After a year of debate and legislative scheming, President Obama and congressional Democrats are making one last push for their ill-conceived health care plan. Fittingly, the endgame is as unseemly as the various maneuvers and backroom deals that got them this far. .
New York governor David Paterson, beset by charges of witness tampering in the case of a close aide accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend, has spoken of legalizing ultimate fighting as a revenue raiser to help close the state’s $8 billion plus budget gap. But New Yorkers looking for brawling entertainment need look no further than the Democratic caucus of the state senate where Paterson had been a member for 20 years.
Remember him? The guy who won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat by running explicitly against Obamacare?
Excerpts:
“Hello, I’m United States Senator Scott Brown from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“When the people of my state elected me in January, they sent more than a senator to Washington – they sent a message. Across party lines, the voters told politicians in Washington to get its priorities right.
“In January of last year, unemployment hit 7.2 percent and our economy was hurting badly. But, early in President Obama’s term, he and the Democratic leadership of Congress made takeover of health care their first priority.
“Today, times are even tougher across our nation when it comes to our economy. Nearly one in ten Americans are still out of work. And still, the President and Congress are focused on ramming through their health-care bill, whatever it takes, whatever the cost. [...]
“And from my travels and conversation with people throughout this country, they told me that they want their President and Congress to focus on creating jobs and reviving America’s economy. Instead, for more than a year now, we have seen a bitter, destructive, and endless drive to completely transform America’s health care system.
"Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway. Their attitude shows Washington at its very worst – the presumption that they know best, and they’re going to get their way whether the American people like it or not. [...]
“After all, from the very beginning of this debate, the American people have called it correctly. In every part of the country, Republicans and Democrats have agreed on serious, straightforward, commonsense health care reform. They expect us in Washington to do the same – working together, acting fairly and by the rules, and staying focused on the need to make the American economy as strong as it can be. That is the business that brought me here on an unexpected journey to Washington. And, it’s the responsibility of everyone sent here to serve our country. We can do better – and I challenge my colleagues and the President to do just that.
Now we know. Two million of the “good jobs” America needs to create in the next five years are to come from doubling American exports. So President Obama promised Thursday. We are to have a “National Export Initiative,” an “export promotion cabinet” consisting of representatives of several federal agencies, a private sector advisory committee on international trade, and promotion of exports by a president who will get tough with our trading partners who “have not played by the same set of rules” as we have. Push exports, and make it more difficult for our trading partners to send stuff to us, unless they conform to our notions of proper labor and environmental standards.
This approach is consistent with the administration’s philosophy that the best way to solve a problem is to erect still another government apparatus. In this case the President might be on to something -- government action is needed if America’s exporters are to expand and create new jobs. Unfortunately, we need something more from government than the sort of action the President has in mind.
Obama is right to promise to get tough with some of our trading partners. First on his list might be China (February exports up 46%), which continues to disregard intellectual property rights of U.S. firms, and to peg an undervalued yuan to the dollar. Earlier this week Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, floated a trial balloon, suggesting that the currency peg is a temporary measure to see China through the worldwide financial crisis, and “sooner or later will be withdrawn.” Chen Deming, a key trade official, and Premier Wen Jiabao punctured that balloon before it gained much altitude. The dollar peg stays, with perhaps a minor adjustment some day.
Unfortunately, President Obama has until now shown no taste for combat with China’s leaders, witness his supine performance on his visit to China. We will know next month whether his recent pledge to “get much tougher with China” is more than rhetoric when, as required by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, the President has to decide whether to label China a “currency manipulator.”
