Krauthammer: ObamaCare Doesn't Help the Uninsured

'Blue Dog' Democrats need to act now on health care
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seeking to rally her Caucus to approve Health-care reform, reminded wavering members in an interview on ABC Sunday , "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We're here to do the job for the American people." A noble sentiment, and one we wish all of Ms. Pelosi's colleagues shared. But coming from a congresswoman who generally racks up more than 80 percent of the vote in her California district , it might not be entirely persuasive...

Rangel tries to hang on to Ways and Means post
WASHINGTON — Rep. Charles Rangel is struggling to hold on to his powerful tax-writing committee chairmanship, with the House Speaker declining to endorse him and other Democrats clearly nervous about retaining a leader who has been accused of ethical misconduct. "You bet your life," Rangel told reporters Tuesday night when asked whether he would remain as House Ways and Means chairman. However, his comment followed a private meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who refused to discuss the...

Rangel tries to hang on to Ways and Means post
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Charles Rangel is struggling to hold on to his powerful tax-writing committee chairmanship, with the House Speaker declining to endorse him and other Democrats clearly nervous about retaining a leader who has been accused of ethical misconduct. “You bet your life,” Rangel told reporters Tuesday night when asked whether he would remain as House Ways and Means chairman. However, his comment followed a private meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who refused to...

2010 California Senate: Three GOP Hopefuls Narrow The Gap With Boxer
California Senator Barbara Boxer is now the latest Democratic incumbent to find herself in a tightening race for Reelection. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely California voters finds Boxer with narrow leads over her three leading Republican challengers, including newcomer Tom Campbell. As in much of the country, the story may turn in part on the Health Care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, even though support for it is higher in California than ...

Republicans confident abortion issue will prevent Obama from passing health care
Republicans on Capitol Hill said Tuesday evening they are confident that a key bloc of Pro-Life House Democrats who voted for President Obama's Health-care reform last fall will vote against it now, as the White House tries to push a bill across the finish line. Such resistance from even a few of about a dozen committed Pro-Life Democrats would almost certainly doom a Health-care bill. It is not the only challenge complicating Obama’s attempt to pass a bill, but could be the...

Health Reform's Reconciliation Ref -- The Senate Parliamentarian
As Democrats try to salvage Health Care reform, there is one man who above all others will help determine its fate, and he is not Barack Obama or Harry Reid or even a member of Congress. In fact odds are you've never heard of Alan Frumin, the Senate Parliamentarian. But when it comes to the complex budgetary procedure known as Reconciliation, the Filibuster-proof process which Democrats hope to use to make certain fixes to the Senate bill, Frumin is "the defense counsel, he's the prosecution,...

Democrats Ready Reconciliation Plans for Health Care
No matter what President Obama says in his speech Wednesday about the way forward for Health Care reform, Democrats know that the only path ahead of them will be technically complicated and politically close to impossible. The reality came into stark relief Tuesday at the Capitol, as Democratic leaders gamed out how to pass Health Care reform through Reconciliation, a Budget-related process that requires just 51 votes, rather than 60, to pass the Senate. It also requires the House to become...

Rangel tries to hang on to Ways and Means post
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Charles Rangel is struggling to hold on to his powerful tax-writing committee chairmanship, with the House Speaker declining to endorse him and other Democrats clearly nervous about retaining a leader who has been accused of ethical misconduct. "You bet your life," Rangel told reporters Tuesday night when asked whether he would remain as House Ways and Means chairman. However, his comment followed a private meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who refused to discuss the...

Rangel tries to hang on to Ways and Means post
WASHINGTON— Rep. Charles Rangel is struggling to hold on to his powerful tax-writing committee chairmanship, with the House Speaker declining to endorse him and other Democrats clearly nervous about retaining a leader who has been accused of ethical misconduct. "You bet your life," Rangel told reporters Tuesday night when asked whether he would remain as House Ways and Means chairman. However, his comment followed a private meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who refused to discuss the...

Obama and the "R" Word, Will He or Won't He?
"Saying it doesn't make it any more or less real," a senior House Democrat said. "If you don't know the Senate is going to use Reconciliation by now, you haven't been paying attention." In fact, House Democrats are far more worried about what will happen in their chamber. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still has to corral enough votes to pass the Senate Health Care bill. If she can't, the Reconciliation process stalls before it even starts. "With Reconciliation, things are easier for the Senate...

Rangel's Reign Appears To Be Reaching Its End
Rep. Charles Rangel has been told tonight he doesn’t have the votes to hang on to his position as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Daily News and other sources are reporting. Rangel was informed during meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders that he will have to quit as chairman as soon as Wednesday, according to sources. Rangel received an admonishment last week from the House for knowingly accepting trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008,...

Rangel Adamant He's Staying in House Leadership Post
Feb. 25, 2010: Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Way and Means Committee, addresses reporters after the ethics panel admonished him. (AP) Embattled House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., denied media reports Tuesday night that he would step down as the head of the powerful tax-writing Committee. A defiant Rangel emerged Tuesday night from a half-hour meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When asked by reporters if he was still the chairman of the...

