By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent – 1 hr 8 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.
The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.
The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.
In the final minutes of a daylong session, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a historic debate the nation needed.
"Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote," he said.
The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural — casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a "massive and unsustainable debt."
For all the drama, the result of the Saturday night showdown had been sealed a few hours earlier, when two final Democratic holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate.
"It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option," said Landrieu, who won $100 million in the legislation to help her state pay the costs of health care for the poor.
Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election next year, said the evening vote will "mark the beginning of consideration of this bill by the U.S. Senate, not the end." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul
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All 58 Senate Democrats and two independents voted to advance the bill. All 39 votes in opposition were cast by Republicans. GOP Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio was the only senator not to vote. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who has labored on health care for more than a year, flew in from his home state on a government plane for the vote and was returning afterward to be with his ailing mother.By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent – 1 hr 8 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Invoking... more
During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater USA as a bunch of unaccountable trigger-happy mercenaries was an easy crowd pleaser – particularly after the September 2006 Nisoor Square incident and a subsequent congressional report that stated the company’s use of force was “frequent and extensive”.
Hillary Clinton announced she was sponsoring legislation banning the use of private security contractors. Barack Obama didn’t sign up to this and would not rule out using Blackwater and its ilk. But he made clear his disdain for the outfit, trumpeting in Iowa City last October his proposal for “tougher government reforms than any other candidate in this race – reforms that would eliminate the kind of no-bid contracts that this administration has given to Blackwater”.
He added: “Most contractors act as if the law doesn’t apply to them. Under my plan, if contractors break the law, they will be prosecuted.”
In Pennsylvania in March he stated that “we have to crack down on private contractors like Blackwater, because I don’t believe they should be able to run amok and put our own troops in danger and get paid three or four times or ten times what our soldiers are getting paid”.
So who do you think protected Obama and his fellow senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel during their recent and much ballyhooed congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan? Yep, that’s right – Blackwater.
In his Washington Whispers column, the well-connected Paul Bedard reports that Obama was overheard saying that “Blackwater is getting a bad rap”. A fairly startling alleged observation given his previous utterances about the company – though perhaps unsurprising given he was in a war zone and his life was in the hands of Blackwater guards.
A tight-lipped Anne Tyrrell, spokeswoman for Blackwater, said she could neither confirm nor deny that the company had been involved in the visits by the senators to Afghanistan or Iraq. My request to Bill Burton, Obama’s national spokesman, for comment on the Bedard story – including whether the alleged quote or its sentiment was genuine – went unanswered.
But a source familiar with Obama’s security arrangements told me that Blackwater, along with the Secret Service, did pull security for the three senators in Afghanistan, though not Iraq.
Deceiver describes this as Obama’s “Rosie O’Donnell moment” That’s maybe a tad harsh but it will be interesting to see whether Obama’s public position on Blackwater changes as a result of his up-close time with their personnel in Afghanistan.During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater... more
Sweeping health carelegislation has cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on a party-line vote.
The 60-39 vote clears the way for a historic debate after Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday on the legislation. The measure is designed to extend coverage to an estimated 31 million Americans who lack it and crack down on insurance industry practices that deny benefits.
The vote came in a rare Saturday session in the Senate. Democrats posted 60 votes in a Senate showdown, precisely the number needed to overcome Republican delaying tactics.Sweeping health carelegislation has cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on a... more
I've studied the Senate's health care bill and there are no 'death panels' listed in it either. (Sorry Sarah.) In fact, the bill takes great pains to ensure that things such as age or disability cannot be used to as a means to limit someone's coverage. This bill does a great job protecting the rights of older Americans.
But don't take my word for it, and for heavens sake, don't take the media's word for it! Review it your self.