The president also claims that by subsidizing green energy sources he will create technologies that will dominate world markets, creating millions of export-based jobs. Unfortunately, the wind machines on which he is lavishing subsidies are made in China, not here, and the jobs that might be created by developing America’s indigenous energy sources are not to be -- the environmental wing of his party remains opposed to drilling for natural gas and oil, and to the construction of new coal plants. One ray of hope: the president has decided to encourage the construction of new nuclear plants. As my colleague at the Hudson Institute, Diana Furchtgott-Roth points out, the unions that will benefit from the new construction jobs have woefully under-funded pension plans and desperately need new dues-paying members. In effect, the president has decided to favor his union supporters over the green lobby, at least on this issue, although he has not gone so far as to press Senate majority leader Reid to end his opposition to the activation of the Yucca Mountain waste storage facility in Nevada.
If the president is serious about using exports to spur growth he will have to do a lot more than set up inter-agency task forces and advisory committees. First, he will have to get Congress to approve several trade deals that are before it, and which promise new jobs, although not necessarily for trade union members. So the unions are saying “no,” and Democratic congressmen, with an election now only eight months away, need the unions to provide campaign funds and doorstep campaigners. Obama won’t find many free-trade advocates among his congressional allies.
Second, he will have to settle several trade disputes, especially one with Mexico, a market that absorbed $129 billion in U.S. exports last year. In response to trade union pressure, Congress cancelled a pilot program, developed under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that allowed Mexican trucks to travel more freely into the U.S. In retaliation, Mexico imposed $2.4 billion in tariffs on a variety of U.S. goods, resulting in the loss of $2.6 billion in exports and 25,000 jobs, according to business groups that are urging the president to pressure congress to ignore the Teamsters’ union and again allow Mexican trucks freer cross-border access.
Then there is Brazil, which last year persuaded the World Trade Organization that U.S. government subsidies and loan guarantees to cotton growers violated WTO rules, a ruling that allows Brazil to impose $560 million in retaliatory tariffs on cotton goods, beauty products, appliances and autos. More important, Brazil is free to impose other penalties, most notably breaking patents in the media, pharmaceutical and other technology industries. Unless American negotiators can get this issue resolved, continued subsidies to a few inefficient American agribusinesses will in effect throw thousands of American workers into the ranks of the unemployed. Negotiations are ongoing, but the Brazilian authorities are in no mood to bow to U.S. wishes. Witness their recent refusal to accede to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plea to join the U.S. in imposing sanctions on Iran. It is one thing to be unable to persuade China to go along with us on an important foreign policy issue, quite another to be turned down by a middling power such as Brazil.
America’s trading partners are watching these developments with more than a little interest. They fear that if the export drive fails, or even if it succeeds, the U.S. will become increasingly protectionist, especially if the jobs market remains in the doldrums. A consortium led by EADS, the European aerospace company, dropped out of the bidding for a $40 billion contract to build refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force because it believes the bidding process was rigged to favor the smaller tankers proposed by Boeing, whose CEO will head the new presidential export advisory committee. EADS suspects protectionism, especially since it won the initial bidding round, subsequently canceled because auditors found improprieties in the bidding rules.
Several countries note that Congress refuses to ratify trade agreements that have been sitting in its in-box for over a year, and that U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk doubts that progress will be made on the Doha trade-opening round anytime soon, given congressional fears of unleashing a flood of job-destroying imports. Not exactly harbingers of a new era of free trade.
If the president is to achieve his objective of creating two million export-based jobs, he will have to do more than win these skirmishes. He will have to adopt policies that are anathema to congressional Democrats. The competitiveness of many American businesses is reduced by regulations that needlessly drive up costs; incentives to innovate and develop new products attractive to overseas buyers are reduced by the increased taxes he aims to impose on corporations and on the entrepreneurial class; his proposed health care plan will drive up the costs of taking on new workers and producing products that can compete in world markets. These policies, every bit as much as import barriers erected by America’s trading partners, will make it very difficult for the President to realize his ambitious goals for the U.S. export industries. It takes private-sector players to develop products that overseas buyers will buy, and these entrepreneurs are more or less paralyzed at the moment by fears of rising costs and taxes.
Unfortunately, the President’s domestic agenda runs counter to his trade agenda. Not good news on the job-creation front.
Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t tell the Senate Judiciary Committee about seven Supreme Court amicus briefs he prepared or supported, his office acknowledged in a letter Friday, including two urging the court to reject the Bush administration’s attempt to try Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant.
Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the USCCB is sounding the alarm to vote against the health care bill. "It looks like the House leadership's just going to try to jam this bill through the House without fixing any of the problems on abortion, so we'll have to oppose it," says Doerflinger. "We're getting out our alerts by fax and email."
The message? "It's basically: Vote 'no,'" says Doerflinger, "if they bring forward the legislation without fixing the problems on life and conscience."
Doerflinger debunks the pro-Obamacare talking point that the Senate bill doesn't fund abortion here.
If you're wondering which members of Congress are the most important to contact about Obamacare, Andy Wickersham and I have put together our list -- along with indicating how red or blue their districts are, and whether or not they voted for the Stupak Amendment (to preserve longstanding protections against taxpayer-funded abortion, which the Senate bill scrapped). Thirty-five of these representatives are in Republican-leaning districts, most of them solidly so. Twenty-four of them voted for Stupak. Yet the Democrats need the support of the vast majority of these 40 to be able to pass the bill. Now is the time to contact these 40 members and to encourage your friends and family to do the same. The fate of ObamaCare likely hangs in the balance.
Obama announces his deficit commission, February 18, 2010
Opposition to tax increases will come from the commission's Republican members. The GOP congressional leadership announced today that those members will be Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, along with Reps. Dave Camp of Michigan, Jeb Hensarling of Texas, and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. You can count on five of those names -- Crapo, Coburn, Camp, Hensarling, and Ryan -- to oppose tax hikes. Gregg? He may be tempted to strike a deal. Set to retire, he'll be a lame duck by the time the commission delivers its findings. And he's argued in the past that only a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases can clean up America's fiscal mess. (Crapo was an initial cosponsor of Gregg's own deficit commission proposal before voting against it in the Senate.) Still, one rogue won't matter if five members hold the line.
The White House wants the full commission to be in operation soon. Government spending has become a major voter concern, spurring opposition to the Obama agenda and budget deficit. But the commission will be more of a college seminar than anything else. The report won't be binding. Congress can do whatever it wants with the recommendations, which will arrive during the lame-duck session after the midterm elections. And by that time, Harry Reid may be too busy packing his things to read the commission's report -- much less hold a vote.
Bart Stupak tells National Review's Robert Costa that the House Democratic leadership is "ignoring" him. The good news: Stupak affirms he won't cave in and is a "definite 'no' vote" because Democratic leaders have made it clear the abortion language won't be fixed.
The bad news: "At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve," says Stupak. "The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions."
If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue. We’ll probably have to wait until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this.”
Stupak told a radio show earlier today that Henry Waxman said during negotiations: "we want to pay for abortions."
"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."
If Pelosi wants us to imagine it, let's do it with a few caveats, shall we? If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members of society.
If they insist on creating a generation unable to care for itself up to and past the ripe old age of 26 by incentivizing "children"—and I use to term loosely— to stay on parent's health insurance policies until they're turning the corner from Clearasil to Botox, there will be fewer educated, able-bodied people who ever learn to take care of themselves.
These are the workers—and I may soon be using that term loosely— upon whom liberal Boomer Pelosi must rely to pay her Social Security through their working years. The ratio of workers to retirees has already shrunk from 41:1 in 1942 to 3.3:1 in the mid-2000s, and is expected to dip into to 2:1 in the next decades. Does Pelosi really want one or more of those young people supporting each worker to be a really keen charcoal sketch artist whose earning potential went as thoroughly unrecognized as his genius?
When imagining Pelosi's economy, liberal Boomers should also imagine what comes with it. The mediocre melodies of their street-bard children will be cold comfort indeed when they're warming their hands over hobo fires in Haight-Ashbury.
"Sorry, Pops! No more money! I'm a barrista-cum-unemployed-sculptor-with-benefits!"