Don't talk about Constitution, send one!
Question: How many copies of the Constitution does it take for Congress and the president to learn the limits of their power? Answer: Apparently it takes more than 3,000 – because that's how many WND has delivered to Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Harry Reid so far as part of the "Send the Constitution" program in just a couple weeks. But Joseph Farah, editor and Chief Executive Officer of WND, is not giving up on the idea of Flooding their offices with...

Will Charlie Rangel stay or will he go?
NBC News reported  Tuesday night that Rangel would give up his post in the wake of an ethics panel's finding that he broke House rules. That would help House Speaker Nancy Pelosi out of a political jam; Republicans are already trying to turn attention to the allegations against Rangel and how Democrats respond. But this election year, good news for Democrats is in short supply. And so on his way out of a meeting with Pelosi, Rangel denied any such deal was in the works. "You bet your...

House Spkr. Pelosi (D-CA) Press Conference on Health Care
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke to reporters about Health Care legislation. In a letter to Congress the President listed a number of new provisions in his version of the bill designed to attract Republican support.

White House: Simple up or down vote on health care
It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the Health Care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmaker unanimously oppose the Health Care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November Elections. Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between...

White House Suggests to Gov. Paterson He Shouldn't Run for Re-election
President Obama has grave concerns that New York Gov. David Paterson cannot win a Reelection contest in 2010, and the White House has taken the unusual step of conveying those concerns to the governor himself, several knowledgeable Democrats told ABC News. President Obama has not personally spoken with the governor about the race, "but it's no secret that Democrats in New York are very concerned about the situation and those concerns have been conveyed in an appropriate way," a...

Amazon.com: Party of Defeat eBook: David Horowitz, Ben Johnson: Kindle Store
coeditor Johnson in a vitriolic attack on the left's cowardly betrayal of the American cause, singling out the antiwar stances of John Edwards, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi for special reproach. According to the authors, a nation divided during wartime is a nation that invites its own defeat, and they argue that through ignorance and design, Democrats have obstructed presidential policy, undermined American security and continually failed to grasp the nature of the Islamofascist threat. Cataloguing...

'Nobody... knows... the bill that we'll see...'
Fox News (Via Hot Air ): President Obama will soon propose a Health Care bill that will be “much smaller” than the House bill but “big enough” to put the country on a “path” toward Health Care reform, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday. “In a matter of days, we will have a proposal,” Pelosi said, pointing to Obama’s forthcoming bill. “It will be a much smaller proposal than we had in the House bill because that’s where we...

Obama inserts GOP ideas in health-care push
Washington — President Barack Obama embraced a handful of Republican Health Care ideas Tuesday to lure Democratic votes as he prepared to spell out his final package for a sharply divided House and Senate, where its fate is unsure. In a bit of political sleight of hand, Obama said he might include four GOP-sponsored ideas in his plan, even though virtually no one in Congress or the White House thinks it will procure a single Republican vote. The move is aimed instead at wavering Democrats,...

Rangel: I'm staying as Ways and Means chairman
Updated 8:16 p.m. By Perry Bacon Jr. and Paul Kane Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) sounded defiant Tuesday night in the face of renewed calls for him to give up his chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Rangel emerged from a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to tell reporters that he's staying as chairman. "You bet your life," he said. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) on Tuesday became both the first member of...

Rangel's Not Going Out Without A Fight
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) will not step down from his position, the congressman said Tuesday. Rangel, who sits atop one of the most powerful Committees in the House, rejected calls to step down from his chairmanship pending the result of an ethics inquiry. Rangel, following a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the Capitol, denied very preliminary reports Tuesday evening that he’d be stepping down. When asked whether he is still chairman,...

Dems Try To Lose Their Delusional Illusionist, But Rangel Says It's Smoke And Mirrors
WASHINGTON (AP) " Rep. Charles Rangel is denying that he’s stepping down as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. A Democratic source, however, says Rangel is likely to “temporarily” relinquish his chair in wake of an ethic report that admonished him for taking two corporate paid trips. Rangel told reporters “you bet your life” when asked if we was still chairman. He had just emerged from a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss...

Nine Democrats for Pelosi to Target in the House Health Vote
This post by WSJ’s Peter Landers also is appearing on the Washington Wire blog. The fate of the Democrats' Health bill is likely to come down to the House, and the vote there hinges on wavering Democrats. The Associated Press surveyed all 39 Democrats who voted against the version of the Health overhaul approved by the House on Nov. 7 and found nine who said they would consider switching to yes. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to achieve a majority, she'll probably need some of those...

Democrats plan to keep talking about Bunning
The last couple of days -- with Bunning refusing to allow the Senate to move forward with a bill both parties agreed should pass, and an increasing number of Republicans coming to the floor to defend him -- couldn't have come at a better time for Democrats. Why? Because they're going to have to use the Budget Reconciliation procedure to finish work on Healthcare Reform. And the specter of Bunning leading an angry one-man effort to keep the chamber from doing anything makes for a pretty good...