Thank you - Jon Stewart!

Too late for Jon to throw his hat in the ring?


Morganna said:
Too late for Jon to throw his hat in the ring?

 He should primary challenge Menendez


Red_Barchetta said:
 He should primary challenge Menendez

 Great idea.


Way to go Jon! Honestly I am so amazed that this has to happen in this day and age in this country. 

In any other modern democracy, everyone is covered for all conditions, all the time, in a cheaper high quality system, without having to help out in disasters for free and beg for promised help.

Why are so many Americans so gullible to not recognize their health system is a huge scam? 


Great job on a very important issue.  I would like to see a list of all the Congress members who were too busy to attend the hearing.  


A different, and illuminating, take. I might have to revoke my last post.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2019/06/11/jon-stewart-is-an-unsupervised-child-playing-with-a-loaded-gun/

If you haven’t seen or heard about it yet, earlier today Jon Stewart, on behalf of ill 9-11 first responders, threw a temper tantrum in front of the cameras during a House subcommittee hearing. Specifically the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. This subcommittee, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, has fourteen members: 8 Democrats and 6 Republicans. And in today’s meeting Congressman Nadler, who is an ex-officio member as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, was also sitting in. At the point that Stewart decided to pitch his fit during his opening remarks about there being an “empty Congress”, seven of the subcommittee members were in the room. Though you could only see six of them in the video because of how the cameras were angled. The subcommittee meets in the same chambers as the full House Judiciary Committee, so even if everyone was there, the dais at the front of the room where the members of the subcommittee sit would look somewhere around 2/3 empty as there are 41 members of the full Judiciary Committee.

If Stewart did not know or did not understand that this was the case, then he’s a moron. More likely, he knew, understood the optics, and used them to gin up outrage. Stewart knew, was counting on, and was not disappointed that 1) it won’t be initially reported that this was a 14 member subcommittee and 2) most Americans will neither know, nor understand that this is why, despite at least half the subcommittee members actually being in attendance at the time he was ranting, most of the seats on the dais are empty.

The House is going to pass the extension without an issue. With an actual large numbers of votes from members of both parties. The vote to move it out of the Judiciary Committee is actually scheduled for tomorrow and it will pass there, and then the full House in short order, with significant bipartisan support. But once it does, it has to go across the Capitol to the Senate. Stewart knows, and if he doesn’t, then he should, that the problem isn’t the House or its Democratic majority. Rather it’s the McConnell controlled, GOP majority Senate. Should Senator McConnell deign to allow this to move forward, given he’s bottled up everything else the House has passed, he’s likely to demand ransom to do so. Why? Because he watched how Stewart manipulated the news media today to hammer the Democrats running the House of Representatives for failing to take care of 9-11 first responders who are ill because of their service on 9-11. Senator McConnell also knows that if he does nothing, because there isn’t going to be an equivalent hearing in the Senate to produce equally negative publicity, that he and his GOP majority in the Senate will take no blame. And because he knows that if it fails, Stewart will simply rebroadcast today’s video, the news media will follow like lemmings, and he’ll have made this a problem for Democrats going into a presidential election year where his Republican senators are defending more seats than the Senate Democrats are in 2020. Senator McConnell already had too much leverage and Stewart’s tantrum today simply gave him more.

Steve Cohen, who chairs the subcommittee, should have stopped Stewart, cut his mic if necessary, and explained that 1) this is a subcommittee with only 14 members, 2) as is standard procedure, subcommittee members would be in and out throughout the hearing as they had to do business, including taking votes in other committees and subcommittees (the ranking member actually did this at one point), and 3) Stewart could demagogue or the subcommittee could do the important business that Stewart wants them to do, but they could not and would not do both.

I appreciate Stewart’s passion. I understand why he’s angry. From his perspective even five year reauthorizations are a potential hindrance and failure to do right by the ill 9-11 first responders. But what he did today didn’t actually do anything to advance the cause he’s fighting for. It did make it easier for Senator McConnell to claim another scalp. Stewart’s bothsiderism served him, those for whom he’s advocating, and the Republic poorly today.



drummerboy said:
A different, and illuminating, take. I might have to revoke my last post.

