The ObamaCare Tragedy

Murtha’s death is another eerie coincidence.

JAMES TARANTO

Rep. John Murtha–best known in recent years as a onetime Iraq war supporter who abruptly switched sides–has died, CNN reports:

Murtha of Pennsylvania, a longtime fixture on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending, died after complications from gallbladder surgery, according to his office. He was 77.

The Democratic congressman recently underwent scheduled laparoscopic surgery at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to remove his gallbladder. The procedure was “routine minimally invasive surgery,” but doctors “hit his intestines,” a source close to the late congressman told CNN.

May he rest in peace.

After paying their respects, political observers wasted no time before speculating about what this means for ObamaCare. If you think the effort is dead anyway, as we guess we still do, the answer of course is nothing. But the president and congressional Democrats are, at least ostensibly, looking for a way to defy the voters and impose this monstrosity, and Murtha did cast an “aye” vote when the House approved its version of ObamaCare in November, 220-215.

The American Spectator’s Philip Klein does the math:

The one Republican who voted for it–Joseph Cao–has indicated that he would not support the bill a second time around given the weaker language on abortion in the Senate version. In addition, Florida Rep. Robert Wexler already retired prematurely. Factor in Murtha’s death [yesterday], and [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi is down to 217 votes.

With 433 representatives currently seated, 217 is a bare majority. so that Murtha’s death does not immediately deprive Pelosi of a needed vote. But the planned Feb. 28 resignation of Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D., Hawaii), who plans to run for governor, would reduce the number of remaining “ayes” to 216 out of 432, not enough for a majority.

What’s more, Murtha’s seat, to be filled in a special election, likely on May 18, could go Republican. The Cook Political Report rates the district, which John McCain carried in 2008, as a “toss-up.” There’s even a chance that Abercrombie’s heavily Democratic district, which includes Barack Obama’s birthplace, could go to the GOP in a special election. As NationalJournal.com notes, the GOP candidate, Charles Djou, is expected to face three Democrats, who could split the vote. A plurality would be sufficient to win.

The fate of ObamaCare is starting to have something of the feel of a Greek tragedy. We are not superstitious, but Murtha’s death as the result of medical error at a government-run hospital is certainly an eerie coincidence.

And this follows the demise of Ted Kennedy, who worked all his life for “universal” health care, then perished last year just as the realization of this aspiration seemed inevitable. If ObamaCare dies, it will have been because a Republican senator was elected to Kennedy’s seat last month.

As the Washington Times reports, some Democrats are so upset they can’t keep their metaphors straight:

“Many of us thought we were really at the one-inch line, then literally it was like being hit by a freight train with about 10 seconds’ warning,” said Ken Thorpe, a senior Health and Human Services official during the Clinton-era debate.

What does “literally” even mean when it modifies a simile? Anyway, Scott Brown would not be in the U.S. Senate had Massachusetts Democrats not twice fiddled with the procedure for filling a vacant Senate seat in the expectation of realizing a short-term gain.

In 2004, they took away the governor’s appointment power (so that Republican Mitt Romney would not be able to replace the haughty, French-looking then-junior senator, who by the way served in Vietnam, had he been elected president). Under the pre-2004 law, Gov. Deval Patrick would have appointed someone to serve until November. Under the post-2004 law, the seat would have remained vacant until a special election. Instead, the law was changed again so that Patrick could appoint someone in the interim. Result: Dems had 60 votes to push ObamaCare through, and Massachusetts voters had the opportunity to cut that number to 59.

So it’s really less like being hit by a train than like driving your own car off a bridge.

World Ends, Minorities Hardest Hit
“Veteran Congressman’s Death Adds to Barack Obama’s Woes”–headline, Guardian (London), Feb. 9

Obamatherapy
The Washington Post carries a wistful whatever-happened-to-the-hopey-changey-stuff report, which repeats one of the oddest tropes of reporting on Democratic politics–the youthful activist who gets involved with politics as a means of therapy for his personal problems:

“To be an activist is a lifestyle,” says Jenn Watts. . . . An Irish Catholic girl of 22 with a Fordham education in philosophy and urban and African American studies, she started as a fundraiser in the District [of Columbia], then went into the field in Iowa and followed the primary trail–Minnesota, Texas, Wisconsin. She helped organize the national convention in Denver and went home to Indiana for the finale.

