Highlights From the Bi-Partisan Meeting on Health Reform

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Republican Health Care Plan Revealed

Conservatives Want To Cut Government Spending — Except They Don't

John Sides of Salon magazine has a great piece titled "On Spending, Conservatives are Quite Conflicted." In it, he points out, using a survey by the American National Election Study, that conservatives want the government to spend less, but not on anything the government actually spends money.

Which again begs the question. Do Republicans, and in particular, the Teabaggers, hold true policy positions, or are there positions driven by something completely different? Because if they truly care about government spending, why are they so unwilling to have government stop spending? And why would they support a party (Republicans) that consistently drives up the national debt?

GOP Obstructionism Undermining US Globally

I would like to think that this news would bother most Republicans, but seeing as their top priorities are to see President Obama fail at everything while trying to prove that government doesn't work, I doubt it. Here is Secretary of State Clinton on the impact of political gridlock on the U.S. on the global stage:

Domestic political disputes are hurting America's image abroad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented this morning during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs. The hearing addressed the State Department's fiscal year 2011 budget.

Clinton's remarks were in reference to a number of President Obama's diplomatic appointments that were held up by senators for political reasons over the past year.

"We're now more than a year into a new administration and whether you agree or disagree with a particular policy, a president deserves to have the people that he nominates serving him," Clinton said.

"It became harder and harder to explain to countries, particularly countries of significance, why we had nobody in position for them to interact with," she added. Link

Read more about how Republican obstructionism is causing other countries to question whether we are in fact the model democracy.

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Half of Afghanistan Taliban Leadership Arrested in Pakistan

Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the (Christian Science) Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement...

...In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

"A year ago when this [Obama] administration was completing its first Afghanistan review and we asked the Pakistanis about the Afghan Taliban leadership operating from their country, they flatly denied it," says Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who led President Obama’s initial Afghanistan policy review. "Now not only do they say there are senior Taliban leaders in their country, but they are frankly taking action against them."

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Utah Legislature Votes to Criminalize Miscarriage

Yes, this headline is correct. How is this possible in the 21st century? What is wrong with Utah?

Here is the law — HB12

This sums up what has taken place:

"For all these years the anti-choice movement has said ‘we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail, but what this law says is ‘no, we really want to put women in jail.'" Link

Six Republicans Voted Against Jobs Bill Before Voting For It

On Monday, Senate Republicans tried to block an up-or-down vote on a jobs bill filled with tax cuts, which in and of itself is incomprehensible. When it came time to shut down the GOP filibuster, the vote was 62 to 30, with five Republicans breaking ranks to end debate and allow a floor vote on the bill.

Today, the vote on the same piece of legislation was 70 to 28. Doesn't that mean that several Republicans who voted to block the legislation on Monday ended up voting in favor of the legislation on Wednesday? Actually, yes, it means exactly that.

These senators supported a filibuster, but approved of the bill they tried to block:

Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
George LeMieux (R-Fla.)
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

(Two more GOP senators -- Orrin Hatch of Utah and Richard Burr of North Carolina -- missed Monday's vote, but joined with Dems today.)

So, we're looking at six conservatives who voted against a jobs bill before they voted for it. Link

Senate Republican Obstructionism By The Numbers

Via Ezra Klein from The Washington Post:

Here's a fun fact: The Senate filed 214 cloture votes (votes to break a filibuster) between 2007 and 2010. That's more than it held between 1919 and 1976. And during that period, it was actually easier to filibuster, as you needed 67 votes to break the obstruction, not 60.

Meanwhile, you'll note that 2010 is only a couple of months old. By the end of the year, we'll be nearing 300 cloture votes, if we haven't passed that milestone altogether. That brings the 2007-10 total to about what the Senate saw between 1919 and 1984. Say what you will about the Senate, but this is not traditional. The "cooling saucer" of democracy was never meant to be left in the freezer.

Governor Strickland, GM Announce Creation of 1,200 Jobs at Lordstown Plant

Lordstown, OH – Ohio Governor Ted Strickland joined General Motors North America President Mark Reuss and other state and regional leaders today to announce the creation of 1,200 jobs through the addition of a third shift at GM’s Lordstown plant to support the production of the new 2011 Chevrolet Cruze.