Silverman says: The bill is going to pass anyway, and many of those seats were empty for good reason. 

The first observation is beside the point if, as Silverman later claims he understands, what makes Stewart angry is that “even five year authorizations are a potential hindrance and failure to do right by the ill 9-11 first responders.” 

The second suggests that the first responders should have been satisfied with half attendance to hear them out, and that Stewart was out of line to use the extra empty seats as a metaphor to emphasize their frustration. I don’t know about you, drummerboy, but that bothers me less than the gratuitous description of Stewart’s testimony as a “temper tantrum” and “ranting.” I’ll take Silverman’s umbrage for what it’s worth.

Silverman concludes, “But what he did today didn’t actually do anything to advance the cause he’s fighting for.” As I understand it, that cause is not reauthorization.


Your last paragraph confuses me. "that cause is not reauthorization"?

Anyway, Silverman's main point, as I read it, is that Stewart completely ignores the major hindrance to passage, which is the Senate, and implies that this committee is the problem, when it clearly is not.  He might have spent some time praising the House for their expected passage, rather than imply that all of Congress was to blame.


Stewart, while I love the guy, does have a tendency to dwell in a false both-siderism, which I don't think is a useful attitude.


drummerboy said:
Your last paragraph confuses me. "that cause is not reauthorization"?

The responders and Stewart want a long-term fund, not funding that requires congressional authorization like this every five years. 

ETA: So he can take for granted everything that Silverman does and still be waging a different battle.


DaveSchmidt said:


drummerboy said:
Your last paragraph confuses me. "that cause is not reauthorization"?
The responders and Stewart want a long-term fund, not funding that requires congressional authorization like this every five years. 
ETA: So he can take for granted everything that Silverman does and still be waging a different battle.

Yeah, but the takeaway from his testimony, at least the parts that were aired in the OP clip, was not that he wanted to change to a permanent fund. The takeaway, clearly, was that the re-authorization is at risk.

Was that aspect even raised in the clip? I just re-watched, and the 5-year re-auth was very briefly mentioned in passing, but went by so fast that most people watching (including me) would have no clue what he was talking about.


this re-analysis is dumb. The fact that the fund was ever supposed to end was horrible. The fact that this has had to be a fight a few times/every few years is disgusting. Anyone or anything that calls angry attention to this issue is doing right by our 9/11 heroes.


drummerboy said:
Yeah, but the takeaway from his testimony, at least the parts that were aired in the OP clip, was not that he wanted to change to a permanent fund. The takeaway, clearly, was that the re-authorization is at risk.

Was that aspect even raised in the clip? I just re-watched, and the 5-year re-auth was very briefly mentioned in passing, but went by so fast that most people watching (including me) would have no clue what he was talking about.

 

"And the idea that you can give them only five more years of the VCF because you’re not quite sure what’s gonna happen five years from now. Well, I can tell you, I’m pretty sure what’s going to happen five years from now. More of these men and women are going to get sick and they are going to die."


ridski said:
 
"And the idea that you can give them only five more years of the VCF because you’re not quite sure what’s gonna happen five years from now. Well, I can tell you, I’m pretty sure what’s going to happen five years from now. More of these men and women are going to get sick and they are going to die."

While annoying, the fact that it is re-authorized every five years shouldn't have any effect , right? The program has been in effect ever since it was first proposed, hasn't it?

I don't disagree with his point, but as a practical matter, does it make any difference?

Anyway, it seems to me the time to fight for a more permanent fund is not when the re-authorization is coming up. It just confuses the issue.  As has happened now.


I don't know if Silverman watched the whole thing... or just the highlight clips shown in the news.

Jon Stewart also used his time to point out that this process, including the delays and lies before finally admitting the 9/11 first responders had health issues related to the "pile", was shameful. It's emblematic of the healthcare system we have.



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