Yes, I exaggerate (probably!), but the extent to which liberals actively discourage the very productivity that is the life's blood of their beloved entitlements, is astounding.
The AP had a great story this week about the growing number of self-identified "tea" activists in China. The article describes how activists, dissidents and even ordinary Chinese citizens often have their first encounter with state security when they are invited to "have a cup of tea" with the authorities. Instead of a warm drink and a friendly social chat, however, the "cup of tea" turns out to be an interrogation about the citizen's online political activity that touched on some taboo topic. While this practice has been commonplace for decades, it has increasingly become publicized as the tea drinkers -- particularly young tech-savvy signers of Charter 08 who are experiencing their first harassment by China's extensive security apparatus -- have defied the authorities instructions and posted stories about their outings on the internet. There are now several websites that are devoted to stories about "drinking tea" with the authorities. Some "tea drinkers" have even posted their experiences in real time via their mobile phones.
As a result of the connective power of the Internet, "drinking tea" has now become a widespread euphemism for being interrogated by the authorities for crossing the invisible line into forbidden political activity. One of the most valuable tools in the authoritarian toolkit is social ostracization, and in Asian societies that place a high value on conformity and communitarian values, this is an even more potent threat. Even behind the Great Firewall, the Internet has proven to be a valuable means of weakening the authorities' ability to keep dissidents feeling they are in a lonely, futile battle against an unassailable system. As one activist put it to the AP:
"The way to control dissidents' activities is by creating fear and isolation. Other people don't dare to become your friends. You feel threatened," he said. "But the Internet countered that effort by connecting those people. They have a sense of community, which makes them bolder and stronger."
The indomitable China Digital Times has translated some of the "drinking tea" stories on its website (here and here). The pluck, determination and humor (another great weapon against the singularly humorless authoritarians in Beijing) that these young political activists demonstrate in relating their confrontations with the authorities gives me hope for the future of China.
If you listen beyond the media hysteria and Congressional flagellation of Toyota, you might just hear an intriguing buzz from folks involved in "sudden acceleration" cases of the past, many of which turned out to be bogus.
But one shouldn’t believe the hype. We went through this a generation ago with the Audi 5000 and other autos accused of sudden acceleration, and, again, mysterious unknowable car components were supposedly at fault...
Back then, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) spent millions studying the issue. They found that sudden acceleration was several times more likely among elderly drivers than young drivers, and much more frequent among the very short or someone who had just gotten into a vehicle.
Electromagnetic rays don’t discriminate by age and height, which suggests very much that human factors were at play: in other words, pedal misapplication. A driver would step on the wrong pedal, panic when the car did not perform as expected, continue to mistake the accelerator for the brake, and press down on the accelerator even harder.
We're seeing that patter again today.
Richard Scmidt, writing in the New York Times, also has experience studying "sudden acceleration":
I looked into more than 150 cases of unintended acceleration in the 1980s, many of which became the subject of lawsuits against automakers. In those days, Audi, like Toyota today, received by far the most complaints. (I testified in court for Audi on many occasions. I have not worked for Toyota on unintended acceleration, though I did consult for the company seven years ago on another matter.)
In these cases, the problem typically happened when the driver first got into the car and started it. After turning on the ignition, the driver would intend to press lightly on the brake pedal while shifting from park to drive (or reverse), and suddenly the car would leap forward (or backward). Drivers said that continued pressing on the brake would not stop the car; it would keep going until it crashed. Drivers believed that something had gone wrong in the acceleration system, and that the brakes had failed.
But when engineers examined these vehicles post-crash, they found nothing that could account for what the drivers had reported.
If the "smart pedal" solution proposed by President Obama becomes a requirement for all car manufacturers, it will only work in those cases in which there really is a mechanical or electronic malfunction, and no operator error. Schmidt is of the mind that that won't do much good except revealing just how many of these incidents really are operator error.Frank notes the ages of drivers in Toyota crashes, for which we have that information:
**Passenger victim was 71 and married to husband-driver for 46 years.
The median age is 60.5; the majority of drivers are 60 or older; a third are older than 70. And I left out the case of a driver who was the son of a 94-year-old victim rather than guesstimate his age to be 65. That looks suspiciously like the makeup of Audi sudden acceleration cases, and a lot like driver error to me. Color me skeptical. Very very skeptical.