Then she crashed. “I was malnourished. I was delusional. I hadn’t slept,” she says. She moved to Washington and began competing with fellow staffers for White House jobs. “I saw some people who turned into different people. I felt naive about it. We were all one big progressive happy family, I thought, and now it was, oh, this was about you and your career?”

“I had left my boyfriend of two and a half years. I had to rebuild my friendships. I was totally MIA to my family. . . . I had made all these sacrifices for two years, and the country is ready for change, and Obama is in the White House, but I had ceded everything to him to be an exhausted 26-year-old in debt.”

She decided to work for the president’s agenda from the outside, and now works at Repower America, a grass-roots network that lobbies for climate change legislation.

Post columnist E.J. Dionne, meanwhile, employs a peculiar metaphor to argue that Democrats should force ObamaCare through, the voters be damned:

If President Obama gets to sign a health-reform bill, as I believe he will, one reason may be Rep. Jay Inslee’s difficult experience renovating his kitchen. . . .

He recounted all the grief he and his family went through while work on their kitchen renovation dragged on and on and on. “During that time, I had blood lust against my contractor,” Inslee said. “Six months went by, and he was still arguing with the plumber. Eight months went by, and there were still wires hanging down everywhere, and he was having trouble with the building inspector.”

But eventually, the job got done. “And now I love that kitchen,” Inslee recalls saying. “I bake bread in that kitchen. My wife cooks great meals in that kitchen. The contractor’s now a buddy of mine, and I’ve had beers with him in that kitchen.”

Inslee looked at his colleagues and declared: “We’ve got to finish the kitchen.”

Except that Inslee’s kitchen was in his own house! A better analogy to ObamaCare would be if some guy down the street is unhappy because his daughter is having a lot of very bad personal problems, so to take his mind off it, he barges into your house and starts tearing apart your kitchen.

The Emperor’s Old Clothes
Remember the story of the emperor and his new clothes? The emperor is actually naked, a fact that everyone acknowledges after a child points it out.

In the sequel, “The Emperor’s Old Clothes,” the emperor is still naked, and everyone realizes it except for an Associated Press reporter who keeps writing paeans to the emperor’s wardrobe. Or something like that:

President Barack Obama’s administration is forming a new agency to study and report on the changing climate.

Climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting. . . .

NOAA recently reported that the decade of 2000-2009 was the warmest on record worldwide; the previous warmest decade was the 1990s. Most atmospheric scientists believe that warming is largely due to human actions, adding gases to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

The AP dispatch, by Randolph E. Schmid, makes no reference whatever to the recent revelations of scientific misconduct and misrepresentation at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the University of East Anglia and other academic institutions. Even the New York Times, in reporting on the new agency, acknowledges the scandals, if only to say that “planning for the new unit was not related to” them.

It’s a Tough Job, but Someone’s Gotta Do It

Readthe original article WallStreet Jornal

No squatters, Paul Kirk! Go Home!

By Howie Carr

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, here being the U.S. Senate.

It’s been 15 days now since a Republican won the special election in Massachusetts, and Kirk is still squatting in Ted Kennedy’s office.

Hey Paul Kirk – how can we miss you if you won’t go away?

What’s it going to take to pry this guy out of office, the Jaws of Life?

Now, I am not blaming anybody for this sad state of affairs. Sen.-elect Scott Brown has made it clear he doesn’t have a problem with a three-week victory lap. Besides, there are no big votes coming up in the Senate anyway.

So Downtown Scottie Brown lets the good times roll. He’s planning to be sworn in sometime next week, probably Feb. 11, although he’ll be officially certified as the winner of the election today at the State House.

