To put it mildly, Alexander Palmer — Vice Chair of the Norfolk City Democratic Committee and Vice President of the Norfolk Area Young Democrats — is not pleased with Glenn Nye these days. From Palmer’s Facebook page (with his permission):

Glenn Nye’s campaign rep came to the NCDC last night to basically tell us Nye was voting against health care bill……..you should have heard the grumbles from the committee, he’s alienating his base, hope these moderates he’s mysteriously courting come out and canvass for him, because the activist base is staying home.

…maybe Nye could stop worrying more about his re-election and worry more about the people who elected him to serve them. I’m uninsured, health care is currently out of my reach. In my opinion, he’s part of the problem we have in Washington, he took $125,000 from the health insurance industry, the Chamber of Commerce makes commercials on his behalf, honestly when it counts the most, he votes the same way Riegel or Drake would vote, its disappointing.

Then his campaign rep is going to turn around and ask people to collect petitions for Nye, practically everybody said that if Nye voted their way on health care they would collect some for him, if not, they could forget it. This is only the start of what his campaign can expects from us good Democrats come election time.

Palmer then receives a message from Jonas Courey of the Nye campaign, asking, “Should I thank you in advance for helping elect Scott (Cuccinelli) Rigell? :):)” Palmer replies:

hey, I’m just being honest with you Jonas, I’m in politics for the issues, not the people, if Nye is more interested in re-election than he is principle, than I’d rather have somebody else. I’m tired of career politicians putting their re-election ahead of personal conviction, its the problem with Washington. At least with Rigell we know what we’re getting, its unfortunate about Nye, I thought finally we’d get an ally from the 2nd….that wasn’t that case.

Yeah, it’s getting rough down in the 2nd CD for freshman Rep. Nye. But the thing is, all Glenn Nye has to do in order to turn that situation around is to vote YES on health care reform legislation. If he does, as I’ve said previously, I will do what I can for his reelection. If he doesn’t, well then, let’s just say I’ve got a lot better things to do with my time (dust the house, wash the car, take a nap, etc.).

UPDATE: Palmer adds, “I hope Nye has the courage to do what is right and vote in favor of this legislation, it would mean a lot to me, and thousands of uninsured in the 2nd. Do what’s right Glenn, vote for us!” I agree 100%.

UPDATE #2: This sparked a great deal of discussion both on Facebook and here.  Later in the discussion, Randy Klear wrote:

He said no such thing, Alex. He said that he couldn’t say how Nye was voting at this moment. In November Nye said he voted against the House bill because of insufficient cost controls. Personally I suspect the CBO report today, plus the fact that he’d be committing political suicide with another no vote, will be enough to push him into the yes column.

[…]

He’s a newly hired field director, and he’s not likely to be in the loop when Nye’s own chief of staff and campaign manager probably haven’t been told yet. You are willfully misinterpreting his remarks.

And Diane Kaufman wrote:

I agree with Randy. I invited Jonas to introduce himself to the committee and speak for about 1 minute and then next he was vilified. I understand that everyone is passionate on this issue, and I am glad that they are vocal, but he is NOT in the loop of how the Congressman may or may not be voting. And, Jonas did NOT come to the committee to tell us how Nye would be voting in the health care bill. What I want to know is what’s new? We are all waiting for the vote on the health care bill. That will be news. Letting our congressman know how we feel is not news. We have been doing that for months. On the other hand, Cooch and his decisions are harmful AND news.

And the discussion proceeded from there. Check it all out here, as obviously there are several sides to this story. However, in the end, what I care about – the ONLY thing I care about – is that Glenn Nye votes the right way on health care, and also on other issues important to me like clean energy/climate change and many others. With regard to health care, I guess we’ll find out in less than 72 hours, and then we’ll go from there.

The crucial Congressional Budget Office “score” of President Obama’s healthcare reform bill is out, and it looks like good news.

1. CUTS THE DEFICIT Cuts the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years (2010 – 2019). Cuts the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. 2. REINS IN WASTEFUL MEDICARE COSTS AND EXTENDS THE SOLVENCY OF MEDICARE; CLOSES THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG DONUT HOLE Reduces annual growth in Medicare expenditures by 1.4 percentage points per year-while improving benefits and lowering costs for seniors. Extends Medicare’s solvency by at least 9 years. 3. EXPANDS AND IMPROVES HEALTH COVERAGE FOR MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES Expands health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans Helps guarantee that 95 percent of Americans will be covered. 4. IS FULLY PAID FOR Is fully paid for – costs $940 billion over a decade. (Americans spend nearly $2.5 trillion each year on health care now and nearly two-thirds of the bill’s cost is paid for by reducing health care costs).

So much for the Republican/Tea Party “argument” that this bill “costs too much.” In fact, it reduces the budget deficit significantly, according to the non-partisan CBO.  Now, on to passage, hopefully in about 72 hours!

Thanks to Tom Whipple for the Thursday “Clips.”

1. MCDONNELL FULFILLS TWO CAMPAIGN PROMISES

2. MCDONNELL RE-OPENS EIGHT REST STOPS ACROSS VIRGINIA TODAY

4. MCDONNELL: NO SPECIAL COUNSEL TO ENFORCE DIRECTIVE BANNING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST GAYS

5. MCDONNELL SWAPS GAGS, TAKES STUDENTS’ QUERIES

8. CUCCINELLI CHALLENGES “DEEM AND PASS” IN LETTER TO PELOSI

14. VIRGINIA CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION SPLIT AS HEALTH-CARE VOTE NEARS

15. FIRST AD FOR FIMIAN PLAYS WITH CONNOLLY QUOTE

21. SNOW-REMOVAL COSTS HIT VDOT HARD

26. DOMINION POWER UPGRADING 13 POWER PLANTS FOR EFFICIENCY

30. LEGISLATIVE HITS AND MISSES

32. RATING MCDONNELL’S EARLY SUCCESS

40. BUDGET OUTLOOK BRIGHTER FOR LOCALITIES IN RICHMOND AREA

So much for that argument.

A study published in the latest New England Journal of Medicine shows that abortion rates declined during the first two years that Massachusetts implemented a near-universal health coverage program much like the nationwide plan currently before Congress.

[…]

The study on abortion rates released Wednesday could bolster that argument. It shows that the number of abortions in Massachusetts declined by 1.5 percent during the first two years of the new health care program (2007-2009) and the decline was 7.4 percent among teenagers — even though the percentage of non-elderly people receiving coverage went up nearly 6 percent.

The study also points out that the abortion decrease occurred “despite public and private funding of abortion that is substantially more liberal than the provisions of the federal legislation currently under consideration by Congress.” Massachusetts is one of 17 states where the state government finances abortions under Medicaid that the federal government cannot pay for.

In related news, “On Wednesday, a group representing 59,000 Catholic nuns plus more than 50 heads of religious congregations issued a strong statement urging ‘a life-affirming ‘yes’ vote’ in support of the Senate bill.” In short, the nuns’ organization ” believes the bill as written guarantees that there will be no federal funding for abortion and does not need to be ‘corrected.'”

As I said, so much for the “pro-life” argument that there’s anything about current health care reform legislation that will result in more abortions. There isn’t.

P.S. The New England Journal of Medicine study is here.

I strongly encourage everyone to go vote in the Loudoun Times poll, “If the members of Loudoun’s Board of Supervisors were all up for re-election today, who would you want voted out of office?” Make sure you vote for super-bigot Eugene Delgottago…er, Delgaudio. Thanks.