House of Representatives on The Huffington Post

House Travel Spending Is All Over The Map

2009-12-04T15:25:21Z

The amount of money that members of the House of Representatives spend on all manner of office necessities -- especially travel -- vary widely.

Representatives spent a total of $6.8 million on travel from July through September, averaging about $15,800 per office. Some members, particularly those from faraway or rural districts, spent more than twice that amount. But, in a few cases, even members from neighboring districts of similar size spent vastly different sums on travel.

One big travel spender says the expenses reflect the lawmaker's heavy emphasis on working in the home district.

"We put a higher priority on traveling to the district and traveling within the district," said Jessica Gleason, chief of staff for Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). Hastings' office spent $38,411 on travel in the summer months.

Neighboring Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, whose district is similar in size to that of Hastings, spent $22,415. A McMorris Rodgers spokesman said, "We try to go back every week."

Hastings's priority on traveling in the district is evident in the total expenditures for the quarter. Though Hastings spent more than any other Washington representative on travel, his third quarter total for all expenses came to $326,448, the second-smallest sum spent by all nine Washington representatives.

There are similar differences within other state delegations.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) spent $43,466 on travel, more than any of his colleagues in the contiguous United States. His neighbor, Rep. Tom Latham (R), spent only $13,821. The two districts are roughly the same size -- why the difference in travel costs? There's probably a simple answer, but King's office did not respond to a request for comment. A Latham spokesman said he'd let the number speak for itself.

Summer travel for the office of New Mexico's Harry Teague (D) totaled $40,274. His neighbor, Rep. Ben Lujan (D), disbursed just $20,697. Neither office responded to requests for comment.

In other states, differences in travel spending simply reflect size of the districts and their distance from Washington.

Republican Jerry Moran spent $41,999 traveling his district, the largest in Kansas. Neighbor Lynn Jenkins (R), of the much-smaller 2nd district, spent $14,800 traveling in the third quarter. A Moran spokesperson noted that Moran's district is "roughly the size of Illinois" and that the congressman holds 69 town hall meetings a year.

Local Virginia Congressman Jim Moran (D-Va.) spent the least money traveling in the third quarter, reporting a modest $208 in travel costs, and only $240 for the year to date. His biggest expenditure was a $45 car rental in September.

Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) spent almost 100 times what his fellow Virginian spent in the same three months, totaling $19,522.

"Congressman Perriello's district is larger than the state of New Jersey," said Periello spokeswoman Jessica Barba. "It's a huge state to cover, and he is out all the time, every single weekend, meeting with people and staying in touch with his constituents."

Barba also said that Perriello's staff is particularly active in his district and that they held 21 town hall meetings in August.

Unsurprisingly, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) spent the most on travel, totaling $70,829. Young spokeswoman Meredith Kenny explained:

"We do like to send staff back [to Alaska] because it's not feasible for them to come to us. They travel the state mostly in August to hold meetings, although some staff travel throughout the year, but prices are much higher in August because of tourist season," Kenny said.

"Alaska has a horrible road system, so you have to fly everywhere, which is unique to our state. Congressman Young has some payments to security aviation and other private plane companies because when he travels to villages, he has to hire private planes."

Kenny also mentioned that food is more expensive up in Alaska. The cheapest meal in America might be in Tennessee -- the statement of disbursements shows that the office of Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.) spent five cents on a meal on Aug. 17. (Davis's office did not bother responding to a request for comment.)

The data is not very precise -- Phil Singer of Congress.org noted that when the House posted the data online for the first time this week, administrators "erased a vast array of details on the expenditures of House Members, making it impossible to determine what much of the money was actually spent on." Many expenditures are listed simply as "Commercial Transportation" or "Travel Reimbursement."

With additional reporting by Laura Bassett

The Sunlight Foundation put the data in a searchable database. See any interesting patterns? Email arthur@huffingtonpost.com.

Harry Moroz: Of Death Panels and Tax Policy

2009-12-02T14:21:41Z

A drag. A job destroyer. A wage cutter. A killer. A creature in a late-night horror movie.

Yes, the estate tax, that most reviled of taxes that so many of us cringe at the prospect of paying on our death beds, has once again reared its ugly head. Thankfully, the Heritage Foundation has set up a Rapid Response website to provide us with up-to-the-minute developments on efforts to reform the tax as well as catchphrases to help us argue for the tax's repeal.

The tax, which applies to transfers of assets to a person's heirs, is in reality little more than a conservative talking point. It is the "death panel" of tax policy and conservatives refer to it as such. Heritage Fellow Robert Alt (like every other conservative on Earth) calls it a death tax that is "politically known as the estate tax" (emphasis mine). If ever one was searching for the textbook example of conservatives' rhetorical perversion, this would surely be it. Even the IRS, for goodness sake, calls it an estate tax.