Note: It's listed under 'Popular Documents' Health care reform, Senate Democrats' draft bill (Reid Substitute Amendment)I've studied the Senate's health care bill and there are no 'death panels' listed in... more
Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Nebraska said today that she supports bringing the Senate's health care bill to the floor for debate. Let me say that again, she supports BRINGING THE BILL TO THE FLOOR FOR DEBATE. Yet, the Republican party is misleading the public (dare I say, outright lying) by stating (via spokeswoman, Amber Wilkerson Marchand) that "Blanche Lincoln's vote tonight is unequivocally a vote in favor of President Obama's $2.5 trillion government-run health care plan." She also said, that Lincoln "announced that she will cast the 60th vote in favor of President Obama's costly health care plan tonight."
Hey Amber, voting to allow debate on a bill is not the same as voting for the bill!
So why are Republicans misrepresenting Lincoln's actions today? Disparaging her? Why are they afraid of having an open dialogue about health care on the Senate floor? After all, that is what a debate is... an open dialogue. Maybe the most important question we should be asking is, if the Republican party is misleading Americans about today's vote, what else are the misleading us about?
Finally, at what point will we stand up to the Republican politicians and tell them that their unethical behavior and their lies are unacceptable? That they will be held accountable for their actions? How about 2010?Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Nebraska said today that she supports bringing the Senate's... more
Funny is it just me or dose it look like every time the Rich people get a big tax
cut the Deficit gose up.Funny is it just me or dose it look like every time the Rich people get a big tax
cut... more
Talking Points Memo is pointing to a Public Policy Polling survey showing that a majority of GOP voters think Obama stole the 2008 election with ACORN's help. 52% of them.
From PPP:
"Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September. Overall 62% of Americans think Obama legitimately won the election to only 26% who think ACORN stole it for him, as few Democrats or independents buy into that line of thinking."
TPM points out that ACORN has gained in popularity as a bogeyman for the right:
"This number goes a long way towards explaining the anger of the Tea Party crowd. They not only think Obama's agenda is against America, but they don't think he was actually the choice of the American people at all! Interestingly, NY-23 Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman is now accusing ACORN of stealing his race, and Fox News personalities have often speculated about ACORN stealing the 2008 Minnesota Senate race for Al Franken."
For the record, Obama's margin of victory was 9.5 million votes.
"It's hard to imagine a senator other than Byrd who would be willing to confront a president from the same party and lambaste him for exceeding his constitutional authority, as he did when President Obama appointed his various policy czars without confirmation hearings. Obviously, as expected, there was a great deal of opposition from the Republicans, but apart from Byrd most Democrats did little more than shrug their shoulders.
Now that's not to say this is only indicative of a supine Democratic Party --recall the manner in which the GOP rolled over for former President George W. Bush when the Executive accumulated near unprecedented powers in the absence of an official declaration of war. Byrd, citing the constitution, stood up for the Senate when very few others had the political spine to do so. And, before it became fashionable, Byrd refused to kowtow to Bush over Iraq, when many of his Democratic colleagues appeared hell bent on demonstrating their hawkish side."An homage to Senator Robert C. Byrd from YPNation contributor Ewan Watt... more
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore VidalThe Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society
By David DeGraw The Public Record Nov 19th,... more
For the second time in just over a week Fox misrepresented the number of people who came out to support a conservative cause/person. Makes you wonder what else they're misrepresenting. Health care?For the second time in just over a week Fox misrepresented the number of people who... more
What does it mean when a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat both call for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to be fired? Is it a sign that he's lost the confidence of both parties and should be immediately disposed of? Or is it confirmation that he is steering safely down the middle of the river, while the left and the right banks seethe with rage?
Oregon Democrat Vic DeFazio, a staunch member of the House's progressive caucus took some hard swings at Geithner for paying more attention to Wall Street than to Main Street during an MSNBC interview with Ed Schultz. He finished by calling for both Larry Summers and Geithner to be fired, saying with a smirk, "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."What does it mean when a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat both call for... more
Barack Obama has backed away from his pledge to close the US prison at Guantánamo Bay by the end of the year, saying he hoped to shut it in 2010 but needed the co-operation of the US Congress.