Sudden acceleration in Toyotas over the last decade has been linked with -- which doesn't mean "caused" -- 52 deaths, according to NHTSA. It was just 19 before the current publicity. A Los Angeles Times investigation brought it up to 56, including those culled from lawsuits. Whatever the count and cause, that's too many. But it's also out of 20 million Toyotas sold, and out of the 420,000 Americans NHTSA says died in motor vehicle accidents that decade.
And although Toyota had almost 17% of total U.S. car sales in 2008, it accounted for merely 8% of total claims for deaths and injuries in the first quarter of that year, according to NHTSA. Edmunds.com found that while Toyota was third in U.S. car sales from 2001 through 2010, it was 17th in NHTSA complaints. Thus, even if every sudden-acceleration complaint proved valid, Toyotas are among the safest cars made.
Fumento also notes that, in the case of Audis, the media was at fault for sensationalizing to the point of deceit:
In 1986, Kristi Bradosky, while driving an Audi 5000, ran over and killed her young son. "60 Minutes" aired a misleading segment depicting a runaway Audi -- without disclosing that the car had been re-engineered to respond that way. Nor did it mention that Bradosky had told police that her foot had slipped off the brake onto the accelerator.
The rest of the media piled on, and a tsunami of Audi acceleration complaints linked to accidents swamped NHTSA.
ABC News has now admitted that a part of the video it used to illustrate the unintended acceleration of a Toyota model in a recent report was faked. The video, outlining a tactic used by professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University to cause an unintended acceleration in a Toyota product, was not an actual shot of the car’s tachometer during the sudden acceleration, but a clip of the tachometer sweeping across the screen while the car was in park. Sure, it makes for great TV, with the rpms rising suddenly, but it’s not accurate. As such, it has called into question the validity of the entire ABC News story, which could have far greater consequences.
Ed Morrissey has the video of Bart Stupak on Fox News last night. "We're not going to accept this 'trust me, we'll fix it later,'" Stupak says. "There has to be something more." Stupak says that Democrats have been told they'll be given seven days to look at final legislative text, which would seem to put the March 18 deadline out of reach.
The fight for the GOP nomination to replace retiring U.S. senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky is one of the most interesting campaigns in the land. The establishment candidate, Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson, finds himself trailing insurgent eye doctor Rand Paul, son of libertarian gadfly Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Grayson says Paul benefits from the current anti-establishment mood and frequent appearances on Fox News Channel, where he discusses taxes, spending, health care, and the Federal Reserve. But Grayson wants Kentucky Republican voters to listen to Paul's thoughts on another topic: national security. They may not like what they hear.
Grayson recently launched a television ad zinging Paul for comments made during a May 2009 appearance in Paducah, Kentucky. Paul, who supports closing the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, said that "if you’re not going to convict them" -- he's referring to al Qaeda detainees -- "and you can’t convict them, and you’re unclear, drop ‘em off back into Afghanistan, it’ll take them awhile to get back over here."
Watch the spot:
Grayson has launched a new website, RandPaulStrangeIdeas.com, collecting comments like these. And he frequently highlights Paul's Gitmo lines on the stump. At a recent Lincoln Day Dinner, with Paul nearby, he read the quotation and asked the audience whether it was ever appropriate to "drop" terrorists off in a battlefield such as Afghanistan. A man in the crowd screamed, "NO!"
Paul, who's proven to be a savvy pol, would rather talk about economic issues than national security. He grows testy whenever Grayson brings up the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan or Gitmo or his opposition to the Patriot Act. At a dinner in Shelby County two weeks ago that both candidates attended, the routine was all too familiar. Grayson raised the Gitmo issue and quoted Paul's own words. Paul delivered a heated response. And as the crowd left the event, Grayson says, a man came up to him and said, "I know who I want to vote for now -- not that angry guy."