Conservatives love to refer to the impact that the estate tax has on small businesses and farmers, which has led to preposterous titles for legislation, such as the Permanent Estate Tax Relief for Families, Farmers, and Small Businesses Act. But in 2009 some 80 - 80! - small businesses and farms are likely to owe estate tax. Most of the tax will be paid by extremely wealthy individuals: the top 5 percent of earners pay 76 percent of the tax. In other words, conservatives use a handful of farmers and small businesses to cover for 5,500 wealthy taxpayers who would benefit most from repeal.

Dust is being kicked up now because the House will likely pass, with White House approval, legislation that raises the minimum exemption from the law and lowers the top tax rate. There will be much talk that this fix is necessary because of a Bush era tax law that, for one year only (2010), abolishes the estate tax completely. Surely the fix is needed. But what will be mentioned much less is that in 2011 the estate tax will revert back to (recent) historical levels: it will apply at a top 60 percent rate to households making above $1 million, well within our idea of the "wealthy." Although around 40,000 more households would be subject to the tax, 99.9% of these households would be millionaires (and only 2,500 would be small farms and businesses).

By passing the legislation, however, Congress would not only be aiding the wealthiest households who have survived the current economic downturn, but would be adding to the budget deficit - $234 billion, in fact - at a time when all we hear is that the deficit must be reduced. If only the Blue Dogs were paying attention!

Perhaps worst, though, is that Congress is expert at adopting short-term, stop-gap measures. Why not just fix the estate tax for one year and then let the clock expire, allowing the estate tax top rate and exemption to reset to their former, higher levels? Congress need not even vote for this to happen.

Progressives are often quieted with hush-hushes about political impossibilities and budget deficits. Well, allowing the estate tax to reset in 2011 is a smart, cost-efficient, equitable move well-suited to an era of scarce political courage.

Linda Milazzo: Teflon Dick: How Cheney Uses Media For Protection

2009-11-30T04:52:15Z

On January 29, 2001, just nine days after taking office, Dick Cheney created The National Energy Policy Development Group, commonly known as the Cheney Energy Task Force. The task force was charged with the critically important task of designing America's national energy policy. Although the group's efforts would directly impact the entire nation, the new Vice President refused to divulge the names of its members or their specific activities, claiming the Executive Branch's right to confidentiality.

To challenge Cheney's claims of privacy and acquire the names and activities of the task force members, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, but the courts denied their initial requests and subsequent appeals. On July 18, 2007, the Washington Post revealed the names of members of the task force, which included executives of major conglomerates Enron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, the National Mining Association, and more.

Cheney's refusal to divulge the identities of the members of his task force was the earliest indication of the absolute power America's 46th Vice President presumed. His refusal demonstrated the covert nature of his Vice Presidency and his belief that transparency was not a requirement of the Executive Branch. The policies and practices predicated upon Cheney's presumption of confidentiality remained constant for the full eight years of his Vice Presidency. They ushered in the era of the Bush/Cheney Imperial Presidency that exercised sweeping authority, bypassed established law, and caused widespread concern amongst scholars and average citizens for the future of our democracy.

On August 27, 2004, future Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote the following criticism of Mr. Cheney's pursuit of privacy and power:

"Mr. Cheney's determination to keep his secrets probably reflects more than an effort to avoid bad publicity. It's also a matter of principle, based on the administration's deep belief that it has the right to act as it pleases, and that the public has no right to know what it's doing.

As Linda Greenhouse recently pointed out in The New York Times, the legal arguments the administration is making for the secrecy of the energy task force are "strikingly similar" to those it makes for its right to detain, without trial, anyone it deems an enemy combatant. In both cases, as Ms. Greenhouse puts it, the administration has put forward "a vision of presidential power . . . as far-reaching as any the court has seen."

From January of 2001 right through today, Dick Cheney has committed unconstrained, and as yet unprosecuted offenses, that include circumventing the Constitution, sanctioning unlawful torture, contributing to the outing of a CIA agent, concealing information from Congress, and lying the nation into war. The tragedy of Cheney's unrestrained lawlessness is further compounded by his unprecedented authority to preside over economic and foreign policies so calamitous that they drove this nation financially, militarily and morally into the ground. Despite his constant international and domestic catastrophes, for his first six years in office Cheney's crimes were supported by an ideological Republican legislative majority and a weak Democratic minority, both of whom succumbed to Bush and Cheney's Unitary Executive.

After the 2006 election, when Democrats took control of both Houses, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to abide by her Constitutional duty to investigate Bush and Cheney's crimes. Irrespective of public clamor for backbone and accountability, the Democratic majority rolled over for Bush and Cheney. They financed their plunder and allowed America to decay from within. Structural chasms in bridges, roadways, pipelines, and schools were matched by ideological chasms over religion, economics, politics and war. As Americans battled each other, Bush and Cheney bombed and tortured on, comforted by knowing there would be no repercussion. For a full eight years, they wreaked havoc on America and the world, and today, post administration, both men remain free.

