Democratic Senator Gets Big Pay Off to Vote for Health Bill

WASHINGTON - With a self-imposed Christmas deadline at stake, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Saturday he has apparently secured the 60 votes needed to pass a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health care system.

"It seems that way," Reid said when asked at a news conference if he had all the required votes.

Reid's declaration came after he engineered a last-minute compromise in the health care debate that won the support of the lone Democratic holdout. The Congressional Budget Office said Reid's revisions would reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion over 10 years.

Marathon negotiations among the White House, Senate Democratic leaders and Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, produced fresh concessions that will mean additional abortion restrictions in the legislation and funding to cover poor people for Nelson's state and more.

"I know this is hard for some of my colleagues to accept and I appreciate their right to disagree. But I would not have voted for this bill without these provisions," Nelson said at a news conference in the Capitol.

Democratic leaders offered Nelson a deal similar to the $300 million in Medicaid assistance Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana got for her support, numerous sources told Fox News.

When asked about this, Sen. Kent Conrad, a key Democratic leader involved in the negotiations with Nelson, said, "Oh, it'll be much more." - FOX News Story

I know that this happens all the time in Washington, but it just doesn't seem right. Senators and Congressman holding out or receiving big payouts for their state if they agree to vote one way or another. Shouldn't the bills have to stand and be voted on based on their own merit? Not because there is a bribe in their for you. Why is it illegal for me to pay off a government official to approve something or vote a certain way? It is the same thing that happens in Washington everyday?

Sen. Franken Shuts Down Sen. Lieberman

Senate Health Bill - No One Supports it Except the "Just Pass a Bill Crowd"

Democrats in the Senate still face a filibuster threat from within their own party as they try to push health care legislation to a vote, though the key holdout says he's merely interested in "getting it right."

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson said Thursday he was unsatisfied by a proposed compromise on the issue of federal abortion funding in the Senate's health care reform bill -- but even if that is resolved, he still might support a filibuster if other issues he has raised aren't addressed.

A spokesman for Nelson told Fox News on Thursday that the Nebraska Democrat also is concerned with controlling costs in the sweeping reform legislation -- indicating that his support is far from secure.

Nelson is the last known holdout among the 60 senators in the Democratic caucus, which includes independent Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

"Unlike some who have decided they won't negotiate .... he has been very critical and wanted to move the bill as far as he could," Nelson's spokesman, Jake Thompson, told Fox News.

Nelson lashed out at the new language on abortion in the Senate bill on Thursday, saying it doesn't satisfy his concerns.

In an interview with the Fox News Radio affiliate KLIN in Nebraska, the senior senator said an attempt at compromise doesn't get to the fundamental issue of barring federal funding for abortions.

"I can't tell you that they couldn't come up with something that would be satisfactory on abortion between now and then and solve all the other issues that I've raised to them, but I don't see how," he said in the interview. "So I'm less interested in a deadline than I am in getting it right."

Catholic and anti-abortion groups have also weighed in against the new language, which attempts to separate public from private funding of abortion. - FOX News Story

This bill is so bad that they are having to resort to arm twisting and threatening to try and get it pass. It is quite apparent that this isn't a bill about true Health Care Reform, but a political bill to try and help the Democrats during an election year.

Democrats Showing Power and Losing Friends

Democratic Sen. Al Franken took the unusual step Thursday of shutting down Sen. Joe Lieberman on the Senate floor.

Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, currently is the target of liberal wrath over his opposition to a government-run insurance plan in the health care bill.

Franken was presiding over the Senate Thursday afternoon as Lieberman spoke about amendments he planned to offer to the bill. Lieberman asked for an additional moment to finish -- a routine request -- but Franken refused to grant the time.

"In my capacity as the senator from Minnesota, I object," Franken said.

"Really?" said Lieberman. "OK."

Lieberman then said he'd submit the rest of his statement in writing.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona came to his friend Lieberman's defense, saying he'd never seen such a thing occur.

"I must say that I don't know what's happening here in this body but I think it's wrong," McCain said on the floor.

