Pelosi Chokes Up
The topic of the day on all the cable nets seems to be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s emotional plea for calm during her regular weekly briefing yesterday.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1JTAKPcM3o]
Articles from Contributor
Things Dems Hate About Baucus’ Bill
My story out today focuses on five things but I think there are actually six – I just ran out of space. Plus, for some odd reason, readers don’t like listy pieces over five bullet points, I’m told. Actually, there are probably hundreds or thousands of things that lawmakers could find to loathe in this bill – which when actually …
Panetta Says CIA Will Be Absolved
From TIME’s Bobby Ghosh afield in Michigan:
Leon Panetta is confident that the DoJ’s new investigation into wrongdoing by CIA’s interrogators will absolve the Agency. “I don’t believe there’s a basis for any kind of action [against the interrogators]… and I’ll be proved right,” Panetta told reporters in Dearborn, MI, …
Bending the Cost Curve
How one Congressional Budget Office score salvaged Max Baucus’ day and possibly his bill.
When Senate Finance Chairman Mac Baucus finally revealed his long anticipated bill, his Democratic colleagues treated the proposal like the open salvo in barter exchange and Baucus like a used Turkish rug merchant they were sure was out to …
Reax to the Baucus Bill
From TIME’s Kate Pickert:
The Senate Finance Committee’s health reform bill has provoked a wide range of reactions from special interest groups and lawmakers. Here is what the major players have to say in the wake of the bill’s unveiling:
Baucus Drops His Bill
Gosh Darn that Joe Wilson
The House of Representatives today took an hour to condemn rep. Joe Wilson for yelling “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during his address of the Joint Session last week on health care reform. Wilson’s apology was accepted by Obama’s chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel but he refused to apologize a second time to his House colleagues …
Saving Elmendorf a Beating
Senator Kent Conrad today made an unusual request of the Congressional Budget Office: a 20-year cost estimate on the latest draft of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ bill reforming the nation’s health care system. “We’ve got to have somebody look at this objectively and try to tell us: do we bend the cost curve the …
The Afghanistan Paradox
This war has come to be inexorably linked to this President. He likes to say that he’s “taking the fight” to the terrorists because it’s “fundamental to the defense of our people.” His strong supporters include Karl Rove, John McCain and Sarah Palin. In Congress, Democratic leaders grate at the idea of granting him more …
Protests
From TIME’s Sophia Yan:
Ripples of protesters, thousands of them of all ages, lined Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol Saturday. Deafening chants could be heard, from “You lie, you lie!” echoing South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s Wednesday speech to plaintive
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Is Obama Only Reaching Out to Dems?
Here’s a story from me about the latest in the Senate on health care reform. I was surprised to hear that the White House hasn’t been wooing any other moderate Republicans aside from Maine’s Olympia Snowe:
During the summer of discontent the White House stopped reaching out to some key potential votes: the other senator from Maine,
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Teddy’s Letter
After the jump, the text of Teddy Kennedy’s letter that President Obama cited in the speech. Also, Obama will host a group of bipartisan Senate centrists tomorrow — including, Michael Scherer reports from the Hill, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson — at the White House to talk about health care.
GOP Response
After the jump is the text of Rep. Charles Boustany’s GOP response to the President’s speech. Republican leaders said they didn’t want a big name to deliver this rebuttal – thus the relatively unknown Boustany, who hails from Louisiana and happens to be a heart surgeon. Also, wonder what some GOP members were waving during the …