Bush and Cheney understand that they're vulnerable to prosecution. Bush, for the most part, has stayed out of the limelight, though he's recently become more visible, perhaps inspired by Cheney's success at using THE BIG TOOL - the media - for protection. Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, Cheney has used the media full on. He's commandeered its major outlets, newspapers, cable and network TV, and the most caustic outlet of all, talk radio, to attack the very sources he knows could bring him down - the President and Attorney General. Cheney's best defense is his mass media offense and he knows exactly how to use it.

Dick Cheney has used the complicit American media, his most powerful anti-prosecution tool, to near Machiavellian perfection. He understands implicitly that American media employs no ethical standards that would prevent it from promoting him despite the atrocities he has caused. Regardless of his catastrophic failures, the shameless complicit media freely provides Cheney the platform to attack the President and Attorney General and advance his standing as their fiercest political critic. Because of this granted visibility to pummel Obama and Holder, Cheney is more able to establish himself as a victim of partisanship should Obama and Holder try to charge him for his crimes. Through widely broadcast speeches, like the one below of Cheney bashing Obama on Afghanistan, the complicit media is helping to immunize Cheney - and it's doing so knowingly.

It's baiting for ratings and justice be damned!

Cheney's transparent media offensive places him squarely, frequently and loudly in the public eye attacking Obama and Holder, and setting the stage for an adversarial relationship from which he can claim that he's their target. He's banking on the theory of American exceptionalism to keep his contrived "adversaries" from taking him down. American exceptionalism implies that America as a nation is superior to the rest of the world. In lesser nations, political rivals are targeted and imprisoned. Exceptionalism presumes that superior America, with its highly evolved democracy, would never do the same. Exceptionalism presumes that political targeting only happens in undeveloped and undemocratic nations led by unsavory leaders; Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Museveni of Uganda, Nkrumah of Ghana, Putin of Russia, have all imprisoned their opponents. Cheney's calculus has determined that American exceptionalism would prevent America's leaders from publicly engaging in tactics they condemn - like imprisoning political opponents.

Last week, Cheney's Machiavellian strategy reached a whole new level when his daughter Liz raised his status from political adversary to political opponent by floating the prospect of candidate Cheney in 2012. Brilliant! Behold Dick's calculating progeny doing his bidding on Fox TV:

What better protection from legal worries than planting the notion of a presidential run, elevating Cheney from harsh critic to political rival. It's the epitome of legal immunity in exceptionalist USA. Of course, there's little probability that Cheney would actually run. His approval ratings are dismal and he battles for breath whenever he speaks. But this is media manipulation - not political reality. Truth rarely imposes itself on TV.

Then there's the blogosphere, and the Keep America Safe website, created by scions Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol to propagandize for Cheney. The Cheney cabal is in full media combat when it comes to protecting Dick Cheney.

Notice the front page attack on Attorney General Holder - though Cheney's attacked Holder for a while.

On August 30th on Fox News, Cheney characterized AG Holder's decision to conduct a review of CIA interrogations as 'politically motivated,' laying the groundwork for Cheney's future claim of partisan targeting should the AG investigate him. Recognizing that Cheney and his "BFF" Donald Rumsfeld are thought to have instigated and sanctioned the interrogations, there is strong indication that CIA investigations would lead the AG directly to Dick Cheney. Here's Cheney's politicization of Holder's decision, broadcast on Fox TV:

Could the Cheney media strategy be any more obvious than it is in this video?

The saddest and perhaps most despicable irony in this symbiotic relationship between Cheney and the all encompassing media is the manner in which the media permits itself to be the tool to thwart justice. I recognize that in this article I've reproduced the messages Dick Cheney wants to send. But I've done so in the context of revealing Cheney's manipulations. It's my sincere hope that all media stop providing Cheney the wherewithal to immunize himself from prosecution. But sadly that won't happen. American media thrives on the point-counterpoint model, and Cheney has fashioned his offense perfectly to fit it.

David Sullivan: The Conflict Minerals Trade Act

2009-11-19T12:35:56Z

With the introduction of the Conflict Minerals Trade Act today, Congo activists now have bipartisan legislation percolating both in the Senateand the House of Representatives. To hear a bit more about this bill and why it's so important, check out the latest edition of the Ask the Expert video series, where I discuss why this legislation has catalytic potential to cut armed groups and rights abusers out of the supply chains for our cell phones, laptops, and other electronic gadgets:

Be sure to take action on this issue: urge your representative to cosponsor the Conflict Minerals Trade Act and ask your senators to cosponsor the Congo Conflict Minerals Act.

House Dems Sharpening 'Too Big To Fail' Bill

2009-11-18T10:35:46Z

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key U.S. congressional panel moved toward toughening a plan for dealing with "too big to fail" financial firms on Tuesday, while rejecting a Republican alternative backed by Wall Street.

