Evan Dawson at 13-WHAM interviewed Eric Massa this morning.
What's old: Massa is still planning to vote against the current incarnation of the healthcare bill.
What's new: Massa's calling for a pullout from Afghanistan, a "sinkhole of a country" with elections that are "at best, a farce". Evan also embedded one of Massa's floor speeches that lays out his opposition to continuation of the war.
Comments
If Massa votes no on Saturday and doesn't have to vote again, that would be a hundred times bigger than anything he has to say about Afghanistan when it comes to election day. Though I have my doubts that the bill will pass if someone like Massa, who isn't even a Blue Dog, isn't on board. And *something* will pass the house in this term. Bottom line is that if Reed doesn't have a healthcare "yes" vote to club Massa with, that makes his job a lot harder.
I think we're still seeing the sausage being made, and Massa's "no" vote is to try to get a better bill. My guess is that Massa will vote for some form of the healthcare bill, but that's just a guess.
Also, agree that Afghanistan will not be a major issue. I think the election has opened a lot of people's eyes about the wisdom of supporting the Karzai government.
We're still in Afghanistan? I thought Obama was bringing all the troops home?
BTW - I think it is funny that after almost a year, Obama still comes up as a misspelling.
That was Iraq. Afghanistan was the "good war".
(You need to get a newer version of your browser - "Obama" works in mine.)
You were right - I updated Firefox and now all is well
His DC phone was busy this afternoon, and the lady at his Corning office said he's still against the bill. I'm afraid that while he can justify his opposition as being principled, it looks suspiciously like a move to boost his cred with the conservatives in the 29th.
If he thinks that no bill is better than this one, or that a better bill (more like Medicare for all, as he's suggested) can come out of the House, given what is going on in the Senate, then he must know something that no one else knows. The incremental approach that he recommends favors the insiders and the well-healed lobbies, since the focus of the public will likely be elsewhere, when piecemeal the votes are taken.
I agree that the incremental approach will die in a morass of lobbying.
I'm more on the side of passing something rather than nothing.
Also, on the "conservative cred" point, I think that's a pointless exercise. Those who are hard-core against the healthcare bill have a number of other positions that are much closer to Tom Reed's way of thinking than Eric Massa's.
I'm disgusted by Massa's plans to vote no. It is simply a betrayal of the people who elected him to office. Time to find an actual Democrat (with integrity this time) to represent the 29th.