Feeds - RSS Feeds

BIG SHOT: Reps Gifford, Mitchell, Perriello vote to condemn Slaughter Rule

Patriot Room - 1 hour 15 min ago
These reps are thought by The Hill to be a "yes" and two "undecided." Sounds like three more "no" votes to me. Remember, we are within two votes of slamming it home (one, actually, but I like safety!). Details: The House just voted on the Cantor Resolution “That the House disapproves of the malfeasant manner in which the Democratic Leadership has thereby discharged the duties of their offices.” Those who voted against the resolution denounced Democrat leadership for their use of the “Slaughter Solution” to deceive the American people. Final Vote: 232-181 R: 0-171 D: 232-10 To put it more clearly, the following 10 Democrats just denounced Speaker Pelosi, Leader Hoyer, Whip Clyburn, Conference Chairman Larson, and DCCC Chairman Van Hollen and the rest of the Democrat Leadership. Rep. Boren
Rep. Childers
Rep. Giffords
Rep. Kissell
Rep. McIntyre
Rep. Mitchell
Rep. Minnick
Rep. Perriello
Rep. Shuler
Rep. Taylor Text of Cantor Resolution: Resolution: Raising a question of the privileges of the House. Whereas at least three members of the House Democratic Leadership have endorsed a procedural tactic for the sole purpose of avoiding an up-or-down vote, by the yeas and nays, on the Senate-passed health care bill; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 Representative James Clyburn, the House Majority Whip, stated, “We will deem passed the Senate bill…”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, The Washington Post reported, “After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate’s health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it. Instead, Pelosi (D–Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand…”; Whereas in the same Washington Post article, the Speaker declared, “…I like it because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, McClatchy Newspapers reported Representative John Larson, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, stated, “Many of our members would prefer not to have voted for the Senate bill.”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 9, U.S. News and World Report reported, “Pelosi gaffed, telling the local elected officials assembled ‘that Congress [has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.’”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, The Washington Post editorialized, “…what is intended as a final sprint threatens to turn into something unseemly and, more important, contrary to Democrats’ promises of transparency and time for deliberation. …[I]t strikes us as a dodgy way to reform the health-care system. Democrats who vote for the package will be tagged with supporting the Senate bill in any event.”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, the Cincinnati Enquirer editorialized, “This disgusting process, which Democrats brazenly wish to bring to conclusion this week, is being done with little regard for the opinions of a clear majority of Americans who, while they may believe health care reform is necessary, think this particular approach will take our nation down the wrong economic path.”; Whereas bipartisan members of the House and Senate have expressed their opposition to using the Slaughter Solution; Whereas on Wednesday, March 10, Representative Joe Donnelly released the following statement, “The process over the past few months has been frustrating, including the cutting of unacceptable special deals to assure a few senators’ votes.”; Whereas Representative Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania has characterized the exploitation of the Slaughter Solution by Democratic Leadership as “wrong” and unpopular among his constituents; Whereas on Friday, March 12, POLITICO reported on a memo sent from Representative Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, to freshman and sophomore House Democrats that stated, “At this point, we have to just rip the band-aid off… Things like reconciliation and what the rules committee does is INSIDE BASEBALL.”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, Roll Call reported, “Hoyer argued that the American public isn’t interested in the process lawmakers use for approving reforms…”; Whereas on Tuesday, March 16, Representative James Clyburn told Fox News, “Controversy doesn’t bother me at all.”; Whereas the Democratic leadership of the House has conducted a calculated and coordinated attempt to willfully deceive the American people by embracing the “Slaughter Solution”; Whereas resorting to the “Slaughter Solution” in this circumstance, is being done to intentionally hide from the American people a future vote that Members of Congress may take on the Senate-passed health care legislation; Whereas the deceptive behavior demonstrated by the Democratic Leadership has brought discredit upon the House of Representatives; and Whereas the Democratic leadership has willfully abused its power to chart a legislative course for the Senate health care bill that is deliberately calculated to obfuscate what the House will vote on, in an illegitimate effort to confuse the public and thereby fraudulently insulate certain Representatives from accountability for their conduct of their offices: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House disapproves of the malfeasant manner in which the Democratic Leadership has thereby discharged the duties of their offices.
Categories: Bloggers

RAW DATA: Partial Transcript of Radical Cleric's Tape

Fox News Political Feed - 1 hour 34 min ago

The following is a partial transcript of radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki's recently released audiotape, obtained by Fox News. 

