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Yesterday at the big White House healthcare rollout, we got this:

President Obama, beginning his final push for a health care overhaul, called Wednesday for Congress to allow an “up or down vote” on the measure, and sketched out an ambitious — and, some Democrats said, unrealistic — timetable for his party to pass a bill on its own within weeks.

Why have we all adopted this “up or down vote” language? Doesn’t it obscure the real point, mainly that what we want is just a vote, period? The whole point of a filibuster, after all, is to extend debate so that the Senate never gets to vote on the bill in question. Shouldn’t Obama simply be saying that “we deserve a vote” or some such thing? Wouldn’t that make more sense to the average viewer?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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