Hawkeye State, and he’s typical - you can take my word for it.
Mexicans do most of the real work in Iowa. Maybe Mexicans can read all these bill for our congresscritters.
user-of-owls: Negotiator? I barely knew her.
germansteel: We smart Iowans have to leave to find work, which is why I’ve been teaching English in China for the last 12 years.
Zhu Bajie, Iowan in China
Make all these asshats go away.
liveblog it Jim! you know you want to. If only to listen to Hungry Chuck Grassley.
Jesus Fuck that was boring.
Grassley vs. Baucus — so it’s come to this — the biggest fight in the healthcare debate is between the faction that wants to kill it by pretending to be in favor of it vs. the faction that wants to kill it by being against it. Some days I feel like the acid hasn’t worn off yet.
donner_froh: He missed his calling as a football commentator. On Sunday I heard Dan Dierdorf refer to a player as “”he whose future has yet to be unfolded.”
user-of-owls: WIN.
And after Newell left us alone with David Brooks all weekend . . . .
Oh I get it…the CBO wants to do a good job and not turn out just anything…don’t they know they work in Washington DC for Pete’s sakes and when in Rome (or DC) do as the Senators and congress people do and turn out a bunch of crap that is meaningless? I think they hired the wrong people for the CBO.
SayItWithWookies: Nicely put.
“This did not sit to well with Baucus, who in increasingly testy tones…”
I’m naming my next band “Montana Max and the Testes Tones”, and our first album—Baucus-a-Cock-Us—will feature dramatic readings in Spanish of the Finance Committee markup, set to down-tempo blue grass music played on a rusty Fisher-Price xylophone with a clown’s semi-erect penis.
Elected ruminant Chuck Grassley refused today to startle his dull-eyed constituents and instead chewed the same familiar cud the country has come to associate with the senator.
Jesus. F*ing. Christ.
Was that a minute and 22 seconds in base 12? base 24?
I don’t know if the math works, but you get my drift. Stupid liberal arts degree.
Extemporanus: Ooh, ooh! Sock puppets too?? Please?!
SayItWithWookies: Got those Deep Elmendorf Blues?
Chuck Grassley: “I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill because it sucks; and I should know, I wrote it.”
Extemporanus: Hopefully that release will be shortly followed by Chuck and the Indian Identity Thieves’ new album, The Grassley is Always Greener (on the dark side of the aisle).
All we need is to let the Free Market settle this. After all, the Free Market got us into it.
Single payer. Single payer. Single payer.
There was a time a decade or three ago when Grassley wasn’t a complete tool. Then the Alzheimers took over. I’m serious BTW.
I have just unearthed Chuck Grassley’s longform birth certificado, and it reveals that his birth name is none other than CARLITO DEL CESPED!!!!!!!!!! He is hereby a dirty messicun, much dirtier than Bill “Anglo Surname” Richardson and shall be tossed out on his oreja ¡AHORA MÍSMO!
Extemporanus:
You leave Al Frankin’s dick out of this!
TeddyS: at first i read that as “single prayer” and thought, hey, there’s the plan, maybe that one will work.
TeddyS: The free market solves all; unless its health care reform, then the free market is the imminent threat to destroy private industry.
donner_froh: parsing(I can’t overemphasize this enough) …
… negation of(excess of(sufficiency)) = ?…
grind grind whirrr …
[ABORT]
zhubajie: Reminds me of when the South Park kids tried to hire the Messcans to write their essays. In return they all got letters to Esse.
Tommmcatt: I’m sorry, I should’ve been more specific.
I meant to say “with a rodeo clown’s semi-erect penis.”
Max Baucus finds competence threatening.
Keep fucking that chickenhawk, Max.
pedestrian rage: Nuthin wrong with your mathematical intuition there. If only Grassley would use his time dilation powers for good!
Well, keep in mind that “primary care” in Montana means a veterinarian at the truck stop and chiropractors have said they will roast ol Max’s butt unless he gets them covered under Medicare– and neither group would be recognized under a “public option.”
As for Grassley, he’s afraid his kids will convene a death panel and pull his plug. On his pacemaker.
Dear Max:
Eat a large bag of deep-fried incompetent CBO dicks. Kthxbai.
Look, it’s obvious. What this country needs is a benevolent dictator. Fuck Congress and their enablers to Hay-ell. Put O’Bammy in charge for life and let’s get this shit done already. Also, death panels-a-go-go for all old Repugs and reeducation camps for the redeemable, if any. There! Problem solved. [dusts hands off]
There are rumors from an unnamed source that Baucus beat an old lady to death in 2008 for Chuck Grassley. We know these rumors are false, but he still hasn’t denied them, so who knows?
And still no one in the Senate can adequately explain why republicans are allowed any voice at all in the making of this bill they will all vote against. I’m gonna check out the live sausage-making blog. It’s much less messy.
Remember kids, the Chinese invasion of Alaska doesn’t begin until 2077. Pay attention to your Pip-Boy’s people!
Trig Palin’s Clone Army is a great name for a rock band.
Boo hoo. Some people in Iowa don’t LIKE the charming Mr. Grassley any more.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/health-care-is-hazardous-to-poll.html
Maria Bartoromo is masturbating to the Grassley video right now.
FYI: Big Pharma is in fact in favor of health care reform, because they figure even if reform ends up lowering prices for meds, they will still have many more people who can now purchase drugs.
Countdown to reconciliation, Max!
Maybe the CBO should outsource its work to lobbyists, like some people do.
Thank you, Max, for this health care bill death-spiral. Concede as much as you want, the Repugs won’t vote for it.
You sound like an abused wife, “If only I had been more sensitive to what Chuck wanted, he wouldn’t have beaten me as much. All my fault.”