Grayson and Paul share many positions. But, to use the old cliché, the similarities stop at the water's edge. "In foreign affairs, it's night and day," Grayson says. He's staking his chances on his ability to portray Paul as outside the GOP foreign policy mainstream. Of course, Paul's international views weren't enough to stop Sarah Palin from endorsing him in February. Will they drive Kentucky GOP primary voters away? We'll find out on May 18.
"According to the poll, 48 percent of the population considers the seriousness of global warming to be 'generally exaggerated' — up from 41 percent last year and 35 percent in 2008, and by far the highest figure in the 13 years Gallup has posed the question."
Nice: "A government agency that finances U.S. exports directed 90 of its loan guarantees last year to subsidize one company."
"The Democratic-leaning group Americans United for Change says it will announce today a $500,000 TV and radio campaign to motivate African-American voters in support of the health-care bill."
Tricky Orszag: "According to a December report by Orszag's trusted arbiter, the CBO, the bill will either reduce the deficit or extend the solvency of Medicare, not both. (And for what it's worth, Medicare's chief actuary agrees.) Yet as recently as March 10—yesterday—Obama was claiming that his health care plan would "help ensure Medicare’s solvency for an additional decade." Great! But according to the CBO, that means the bill won't actually cut the deficit."
President Obama has delayed his upcoming trip to the Pacific in order to pressure wavering House Democrats to back his health care reform. Obama was originally supposed to depart next Thursday, March 18. Now he'll leave Sunday the 21st. But that is still five days earlier than the Democrats' self-imposed deadline of March 26, when Congress is scheduled to begin its Easter Recess. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Obama postpones the Asia trip until April. He and the leadership are engaged in a full-court press to win every vote.
Is it working? Not at the moment. There aren't 216 votes in the House for Obamacare. As Rep. Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, tells the New York Times this morning, it's hard to vote for something you haven't seen. Chances are we'll have a better picture of the final legislative package, including the details and cost of the reconciliation fixes, sometime next week.
The cw is that yesterday's ruling by the Senate parliamentarian hurt the bill's prospects. The parliamentarian said the Senate could not pursue reconciliation until the bill it passed in December becomes law. That means the House will have to act first, and without truly knowing whether the Senate will ever "fix" what even many Democrats say is a flawed bill. Rep. Michael Capuano, Democrat of Massachusetts, says he is leaning toward voting No because he can't trust the Senate. The latest whip count is here.
Political junkies: Be happy! We are in for a couple of very interesting weeks.
From a USA Today editorial: "The fact is that many of those whom Liz Cheney is quick to brand as terrorists have been released from Guantanamo — including about 530 by the Bush administration, which admitted many posed no long-term threat."
The Bush administration never admitted that "many posed no long-term threat." Almost all of their transfers and releases of detainees contained some risk; the same is true of the Obama administration's transfers and releases. Obama's head of the Gitmo detainee task force has admitted as much on the record in an interview with BBC News.
Remember: the climbing recidivism rate is currently at 20%, with 3 or 4 new recidivists discovered every month. The Obama administration is now even more aware than the previous administration was of the threat posed by releasing or transfering detainees.
So USA Today got it wrong, but thankfully it also had the decency to give Andy McCarthy a chance to share the opposing view: read the whole thing.
Washington, D.C.'s Metro remains a great manifestation of liberalism today. Although it was created at the zenith of the Great Society, and although its union workforce gains overly generous pensions and maintains ridiculous job security, it is Metro's management of its passengers—its attempt to save passengers from their own idiocy—that earns it this title.
Metro riders receive all kinds of helpful announcements: They’re told to cover their mouths while they cough, pick up their newspapers when they’re done reading them, not to leave their cellphones behind, wash their hands regularly, not to sit on the escalator stairs or stand too close to the edge of the platform, that inclement weather can make floors slippery, and to stand clear of the closing train doors. Repeatedly.