Categories: News Sites

Obama Signs HIRE Act Into Law

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
11:20 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Please have a seat. Well, on this beautiful morning, we are here to mark the passage of a welcome piece of legislation for our fellow Americans who are seeking work in this difficult economy. But first, let me say a few words about the latest development in the debate over health insurance reform. I don't know if you guys have been hearing, but there's been a big debate going on here. This morning, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office concludes that the reform we seek would bring $1.3 trillion in deficit...
Categories: Columnists

Clinton's Remarks with Russia's Foreign Minister

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (In Russian.) SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Sergey. Thank you for hosting me and my delegation today in Moscow and thanks to the Russian Government for hosting the Quartet meeting that we will be attending. Since our first meeting in Geneva, a little more than a year ago, Minister Lavrov and I, along with our respective governments under the leadership of both President Medvedev and President Obama, have worked toward a new beginning in the relationship between the United States and Russia. We believe that this reset of the relationship has led to much...
Categories: Columnists

Bret Baier's Interview with President Obama

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
BRET BAIER, "SPECIAL REPORT" HOST: Welcome to Washington. I'm Bret Baier, and this is a special edition of "Special Report", beginning tonight in the Blue Room in the White House, mid-way through what many people are calling the most pivotal week of his presidency so far. We are interviewing President Barack Obama. Mr. President, thank you for the time. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thank you for having me, Bret. BAIER: You have said at least four times in the past two weeks: "the United States Congress owes the American people a final up or down vote on health...
Categories: Columnists

Rep. Dennis Kucinich on His Health Care Vote

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
COOPER: "Raw Politics" tonight, and the raw numbers of health care reform, in human terms, 30-some million Americans who would get access to insurance under the bill. In political terms, we're talking about 216 votes in the House, 51 in the Senate, to get it done. Our next guest, a liberal Democrat from Cleveland, counted himself as a no-vote until today. Quickly, here's the quick before and after picture. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CAMPBELL BROWN," MARCH 4, 2010) REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), OHIO: The bill is a terribly flawed bill that will lock in the privatization of...
Categories: Columnists

Rep. Gerry Connolly on Health Care

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
MATTHEWS: Congressman Gerry Connolly‘s a Democrat from Virginia who voted yes back in November for health care and now says he‘s not- Congressman, everybody respects you and your thinking on this. What is it? Where are you on health care right now as the vote comes up on Saturday? REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D), VIRGINIA: Well, first of all, let me wish you a happy St. Patrick‘s Day, Chris. MATTHEWS: Thank you, sir. Same to you... CONNOLLY: The holiest day of the year for (INAUDIBLE) MATTHEWS: With the name Connolly, it‘s...
Categories: Columnists

Interview with Ireland's PM, Brian Cowen

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
BLITZER: It's a St. Patrick's Day tradition here in Washington. The Irish prime minister pays a visit and meets with the president. Brian Cowen also had lunch with Mr. Obama and members of Congress. They noted it was first St. Patrick's Day without the late Senator Ted Kennedy. The president went on to pay a light-hearted tribute to people of Irish descent and their contributions to politics. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The truth is they weren't always welcome. There were times where the Irish were caricatured and stereotyped and cursed at and blamed for...
Categories: Columnists

Senator Judd Gregg on Health Care

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Senator, nice to see you again. SEN. JUDD GREGG, R - N.H.: Great to see you, Greta, thanks for having me on. VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, the vote in the House looks like it is going to happen soon. GREGG: Is there going to be a vote in the House? I thought they were going to deem this. VAN SUSTEREN: Well, whatever is going to happen, something is going to happen in the House, and it is going to come back to be an issue in the United States Senate. What's the GOP plan? GREGG: First, I think you're sent here to vote, to do your job. The American people...
Categories: Columnists

Dems Wrong War: Health Care Amid Jobs Crisis

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
Barack Obama said 3,341 words before he advocated health care reform during his State of the Union address. It was indicative of the White House pledge to pivot to jobs in 2010. As early as last Thanksgiving, the president declared, "I will not rest until businesses are investing again and businesses are hiring again and people have work again." Nearly four months later, Obama continues to spend most of his waking hours attempting to pass a health care bill. No legislation has so engulfed Washington in decades. What's intriguing today is the thunderclap unheard. It's the...
Categories: Columnists

Why Can't Uncle Sam Learn?