Franken's spokeswoman, Jess McIntosh, said that the Minnesota senator wouldn't allow Lieberman to continue because time limits were being enforced by Senate leaders rushing to finish a defense spending bill and get to the health bill. - FOX News

Democratic Senator Al Franken, I would just say that you successfully put Sen. Lieberman solidly back in the Republican camp by being a total Jackass. Thank you for your support.

Wisconsin Democats Play Dirty in Governors Race

The Wisconsin Democratic Party is taking an highly unconventional approach in attacking GOP gubernatorial hopeful Scott Walker by posting graphic images of an unclean courthouse bathroom.

The repulsive state of the bathrooms in the Milwaukee County Courthouse — whose janitorial services Walker privatized recently as part of his role as county executive — first became a campaign issue last Friday when a local television station ran a story demonstrating in detail the bathrooms’ conditions.

As part of Walker’s decision to outsource some government services, 25 members of the courthouse’s janitorial staff were laid off. In protest, only four of the 20 scheduled to work show up on December 11 — their last day of work and the day news cameras recorded video of the restrooms.

Still images taken from the report of clogged toilets, overflowing trash cans and used paper towels are posted on the state Democratic Party’s website and linked to high up on the Wisconsin Democrats homepage (Warning: Graphic images). - Politico Story

Obama Team Holding up Stimulus Spending until 2010 Election Year

Sharpening their attacks on one of President Obama’s early legislative successes, Republican lawmakers have begun charging that the stimulus spending bill is being used not to create jobs and lift the struggling economy, as Obama claimed, but to advance the political fortunes of the Democratic Party.

Republican members of congressional committees that oversee the stimulus are touting a lengthy list of line items from the nearly $800 billion spending bill that have received little to no funding in the measure’s first ten months of existence. And with roughly half of the expenditures slated to occur during fiscal year 2010, which runs from October 1 of this year through next September 30, the Republicans allege the spending is structured and timed to help Democrats in the rough political climate of the 2010 midterm elections.

“We were told in January we had to pass this massive $787 billion stimulus program in a hurry, so that the money could get out of town for shovel-ready job-creating projects,” said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "And yet with only 12 percent (of the stimulus funds having been spent), we've got to ask ourselves: Is the administration – run by the politicals, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel – sitting on the money on purpose, so they can trickle it out in 2010, the election year?”

Republicans on the Appropriations Committee have disseminated figures, covering Fiscal Year 2009, to demonstrate the slowness with which stimulus funding is being doled out . An analysis by the committee’s minority staff noted, for example, that of the nearly $6 billion authorized in the stimulus package for energy efficiency measures, only $3 million – less than one percent of the authorization – had been spent. For “smart grid” projects, which employ digital technology to regulate the use of energy-consuming appliances in private homes, none of the $4.5 billion authorized had been spent. And for weatherization initiatives, $174 million of the total $5 billion authorized, or some three percent, had been spent.

“The Pentagon spends money rapidly, FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] spends money rapidly,” said Kingston. “We have had models where the bureaucracy can actually get the money out of town. And yet on this one – which, again, was passed in this great fervor of urgency – the money is still here in Washington, D.C.

“The bureaucracy is sitting on the money. And I don’t even think they're that incompetent, that it's been slowed because of the bureaucracy. I think it’s going to be drummed out during the election year.” - Fox News Story

Former Democratic Party Chairman Calls for Death of Democratic Health Care Bill

President Obama rejected a call by the former Democratic Party chairman to kill the current Senate health care bill, a White House spokesman said.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a physician who also was Vermont governor and a former presidential candidate, said on national television Wednesday he believed legislation in the Senate would now benefit the insurance industry more than it helps Americans struggling to gain health coverage or pay for it.

Dean said the bill was an "insurance company's dream."

But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said if that's the case, "I don't think the insurance companies have gotten the memo" and continue fighting so hard against the measure.

The sharp exchange came as Senate Democratic leaders push for a vote on the health care bill just before Christmas. The president, who is scheduled to take a vacation at that time, has not indicated if he would stay in Washington for that vote.