Despite the best efforts of the sybarites at the Cato Institute we have largely become a non-smoking society. In Washington, D.C., smoking hasn’t been allowed in public places since 2006. So people know not to smoke indoors in Washington, D.C.
However, one entity still feels obliged to provide constant reminders that smoking is not allowed on its premises—the Washington Metro. Despite the fact that smoking has never been permitted in the Metro, and I have never witnessed (or heard of) anyone doing in a Metro train, during any given commute riders can expect to hear at least one announcement reminding them that smoking is prohibited on Metro.
Obamacare supporters thought they may have caught a break when Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan indicated he would vote for the Senate bill and thinks it adequately bans abortion funding. "Kildee Breaks From Stupak Over Senate Abortion Language," is how Roll Call put it. Kildee was on GOP whip Eric Cantor's list of pro-life Democrats who wouldn't vote for the Senate bill because of abortion, but Kristen Day, the executive director of Democrats for Life of America, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Kildee "wasn’t on the list of the Stupak 12" in the first place. Day is still hopeful there's a chance that Kildee will stick with Stupak in the end.
According to Bart Stupak, thre are 12 Democrats who will switch their votes from "yes" to "no" because of the Senate bill's abortion-funding provisions. Stupak has kept his cards close to his chest and won't identify who is or isn't in this group.
For the record, Kildee is mistaken about abortion in the Senate bill: if he would only read the bill, he would see there are a number of provisions to fund abortion coverage and to directly fund abortions. Even Ben Nelson acknowledged that one loophole in the Senate bill would have to be fixed in conference committee to prevent taxpayer-funding of abortion.
Ed Whelan flags a report that trial lawyer John J. McConnell, who was nominated by the president to a district judgeship in Rhode Island, donated nearly $700,000 in the past 20 years to various Democrats. Whelan writes that McConnell's "poor rating" by the ABA "ought to set off alarm bells."
Nancy Pelosi does not have the 216 votes necessary to pass the Senate health care bill. She's planning to go ahead without the votes of the Stupak 12. Today the Senate parliamentarian ruled the Senate bill must become law before "fixes" can be made via the parliamentary tactic known as reconciliation. The GOP Senate caucus will rigorously enforce the Byrd rule, limiting the reconciliation changes to budget matters and nothing more.
What's going on? The final push for Obamacare is about to begin. It starts on Monday, when the House Budget Committee will insert reconciliation instructions into the November House health care bill. By late Monday / early Tuesday, Budget will pass this bill and send it to the House Rules Committee, where Pelosi will change the language so that it matches the Senate bill. This is the final compromise legislation that may come to a vote on the House floor within weeks. "They're creating the shell," says Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Why move ahead when the votes aren't there? Pelosi hopes that launching the process will create enough momentum to flip Democrats her way. The clock is ticking. The speaker has two weeks before Congress breaks for Easter Recess. And the recess could kill off health care reform, since many of the wavering Democrats will get an earful from their constituents when they return home. Republicans expect Democrats to lose votes over the break.
But that won't matter if health care reform is already law. Which puts the Democrats in a funny situation. The Senate passed a bill on Christmas Eve filled with gimmickry and special deals in the hopes that the details would be ironed out in conference. Then Scott Brown came along and ruined their plans. House Democrats now have to support a bad bill that wouldn't have passed if it weren't for the Cornhusker Kickback, Lousiana Purchase, and Gator Aid. And they have to do it soon. Or the central policy initiative of the Obama administration will come to naught.
House leaders have concluded they cannot change a divisive abortion provision in President Barack Obama's health care bill and will try to pass the sweeping legislation without the support of ardent anti-abortion Democrats. ...
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the leadership will press ahead without reworking the abortion provision, which opponents say falls short in restricting taxpayer dollars for abortion coverage. He predicted some of the anti-abortion lawmakers in the party will end up voting for the overhaul anyway.
