legislation

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Pals Reid and Lieberman in Spat Over Trash Talk

Majority leader cries 'double-cross' on health care, doesn't quite take it back

(Newser) - Harry Reid can't get a break this week. Just as the flap over his use of the radioactive word "negro" was beginning to fade, the New York Times quoted him, in a preview of an upcoming magazine story, as trash-talking his supposed pal Joe Lieberman. The Times cited an...

Health Bill Passage a Tribute to Ted Kennedy
 Health Bill Passage 
 a Tribute to Ted Kennedy 
DANA MILBANK
Dec 24, 2009 6:06 PM CST

Health Bill Passage a Tribute to Ted Kennedy

'Liberal lion' invoked by both left and right, but what would he think?

(Newser) - The memory of Ted Kennedy was a vivid presence today on both sides of the aisle as the Senate passed its version of his signature issue, health care reform. The late Massachusetts senator “remained the Democrats' spiritual floor leader,” Dana Milbank writes in the Washington Post , and almost...

Congress Ups Nat'l Debt Ceiling to $12.4T

Bill would authorize Treasury to fund gov through Feb.

(Newser) - The Senate voted today to raise the ceiling on the government debt to $12.4 trillion, a massive increase over the current limit and a political problem that President Barack Obama has promised to address next year. The Senate's rare Christmas Eve vote, 60-39, follows House passage last week and...

Health Bill Clears Last Hurdle Before Vote
 Health Bill Clears  
 Last Hurdle Before Vote 
7am tomorrow
Dec 23, 2009 4:14 PM CST

Health Bill Clears Last Hurdle Before Vote

Party line roll call ends filibuster, sets stage for tomorrow

(Newser) - Exultant Senate Democrats pushed President Obama's landmark health care overhaul past a final procedural hurdle today, setting up a final vote at 7am tomorrow to pass the legislation. Democrats voted 60-39 to end a GOP filibuster, with all 58 Democrats and two independents hanging together against unanimous Republican opposition. Tomorrow's...

Liberal 'Kill Bill' Case Is Naive, Deceptive
Liberal 'Kill Bill' Case Is Naive, Deceptive
Ezra Klein
Dec 22, 2009 10:15 AM CST

Liberal 'Kill Bill' Case Is Naive, Deceptive

Hey, Jane Hamsher: A better bill is not coming along, and this ain't bad

(Newser) - Ezra Klein isn’t “sure there's much in the way of productive dialogue to be had” with liberal firebrand Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake concerning her call yesterday to kill the Senate health care reform bill, but he’ll try anyway. Hamsher’s list is “misleading,” her “...

10 Ways Senate Health Reform Hurts You
10 Ways Senate Health Reform Hurts You
KILL THE BILL
Dec 21, 2009 6:03 PM CST

10 Ways Senate Health Reform Hurts You

Measure that should have saved money will cost an arm and a leg

(Newser) - The Senate health reform bill is all fire and brimstone for the folks over at Firedoglake . The “con job” legislation “isn’t a ‘starter home,’ it’s a sink hole,” Jane Hamsher writes, and “it needs to die so something else can take its...

Sniveling Lefties Should Just Take the Health Care Victory

Screwy Senate has a flawed, but good bill

(Newser) - The health care bill is as good as it’s going to get, and progressives whining about it—or worse, trying to kill it—are being ridiculous. “In a normal democracy,” EJ Dionne writes, the majority support would quickly pass a public option or Medicare expansion. But the...

Why Dems Scheduled Xmas Eve Health Care Vote
 Why Dems Scheduled 
 Xmas Eve Health Care Vote 
11th hour, much?
Dec 21, 2009 11:16 AM CST

Why Dems Scheduled Xmas Eve Health Care Vote

Momentum, urgency, fear of embarrassment, etc.

(Newser) - Lamar Alexander has called the Democrats' push to quickly pass health care reform "a political kamikaze mission toward a historic mistake," but Senate Dems have reasons other than self-immolation for scheduling a 7pm vote on Christmas Eve. Politico looks at five:
  • To maintain momentum: If the latest compromise
...

GOP: Congress, Prez Must Go On Public Option
GOP: Congress, Prez Must Go On Public Option
bluff and counterbluff
Dec 7, 2009 9:28 AM CST

GOP: Congress, Prez Must Go On Public Option

If there is one, which we hope there isn't. Good idea, say Dems.

(Newser) - In the circus that is the Senate these days, a couple of anti-public-option Republicans—Tom Coburn and David Vitter—rolled out an amendment to the health care bill Friday requiring members of Congress to enroll in any such plan that might come to pass. When Dems didn’t object—Sherrod...