But I’m not worried about Scott Brown’s plans, I’m concerned about my own, and those of the other 52 percent of the electorate who put him into office. Let me be blunt – the sooner Scott is sworn in, the worse the moonbats will feel, and that will make my day.

It’s so heartwarming, to pick up the moonbats’ favorite broadsheet and see yourself – and 1.1 million other Brown voters – described as “thugs” and “goons.” Goons with machetes, by the way. Hot damn, gonna have to take the shotgun rack off’n the back of the pickup and get me a machete rack.

Did you know that the MSNBC watchers have now come up with a conspiracy theory to explain Brown’s victory – I”ll give you one hint – the D word, as in Diebold. You know, those evil voting machines that the evil GOP used when they stole the 2004 election from John Kerry in Ohio.

Pssst, hey moonbats – did you hear the latest? There’s election-night video out there, of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. They’re loading Diebold machines onto the Halliburton Hurricane Machine. I heard Keith Olbermann has pictures of them dropping the Diebolds onto a levee on New Orleans, trying to start another flood . . .

This is just killing them. That’s why Baba Wawa brought up the tea parties with Scott Brown at the Kowloon Saturday. Think about that one – the last time Walters was with a Republican senator from the Bay State, she ended up on her back. Ed Brooke – she wrote about it in her memoirs.

Could they possibly hate Scott Brown any more? How come, when a conservative wins an election, it’s always a “temper tantrum” or a “fit of pique?” When the Democrats oust a Republican, it’s the voters moving on to a post-racial, post-war, post-partisan future of light and wonder.

If the electorate elects a guy who doesn’t know how many states there are, that’s transcendence. If the electorate elects a guy with a pick-up truck, cue… the film of the goose-stepping SS troops.

C’mon Scott, enough with the parties and the liveshots. Time to get to work. Go down and get sworn in tomorrow. As for you Paul Kirk – we’ve got you a ride back to Massachusetts. Capt. Cheney is holding the Halliburton Hurricane Machine on the tarmac.

read the original article Boston Herald

White House Panic Week Yields No Change in Direction

Howard Rich

Barack Obama’s Panic Week has come and gone, but did his White House learn anything from the historic repudiation of his leftist agenda? Putting the question another way, has Obama made the necessary course corrections or is he still refusing to hear the message that America is sending him so loudly and clearly?

Given the Democratic Party’s stunning defeat in Massachusetts, its November losses in New Jersey and Virginia and its increasingly bleak 2010 electoral prospects, one would think Obama has no choice but to follow the route Bill Clinton took to the right sixteen years ago when he stared down similar circumstances. With the exception of passing his so-called economic stimulus bill, Obama has been unable to get any major legislation through the U.S. Congress – this despite the presence of a sizeable Democratic majority in the House and (until recently) a filibuster-proof Democratic super-majority in the Senate.

Imagine how tough he’ll find the sledding now.

Unfortunately, Obama remains completely tone deaf to the will of the people. In fact, the only thing that has changed in his White House as a result of these repeated electoral setbacks is the way he is pursuing his socialist agenda.

Hope and change obviously didn’t work, so now it’s time for some good old-fashioned smoke and mirrors.

After picking their jaws up off the floor following Sen.-elect Scott Brown’s shocking victory in Massachusetts, a race in which Obama’s intervention actually moved voters away from Democrat Martha Coakley, the very first thing the White House brain trust did was to elevate the role of a professional political operative. In fact, Obama’s elevation of former campaign manager David Plouffe signaled right away that any attempt on the part of his administration to recalibrate its political compass would be purely cosmetic in nature.

In fact, just three days after his party’s Massachusetts defeat, Obama was out looking for low hanging fruit or a convenient enemy that all Americans but particularly independent voters could join him in opposing. He quickly found that enemy in Wall Street bankers, who are the same fat cats who then-Senator Obama supported via the TARP bailout, ironically.

