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To: LindyBill who wrote (338797)	12/16/2009 2:44:04 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793964

The Antique Media is having fits: Check these headlines: GOP request for reading of 767 pages stalls health debate Las Vegas Sun - Lisa Mascaro - ?20 minutes ago? WASHINGTON -- Just when it seemed that Senate Democrats were on a path to pass health care reform by Christmas, one Republican senator halted the process Wednesday by demanding the full reading of a 767-page amendment. Senate debate stalls as GOP forces reading Politico Senate Republicans Trigger Procedural War To Slow Health Bill CQPolitics.com Courthouse News Service - NewsOK.com - USA Today - CNN Political Ticker (blog) all 360 news articles » news.google.com *** ** **** GOP request for reading of 767 pages stalls health debate Las Vegas Sun - Lisa Mascaro - ?21 minutes ago? WASHINGTON -- Just when it seemed that Senate Democrats were on a path to pass health care reform by Christmas, one Republican senator halted the process Wednesday by demanding the full reading of a 767-page amendment. ... Senate debate stalls as GOP forces reading Politico - ?1 hour ago? The debate on the health care reform bill stalled Wednesday as Senate Republicans forced the Senate clerk to read a 767-page amendment establishing a government-financed health care system. "Republicans have a number of tools at their disposal that can ... Clerks reading Sanders' 767-page amendment on Senate floor BurlingtonFreePress.com - Nicole Gaudiano - ?20 minutes ago? WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders' plan to create a single-payer health insurance system is rife with terms like "subsection" and "minimum standards" and "implementation of ... ________________________________________ "We know what's going on here, they want to slow this down and stop us," said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. more by Dick Durbin - 21 minutes ago - Las Vegas Sun (1 occurrences) ________________________________________ Senate Republicans Trigger Procedural War To Slow Health Bill CQPolitics.com - ?31 minutes ago? Senate Republicans appear to be launching all-out procedural warfare in an attempt to keep Democrats from passing a health care bill before Christmas. Sen. Tom Coburn , R-Okla., objected Wednesday morning to a routine request to waive the reading of a ... Republicans Throw Up New Obstruction to Health Bill Courthouse News Service - Nick Wilson - ?23 minutes ago? WASHINGTON (CN) - Republicans took a bold step Wednesday to kill the health bill now before the Senate by forgoing convention and insisting that a 767-page amendment be read on the floor. "The goal is to defeat the bill," South Dakota ... All 37 related articles » Blogs Reading Of Sanders Amendment Stalls Senate Health Debate NPR (blog) - Scott Hensley - ?25 minutes ago? Sorry to go all procedural on you. We aim to run a blog about health rather than legislative minutiae. But the Senate clerk is now reading ... Now In The Senate: GOP Requires Clerk Read 767-Page Health Care Amendment NPR (blog) - Mark Memmott - ?1 hour ago? Thanks to C-SPAN.org, we all can watch right now -- if we wish -- as the clerk of the Senate reads aloud a 767-page amendment to the health ... Sanders's Vote Still Up In The Air On Health Care Atlantic Online (blog) - Chris Good - ?2 hours ago? An overwhelming amount of attention has been given to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and his decision to oppose the Medicare buy-in compromise over the past few ... All 20 related blogs » United States GOP slows down Senate debate by demanding full reading of amendment USA Today - ?1 hour ago? The Senate health care debate has run into a major delaying maneuver by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma, who demanded that a proposed amendment be ... GOP slow down effort underway msnbc.com - Domenico Montanaro - ?1 hour ago? Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who is also a physician, has just set into motion the reading of an entire 767-page amendment on the Senate floor. ... Sanders to Get Single-Payer Vote in Senate » New York Daily News (blog) - Kenneth R. Bazinet - ?17 hours ago? Doing everything he can to hold together what's left of his coalition in the Senate, Democratic leader Harry Reid will allow a vote ... All 35 related articles from United States »

To: LindyBill who wrote (338797)	12/16/2009 5:15:09 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

Amid rumbling discontent, Democrats head for the exits By: Michael Barone Senior Political Analyst December 16, 2009 (AP photo/Alex Brandon) While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambles to assemble 60 Democratic votes for health care legislation that, according to the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls, is opposed by a 53 percent-to-38 percent margin, several Democratic members of the House are scrambling for the exits on what is starting to look like a sinking ship. You may noticed that I avoided using the cliche "rats leaving the sinking ship," because the four Democratic House members who over the last three weeks announced their decisions to retire rather than run for ree-lection cannot fairly be characterized as rats. To the contrary, Dennis Moore (Kansas 3), John Tanner (Tennessee 8), Brian Baird (Washington 3) and Bart Gordon (Tennessee 6) are competent House members who among them have won election to Congress 36 times. Gordon is chairman of the House Science Committee; Tanner was offered an appointment to succeed Al Gore in the Senate in 1992; Baird was lead sponsor of measures to ensure the continuity of Congress in time of national disaster. All have claims to significant legislative accomplishments. And to political success in marginal Democratic territory. Gordon and Tanner represent districts that voted heavily for John McCain in 2008; Moore's usually Republican district gave Barack Obama a small majority; Baird's suburban district has voted at just about the national average in the last three presidential elections. All four cited plausible personal reasons for calling it quits, and none can be unaware that there is a robust job market in Washington for former Democratic congressmen with good political skills. Members of Congress make $174,000 a year; heads of trade associations make upward of $741,000 and don't have to return to home districts on weekends. All four of these retiring members faced the prospect of tougher opposition in 2010 than they have encountered in years. Tanner and Gordon are from what I call the Jacksonian belt, the area settled by Scots-Irish southwest from West Virginia to Texas, where Obama ran poorly in both primaries and the general election last year. Polls in nearby Jacksonian Arkansas have shown Democratic incumbents running even with or behind unknown Republican challengers. Moore and Baird are from suburban districts where their views on cultural issues have been a political asset. But in the gubernatorial elections last month in Virginia and New Jersey, suburban voters brushed aside cultural issues and voted for Republicans who ran against higher taxes and big government. That suggests that Democrats in suburban House districts can't expect to match Obama's 2008 showings next year. These four Democrats are not the only House members who aren't running for re-election, but all of the 12 Republican retirees and all but one of the seven other Democratic retirees are leaving the House to run for statewide office. The question now is whether more Democrats of this ilk will choose to retire -- something House Democratic leaders have been working to prevent. They're very much aware that Republicans in 1994 won some 21 open seats in which Democratic incumbents did not seek re-election, nearly half the 52 seats the Republicans gained when they won control of the House that year. Public opinion expresses itself in the legislative process in various ways. Democrats' current large majority in the House, which has enabled them to pass unpopular cap-and-trade and health care legislation, is largely the product of public discontent with George W. Bush's perceived nonfeasance on Katrina in 2005 and perceived malfeasance in Iraq in 2005 and later. These four decisions to retire, and similar decisions by other Democrats that may come, seem (for all disclaimers of personal reasons) to be the product of public discontent with the policies of the Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders in 2009. Such discontent, perceptible only in the Jacksonian belt last year, has now clearly spread to the suburbs of major metropolitan areas. The odds are still against Republicans picking up the 41 seats they need for a House majority. But it's interesting that when Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano, fresh from a second-place finish in the primary for Edward Kennedy's Senate seat, was asked to tell the Democratic caucus what he had learned on the campaign trail, he replied in two words: "You're screwed." How many of those listening decided that it would be a good idea to spend more time with the family after 2010?