It looks like Senate Majority Leader Reid had successfully thrown women under the bus to achieve his "non" reform health care package. Under the new abortion provisions, states can opt out of allowing plans to cover abortion in the new insurance exchanges the bill would set up, to serve individuals who lack coverage through their jobs. Plus, enrollees in plans that do cover abortion procedures would pay for the coverage with separate checks -- one for abortion, one for the rest of any health-care services.So it wasn't enough to cave on abortion coverage, Reid had to bribe him with funding not available to the other 49 states. It's time for Nelson and Reid to go!
Nelson secured full federal funding for his state to expand Medicaid coverage to all individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Other states must pay a small portion of the additional cost.
It sounds like it! In the Washington Post today President Obama expands on his criteria for a justice.President Obama said he is seeking a Supreme Court nominee who understands the "practical day-to-day" implications of rulings, as he pushed back in an interview airing yesterday against criticism of his emphasis on judicial "empathy."Liberals really must not let Republicans get away with this "activist justice" bullshit. Their "activist president and vice president" nearly ruined this country. It could take a generation to fix the mess they left behind.
It is "important this is somebody who has common sense and somebody who has a sense of how American society works and how the American people live," he told C-SPAN, in his most extensive public comments yet on his deliberations since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement.
"What I want is not just ivory tower learning," he added. "I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower but also a little bit of a common touch and has a practical sense of how the world works."
Republicans have zeroed in on Obama's comments during the presidential campaign that he would "want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through." They have argued that this is code language for judges who would apply an "activist" agenda not necessarily bound by constitutional constraints.
Obama stuck to the same language in the interview while seeking to expand its meaning: He wants a judge who can not only understand the lives of ordinary people, he said, but also grasp the practical consequences of rulings on businesses.The nominee will likely be named next week. Let's hope the president makes a good selection, and the Democrats have the spine to stand up to Republicans.
"I said earlier that I thought empathy was an important quality, and I continue to believe that. You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you, but you have to be able to stand in somebody's else shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living," he said.
As an example, he cited the Lilly Ledbetter case, in which the court ruled in 2007 that a woman who had suffered pay discrimination, but discovered it after the window for filing suit had passed, could not sue her employer. "I think anybody who has ever worked in a job like that understands that they might not know that they were being discriminated against," Obama said. "It doesn't make sense for their rights to be foreclosed. That's the kind of case where I want a judge not only to be applying the law in front of them but also to understand that as a practical matter."
Why are we still talking about Pelosi and torture? Dick Cheney ordered detainees tortured, and now Speaker Pleosi is under attack? This is clearly a case of Republican desperation.Republicans view the current controversy -- sparked a month ago by Pelosi's calls for a truth commission to investigate the Bush White House's approval of interrogation techniques -- as their first successful effort to dent the speaker's image.So let's recap this: Pelosi wants to get at the truth behind Cheney's torture agenda -- and now SHE is responsible for the torture?
For the previous two years Republican attempts to turn Pelosi into a polarizing political figure have largely fallen flat. The GOP ran ad campaigns in Southern states linking Democratic candidates to her, for example, only to see the Democrats still prevail.About the only thing Repubicans have accomplished is to shore up Speaker Pelosi's support from the Dems in Congress.
Pelosi is by no means popular with the general public outside of her San Francisco district, but congressional leaders rarely are. A new CNN poll found that 39 percent of voters approve of her job performance. At a similar stage in his tenure as speaker, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) was supported by 25 percent of voters in 1997.And of course Panetta is going to side with his CIA pals ... he doesn't want to wake up and find a horse head in his bed!
Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate intelligence panel in 2002, also questioned the accuracy of the CIA's records, saying that its memos on other briefings wrongly showed him attending briefings at which he was not present. Graham has repeatedly said that his interrogation briefing did not include any mention of waterboarding -- a dramatically different account than the one offered by Shelby, who, along with Graham, was briefed by CIA officials three weeks after Pelosi's briefing.Maybe in their rush to protect a Dick, the CIA is trying to help Republican create a controversy. After all, they were the ones who went along with Dick's tortured plan -- so why would they want a "truth commission" now?
One would think Sen. Obama might have learned his lesson when it comes to listening to clergy. Let's hope he has, so that when Jim Wallis comes knocking Obama will simply tell him to "go away."Suddenly, almost unexpectedly, with many Democratic women restless and anxious, the concerns of women are once again important. So far the party's strategy in dealing with disaffected Clinton supporters, in particular, involves focusing on women's understandable fears that a John McCain administration would limit abortion rights and even overturn Roe v. Wade, and promising that Democrats will clearly do better.Then hear this "flat out" Wallis ... you convince Obama to support this and women will bolt from the Democratic party in droves. And this Democratic woman will lead the charge.
That's why it's so remarkable that in recent weeks, Democrats, including Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, have suggested that the party may need to take another crack at tempering its strong platform support for abortion rights by making "abortion reduction ... a central Democratic Party plank in this election." In a recent interview with ABC News, Wallis said he planned to talk to his "good friend" Barack Obama about an abortion reduction plank, and said he had discussed the idea with party chairman Howard Dean and had the support of at least one member of the Platform Committee, the Rev. Tony Campolo. "Abortion reduction should be a central Democratic Party plank in this election," Wallis told ABC News. "I'll just say that flat out."
Joe Sudbay writes: A Better Democrat for Congress: Donna Edwards will put her constituents first.
According to the Washington Post, Prince Georges County, Maryland has the highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the state. You'd think that the congressman from Prince Georges County would have been worried about the predatory lending affecting his constituents. Nope. While the mortgage crisis was brewing, Rep. Al Wynn was doing everything he could to protect the financial services industry -- not the families in his district. And that culminated with his vote for the bankruptcy bill.
Dig deep for Donna, and give what you can -- $100, $50, $10 -- no amount is too small!The mortgage crisis didn't happen overnight. And, we're not saying the bankruptcy bill caused the mortgage crisis. But let's be real. Members of Congress, like Al Wynn, were too busy doing the bidding of the large banks and financial institutions to worry about consumers. That has to change.We need better Democrats. We need Democrats who will put the interests of their constituents before the powerful special interests. We need Donna Edwards in Congress.
Remember who brought you to the dance! The only reason Democrats are in control of the House and Senate is because a majority of Americans disapprove of the way Bush & Co. have handled Iraq. And those numbers are only getting larger.Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is facing a full-blown revolt from liberal House Democrats over the $98 billion Iraq supplemental bill, according to Democratic insiders. Anywhere between 50 to 75 Democrats are now threatening to vote against the bill because it doesn't go far enough toward ending the war, including setting a date certain for withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, said the sources. Pelosi and Democratic leaders are expected to postpone markup of the Iraq bill in the House Appropriations Committee by at least a week in order to buy time to resolve the matter.