Now boasting that he was ready for a fight, Obama proceeded to propose a new tax on these financial institutions one that a recent Rasmussen Reports poll found was supported (conditionally, at least) by 56% of Americans.

Of course that poll also found that nearly 70% of Americans oppose extending the tax to banks that did not receive bailout money while 72% believe that bailout recipients like Fannie Mae and Freddie Macshould be required to pay any new tax, as well.

Next up on the agenda for Obamas crass populist propagandists? Spending.

Because polling has consistently shown that independent voters are leery of government’s unsustainable deficit spending, Obama’s next move was to unveil a so-called freeze on budget growth. Unfortunately, his freeze only applied to 17% of the budget, and whatever deficit reduction it purports to accomplish would be completely consumed by growth in entitlement spending as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments that taxpayers are forced to pick up as a result of our skyrocketing national debt.

Yet while these two populist stories were being pushed by the White House press office, behind closed doors top Obama administration officials were working harder than ever to resuscitate 

the very radical policies that spawned all this voter angst and distrust in the first place.

Just four days after Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, for example, Obama’s chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel met with a group of Senators at the White House in an effort to revive cap and trade, Obama’s massive energy tax hike. Similarly, Obama has been meeting regularly with Congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in a no-holds-barred effort to ram his socialized medicine proposal through Congress despite its collapsing public support and weakened legislative position.

Clearly a string of defeats for Obama including a historic setback in Massachusetts has done nothing to deter him from his leftward march.

Of course the silver lining is that the more stridently Obama pursues these objectives in the face of mounting public and Congressional opposition, the more strident public and legislative opposition becomes toward him.

Read the original article TownHall

End of O’s cowardly lyin’

We the people of the United States owe Scott Brown‘s sup porters a huge debt of gratitude. They didn’t merely elect a senator. They ripped the façade off the Obama presidency.

Michael GoodwinJust as Dorothy and Toto exposed the ordinary man behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz,” the voters in Massachusetts revealed that, in this White House, there is no there there.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, held together with glib talk, Chicago politics and an audacious sense of entitlement.

At the center is a young and talented celebrity whose worldview, we now know, is an incoherent jumble of poses and big-government instincts. His self-aggrandizing ambition exceeds his ability by so much that he is making a mess of everything he touches.

He never advances a practical idea. Every proposal overreaches and comes wrapped in ideology and a claim of moral superiority. He doesn’t listen to anybody who doesn’t agree with him.

After his first year on the job, America is sliding backwards, into grave danger at home and around the world. So much so that I now believe either of his rivals, Hillary Clinton or John McCain, would have made a better, more reliable and more trustworthy president.

They warned us he wasn’t ready.

Yes, we’re stuck with him, but we’re no longer stuck with his suffocating conformity. The second Boston Tea Party opened the door to new ideas and new people of both parties.

Obama’s reactions were predictable. More self-pity, blaming George W. Bush, and claiming that the voter revolt is due to ignorance about the health-care plan they hate.

Blah blah blah. Hasn’t he heard? The magic is gone.

Massachusetts changed everything. America’s spirit of independence has been emancipated and the cult of Obama-ism is finished.

The health-care debacle perfectly captured his utter lack of governing substance.

He embraced major provisions he rejected during the campaign, misled the public about costs and impact, and got competing versions through Congress only with a grab bag of outlandish bribes and exemptions.

He pledged transparency, then retreated to secret deal-making that corruptly rewarded unions and fleeced everybody else. The result was a national scandal that would have done tremendous damage if it became law.

His sudden adoption of a bank tax springs from a baser motive — political desperation.

He unveiled the tax as polls showed Scott Brown closing in on victory. White House flunkies said the tax marked an aggressive turn to populism and Obama obliged by trotting out the “fat-cat banker” phrase.

Which, of course, is bizarre when you want those banks to lend money to create jobs. And you can be sure Obama will hit up those fat-cat bankers for contributions at election time, as he did in 2008. Even his attacks are cynical.

His foreign policy is a dangerous muddle. He is feckless about both Iran’s brave dissidents and the mullahs pushing for nuclear weapons.