The president, on a tour through Asia, observed a brief ceasefire in the White House's conflict with the Fox News TV channel last night, giving a wide-ranging interview with the network's Major Garrett. It was the first since aides pledged this autumn to treat Fox as a political adversary rather than a news outlet.
Obama said the Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai was not "the kind of partner we would like", warned that Israel's intention to expand a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem could prove "very dangerous" and said he was unlikely to read a new book by Sarah Palin, a possible opponent in the 2012 presidential election.Barack Obama has backed away from his pledge to close the US prison at Guantánamo Bay... more
Now that the House has passed its version of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is shifting her focus to jobs. With unemployment in the double digits and not showing any signs of getting any better, Democrats want to show some sort of progress on getting Americans back into the workplace. The hope is to have either a big bill or a package of smaller bills passed in December. How will they create new jobs? Well the House is looking at getting a big highway construction bill moving - but no one seems to know how they would pay for it - which would mean adding to the deficit.
President Obama has called for a summit in December between lawmakers, administration officials, small businesses, chief executives and union representatives to talk about how to get a handle on unemployment. The AFL-CIO has already given a preview of its ideas it'll bring to the summit. For example: Using TARP money to give commercial loans to small businesses and providing healthcare and food assistance for the unemployed.
How successful has the government been at job creation thus far? Recovery .gov, the Administration's site to let citizens track the effects of the stimulus money, has a big number labeled "Jobs Created/Saved as Reported by Recipients": 640,329 (as of 10/30). That's great and all, but by the same home page of the same site about $215B have been spent so far out of the recovery money. Which comes out roughly to $335,000 per job. (That's just me and a calculator and a few rounded-off numbers - I'm sure better estimates exist out there.)
Another side of the math is that if we replicated those 640K jobs that were created over the course of this year there would still be about 10 million Americans unemployed.
Expensive and difficult!
All right, how do you think we could drive unemployment down? Give us your best ideas.
As reported in the New York Times, 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats incorporated talking points from lobbyists for Genentech, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Roche, in statements made before Congress during most recent House debate over the Affordable Health Care for America Act which just narrowly passed the House earlier this month.
These 42 Congressmen used some or all of the talking points issued by lobbyists in statements that were submitted to the Congressional Record and were intended to give the illusion of bi-partisan support for several provisions within the bill:
"Democrats emphasized the bill’s potential to create jobs in health care, health information technology and clinical research on new drugs.
Republicans opposed the bill, but praised a provision that would give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to approve generic versions of expensive biotechnology drugs, along the lines favored by brand-name companies like Genentech."
Congressmen were instructed to emphasize the bill's ability to create jobs, promote generic versions of pharmaceuticals, and to attack outsourcing to competitors in India. In some cases, statements made by lawmakers were exactly verbatim.As reported in the New York Times, 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats incorporated... more
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world's largest biotechnology companies.
In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.)
In his New York Times column today [ed: Thursday], columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is “fiscally irresponsible” while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans:,_but_won%27t_help_americans_get_decent_health-care
In recent days, heated policy... more
You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself.
Prohibition didn't stop liquor use; the drug laws can't stop drug use. Making gun ownership illegal will not stop gun ownership.
The primary victim of these misguided efforts is the honest citizen whose civil rights are trampled as frustrated legislators and police tighten the screws.
Banning guns will make guns more expensive and give organized crime a great opportunity to make profits in a new black market for weapons. Street violence will increase in new turf wars. Criminals will not give up their guns. But, many law abiding citizens will, leaving them defenseless against armed bandits.
Rather than banning guns, the politicians and the police should encourage gun ownership, as well as education and training programs. A responsible, well-armed and trained citizenry is the best protection against domestic crime and the threat of foreign invasion. America's founders knew that. It is still true today.You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself.
