Del.icio.us Links

links for 2009-04-25

  • As Senate Democrats move closer to using reconciliation to pass health care reform this year, key GOP Senators are signaling plans to avenge the move by employing parliamentary tactics to trip up even the most noncontroversial of agenda items.

    Although Senate Democrats are far from reaching a consensus on the reconciliation issue, party leaders confirmed Wednesday that they are reserving the right to use it to pass health care reform if Republicans fail to negotiate in good faith. Senate Republicans — saying they have every intention of being a full partner in the upcoming health care negotiations — said holding reconciliation in reserve could poison the discussions, and threatened retribution.

  • In the next week or so, Democrats will make sweeping changes to American health care using “budget reconciliation,” an arcane process that allows Congress to minimize debate, prevent amendments, and circumvent filibusters in the Senate, a top Republican budgeteer predicts.

    “You would do the same thing, too,” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and the author of the Republicans' alternative budget. “It's basically an insurance policy to get their agenda passed. Why would they take this tool off the table when they don't need to?”

  • It's been in the works for a while and now, according to senior Captiol Hill staffers, it's a done deal: The final budget resolution will include a "reconciliation instruction" for health care. That means the Democrats can pass health care reform with just fifty votes, instead of the sixty it takes to break a filibuster.

    The deal was hatched late afternoon and last night, in a five-hour negotiating session at the office of Senate Majoriy Leader Harry Reid. A trio of White House officials were there: Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag, and Phil Schiliro. Also present, along with Reid, were House Budget Chairman John Spratt and Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad.

    The reonciliation instruction specifies a date. That date, according to one congressional staffer, is October 15. (The original House reconciliation instruction had a late September deadline.)

  • Watch the video above.
  • The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s top anti-torture envoy said Friday.

    Earlier this week, President Barack Obama left the door open to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations. He had previously absolved CIA officers from prosecution.

  • Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah joins the torture debate on the NY Times op-ed page and explains that the Bush era enhanced interrogation techniques were unnecessary and ineffective. Torture doesn't work, and Mr. Soufan is today's darling of the reality-based community. However, based on earlier Times reporting and the DoJ Inspector General report Mr. Soufan is, well, misleading us.

    So, the Times has run an op-ed that dovetails with their current agenda but is contradicted by other strong evidence and their own reporting – does anyone think we will see a clarification or follow-up? Neither do I.

  • On the Bushdrag: "The first night of our convention was President Bush and Vice President Cheney. I literally thought by the second night of our convention we could be down 25 points."

    On Katie Couric's interview of Sarah Palin: "That is one of the two most consequential interviews that a candidate for national office has given, in a negative way, the other being Roger Mudd's interview of Ted Kennedy . . . when he couldn't answer the question of why he wanted to be president."

    On McCain's acceptance of inevitable defeat: "I was waiting for his bus to crash into a CDC truck carrying bubonic plague to release over Cincinnati and Ohio. It was just one thing after another, you know, and never to our benefit."

    On the Republican Party: "It is near-extinct in many ways in the Northeast, it is extinct in many ways on the West Coast, and it is endangered in the Mountain West, increasingly endangered in the Southwest . . . and if you look at the state of the party, it is a shrinking entity."

  • Jesse Watters, the O'Reilly producer known for ambushing everyone from Hendrik Hertzberg to Amanda Terkel, or asking questions about MSNBC at this week's GE shareholders meeting, recently wouldn't answer a NY Times reporter's questions.

    So Gawker's John Cook is staking out his Long Island home in hopes of chatting with Watters. In Cook's second dispatch, there's still no sign of him.

  • Fed up with the budget crises and partisan battles that have paralyzed California for years, some influential voices believe it's time to tear open the state constitution and start anew.

    Once dismissed as a hokey gimmick, support for a proposed constitutional convention has been building in the nation's most populous state. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would back an effort to retool the document to make state government function more smoothly.
    +++++++
    Uh, NO!

  • He has pledged to run the state more efficiently if elected governor, but staff turmoil and lingering troubles with his inaugural fund are roiling the nascent campaign of state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

    With the Republican primary still 13 months away, Poizner, a leading contender, is on his third campaign manager. Several top advisors have bowed out or taken diminished roles.

4 Comments

  • Ling

    I’d like to see some Republicans argue against universal healthcare on it’s merits, rather than as a position in opposition to the Dems. The question here isn’t whether or not the Republcians in Congress can stop Healthcare reform. Question is, do they have public opinion behind them or not? If not, there’s not much point debating the process and the votes. If the GOP is to make any gains whatsoever in the 2, 4, 6 and/or 8 years, then it has to come from being in tune with what the American people want.