He took a bad situation in the Mideast and made it worse with pernicious demands on Israel. Muslims reject his bended-knee apologies, giving him nothing for his amateurish squandering of American power.

Frightening details are still emerging about the disastrous handling of the Christmas Day bomb plot. The decision to quickly put the al Qaeda-trained Nigerian into civilian courts stems from his fixation on giving terrorists constitutional protections.

The talk in Washington is that he look to Bill Clinton‘s presidency for comeback answers, or maybe Ronald Reagan‘s. Political history won’t help him much.

Obama’s crisis is personal. The inner hollowness and facile talent that propelled his rise gave him none of the grit necessary to meet the challenges. Where would he begin?

America has survived bad presidents before and we will survive this one. Fortunately, we’re no longer waiting for him to grow into the job. Massachusetts proved the nation is ready to move forward.

Mayor must pull the plug on 9/11 trial

When it comes to fighting back against White House assaults on New York, Mayor Bloomberg acts like a man pulled in two directions. Sometimes he objects, as he did to the punitive attacks on Wall Street, and sometimes he rolls over, as he did by giving the green light to holding the 9/11 trial in lower Manhattan.

Mixed loyalties are making him look mixed up. Bloomberg needs to stand for New York and demand that the trial go someplace else.

With many residents and city officials growing angry and frightened, the mayor rejected a plea to move the trial to Governors Island as “dumb.” Actually, it’s not nearly as dumb as holding it in the shadow of Ground Zero and turning the area into an armed fortress.

There is a sneaking suspicion Bloomberg agreed to the trial as a thank-you for President Obama‘s staying out of the mayoral race. Obama never directly endorsed fellow Democrat Bill Thompson, even though his support might have changed the outcome.

If that’s the deal, the mayor needs to find another way to repay the president. Making New York an even greater terror target and disrupting downtown life punishes the city for being the victim of 9/11. Once was enough.

Bloomberg’s lone objection has been cost, which he estimates at $216 million a year. He wants the feds to pay.

Money is the least of it. Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his murderous crew should never be permitted to set foot in New York or in any civilian court. They belong in a military tribunal on a military base. Then they deserve death.

That’s what Bloomberg the mayor ought to tell his buddy pal the president.

Times must be ‘special’

There was more than a whiff of hypocrisy to all the hysteria at The Times and among top Dems (oops, redundant) over the Supreme Court’s allowing campaign ads by corporations and unions.

Cries of “special interests” buying elections conveniently omitted the hometown example. Mike Bloomberg spent $270 million to win three terms, making him a one-man special interest. Yet many of those whining about the court, including The Times, enthusiastically supported him. Can you sayDouble standard?

Paterson’s petering out

Tea leaves suggest Gov. Paterson is getting close to the end of trying to keep his job. His polls remain weak and he had a lousy fund-raising report — all before the resignation of his campaign strategist.

I hoped Paterson would defy the White House and stay in the race, but the image of weakness is corrosive. He can’t get the Legislature to do anything, from tackling the budget crisis to ethics reform to lifting the cap on charter schools. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo refuses to publicly push Paterson aside, but he may not have to: The Gov looks defeated and about ready to jump.

Greatest loss of all

You don’t have to be a Jets fan to be moved by Mark Cannizzaro’s terrific piece in Friday’s Post on team owner Woody Johnson. Two weeks after his troubled, 30-year-old daughter, Casey, was found dead, Johnson fought back tears as he described his roller- coaster emotions: “One doesn’t help the other. The other is reality — I lost a daughter.”

Read the original article NewYork Post

Finger-pointing begins for Democratic insiders

MANU RAJU,JONATHAN MARTIN,JOHN BRESNAHAN

Obama Ties Passage of Health Insurance Bill to American ‘Decency’

FOXNews.com

 As Democratic fears increase that health insurance reform could slip away with a crucial vote for a new U.S. senator in Massachusetts, President Obama on Sunday used a church pulpit at a Martin Luther King Day service to say the massive health bill would be a victory for “decency.”

