Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process. |
So at the Speaker’s command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what’s known as a “self-executing rule,” also known as a “hereby rule.” Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill. Read more at online.wsj.com |
| House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it |
After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate’s health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.
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Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.
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The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com |
US deficits could threaten national security - Biden |
WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - If the United States fails to
tackle its record budget deficits, they could become a threat
to national security over time, Vice President Joe Biden warned
on Tuesday. |
Biden said the high U.S. budget deficit had not become a
national security issue yet. “If we don’t do something about
it, they could and may become a national security issue,” he
said in an interview on cable news network MSNBC. |
Biden was speaking a day after President Barack Obama
proposed a budget that projected a deficit of $1.56 trillion
for fiscal 2010 but then saw the funding gap shrinking. Read more at www.reuters.com |
Canadian Premier Heads to US for Heart Surgery |
National Post: Mr. Williams’ decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada’s health-care system. Read more at www.breitbart.tv |
Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws |
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. |
Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue. |
“Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same.” Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
High Court Strikes Corporate Spending Ban
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The Supreme Court on Thursday lifted long-held bans on corporate and union involvement in federal elections, ruling that outside groups can spend unlimited sums on television advertising and other campaign expenditures.
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“The court has recognized that the First Amendment applies to corporations … and extended this to the context of political speech,” the justices ruled in the narrow 5-4 decision.
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Originally heard by the court last June, the Supreme Court asked to re-hear the case last fall during Sonia Sotomayor’s first appearance on the bench. Read more at www.rollcall.com |
You didn’t think we weren’t going to have to pay for the Democrat’s deficit spending spree did you? The Political Cover Commission
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A tax trap for Republicans. |
Democrats have spent a year spending money at record rates, and now they’ve hit upon a strategy to pay the political bill: Sucker Republicans into giving them cover for raising taxes. |
That’s the strategy behind the sudden White House-Congressional leadership embrace of a bipartisan budget deficit commission. Call it the Political Cover Commission. Democrats leaked word on Tuesday that they had agreed to this creation, which is part of their election-year turn from health care toward the economy and the appearance of “fiscal discipline.” |
A gang of 10 Democrats and eight Republicans would be charged to come up with ways to reduce the deficit. The idea is for everyone to hold hands and agree to raise taxes and cut entitlement spending together, so neither party gets the blame. Congress would have to vote up or down on the package as a whole. Read more at online.wsj.com |
| Profiling: Sketching the Face of Jihadism |
Sketching the face of jihadism is simply not as easy as it might seem. |
| On Jan. 4, 2010, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) adopted new rules that would increase the screening of citizens from 14 countries who want to fly to the United States as well as travelers of all nationalities who are flying to the United States from one of the 14 countries. These countries are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. |
The difficulty of creating a reliable and accurate physical profile of a jihadist, and the adaptability and ingenuity of the jihadist planners, means that any attempt at profiling is doomed to fail. In fact, profiling can prove counterproductive to good security by blinding people to real threats. They will dismiss potential malefactors who do not fit the specific profile they have been provided. Read more at www.stratfor.com |
I find it surreal that they are this tone deaf.
Reconciliation for Health Care Gaining Steam
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Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said House and Senate leaders are moving rapidly to try to salvage a health care reform bill that no longer has the votes for final passage in the Senate.
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Baucus said leaders were “trying to find a way to move very quickly and to basically satisfy the concerns of both the Senate and the House.” He added, “We’ve got to figure out, you know, how we put the two pieces together, by two pieces I mean the House and the Senate approaches and we’re working on that right now. We’ll find a way.”
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Baucus and House leaders indicated that using complex budget reconciliation rules might be the preferred method to get the bill across the finish line. Reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered and require only a simple majority, or 51 votes, to pass the Senate.
Read more at www.rollcall.com |
VDH absolutely takes it to Obama in this piece. He’s very much a “call ‘em as i see ‘em” guy. This is definitely worth a full read. | Why the Great and Growing Backlash? |
| Dream up a gargantuan backlash against Barack Obama’s left-wing gospel, and you still could not invent the notion of a relatively unknown, conservative Scott Brown knocking off an Obama-endorsed, liberal, female attorney in liberal Massachusetts — in a race to fill the seat once held by Ted Kennedy. |
| People heard his serial promises about airing the health-care debate on C-SPAN, his new-transparency/no-lobbyist vows, and his monotonous boasts to close down Guantanamo within a year. All that is now “inoperative.” The problem was not just that Obama made promises that he broke, but that he made them so frequently and so vehemently — and so cavalierly broke them. That brazen campaign deception is problematic for a politician, but proves fatal for a self-appointed messiah.Read more at article.nationalreview.com |
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