AHHHH. 14-9. So long, terrible Senate Finance Committee! Back to your cornfields, Grassley! Back to your barbwired condo in Hell, Baucus! Back to whatever there is in Wyoming, Enzi! HAHAHAHH– oh god, they have to draft and pass a climate change bill too, don’t they? RATS. As far as health care goes, though: congratulations! Now, after eight months, our beloved bicameral legislature can move on to Step 2. “Step 2,” hopefully, is where they make it a not-shitty bill. This task belongs to… Harry Reid! NEAT. [YouTube, Washington Post]

Olympia Snowe is going to vote “yea” on health care reform today! She may not vote for it later, or she may use her leverage to gut it even further, or she may get sick of it all and pop off to Tijuana for some junk, who knows! But as of now, the Democratic leadership is ecstatic to have this single Republican vote out of 40. (Can you believe how stupid they think we are? They are doing anything to have this ONE Republican vote so as to refer to it as a “Bipartisan” bill. That’s their actual plan. “Oh look there are Democrats and Republicans for this bill!” “Yeah, one Republican, and she’s a communist.” “Hey shut up, blogger in your pajama pants!” “Unnecessary, Harry Reid. Unnecessary.” etc.) What else? Max Baucus? He’s being insufferable. MORE »

Holy baloney it’s 10:00 a.m.! The Senate Finance Committee will now meet for perhaps (hopefully!) the last time, ever. First, a lil’ testimony, a lil’ CBO Director Doug Elmendorf action. Fap? He could say anything! Then: Chuck Grassley fires a rocket out of his ass. Oh boy. Then some other shit. THEN: the big vote, to finally get this bill out of committee, where it has been since the Fillmore administration. WHAT WILL OLYMPIA SNOWE DO? Oh my god. Oh my god. Here’s the live feed, for nerds. No liveblogging just now, but maybe later? (Don’t hold your breath.) [MSNBC]

• Herta Muller, the famed rather depressing Teutonic authoress, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. [New York Times]
• Hooray, the Senate Finance Committee has approved the most recent health care bill, which means it could be sent to the Senate floor by the end of the month! [New York Times]
• Pakistan would rather the U.S. not interfere in its new civilian government actually, even if this would mean the U.S. would send along literally $8 billion in aid. [Washington Post]
• End-timesily, there have been four earthquakes in the past 11 hours in the South Pacific today. [CNN]
• Fall shopping was not such a hit this year it turns out, and it’s looking like most stores will be reporting declines. [AP]
• “Royal Mail” employees in England are THISCLOSE to striking after losing a contract with Amazon. Amazon loses things all the time though! [Guardian]

Our dear friends in the Senate Finance Committee have voted down the Schumer/Cantwell “less cool but still cool” public option amendment as well, 13-10 (Dems voting no: Baucus, Conrad, Lincoln), so there will officially (we think?) not be a public option in the Senate Finance Committee bill. SURPRISE. MORE »

• ROCKEFELLER’S PUBLIC OPTION GOES DOWN: It’s “public option amendment day” in the Senate Finance Committee’s markup of the evil Baucus Bill, and oh look at this, Jay Rockefeller’s amendment for a strong public option with reimbursement rates tied to those of Medicare… is dead. It was voted down 15-8. Democrats voting no: Baucus, Carper, Conrad, Lincoln, Nelson. Now they’re taking up Chuck Schumer’s amendment, which isn’t as strong, but still: public option! [Washington Post]

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! MORE »

Alec MacGillis of the Washington Post, you are one brave blogger, and a service to the Republic! Yes, the Senate Finance Committee is slowly working its way through 500 amendments and 500,000 opening speeches today on its terrible health care bill. How’s it going? Oh look, Chuck Grassley is being an ass, weird: “He acknowledged that the bill did not include a government-run insurance option, but raised the specter that might yet lie in the future and lead the U.S. in the direction of Europe, where ‘countries have inevitably turned to government imposed rationing to control costs.’” Ha ha, “raised the specter”/”Europe” — this is one sassy markup liveblog, MMHMM. [Washington Post]

It’s Christmas in the Senate Finance Committee! Max Baucus has crafted his latest proposal for bipartisan health care reform by doing what responsible centrists always do: lopping off a random $100 billion from the price tag and declaring, “this is bipartisan, now.” It features all sorts of lovely concessions on significant planks of the earlier bills: it lowers the expansion of Medicaid, caps the employer health care tax exemption, drops the public option (and its slave, the Trigger), and LITERALLY WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TO BE ALIVE. In return for these concessions Max Baucus received such kind words from Mike Enzi and Chuck Grassley as, “Fuck you Max,” “Fuck your stupid bill Max,” and “Die, Max Baucus.” MORE »

Senator Max Baucus, the other vampire squid from Hell, runs the Senate finance committee when he isn’t sharing pâté made from the livers of dead cancer victims with all of his good friends in the health insurance industry. Some people simply do not care for this Max Baucus, with his lobbyist-whoring and foot-dragging and complete disregard for fellow Democrats when it comes to drafting acceptable health care reform legislation in his committee. So “these people” ( = his colleagues) have come up with a Plan to drive the ancient demon from his lair forever. MORE »

Benny Hinn, pictured, became the latest super-rich and shady televangelist to tell the Senate Finance Committee to go fuck themselves today and keep their collective noses out of his church’s totally clean financial records. A month ago, Finance Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley sent Hinn and 6 other creepy dudes a lengthy questionnaire probing their finances to determine whether they were inappropriately enriching themselves through their “nonprofit” religious work. Only one church, Joyce Meyer Ministries, provided the information while Creflo Dollar of World Changers Church International told Grassley to get a subpoena or shove it. Benny wasn’t quite so rude, it’s just that with Christmas coming he’s so busy making money off his parishioners he can’t adequately respond until next year. [Yahoo News]