W. Hunter Roberts: Speaking Truth To Power: Where Are The Brave Leaders?

2009-11-17T14:55:11Z

Lately I've been thinking a lot about courage, or the lack thereof. I think about it especially in relation to our Congress, which seems overall just about as cowardly as it is possible to be while still posturing and strutting, pretending to stand for something. Our elected representatives seem far more interested in winning over lobbyists than in serving the citizenry. Is this just corruption as usual, or are we seeing a serious decline in moral courage?

I mean, look at Max Baucus and the other Blue Dog Democrats, whose biggest campaign contributions come from the very companies they are supposed to be regulating. Look at Timothy Geithner checking out his every move by cell phone, at all hours, with Wall Street cronies, and ending up with a regulatory system that does not regulate, but which instead allows for increased bonuses for his banker buddies, for God's sake. How about the sudden dropping of corruption charges on Karzai's government in Afghanistan, congratulating him for winning the election, as if voter fraud had never happened (with a little well-placed paternalistic advice about getting things back on the straight and narrow)? Or Peter Galbraith's ties to billions in oil profits, while serving as an advisor to the Kurds? Is anyone else repulsed by this to the point of gagging?

The usual justification is that they have to get re-elected, which means they can't piss off their biggest contributors. Why, I wonder, is that so important? What terrible thing would befall them if they were not re-elected? In all likelihood, they would end up pulling down huge fees on the lecture circuit, in a cushy job with a law firm, or even (since the regulations we were promised, regarding elected officials returning to the hill as lobbyists, have been "relaxed"), lobbying for their friends, the HMO's. That's hardly being homeless on the street.

Apparently our nation's leaders cannot bear the idea of losing. I am not referring here to a metaphoric losing of principles, nor to losing the battle for a piece of legislation that would serve the people they are supposed to represent. I certainly don't mean losing their souls, which, as the currency of the day, are bought, sold and traded regularly for a mess of pottage called votes and perks. I mean losing the next election. It is as though their very survival depended on winning.

It is not their real survival which they are defending, of course; it is the survival of their identity, as hrrumph, an important person, a member of the United States Congress. They have become their egos. The ego speaks the language of power, not the language of love, faith, or commitment. Whatever it says it is about, it is really only interested in one thing: its own survival. Like the rest of us, the ego wants to keep its job. In order to do so, it must continually win and prove itself triumphant. Each time it does so, it gets to deny the inevitability of death for one more day.

I remember a client who came into my office several years ago with panic attacks. She had a job that was killing her, but was afraid to quit. She had a few million in investments and certificates of deposit. She commanded sufficient respect in her field that finding a new job, after a reasonable healing sabbatical, would be easy. What was she afraid of, I asked. She was afraid she would go through all her savings, then all her investments, and then end up on the street. Absurd as it seems, it boiled down to survival. Cowardice always does. Remember the Germans who went along with the Third Reich in order to assure their survival, and the people who testified for McCarthy, so they wouldn't lose their own jobs?

If survival were assured, we would all be heroes.

In the 1970's, Masterpiece Theater produced a mini-series about British suffragists, which brought me to tears. My tears were tears of shame for my generation, pretending activism, but hedging our bets, fearful of repercussions or disapproval. I remember wondering: Where did these proper, well-bred, ruling class, economically-dependent women with everything to lose, find the courage to chain themselves to fences, and go on hunger strikes? This was not ordinary courage I was witnessing; it was moral courage.

Ordinary courage can be bravado in the moment. It needs approval. Moral courage often costs us the approval of those we think we need. Ego cannot fake or replace it; it comes from a deeper place. I dare say moral courage comes from love--love of something greater than oneself, and faith in something greater, too, greater even than ones own survival. As a child during the Civil Rights Movement, I saw people, armed only with their own determination and belief in a God of justice, stand up to police dogs, insults, lynch mobs and hoses. They drew on the story of the Exodus for inspiration, and they prayed for assistance to the God who led the Jews through the wilderness to the Promised Land. They sang the Gospel songs of endurance that their ancestors had sung in bondage, and the Spirituals that guided them along the Underground Railroad. As they were subjected to every imaginable indignity, humiliation, imprisonment, and in some cases, even death, they held in their hearts and minds the figure of a savior who suffered and died at the hands of evil and injustice, and triumphed still.

If I understand anything about the ministry of Jesus, it is that he spoke truth to power, regardless of how it was going to affect his survival. While the crowds and the marginalized loved him, he pissed off all the stakeholders in the power game: the Romans, of course, but also the Zealots and the Pharisees. He would not play. He was not interested in their game, as he told them all regularly. Because he didn't need their approval, he had no reason to fear pissing them off. He was crucified, not for our sins (a wacky doctrine called substitutionary atonement made up many years after his death, and then seized on by the Church for reasons of, you guessed it: power). He was crucified for truth telling and refusing to capitulate to the powers and principalities, even those in his own camp. Right to the end, Pilate kept asking him to renounce his truth to save his life. But he knew some things are more important even than life, and if he played their game, he'd have lost those. He'd have become like the rest, a slave to his own survival. If his life and death teach us anything, it is that true freedom comes from transcending the primacy of our own sniveling little lives.