“I’m proud to celebrate the creation of 1,200 new Ohio jobs and the resilience of the working men and women of the Mahoning Valley. The chips were down but we never gave up,” Strickland said. “That grit and steely determination is why I love this valley and why I believe in Ohio.

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Senate sitting on 290 bills already passed by House

Republicans in the Senate are playing games in order to win some short-term political points and win a long-term battle to claim that government doesn't work by obstructing everything. There are currently 290 bills that have been passed by the House that is sitting in the Senate. Most of these haven't been moved on because of Republican stalling and obstructionist tactics. Country First?

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McCain Rewrites Own History On Bailout Vote

McCain said recently that he only voted for the $700 billion package because Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke misled him, by assuring him it would focus on the housing meltdown, rather than on Wall Street. But that appears to be directly contradicted by the record.

In a speech the following day about improvements he was seeking to what became the TARP legislation, McCain made clear that he knew the measure was targeted at Wall Street, declaring: "No Wall Street executives should profit from taxpayer dollars ... The senior leaders of any firm that is bailed out should not be making more than the highest paid government official."

CBO Credits Stimulus Package With Major Job Creation

The independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reports today that President Obama's economic recovery package created up to 2.1 million jobs in the fourth quarter on 2009.

During the fourth quarter of 2009, the stimulus added "between 1.0 million and 2.1 million to the number of workers employed in the United States," the CBO said.

The stimulus also boosted the country's economic growth by 1.5 to 3.5 percent during the time period and lowered the nation's unemployment rate by between 0.5 and 1.1 percentage points.

In the report, the CBO noted that economic growth in 2009 was worse than they had predicted at the time that the stimulus was enacted, but that was due to a weaker economy than originally expected, rather than any failings of the stimulus. [...]

The CBO also said that in the fourth quarter the stimulus package increased the number of full-time jobs by between 1.4 and 3 million compared to the number of jobs that would have existed without the package.

Brady Center Gives Obama "F"; NRA Still Not Happy

I wonder how Teabaggers are going to respond to the fact that President Obama was called "an abject failure" by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

In just one year, Barack Obama has signed into law more repeals of federal gun policies than in President George W. Bush’s eight years in office. From the repeal of Reagan Era rules keeping loaded guns out of national parks to the repeal of post-9/11 policies to safeguard Amtrak from armed terrorist attacks, President Obama’s stance on guns has endangered our communities and threatened our national security. Link

So Obama has done more for the gun lobby in one year than President Bush did in eight? I assume Obama will be receiving praise from the Teabaggers. If not, then their disdain for him doesn't have much to do with his policies then.

Chart Helps Understand House, Senate and White House Health Care Bills

When the White House unveiled its $950 billion health care proposal to help bridge the gap between the House and Senate bills, the question immediately arises — what is the differences between the three plans? This chart summarizes the key components of the three plans.

Boccieri Visits Kean Elementary, Talks Leadership, Haiti & Air Force One

The Daily Record - Kean Elementary School alumnus Chris Cupples, district representative for Congressman John Boccieri, accompanied his boss on a visit to the school.

Each was warmly welcomed by combined fifth-grade classes, where Boccieri picked up valentines students made for veterans and gave an impromptu social studies lesson.

Principal Peg Butler recalled Cupples' participation on a student leadership team when he attended Kean, and Erika Ratliff, who was his fifth-grade teacher, pointed out to Boccieri a picture of Cupples in a class portrait.

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EPA plans to spend $2.2B to protect Great Lakes

Here is an under-reported story that shows what a difference a Democratic White House makes over a Republican White House. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to spend 2.2 billion dollars over the next five years to clean up pollution and halt the spread of invasive species in the Great Lakes. This would never happen with a Republican administration.

That plan, announced Sunday, marks a "significant investment" in fighting some of the biggest environmental threats to the nation's largest freshwater lakes, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said. The EPA will use the money to prevent beach pollution, clean up toxic hot spots, and fight Asian carp and other invasive species. That effort "will leave the Great Lakes better for the next generation than the condition in which we inherited them," Jackson said. Link