As Democratic fears increase that health insurance reform could slip away with a crucial vote for a new U.S. senator in Massachusetts, President Obama on Sunday used a church pulpit at a Martin Luther King Day service to say the massive health bill would be a victory for “decency.”

Speaking to congregants at Vermont Avenue Baptist church in Washington, D.C., before heading north to rally for Attorney General Martha Coakley, Obama said the legislation will help more than 30 million Americans, “men women and children, mothers and fathers” to get insurance.

“This will be a victory not for Democrats,” Obama said. “It will be a victory for dignity and decency, and for our common humanity. It will be a victory for the United States of America.”

It was the president’s first visit to a church in Washington, D.C., since Oct. 11, though the White House says Obama attends the Evergreen Chapel in Camp David when he visits the presidential retreat in rural Maryland. 

Democrats are working furiously to reach an agreement on the massive bill as they watch closely the prospect of Coakley losing the seat held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy to Republican Scott Brown. Brown has pledged to be the 41st vote against health insurance reforms. The election is Tuesday. 

Democrats eyeing the possibility of losing the 60th seat needed to stop a Republican filibuster of the bill have suggested the Senate may try to pass a deal with only 51 votes rather than 60. ”Reconciliation is an option,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told Bloomberg Television. Reconciliation is a process that allows the majority to reduce the number of votes needed to pass unpopular tax increases and spending cuts if it means cutting the deficit, which the bill claims to do.

 But liberal Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank say such a plan will kill the deal because it will limit policy changes that aren’t incidental to the deficit cutting. It also requires resubmitting the bill back to the jurisdictional committees for revision.

 On Thursday, Democrats working with President Obama agreed to exempt union workers from the 40 percent tax on high-payout plans that many high-risk workers are provided by employers.

 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the exemption is aimed at getting more workers into unions.

 ”This is just another special deal for a favored constituent,” McConnell told “Fox News Sunday.” “It encourages people, actually, to join unions, presumably, because they would get better treatment from the government on their health care proposal.”

 McConnell noted that only about 7 or 8 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized, which means many workers are left out of the deal-making. 

 ”What about all the workers who are not in labor unions? Why don’t they get a special deal?” he asked.

 Another negotiation hurdle was cleared last week when Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson told Democratic leaders he no longer wanted the so-called “cornhusker kickback” that would have exempted his state from Medicaid co-payments. A likely replacement plan would bump up the federal money for Medicaid in all states. 

 Once a final deal is struck, the bill has to be priced out by the Congressional Budget Office. President Obama has said he wants to keep that under $900 billion over the next 10 years. However, the bill was already pushing that limit before the tax exemptions and increased Medicaid payouts were included.

 But Democratic lawmakers trying to cut a deal are finding the sausage-making is rubbing many Americans the wrong way.

 The latest Fox News poll found that 39 percent of Americans approve of the health care negotiations going on right now while 51 percent approve. That survey of 900 registered voters taken Jan. 12-13 had a margin of error of 3 points.

 A similar Quinnipiac poll taken Jan. 5-12 of 1,767 registered voters found 34 percent mostly approve of the health care deal in the making while 54 percent mostly disapprove.

 Democratic leaders are stressing unity.

 ”There are no sticking points. I would say if there’s two words to the — three words toward — finding common ground, that’s what we’re in the process of doing,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday.

 But McConnell, R-Ky., said no matter how the legislation ends up, it will hurt Democrats in November. 

“I think the politics are toxic for the Democrats either way. This arrogant attempt to have the government take over one-sixth of the economy, on the heels of running banks, insurance companies, car companies, taking over the student loan business, doubling the national debt in five, tripling it in 10,” McConnell said. “You’ve got … sort of widespread public revulsion to this program.”

Fox News’ Caroline Shively contributed.

