Good afternoon, Daily Kos readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, or post manifestos.
This is a crosspost from Congress Matters. Naturally, the front page folks here have their own open thread, but this one only focuses on what really matters. (Okay, I made that last part up.)
Here's some of my thoughts. Feel free to add your own.
LindMerry Christmas: It looks like the foot dragging by the Senate might force the House to work Christmas Eve to pass the health care bill.
The House could be in session until nearly Christmas Eve to try to win final passage on a healthcare bill.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) outlined the new schedule on Wednesday, saying he is prepared to keep the House working into late December in order to pass President Barack Obama’s keystone issue of his first year in office.
Hoyer’s move follows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) decision late Tuesday night to file a motion that could allow the Senate to begin debate on healthcare next week.
I suppose it could be worse. At least they don't work retail.
Meanwhile, the Post has some details on Bill Clinton's health care pep talk to the Senate yesterday.
Clinton noted the grim consequences of the failed reform effort 15 years ago, when he was in office: Democrats lost control of Congress in that year's midterm elections, health-care costs skyrocketed, and the rate of Americans without insurance continued to rise. This time, the former president admonished, senators should compromise for the sake of a deal.
"It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," Clinton told reporters after the meeting. "There will be amendments to this effort, whatever they pass, next year and the year after and the year after, and there should be. It's a big, complicated, organic thing. But the worst thing to do is nothing."
I don't know if I feel better or worse now.
Finally, the Democrats who voted for the Coat Hanger Amendment received a pile of money from Pro-Life groups.
The Sunlight Foundation has some details on what happens next.
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Could Lindsey Graham be the next Senator to switch parties? Okay, not very likely, but we do have this nugget:
Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican with a maverick streak, has been censured by local Republican Party officials in his home state of South Carolina.
The executive committee of the Charleston County Republican Party voted unanimously on Monday to rebuke Mr. Graham "for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina, such as: passing a ‘cap and trade’ energy bill, bailing out banks and granting amnesty for illegal aliens."
Ideological purity strikes again.
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Happy Veteran's Day. Thanks for your service, everyone.
The President has signed an executive order expanding opportunities for veterans to work in the federal government.
The executive order signed by the president establishes a Council on Veterans Employment, tasked with creating a government-wide program to increase hiring of vets and instituting measures to gauge how well Uncle Sam does. There were approximately 480,000 veterans working for the federal government at the end of fiscal year 2008, according to the White House. How that number changes will tell the tale of the order's effectiveness.
You can check out Joe Sestak's Veteran's Day message here.
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In other military news, Rep. Barney Frank told The Advocate that a repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell will likely be included in next year's Defense Authorization bill.
Though some moderate Democrats have recently expressed concern about repealing the policy during a midterm election year, Frank said resolve at the White House has never wavered. "The Administration is totally committed to this and has been from the beginning," he said.
Anecdotally, Frank recalled an incident earlier this year when Defense secretary Robert Gates made a statement to reporters suggesting that repeal was still an open question.
"There was a point where Gates said, ‘If we repeal don’t ask, don’t tell,’ and the next day he said, 'When we repeal don’t ask, don’t tell,’" said Frank. "That’s because Rahm called him up. The White House has been consistently committed."
The bill is one of those "must pass" things, though there is always the possibility that amendments can strip the language from the final bill. At least we finally have a target for repealing the odious policy.
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Meanwhile, the inter-agency finger pointing over the Fort Hood killings has already begun.
In Washington, lawmakers and counterterrorism experts debated whether officials bungled the intelligence analysis or played down the threat that Hasan may have posed.
The concerns resonated in part because of similar accusations that, in the months leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes, officials had missed opportunities and neglected to share information, contributing to their failure to detect or prevent the attack. Reforms in the eight years since have focused on improving communication between agencies and making intelligence capabilities more nimble.
Le sigh.
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a new nomination to consider for confirmation. This one is to head the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The nominee, Rajiv Shah, had been undersecretary of agriculture since June and previously worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charity.
We are currently taking bets on how long the Republicans will hold up this nomination.
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Ruth Marcus may have been reading the Daily Kos liveblogs from Saturday night.
I'm hoping, for your sake, that you didn't spend your Saturday night as I did: watching the House debate health-care reform on C-SPAN.
Well, I alternated between that and the football games.
This is a great read as she systematically highlights and tears apart the Republican lies we heard Saturday.
I mean the flood of sheer factual misstatements about the health-care bill.
The falsehood-peddling began at the top, with Minority Leader John Boehner:
"If you're a Medicare Advantage enrollee . . . the Congressional Budget Office says that 80 percent of them are going to lose their Medicare Advantage."
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The Republican primary fight to find a challenger for Alan Grayson is looking more like a carnival than a serious election.
Numerous others confirmed the widespread bristling at Gutierrez’s early maneuvers.
"He’s pissing people off a lot," said a leading local GOP operative. "He’s very pushy and is an unknown commodity, and people are jealously guarding their prerogatives."
Break out the popcorn, kids. This is gonna be great!
In Ohio, an automobile dealer is planning to spend $5.1 million on his Republican primary race.
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This one only really affects people living around Washington DC, but it is good news: Senator calls for inquiry into accidents in D.C. transit system
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This one is not at all Hill related, but it is an excellent example of acting locally to protect the environment. Nantucket becomes a no-waste society
It was also written by a good friend of mine.
In other environmental news, the EPA has demanded that two employees remove -- or at least tone down -- a YouTube clip blasting the proposed Cap-And-Trade policy.
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Finally, CQ Politics explains how the dead can lobby.