I suppose it's asking a lot to expect our Senators to be like Jesus. But I believe we can--and should---ask them to risk their careers, if not their lives, for the principles of fairness we elected them to stand for. No one gets out of here alive--not even Presidents, and certainly not Senators. We're all going to die sooner or later. Given reasonable health care coverage, our elected representatives will die comfortably of natural causes. Their survival is not really at issue. But ours is. As a nation that desperately needs to retrieve and believe in its founding vision, we need our government to show some bravery, to remember the larger principles they vowed to serve. Our leaders need to make their legislative choices not from an addiction to approval and power, but from a commitment to and love of something greater--even if they don't get re-elected.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos: Building a Bigger House

2009-11-15T14:45:06Z

Will a recent lawsuit result in Congress's most dramatic upheaval in almost a hundred years? Probably not, but that's the quixotic hope of the parties who brought the case. They think that the U.S. House of Representatives is unconstitutional in its current form, and that the only solution is to drastically increase its size.

The plaintiffs are registered voters from Delaware, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota, and Utah, and they are represented by conservative lawyer Michael Farris. Their gripe is that the 435 seats in the House are not fairly distributed among the states. Their own home states, in particular, have much larger House districts than the national average of about 650,000 people. Montana's one district, for example, contains more than 900,000 people, while Utah's three districts average about 750,000. In contrast, Wyoming, the country's least populous state, has just 500,000 people in its one district.

The plaintiffs say "this lawsuit is the first of its kind." Even more curious than their suit is their suggested remedy. They hope the court will order the House to be increased to either 932 or 1,761 Representatives. Either of those sizes, in their view, would "offer[] a significant improvement over the current system . . . by reducing the level of over and under-representation."

Not surprisingly, the plaintiffs' case is pretty weak. While no court has rejected their exact argument, the Supreme Court came close in a pair of 1990s apportionment decisions. In the first case, involving a challenge to the formula for distributing House seats, the Court observed that "the need to allocate a fixed number of indivisible Representatives among 50 States of varying populations makes it virtually impossible to have the same size district in any pair of States, let alone in all 50." In the second case, involving objections to Census sampling techniques, the Court similarly noted that "constitutional requirements," such as "each State shall have at least one Representative; and district boundaries may not cross state lines," "make it impossible to achieve population equality among interstate districts."

The plaintiffs' own suggested remedy confirms that interstate differences in district size cannot be eliminated. According to their data, even if the House's membership were quadrupled, the largest and smallest districts nationwide would still deviate from the ideal size by a total of about ten percent. (In contrast, intrastate deviations of more than about one percent are prohibited.) And even if all House districts could somehow be equalized at the start of each Census cycle, their sizes would still be different at the end, thanks to varying rates of population change. In the 1990s, for example, both Nevada's Second Congressional District and Maryland's Seventh Congressional District began the decade at 600,000 people, but they ended it, respectively, at over 1,000,000 and under 550,000.

While the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail in court, they are not crazy to be concerned about the size of the House. New seats were added to the House every decade from 1790 (when there were 69 members) until 1910 (when the current number of 435 was adopted). But after Congress deadlocked for political reasons in 1920 and 1929, the House's size froze - and has remained frozen even as the U.S. population has more than tripled. According to University of Connecticut political scientist Jeffrey Ladewig and others, the House is now smaller, relative to national population, than any other Western country's legislature. A more appropriate size would be about 670 Representatives (i.e., the cube root of the U.S. population of about 300 million).

Political scientists predict that a larger House would produce Representatives who are more accessible to (and better liked by) their constituents. The smaller the district, the more contact politicians can have with the people. More House seats would also mean more representation for minorities of all sorts. Racial and ethnic groups, women, and candidates with unusual political views would all find it easier to win in districts that are smaller and more varied. And a House with 600-700 members would still be quite manageable. The British House of Commons, for instance, has 646 seats and functions at least as well as Congress.

A larger House, lastly, would cause the Electoral College to better approximate the popular vote in presidential elections. States are assigned as many Electors as they have Representatives and Senators combined. So if the House were substantially bigger, the impact of each state's two Senators would be (properly!) overwhelmed by the flood of new Representatives, all allocated based on states' populations. In 2000, Farris might be surprised to learn, Al Gore would have squeaked out a narrow Electoral College victory had the House consisted of 629 Representatives (the number then appropriate).

The plaintiffs, then, would be well advised to abandon their lawsuit and to switch their efforts to the political arena. No court is likely to give them the relief they seek. But Congress has repeatedly increased the House's membership in the past, and there is no reason why it cannot do so again. Grassroots organizing and backroom lobbying may not be as satisfying as filing suit - but they are the only way this battle can be won.

(A different version of this column appeared in the Baltimore Sun today.)