Dean told ABC's "Good Morning America" that Washington conventional wisdom has become "passing any bill is a victory. Decisions are being made about the long-term future of this country for short-term political reasons. And that's never a good sign."

Dean went on to imply that 27 percent of the money put into the new health care program by individuals won't go to their own health care, and that only a small number of people will get any insurance at all before the year 2014 if the bill works in its current form.

But Gibbs said those claims "quite simply weren't true."

"Nobody will be required to purchase something they can't afford. There are hardship exemptions and subsidies based on income levels that help people afford insurance," Gibbs said. "He went on later in the interview to discuss the notion that legislation no longer contains anything that addresses pre-existing conditions. That's simply flat-out wrong." - FOX News Story

House Vs. Senate - Democrats Vs. Democrats

House Democrats’ long-simmering frustration with the slow pace of the Senate has begun to boil over, with a broad swath of Democratic representatives accusing their Senate colleagues of failing both their party and their country.

The cross-chamber assessment is brutal:

• “There is a growing sense that we’re lifting more than our share,” says California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a member of the Democrats’ leadership team in the House. “Members are hoping the Senate will kick into gear because the public expects a lot more to get done.”

• “Sometimes I get the feeling that some of those guys [in the Senate] just like to see their names in the paper and see their faces on TV,” says Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern.

• “I talk a lot about the psychology of consensus,” says House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “Too often, it appears, that the psychology in the Senate is the psychology of one.”

• “When it comes to a jobs bill, the Senate seems more interested in dithering,” says first-year Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat whohas taken heat back home for tough votes on climate change and health care — two issues that remain bottled up in slow-moving Senate deliberations.

• “If you just take a look at the number of bills we’ve sent to the Senate and what they’ve done, I don’t know what they’re doing with their time honestly,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.).

• “I think the majority leader sometimes has to have the leadership to resolve these things,” says Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat challenging Sen. Arlen Specter, in a direct attack on Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I understand it’s politically challenging, but we have the votes — and we should be doing much better than we are. I think this place needs a change, quite frankly.” - Politico Story

Couldn't agree with him more. Hopefully 2010 will bring change. Lots and lots of change. The kind of change that stops the madness of excessive spending and Big Government takeover in America.

Terrorist Heading to Illinois

President Barack Obama seems to have won over enough Congressional Democrats to push forward with his plan to move Guantanamo prisoners to a facility in rural Illinois, but the official announcement Tuesday triggered a firestorm of criticism that could undercut his stated goal of depriving Al Qaeda of a key propaganda point.

“In taking this action, we are removing from terrorist organizations around the world the recruiting tool that Guantanamo has come to symbolize,” National Security Adviser James Jones told reporters.

“Today’s announcement that the federal government will acquire the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois, to house federal inmates and a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is an important step forward as we work to achieve our national security objectives,” another top administration official said in a conference call with reporters.

But some critics said they feared that the Illinois facility, like the one in Cuba, could end up being a place where detainees are held indefinitely without trial.

Asked whether the proposed prison might be billed as an “Illinois Gitmo” to rally extremists against the United States, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “not in any way, shape, or form nearly to the degree that currently exists.”

....

But Kirk Lippold, commander of the U.S.S. Cole when it was attacked by terrorists in 2000, said Obama was unwisely inviting all the dangers of Guantanamo onto U.S. shores.

“The Administration is now adding economic manipulation to its bag of tricks to convince the American people that somehow they will be better off if terrorists are held and tried in our towns and communities, instead of a state-of-the-art detention facility built for that purpose,” Lippold said. “Gitmo North is not the answer.”

Said Cheney: “Americans did not elect President Obama to usher terrorists onto the homeland and call it a jobs program.” - Politico Story

Democrat Howard Dean - Kill Senate Health Care Reform

For all the renewed optimism around health care’s prospects emanating from the White House, a reality check this afternoon courtesy of Howard Dean.

Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and medical doctor, said in an interview set to air this afternoon on Vermont Public Radio that the removal of the Medicare buy-in means the Senate health care bill is no longer worth supporting, according to Greg Sargent of The Plum Line blog.

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” Dean said, per Sargent. “Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.” - ABC News Story