Vous dégoûtez.
God, someone accidentally left the microphone in front of the second most boring man from Iowa. I’m going to check out Orly’s homepage. OOH! Lot’s of new updates, poorly formatted and not proofread!!
user-of-owls:
Negotiatrix
Grassley is as much a negotiator as a U-boat captain is in attacking a convoy.
NYNYNY: “Poorly formatted” — you’re being too kind. And there are plenty of references to a certain “Miss Tickley”. Asks more questions than it answers.
zhubajie: Definitely, the CBO needs more illegal Mexicans, if they had been adequately staffed with illegals, they’d have had those amendments marked up before they were even proposed. In fact, we should look at replacing the entire Congress with 600 odd illegal Mexicans chosen from the housekeeping and food preparation industries nation wide.
I may not know politics but I do know my way around illegal Mexicans and if we took that route we’d have health care, cap and trade, a productive strategy in Afghanistan as well as a balanced budget (’cause there is nothing an illegal Mexican can’t do with $50 and two of his buddies).
Let’s sell the Anglos to the Chinese for parts and import more of those energetic brown fellows…here! here!
slappypaddy:
As said at the Values Voters Conference last weekend, it’s the Single Prayer’s Plan.
Thank you, thank you. You’ve been a fantastic audience. Fantastic. No, really. Honest. Next show at 11. Remember to tip your waitress and try the veal.
zhubajie: Not in the repitilain, anti-free market, Death Star, socialist, Marxist clutch of universal health care, I see. So far, despite all hopes, me too.
Peggington Nooninghamshire making the usual douche of herself on Stewart’s show was worth the watching tonight…
No wonder this health care bill is so idiotic. The jackasses are clueless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w86QhV7whjs&feature=PlayList&p=1079FEAA5E8AB9C2&index=14&playnext=3&playnext_from=PL
OBVIOUSLY.
Oh and I highly recommend the 7 minute mark— Grassley knows all about it.
user-of-owls: win
user-of-owls: Elected ruminant. Maybe it is my midwestern lineage and upbringing because that one is so apt. I’m stealing it. Henceforth I will refer to Chuck Grassley as “elected ruminant Chuck Grassley.” I have a feeling it can be applied to a number of other members of congress.
shortsshortsshorts: If you were a producer for FOX, your opening at 10 p.m. would be –
MALE HOST: “U.S. Senator Max Baucus has not denied that he beat an old lady to death for his colleague Chuck Grassley. Rumors of the heinous bipartisan murder are, however, being spread by Democrats — tying it to the death panels they have already convened in Montana and Iowa. Baucus and Grassley have also refused to comment on their relationship with Trig Palin’s Clone Army. But the army is reported to be gathering on Montana’s north border, ready to respond to other expected killings. We’ll have more on this at eleven. Back to you, [insert name of bubble blonde of the hour].
FEMALE VOICE: How many children does Sarah Palin have to sacrifice to save our nation from Socialism, [insert name of male host]? Hasn’t she suffered enough?
zhubajie: Hey, we have something in common. I’m an Iowan who’s been teaching English in Prague for 10 years.
“this barking, illiterate curmudgeon, who sleeps in an oversized cornhusk behind a maintenance door in the Third Street Tunnel”
Would that Grassley did anything so interesting. He’s just another routine corruptoid, which is why he’s hanging out in DC. Iowa is not the place for big bux.
you cannot be serious: Well, college essays (at least in Business) are outsourced to China! I’ve been asked recently to fix the spelling of one of these excretions. Pay includes an evening at a “happy” sauna.
Mr. Herpes: No faith healers? I always remember a poster I saw once in Indiana, listing the local witch doctors, faith healers, etc. “Good Enough For Poor People” was the final line.
bago: Nobody in China wants to invade Siberia, let alone Alaska. I live Manchuria,just south of S., and my students all fantasize about Shanghai or Hong Kong. California, for the would-be immigrants.
gurukalehuru: e-mail me at zhubajie12@gmail.com if you like.
“zhubajie: Not in the repitilain, anti-free market, Death Star, socialist, Marxist clutch of universal health care, I see. So far, despite all hopes, me too.”
China, when it was really communist, did have universal health care of a basic sort. That’s why the population has grown, in spite of things like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Rev., etc. Then, when the regime went pretend-communist (about 1979 on), the village health care system was allowed to disappear. (Village education system, too.) Health care now is pay as you go, “because that’s what they do in America!” Very recently, the national leaders have promised to bring back basic universal care, because the 800 million peasants are getting very p.o.’d, and nothing frightens the leaders like the ideas of real commies coming back to power.
Max B., you won’t like Jim when he’s angry.
~
Grassley: I don’t like this Bill because it does not require IRS and Social Security Administration to verify eligibility. Also big government should not come between me and my health care!
Nice of Max to be in a hurry all of a sudden, isn’t it?
Asshat!!11!
Aargh Blaargh!!!! As a pediatrician who serves a community of immigrants, both legal and illegal, I can say with certainty that these cumbersome mechanisms to verify legal status manage to keep far more legitimately eligible people from getting health insurance than they uncover illegals trying to scam the system. The illegals are so afraid of being sent to jail to await deportation (without even being allowed to say goodbye to their kids first) that they don’t dare try to present fake documents. Plus, it costs a shitload of money to hire people to verify all the documents. Grassley is an assley.
Dude, if I were Elmendorf, I would go back to the office and chuck all of Baucus’ requests.
“Well, you did tell me to prioritize, didn’t you, fucknugget? That’s me. Prioritizing.”
Easy solution: just take away the Indian’s bang-bang sticks and fire water if they don’t comply.
Max Baucus is a whore for the insurance companies. That is all.
Grassley is hilarous. I can’t get enough of that guy.