Matt Finkelstein: GOP Women Shamelessly Accuse Dems of Being Anti-Woman

2009-11-13T11:59:34Z

Last weekend on
the House floor, unruly Republicans literally shouted
down members of the Democratic Women's Caucus who were attempting to speak
in support of health care reform. It was
a shameful display, which Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) condemned as "rude,"
"disrespectful," and "sexist." Watch
a mash-up video of the incident here.

Yet, writing in
the Washington Times today, Reps.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) had the audacity to
complain that pro-reform Democrats don't
care about women:

As congresswomen, we think
we should be listening to and speaking out for women.

If Democrats
in Congress and the administration had been listening to women, they would not
have drafted and passed a reform bill that takes power away from women and
gives it to federal bureaucrats. Today, we, women - working with a trusted
medical professional - guide which treatments are best for our family, from flu
shots and hormones to heart stents and long-term care facilities. If H.R. 3962
ultimately becomes law, these decisions will increasingly be made by
bureaucrats, statisticians and actuaries.

The Pelosi
health care plan aims to have an impartial, all-knowing federal government make
decisions that cannot be trusted to mere housewives (and their greedy,
small town doctors).

For McMorris Rodgers and Jenkins to gripe about anyone disrespecting women is laughable. In addition to last weekend's theatrics, every single Republican
member of the House voted for the so-called Stupak
amendment, which will impose extreme restrictions
on a woman's right make reproductive choices.
The vote came a day after one of their conservative colleagues actually compared
women to smokers in order to justify gender-based discrimination on the
part of insurance companies.

As for the
merits of their complaint, it has been made before and it's just not true. Under reform, there will not be an
"all-knowing federal government making decisions" that would normally be made
by patients. (The claim comes from a
distortion of comparative effectiveness research, an existing
practice that will not take choices away but rather will lead to better options.)

Later in the
column, McMorris Rodgers and Jenkins cite problems with the H1N1 vaccine as
evidence that the government can't "make good medical decisions." However, both
women -- and all but 5 of their Republican colleagues -- voted against funding
the vaccine.

Despite all
evidence to the contrary, McMorris Rodgers and Jenkins want us to believe that
Republicans are sticking up for women. But
the fact is, the congresswomen and their party have consistently opposed
providing families with better health care options. Why would anybody trust them now?

Crossposted at Media Matters Action Network

The Craziest Examples Of Congressional Theatrics (VIDEO)

2009-11-11T15:55:31Z

Elyse Siegel contributed to this story

Just over twenty years ago, the cable industry launched the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network -- better known as C-SPAN. Among the network's achievements was its live broadcasts of legislative proceedings, allowing viewers to take a look at the governing process, to see how legislative sausage gets made, check up on their legislators' performances and stay abreast of key debates and votes.

It was a remarkable achievement in terms of transparency. However, there was a dark side to it all. Now, every single Congresscritter had a camera in the room and an unseen audience, beyond the governing chamber, to play to. And naturally, over time, they all basically became a gaggle of preening, self-obsessed jackasses.

This all reached its apotheosis this past weekend when Arizona Representative John Shadegg dragged a live baby into the chamber in order to make a melodramatic point about health care reform. Shadegg's presentation had no substantive impact on the debate, but then, that was never his attention -- he did what he did in order to grab a little attention from the media, who love themselves a good, substance-free, provocative stunt.

But while having a baby at the podium was certainly extreme, the truth is that Congress has been moving in the direction of being a quasi-governmental performance art space for a long time now, where it's becoming more and more normal -- perhaps even obligatory -- for your elected representatives to build props, wear costumes and come armed with idiotic charts to make their point. Which is that they often don't have a point, at all. But the camera eye loves the antics.

With the invaluable assistance of Elyse Siegel, we bring you our favorite examples of Congressional theatrics. Vote for your favorites! And if you've got a favorite of your own, send along an email!

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Rep. Joe Sestak: Our Veterans Deserve Our Thanks and Our Service

2009-11-11T10:40:22Z

For the seventh consecutive Veterans Day, we find our nation at war. It is essential that we take time to express our thanks for the service and sacrifice of the men and women who have worn the cloth of this nation. But we must always take care that our gratitude -- as a people, society and country -- extends beyond symbols and words.

As a 31-year veteran of the Navy, I understand the sacrifices service members make and some of the personal and professional challenges they face coming home. I believe it is our duty to serve them with the same respect and dignity with which they served us.

Our newest generation of veterans, including the more than 1.6 million Americans who have served or are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, faces difficult challenges. They were deployed more frequently and for longer periods than their predecessors had been in decades. They were sent into harm's way with less than the best equipment, many were ''stop-lossed'' when their time was up, and tragically they saw 234 of their fellow Pennsylvanians pay the ultimate price for our freedom, while over 1,500 from our commonwealth were wounded. Out of the service, they face the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression and, partially as a consequence of conflicts with no front lines, more than 20 percent live with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The way we care for our veterans is a reflection of our society. We cannot neglect them in their own time of need, as we did following the Vietnam War.