Will this be the last known photo of Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin?
The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.
The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.
House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.
Information Republicans say they have received from the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office eliminates that option. House Democratic leaders last week began looking at crafting a legislative rule that would allow the House to approve the Senate health care bill, but not forward it to Obama for his signature until the Senate clears the reconciliation package.
House Democrats do not trust the Senate; they do not want to pass the Senate bill--with all the special deals in it--and hope the Senate will fix these problems and others later. Even Democrat Michael Capuano of Massachusetts is expressing very grave concerns about passing the Senate bill unamended.
If this report is true, the parliamentarian's ruling seems to nix the "Slaughter Solution," whereby the House would deem the Senate bill passed only after the reconciliation bill is passed by both the House and the Senate.
So where do Democrats go from here? One possibility is that Harry Reid will fire the Senate parliamentarian.
If Democrats really think they can get away with such a heavy-handed move in the first place, they might as well replace the parliamentarian with Rahm Emanuel and kill two birds with one stone.
Official photo:Rep. John Campbell, Republican of California
It may have been his hardest vote yet. When he walked onto the House floor on March 10, John Campbell, Republican of California, wasn't sure how he'd vote on Dennis Kucinich's resolution to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. He had agonized over the decision all week. In his view, the language of the resolution was too strict. It tied the president's hands. Campbell had decided the day before that he wouldn't vote No, however. Even so, the temptation remained to simply vote Present. Except there'd be no courage to that vote, he thought. Which is why Campbell ultimately voted Yes.
The vote made Campbell one of five Republicans calling for an immediate withdrawal from the central front of the war on terror. His compatriots -- Ron Paul, Walter Jones, Tim Johnson, and John Duncan -- all opposed George W. Bush's Iraq surge. But Campbell, who won a special election to replace outgoing Chris Cox in December 2005, supported the surge and says "Iraq was winnable and has strategic value." He reluctantly come to the conclusion that the same cannot be said of Afghanistan."We're just not going to be able" to put troops wherever terrorists hide, Campbell told me. He says he always had qualms about the cost of the war, but it wasn't until President Obama's December 1 speech announcing the surge that Campbell decided the Afghan intervention could not be won. Campbell doesn't serve on the Armed Services Committee, but says he's "studied virtually every war from the Norman conquest moving forward." The Normans did not leave England precipitously.
Campbell, a former car dealer, is neither an isolationist nor a crank. He's a fiscal hawk who writes the Green Eyeshade blog and believes America's entitlement crisis may one day turn out to be a greater danger to the republic than jihadism. He says he's reviewed the history of Afghanistan and concluded that it holds little strategic significance and has been resistant to outside powers. He buys into the comparison of Afghanistan to Vietnam and supports the "light footprint" approach backed by Joe Biden and George Will. And while Campbell told me plenty of his colleagues were surprised by his vote, none were rude or dismissive of it.
What's striking is how little sway Campbell's arguments hold over the GOP, and even the normally antiwar Democrats. The bipartisan consensus behind the president's Afghanistan policy is strong. The successful assault on the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, which the Marines cleared and are now holding, will only strengthen support. Perhaps one day the war will turn south. Perhaps one day the Republicans will give in to the America-first instincts associated with traditional conservatism. But until then, the Afghanistan Five will remain an exceptionally tiny minority in a minority party.
The Virginia House of Delegates passed a law banning a federal mandate for health insurance in the state, should Congress pass a law containing such a requirement.The House of Delegates was the second, and easier, obstacle for the bill after the Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate passed the bill in February:
By an 80-17 vote, the Virginia House of Delegates passed HB 10, sponsored by Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-13th District), which states that no resident of the commonwealth shall be required to obtain or maintain individual insurance coverage.
Gov. Bob McDonnell has said he'll sign the legislation. As many as 34 other states are considering similar measures.
All 17 "no" votes were Democrats, but five Democrat cross-overs enabled the bill to pass the Senate earlier this year.