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
WASHINGTON -- Doubling down on dubious bets is characteristic of compulsive gamblers and federal education policy. The nation was essentially without such policy for grades K through 12, and better off for that, until 1965. In that year of liberals living exuberantly, they produced the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Now yet another president has announced yet another plan to fix education. His aspiration has a discouraging pedigree. In 1983, three years after Jimmy Carter paid his debt to teachers' unions by creating the Education Department, a national commission declared...
Categories: Columnists

Conyers Is the Wrong Guy To Chair Judiciary Committee

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
Another funny thing happened in what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised would be "the most ethical Congress in history." Monica Conyers, the wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of conspiracy to commit bribery that prompted her to resign from the Detroit City Council last year. This month, she was sentenced to 37 months in prison. One could argue that his wife's felony conviction should not reflect on Conyers' chairmanship of the committee that has jurisdiction over federal courts, in that U.S. Attorney...
Categories: Columnists

Will Snowe Fall in Maine?

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
Go visit potato country at the tippy-top of Maine. There, struggling farmers can look across the St. John River at equally hard-pressed potato growers in New Brunswick, Canada. The big difference between them is that if one of the Mainers falls grievously ill, the family may have to sell the farm to pay medical bills. The Canadian family doesn't. This in-your-face gap in health care security is most keenly felt along the border with Canada. That makes the determination by Maine's two "moderate" Republican senators to oppose health care reform all the more extraordinary....
Categories: Columnists

Is Dodd Ending Too Big to Fail?

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
Surprise, surprise. Sen. Chris Dodd's financial-regulation proposal raises the possibility of substantial progress on the road to ending "too big to fail" and bailout nation for banks and other financial institutions. How the Dodd bill will play out in the final details remains to be seen. But when you read the Dodd fact sheet, there are a few key items to like. First, under the Dodd scheme, large complex companies will have to submit plans for rapid and orderly shutdowns should they go under. These are called "funeral plans." Then, in terms of these orderly...
Categories: Columnists

Right Wing Gone Wild

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
Demagogues often prosper under the rules of democracy, intimidating the moderate and preying on the weak-minded. But in a healthy society, such figures cannot cross a final threshold of decency without jeopardizing their own status -- and today's right-wing nihilists seem to be on the verge of doing just that. When Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president, questions the loyalty of anyone who stands up for the human rights of prisoners in the "war on terror," she is treading very close to that line. Operating behind a front group called Keep America Safe,...
Categories: Columnists

In for a Dime, In for a Dollar

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
When I heard about the proposal to replace Ulysses S. Grant with Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill, I had two thoughts. The first: Grant is on the $50 bill? The second: Jimmy Carter is going to be furious. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm in favor of the idea, partly because it would give us a break from the bitter partisan warfare over the problems of the 21st century, allowing us to enjoy bitter partisan warfare over the problems of the 1980s. But there is something else to be said for the proposal. Americans are enamored of change, in cars, clothing, communication, you...
Categories: Columnists

What's Good for House Leaders Is Bad for Members

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
The Democratic leadership's struggle to pass the Senate health care bill in the House looks like a great case study for political scientists. They have many examples of the leaders of a party majority trying to push controversial legislation through a balky chamber. But seldom have the political incentives of the party leadership and the party's members been so differently aligned. There is always some misalignment. Even when the party's president and policies are widely popular, some of its House members will be representing districts where that is not so, where they win...
Categories: Columnists

The Right to Adultery?

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
Seeing Rielle Hunter sprawled like an aging model on the pages of GQ raises once again the question: Should there be a legal right to commit adultery? The ACLU says yes, and so does much of the family law bar that seeks to strip the law of all vestiges of "judgmentalism" (at least when it comes to sex). But what do the rest of us think? Here's what I think: There's something wrong with a society that permits adultery to become a pathway to commercial success. Adultery involves twin offenses: (1) the violation by a married person of his or her vows; and (2) a third...
Categories: Columnists

On Health Care, Listen to the Nuns

Real Clear Politics - Commentary - 1 hour 38 min ago
WASHINGTON -- One of the tragedies of the viciously politicized battle over health care reform is the defection of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops from a cause they have championed for decades. Indifferent to political fashions, the bishops were the strongest voices in support of universal health coverage, a position rooted in Catholic social thought that calls for a special solicitude toward the poor. Yet on the make-or-break roll call that will determine the fate of health care reform, bishops are urging that the bill be voted down. They are doing so on the basis of a highly...
Categories: Columnists
Syndicate content