I ran for Congress to bring to Washington the principle of accountability that governs our armed services. Unfortunately, there have been too many instances where our veterans and their families have suffered because accountability has lapsed in our Congress and Veterans Administration. Because congressional leaders from the mid-1970s until 2006 did not provide necessary resources or oversight, there has been a disturbing series of poor policy decisions and incidents of mistreatment and mismanagement at VA medical facilities.

Our returning Vietnam vets did not receive the care they deserved and in 2003 the VA decided to exclude hundreds of thousands of veterans, from World War II through the Gulf War, from access to health care through the VA medical system. Recently we learned that millions of dollars in improper performance bonuses were assigned to senior VA managers in 2007 and 2008 while hundreds of thousands of disability claims remained backlogged.

Despite that history, I am certain President Obama selected the right person in Gen. Eric Shinseki as his Veterans Affairs secretary to lead the necessary reforms in this organization.

Congress is also trying to do its part. We have approved the largest increase in funding in VA history, passed legislation to re-enroll hundreds of thousands of veterans making as little as $29,000 who were locked out of VA services, and restored full four-year college scholarships for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I strongly support the plan by President Obama and Gen. Shinseki to end homelessness in our veteran population. The extraordinary number of homeless veterans speaks volumes of our failure to confront and heal the burdens they carried home from war.

My district office is open seven days a week to meet the needs of my constituents, including veterans who have to negotiate frustrating bureaucracies. We're also doing our best to help veterans during this recession by working to increase SBA loans to veteran-owned businesses. In the past year, SBA loans to veteran-owned businesses in western Pennsylvania have decreased dramatically and I am committed to reversing that trend. As veterans are unemployed at even greater levels than the rest of the population during this recession, we must increase the percentage of veterans employed by the VA to more than the current 29 percent. We must encourage the VA and other employers to hire more vets, empower more veteran service officers from veterans organizations to assist veterans and their families, and streamline the process for disabled vets to apply for state property tax relief.

This is not about bigger government. It is about better government. We can and must keep working to meet our commitments to our returning service members. The honor of our veterans and their families -- past, present and future -- demands nothing less.

As a former 3-star Navy admiral, Joe Sestak is the highest-ranking veteran elected to Congress and is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Noura Erakat: Delusional Self-Defense, Delusional Congressional Vote

2009-11-10T17:43:13Z

By Jimmy Leas and Noura Erakat

The 344-36 House vote last week condemning the Goldstone Report, which encourages Israel and Hamas to conduct "credible" independent investigations of war crimes committed in Gaza, may help Israeli leaders avoid prosecution in the short-term. However, the House vote and the negative US votes at the UN will have long-term detrimental effects both on Israel and on the U.S.'s moral authority.

Consider that within the General Assembly, 110 nations endorsed the Report, while the U.S. was among the minority of 18 nations that voted against the endorsement. The Congressional vote will increase the likelihood of a worldwide campaign to push the UN General Assembly, the International Criminal Court, or other countries, under universal jurisdiction, to hold Israel to account for war crimes committed in Gaza.

Self-defense is of utmost concern because self-defense was a central element of Israel's ongoing argument for the war and is the heart of the U.S.'s rejection of Goldstone. Israeli officials have featured that claim in every forum leading up to Operation Cast Lead's pummeling strikes. It was Israel's justification in its letter to the UN Secretary General when Israeli State officials announced the war on December 27, 2008. It was the main theme of Netanyahu's recent speeches to the General Assembly and to the Knesset. It was the main theme of the most recent House Resolution. It will be the U.S.'s main reason to veto the forthcoming Security Council vote. The self-defense claim is not just a matter of public relations; it is essential. Absent self-defense, political and military officials in Israel are subject to charges that go beyond those in the Goldstone Report, including, but not limited to, the crime of war of aggression.

However, the self-defense claim propagated by Israeli and U.S. politicians since the initiation of Operation Cast Lead is inconsistent with both the facts and the law. Within weeks of entering into the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement, Hamas rocket fire had come to a halt. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ceasefire was so successful that it brought "normal life and "calm" back to Israeli towns near Gaza. In an article posted on July 27, 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs even lauds Hamas, stating:

Publicly, Hamas leaders have stated time and again that the lull is a Palestinian national interest. On several occasions, Hamas members have arrested Fatah operatives who were involved in firing at Israel and confiscated their arms.

Calm prevailed for four months until Israeli forces broke the ceasefire agreement on November 4, 2008. While the world's gaze turned to one of the U.S.'s most historic elections that day, Israel launched an armed incursion into Gaza, accompanied by aerial bombing, killing six Hamas members and catapulting the region into a renewed wave of violent hostilities. Hamas rocket fire immediately followed the Israeli attack. Two weeks later Israel's largest circulation paper quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitting that "the recent waves of rocket attacks are a result of our operations, which have resulted in the killing of twenty Hamas gunmen." Barak's admission, consistent with the fact that Israel broke the ceasefire, makes Israel's self-defense claim baseless.