Prohibition... more
If Obamacare makes it through the Senate, American small businesses will continue to shrink their payrolls to avoid the awful choice of paying higher health care insurance premiums or the 8% added payroll tax. Unemployment is sure to rise. The Dems will face the November 2010 elections with 12% unemployment ... closer to Depression levels of 20% by the so-called broader measures.
The Wall Street Journal
W. Michael Brown has scaled back hiring plans in his Virginia auto-parts stores. Carl Redman halted an expansion project at his Oregon contracting business. Bill Hammack is preparing layoffs at his road-construction company in Georgia.
The economy remains unsteady 22 months after the recession began, with banks restricting credit and consumers hunkering down. For these small businesses, and many others across the country, there's an additional dark cloud: uncertainty created by Washington's bid to reorganize a wide swath of the U.S. economy.
The liberal writer Michael Lind is happy to see government put the screws to small businesses. In Lind’s opinion, small businesses are nothing more than a collection of Scrooges and Marleys. No doubt his opinion of small business is shared by many in the Democratic Party’s activist wing:
The solution may be corporatism or corporate paternalism--by which I mean the mandatory universalization of private employer benefits. If the politics of ethnic diversity makes movement in a universalist, social democratic direction impossible in the U.S., then the alternative might be to mandate that all employers provide certain benefits to all employees, with no exceptions. The costs of such unfunded mandates might drive some small businesses out of existence. But small-business owners are the most vocal opponents of wage and benefit reform in the U.S. The replacement of Scrooge & Marley by a smaller number of bigger private and public employers who treat Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim better would not necessarily be a tragedy.
Not a tragedy? Don't be so quick, Democrats. You can’t have it both ways. Stick it to small businesses (through higher payroll taxes, cap-and-trade and union card check) and the assaulted will trim their payrolls until conditions clear, if ever. But if you don't stick it to small businesses, your party’s activist base will go nuts.
You have checkmated yourselves, Democrats.
enjoy the comments, tooenjoy!
excerpts from link...
If Obamacare makes it through the Senate, American... more
1) I typed in "faux news"
2) I clicked the Timeline option
3) The result showed a significant increase in the term being used over time starting in 2001
This comforts me because I believe Fox News has had a profoundly negative impact on Americans. Although I believe MSNBC is also biased to some extent, it doesn't come close to the emotionally charged, fear-mongering, cynical tactics of Fox News. Most people who watch Fox News seem to not question the information they are given by their news provider. I think democrats more often take each individual story from their news providers into consideration rather than believe everything they are told whether or not their news providers lean to the left.
What do you think?It took me a simple Google search:
1) I typed in "faux news"
2) I clicked the... more
Since the healthcare reform bill passed the House with the Stupak-Pitts amendment intact on Saturday night, feminists have been up in arms about the latest assault on access to abortion, and so-called progressive men have been telling us to calm down and look at the big picture. In other words: same old, same old. In an e-mail, our own Rebecca Traister summed up the ongoing conflict between those who prioritize women's rights and those who see them as a bargaining chip to be traded away as necessary:
This is the argument made over and over again: If the repro rights activists would just stop agitating about the pro-life Dems, we could get majorities, and things would improve for women and men everywhere. I get that argument. Most days, I believe it. And then I wake up to a Democratic majority that will only pass progressive healthcare legislation if it includes antiabortion provisions.
These trade-offs build on each other. Stupak did not happen in a vacuum. It's part of a larger cycle. Is this the moment to stand up and say "no"? How could I say it is, especially when I am all too aware that if pro-choice Democrats were to revolt over this issue, they would be vilified and further alienated from a party that already allows the erosion of reproductive rights? We choose to play nice, our party trades on our freedoms. We choose to object, our party resents and blames us for failure. It's not exactly a bright set of options for anyone who has gotten into this quandary simply because they fervently believe that the rights of half the population to control its own reproduction are fundamental to full and equal participation in our democracy.
The problem is, there is never a good time to stand up and say "no," because the fear is always that we'll lose whatever ground we've gained.