Read the original article on FoxNews

Democrats want a deal by Tuesday

By Lori Montgomery
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and congressional leaders raced yesterday to strike a compromise on far-reaching health legislation, hoping to settle lingering disputes before Tuesday, when a special election in Massachusetts could hand Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate and the power to defeat Obama’s top domestic initiative.

If Republicans claim the seat held for nearly a half-century by Democrat Edward M. Kennedy, who died in August, Senate Democrats would lose their ability to overcome a GOP filibuster.

“It will kill the health bill,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Frank said he expects Attorney General Martha Coakley, a Democrat, to prevail, but Democrats nonetheless began plotting a strategy if they lose their supermajority in the Senate. Senate aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has shut down talk of the most obvious option: having the House approve the Senate-passed version of the health bill, rather than merging the two and having each chamber vote again.

If state Sen. Scott Brown succeeds in his bid to fill Kennedy’s seat, Democrats could also try to delay seating him until Massachusetts officials have certified his victory, a process that could take up to two weeks. But Kennedy took the seat within hours after winning it in a special election in 1962, and senior Senate aides acknowledged it would be difficult to justify a postponement.

Some Democrats have raised a third option: using a fast-track procedure, known as reconciliation, that would permit the bill to pass the Senate with 51 votes. But that would require lawmakers to start over, dismantle the bill and scale it back dramatically.

Throughout yesterday afternoon, House and Senate leaders pressed toward an agreement, meeting at the White House for a third straight day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said upon returning to the Capitol that negotiators were “pretty close” to a compromise.

Top aides were planning to work through the weekend to transmit a complete package to congressional budget analysts, who must attach a price tag to the legislation before it proceeds to final votes in the House and Senate.

Democrats briefed on the talks said negotiators were close to completing plans to create a national marketplace for insurance, as the House prefers, though the states would also have input. House negotiators were poised to accept the Senate’s proposal to grant an independent board power to rein in Medicare spending.

In other developments:

• Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the last senator to sign on to the health bill, asked to pull a controversial provision that would have fully financed an expansion of Medicaid in his state and replace it with one that would do the same for all states.

• The drug industry is threatening to end its support for the overhaul because of the administration’s drive to shorten what is now 12 years of competitive protection for brand-name biotech drugs from low-cost generic competitors.

Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.

In and Out

C-SPAN cameras haven’t been allowed into the White House to record the final negotiations on the health-care overhaul, but some details have filtered out. What’s likely to be in the final package, and what’s likely out:

IN: Private insurance plans sponsored by the same federal agency that oversees government-employee benefits.

OUT: Government-operated health insurance plan to compete with private carriers.

IN: Tax on high-cost health insurance plans.

OUT: Counting the value of dental and vision benefits in figuring the insurance tax. (This eases the bite.)

IN: Increased federal aid to help all states expand their Medicaid programs.

OUT: Special deal that covered 100 percent of Nebraska’s Medicaid expansion indefinitely.

IN: New health-insurance supermarkets — called exchanges — for individuals purchasing their own coverage and small businesses. Federal government sets rules, but states share responsibility.

OUT: Letting states have sole control over insurance exchanges.

IN: Subsidies to help middle-class households purchase coverage through the exchanges.

OUT: Steep penalties for people who ignore a new federal requirement to carry health insurance.

IN: Taxes on upper-income earners; penalties for employers who don’t provide coverage.

OUT: Stiff payroll taxes on companies that do not provide health insurance to their workers.

IN: Consumer protections that prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with medical problems.

OUT: Coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug benefit. The so-called “doughnut hole” would be phased out.

IN: Powerful commission to recommend ongoing Medicare savings.

OUT: Cuts in guaranteed benefits under traditional Medicare.

Source: Associated Press

Read the original article on Dispatch.com

Rep. Frank lashes out over accusations-Mass. Dems would stall a Brown certification

By Kerry Picket

House members returned from their recess over the holidays today, and health care legislation was the number issue on the agenda.  The Senate race in Massachusetts, though, could change the dynamics of the debate, should GOP State Senator Scott Brown prevail next week. The Democrats risk losing their 60-seat filibuster proof majority with a Brown win.

