Franken tells Lieberman he’s had it:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRp52op918&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
(H/T our friends at C-SPAN)
Franken tells Lieberman he’s had it:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRp52op918&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
(H/T our friends at C-SPAN)
They really don’t pay the clerks of the Senate nearly enough to make them do this.
Some day, in my next career as Senate Parliamentarian, I am going to rule that if a Senator wants to waste time like this, he (I’m looking at you, Tom Coburn) should be forced to read the darn thing himself, and that the rest of the Senate be forced to …
Heeeeeeeere we go. Right now in the Senate chamber, GOP delay tactics on the Democratic health care reform bill are in full swing. The Senate clerk is reading out aloud the text of an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would insert a single-payer system into the health care bill. The process of verbally entering amendments into the …
In the Person of the Year issue that was unveiled this morning, I have this profile of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi came in at #4 in the estimation of our editors. She is not only the highest ranking woman in the history of this country, standing second in line of succession to the presidency, but congressional scholars …
Tonight the Senate began voting on amendments to the health care bill for the first time in days. Near the top of the agenda: an amendment from Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan that would have allowed U.S. pharmacies and drug wholesalers to “reimport” drugs from foreign countries. It was was voted down 51-48. (Amendments need 60 votes to …
If the changes in the health care bill are indeed enough to bring Joe Lieberman aboard, it looks as though we are back to the point where all eyes are on Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson as potentially the 60th vote to bring the bill over the finish line in the Senate. As you might imagine, Nelson is getting pressure from all sides. One of …
Progressives are sad. It now appears that the public option will be stripped out of the Senate health reform bill. Joe Lieberman said he would filibuster legislation that included a public option, so he is the villain of the moment, but other key senators – including Democrat Ben Nelson – had also voiced strong opposition to a …
Senators Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders and Al Franken just introduced an amendment to the Senate health reform legislation that will make the unions happy. They proposed eliminating the bill’s tax on so-called “Cadillac health plans” and replacing it with a new tax on immensely rich Americans. The new tax would be 5.4% and would …
The well-sourced Carrie Budoff Brown is reporting this at Politico:
The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the
…
All of which is why the R-Word seems to be on people’s lips today in DC:
“My guess is that musty folders on reconciliation got dusted off this morning,” Podesta told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. The reference was to a budget procedure that requires only 51 votes to pass and can’t be
…
A story from me about the logjam of spending Congress will spend the next three weeks chewing through. The spending issue is becoming increasingly sensitive, especially since three Blue Dogs — fiscal conservative Dems who usually come from swing districts — have now announced their retirement. CW states that Dems weren’t likely to lose …
The Senate health reform bill is in a procedural holding pattern right now. Even though the body will be in session over the weekend, Majority Leader Harry Reid has put off votes on the bill while he waits for the Congressional Budget Office to evaluate a new Democratic proposal that could strip the public option out of the bill. In my …
The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber has a piece up this morning describing the bipolar economic pressures that the White House is now struggling with: the need for more stimulus spending vs. the need for less deficit spending. (I also have a piece in the next issue of the magazine–subscribe here $1.99 for six weeks–on the same topic.) …