Zip It on Communion Ban: Bishop to Kennedy
 Zip It on 
 Communion 
 Ban: Bishop 
 to Kennedy 
ROLLICKING RHODE ISLAND
Nov 23, 2009 1:21 PM CST

Zip It on Communion Ban: Bishop to Kennedy

Tobin thinks Patrick's spiritual matters should be left private

(Newser) - The bishop who had the nerve to tell a Kennedy not to take communion—because he supports abortion rights—is steamed that he blabbed about it. “I am disappointed that the congressman would make public my pastoral and confidential request,” says Bishop Thomas Tobin of Patrick Kennedy. He...

GOP Traffic-Jam Ploy Is Snarling Senate

 GOP Traffic-Jam Ploy 
 Is Snarling Senate 
OPINION
Nov 19, 2009 9:43 AM CST

GOP Traffic-Jam Ploy Is Snarling Senate

Stalling tactics are making Democrats turn on each other

(Newser) - Senate Democrats are starting to turn on each other like angry drivers stuck in rush-hour traffic thanks to Republican obstructionism, writes EJ Dionne. Republican senators are eating every word they once said against filibusterism and are stalling even legislation that they support in a Machiavellian effort to keep the Democrats...

Reid 'Optimistic' About 60 Votes

Majority leader thinks he's got the support to send bill to the floor

(Newser) - Harry Reid is “cautiously optimistic” about the success of his frantic attempts to unite the 60 votes of his caucus behind the Senate health care reform bill. “I think we’re together,” he says. But the majority leader was positively voluble about the bill itself, notes the...

Stupak Is the Last Straw&mdash;No More Caving!
Stupak Is the Last Straw—No More Caving!
KATHA POLLITT
Nov 16, 2009 11:12 AM CST

Stupak Is the Last Straw—No More Caving!

Women should not 'take one for the team' on abortion coverage

(Newser) - Painting the Stupak-Pitts amendment as a necessary evil—a concession women should make for the “greater good” of health care reform—is ridiculous, Katha Pollitt writes. Women have been consistently sidelined by the “theocrats and male chauvinists” throwing their weight around in the Democratic Party. “Why don't...

Goldman to Insurers: Health Reform Will Hurt


 Goldman to Insurers: 
 Health Reform Will Hurt 

best plan is no plan
Nov 13, 2009 9:48 AM CST

Goldman to Insurers: Health Reform Will Hurt

Who knew Wall Street and teabaggers could agree?

(Newser) - Here's a reason for Goldman Sachs to be even more popular with the public: The investment bank has issued research on private health insurers advising that fighting off reform would best for their bottom line. Goldman takes as the “base” case passage of the bill that exited the Senate...

Abortion Activists Mobilize Against Stupak-Pitts

Aim is to kill bill in Senate, or back in House, at any cost

(Newser) - Abortion rights activists are organizing a massive grassroots effort and targeting lawmakers to ensure the hated Stupak-Pitts Amendment never reaches the president’s desk. The coalition of groups is first meeting with senators and organizing a phone drive and petition to keep the House language out of the Senate's bill....

Senate Dems Say Obama Plans Don't Fix Spending

Say legislation isn't aggressive enough on fee-for-service model

(Newser) - Some Democrats in the Senate are worried that reform legislation under consideration doesn't do enough to rein in out-of-control health care spending. President Obama has promised $2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, but critics say the proposed changes aren't nearly aggressive enough on the current pay-per-visit system...

Pelosi Won't Put Final Health Care Bill Online

Speaker leaves door open for last-minute amendments

(Newser) - The Weekly Standard is beating up on Nancy Pelosi for backing out of her promise, made to a Standard reporter in September, to put the final House health care bill online 72 hours before it’s voted on. With the vote expected tomorrow, It seems Pelosi and the Standard have...

Beck Rates Health Reform as 9/11 Attack

9/12ers are girding for this year's national catastrophe

(Newser) - Glenn Beck's found a new way to frame his opposition to heath care reform, and this one's a doozy: It's a terrorist attack. A decade ago “I could have shouted every single day about Osama bin Laden,” the Fox News commentator said, “and nobody would have been...

Dems Chip Away at Agenda, One Bill at a Time
Dems Chip Away at Agenda, One Bill at a Time
HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT?
Nov 2, 2009 7:10 AM CST

Dems Chip Away at Agenda, One Bill at a Time

GOP keeps its eye on the prize, lets smaller bills sail through

(Newser) - Health care reform may not be sailing through Congress, but a wave of smaller bills that Democrats have been eying for years have done so under President Obama—in most cases without much fanfare or objection. Republicans, focused on bigger fish, are giving a pass to legislation they once forcefully...

Calif. Holds Hearings on Legalizing Pot

Hopes high as 3 measures head for ballot next year

(Newser) - The push to legalize—and, especially appealing at the moment, tax—marijuana is picking up momentum in California, with legislators holding hearings today on what would be the first such law in the nation. Organizers are currently collecting signatures to put three separate pot legalization initiatives on the ballot next...

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