However, while the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy has yet to be decided, the Brown campaign has already charged that Massachusetts Democrats will find a way to keep Mr. Brown from being certified, should he win, before the final vote on health care legislation happens in the Senate. Fox News spoke to Mr. Brown about his concern on this issue.:

“When I heard … the machine, not only locally but nationally, is trying to manipulate the process and make sure that if I’m elected, a duly elected senator, I can’t be seated in an effort to vote on this important piece of national legislation, it made me almost sick to my stomach,” Brown said. 

“Everything I’ve heard right now I don’t like very much,” said Massachusetts Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei, noting the secretary is signaling he will “drag his feet” 

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve been asked in a long time. That is insane, the suggestion could only come from a demented right wing source,” erupted Representative Barney Frank (D – MA), when asked by The Washington Times about what he thought of assertions that Massachusetts Democrats would stall the certification process should Mr. Brown win. “There isn’t the slightest possibility of it happening—a way of doing it. That is conspiracy theory at its most contemptible.

The Boston Herald reported that, according to a source, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s office wants to certify the race on Feb. 20. A spokesman for Mr. Galvin’s office explained that local election districts have to wait at least 10 days before they submit their returns, so military and overseas ballots can be tallied as well. 15 days is the maximum amount of time to submit the returns to the secretary’s office, before they go to governor’s office. 

After the race is certified on the state level, the new Massachusetts Senator-elect would then have to be sworn in by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D  – NV). An aid from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office sent an email to media saying the winner of the Massachusetts race would be sworn in promptly.:

“When there is a certified winner in Massachusetts, the Senate has received appropriate papers, and the vice president is available, the successor to Kennedy/Kirk will be sworn in.”

The special election for the vacant Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat will happen on January 19.

Read the original article with audio Washington Times

Reporter roughed up outside Coakley fund-raiser

By Laura Crimaldi

A Weekly Standard reporter says he was roughed up last night outside a Washington, D.C. fund-raiser for Attorney General Martha Coakley by someone he believes is associated with her U.S. Senate campaign.

John McCormack, the magazine’s deputy online editor, writes about the incident outside the Sonoma restaurant in an online dispatch entitled: “We Report, We Get Pushed.”

According to McCormack’s account, Coakley took two questions from reporters after the event, but declined to respond to his question. McCormack wrote he asked Coakley whether she stood by statements she made during Monday’s debate about terrorists in Afghanistan.

He provided the following transcript of what happened:

“TWS: Attorney General Coakley, you said last night that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan–that they’re all in Yemen and Pakistan. Do you stand by that remark?

COAKLEY: I’m sorry, did someone else have a question?

GRIFF JENKINS, Fox News: I did. Why are you in Washington tonight?

COAKLEY: We planned an event after the primary that would be a unity event in Washington. We’re also in the middle of a very intense campaign …”

McCormack wrote after Coakley finished her answer he followed her and asked her why health care industry lobbyists were supporting her at the fundraiser. He said she did not reply.

As he continued to walk down the street, he said a man who appeared to be associated with Coakley’s campaign pushed him into a freestanding metal rail.

“I ended up on the sidewalk. I was fine. He helped me up from the ground, but kept pushing up against me, blocking my path toward Coakley down the street,” he wrote.

McCormack said the man asked him whether he was with the media and he responded he works for the Weekly Standard.

His online entry includes a YouTube video of the incident, in which you can hear a man ask McCormack if he’s OK after he fell. The reporter then tangles with the same man, showing him a press credential as he tries to make his way around him.

McCormack wrote he eventually caught up to Coakley, who declined to answer his question.

He said Coakley staffers informed him they don’t know who pushed him. In an updated blog post, McCormack writes he believes he was pushed by Michael Meehan, president of Blue Line Strategic Communications in Washington, D.C. The Associated Press also identifies the man as Meehan, based on photos and videotape of the incident.

Read the rest of the original article on The Boston Globe

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