Archives » Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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Howard Fineman
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Aug 18, 2009 11:12 PM
I think I understand the Democrats' latest strategy for passing a
health-care reform plan. At least I think I do after talking to some
plugged-in party types on Capitol Hill. For want of a better term, I'm
calling their strategy "50-218," which stands for the minimum number of
votes President Obama and his party are aiming for in the Senate and
House, respectively, to pass a piece of legislation they can plausibly
call "reform."
Here is the first point: forget bipartisanship, meaning forget
Republican votes. Yes, I know that the Senate Finance Committee's "Gang
of Six" is still negotiating, but Republicans on and off the committee
are making it increasingly clear that they are fundamentally
uninterested in a deal of any kind. And Democratic Hill leaders are
concluding the same thing. Indeed, they've been deeply skeptical all
along of the wisdom of the White House's insistence on trying to craft
a bipartisan pact. "If there's one thing I would fault Obama on, that
would be it," said one Hill Democrat, who declined to be named because
he was discussing private talks.
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Daniel Stone
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Aug 18, 2009 03:45 PM
It was surprising the first time it happened. Last week, Secret Serviceofficials discovered a man carrying a concealed semi-automatic weaponat a town hall meeting hosted by President Obama. "How could thathappen?" was the question that followed, at one point from the lips ofChris Matthews, who scolded the flippant offender in anationally-televised interview. The whole episode would be worthy of anervous head shake if it was the only instance. But over the weekend, adifferent protester attended an Obama rally in Arizona, this time withan assault rifle in plain view over his shoulder. What followed -- afew wire stories and some web video -- was the equivalent of atruncated, national yawn. The reasoning that quelled any spark of alarmor display of concern, was that technically, it's legal. In a statelike Arizona (and more than a dozen others) carrying a weapon isperfectly permissible. Our hands are tied, said local police, who hadthe arduous duty of explaining to reasonably-alarmed demonstrators thatno laws had actually been broken.
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Katie Connolly
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Aug 18, 2009 08:11 AM
Surprise is perhaps the mildest way to describe the reaction to Jake
Tapper’s Monday morning scoop: former Republican majority leader Tom
DeLay will join the cast of Dancing With the Stars (DWTS).
It’s not unusual for politicians to seek a second life after politics,
a reinvention. Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Al Gore have found
success as international defenders of the poor, the displaced, and the
planet. Mike Huckabee has a television show, as does Joe Scarborough.
But none of them left office shrouded in such a dark cloud as DeLay,
who is still awaiting trial on charges of violating campaign-finance
laws. So before DeLay transforms into a warm, fuzzy reality-TV star, we
thought we’d take a quick trip down memory lane. In all those years
busting heads in Congress, DeLay surely picked up a few skills to help
him survive the dog-eat-dog world of reality TV. But here are five
moves that he won’t be able to use on the dance floor.
1. Redistrict to get more votes. To win DWTS,
Tom DeLay will need every vote he can get. It is, after all, a
democracy of sorts. But, unfortunately for DeLay, this electorate isn't
easily gerrymandered. Back in the early years of this decade, Delay’s
fingerprints were all over a controversial redistricting of his home
state, Texas, which drew an electoral map more favorable to
Republicans. The plan ended up before the Supreme Court, where one of
the newly drawn districts was invalidated.
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