Here We Go Again

Conditions: Very nice

Revenge

Now that the American voting public, in all their wisdom, have voted the Republicans back into control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans are quickly looking to re-establish themselves on the scene. Target number one: Obama's health-care package that was (just) put together thanks to the slim majority the Democrats had at the time.

Washington - In a symbolic show of opposition, resurgent House Republicans are eyeing an early up-or-down vote to repeal the Obama administration's health care overhaul, though a successful overturn of the controversial measure is well beyond their reach.

Even if a proposal passes the soon-to-be GOP-controlled House of Representatives, it's unlikely to go any further, considering the Democrats' control of the Senate and President Barack Obama's power to veto legislation.

But with many of the law's provisions years away from implementation, the GOP can use its new House majority to slow the measure's funding and progress through a gantlet of congressional hearings, investigations, aggressive oversight and legislative delays. A conservative commentator called the guerrilla warfare-like tactic "defund, delay and debunk."

The real value of the House vote is to show disgruntled voters that GOP lawmakers haven't conceded defeat on the president's signature domestic-policy triumph, said James Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

But of course with a democratic president still in place the Republicans cannot kill the bill, yet. But 2012 is just around the corner, and you know the Republicans love playing the long game.

Tevi Troy, a Republican health strategist and visiting senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, cautioned eager Republicans against changing many unpopular portions of the law. He said the revisions would make the measure more palatable to the public and consequently dampen desire to see the law overturned in 2012.

Capretta said Republicans should resist the temptation to go it alone on opposing the health law. He urged them to court centrist and conservative Democrats who could be vulnerable in the 2012 elections.

- truth-out.org/

So here we go again, the Republicans are using a big controversial and complicated thing to position themselves as the father of the nation, who will take care of everything once they're back in power again. Almost has a sad sense of inevitability about it.



Film Review: RED

Which stands for Retired and Extremely Dangerous. RED is an old fashioned kind of comedy action film about old retired CIA agents who have to come out of retirement because the CIA is trying to kill them. It's headed by Bruce Willis, and also stars Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren. I was a little concerned this was going to be another sad-Willis film like, you know, all his recent movies. And to a certain extent it is. I mean, this one is a lot more fun than most of Willis's movies of the past decade, but it still features him as the straight man of the movie, one that everyone else gets to riff off of. I miss that zany Willis who laughed at his own jokes.

But despite that it does turn into a very fun ride, breathlessly racing from location to location. The heart of the film is the burgeoning romance between Willis and Mary Louise Parker, a phone operator for the pension plan Willis was signed up to. Naturally she is dragged into all the chaos. An interesting twist the the Karl Urban character, the CIA operative charged with killing the retired ones. He actually comes across as more of a human being as the film goes along, and the fight sequence he has with Willis in the middle of the film is just awesome. And there is a plot to uncover, lest you think it's all just shootouts and one liners.

So what is this film. It's funny, it's fairly brutal, it's sweet and interesting. It also features Helen Mirren firing a gigantic field gun at a squad of secret service men, and a cameo from Ernest Borgnine. It's actually directed pretty well too, with no throwaway shaky cam garbage at all, and characters you can actually care about. All in all a fun time at the movies. Four pigs out of Five.


- Peace out