Still, Hamas offered to reinstate and extend the ceasefire a month later on December 23, 2008. Israel refused, ducking the chance to reach a diplomatic agreement that would have again ended rocket fire and brought the security desired by Israel. Instead, Israel chose massive escalation and four days later launched a gruesome aerial offensive against Gaza.

On the Offensive's 17th day, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni boasted that Israel was "going wild-and this is a good thing." The targeting of civilians described in the Goldstone Report seems to corroborate this Israeli attitude as Israeli forces attacked targets in Gaza that had nothing to do with Israel's stated military objective of stopping rocket fire. Israeli forces targeted schools, hospitals, factories, agricultural land, the only flour mill in Gaza, an egg farm, thousands of private homes, government buildings, and Palestinian civilians.

The Goldstone Report concluded:

While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.(Goldstone par. 1883)

A central element of the law of self-defense, as well as the laws regarding the conduct of war once started, is one unequivocal standard around which no controversy exists: the prohibition on targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. As demonstrated not only by the Goldstone Report, but also in reports by Israeli soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead and reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and the National Lawyers Guild, Israeli forces directly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure during its 22-day offensive. Even if Israel had not itself broken the ceasefire, its legal argument for self-defense would therefore be ineffective. Israel's only rebuttal to these charges was a military investigation conducted by the Israeli Army itself. But that self-serving investigation was nearly unanimously condemned as lacking independence and impartiality (see PDF).

Thus, neither the facts nor the law support an Israeli self-defense claim. Rather than condemn Israel's act of aggression and its ongoing occupation and blockade of the Gaza Strip, Congress added its name to a pungent piece of manipulative delusion: that Israel's onslaught of Gaza constituted an act of self-defense. The House is now on record disavowing international law and international accountability mechanisms. People around the world will be persuaded that protests, boycotts, and divestment campaigns are all the more necessary, and they will look to places outside the US political establishment for justice.

Noura Erakat is a Palestinian-American attorney and James Marc Leas is a Jewish-American attorney, and both participated in the National Lawyers Guild delegation to Gaza in February.

Joe The Nerd Ferraro: Tactics of the GOP First Unit Bill

2009-11-10T14:40:11Z

Aesop Fables are great teaching tools. I like the one where a father goes to his kids, hands them each a stick and says, “break the stick”. They shrug their shoulders and break the sticks. No big deal. Next day, he hands each of them another stick and says put your sticks together and bind them. Then he says, “Now break this” as he points to the bundle. They shrug their shoulders and try their luck. Not so easy. You can almost hear the dad telling them, “Its’ a lot tougher when you guys stick together, isn’t it.”

If you watch C-Span, you will notice a sculpture on the wall of bound group of sticks to either side of the dais where the Speaker of the House sits. I don’t think that is an accident.

I am irritated. Not at the GOP. I can’t be any more irritated at them as I would a snake I find in my backyard as it tries to bite me. I expect to be injured if I try to handle such a creature.

I am irritated at the Democratic Leadership for a number of things; first, not having the foresight to prepare 2 bills. The first being the, “GOP First Unit” bill. You can think up your own acronym for it. That is the one that has no input from the GOP to essentially say, “This is what we will pass if you don’t play straight with us.” We would have had single payer, or fully funded Medicare for All -- the real Democratic dream bill.

The second bill, would be the one where the GOP can come to the table, if they wish, to offer comment or their input. The Omnibus General Task Health Care Reform Bill (aka TOGETHER). That would have been the one the President would have signed if everybody played nice.

Schedule votes for both bills on the same night. Use pressure from the passage of the first bill, to get TOGETHERness on the second.

The problem is the Democrats in Congress pride themselves in being a bunch of twigs. I don’t know if it is the leadership or the nature of the party, but they lost for everybody. Had they stuck together, as the GOP opposition had, in monolithic fashion we would be looking at what 70% of our citizens were asking for. We would be really looking at a GOP on the ropes and down for the count.

By being too cute by 2, the Democratic Leadership let them up off the mat.

Next reason I am irritated at the party leaders is that they granted passes to a bunch of Congress people. If you hadn’t noticed, the President is getting beaten up in the press lately over health care. He needed to know the Democrats in Congress, many of them there because of the coattails of Barack Obama, needed to back him, AS OUR LEADER.

We needed every one of those votes. Each one that went the other way gave space for the GOP to hammer the Democratic Party. Instead of a win of 220-215 wouldn’t it have been more impressive to the Senate to have a vote of 259-176. How would those talking points have gone on the Sunday Morning Blabfests?

We needed to get the country thinking that the Democratic Party is united; we will work together on our own, because we have the votes to do it. When that image is projected it makes it more difficult for the waffling senators to play games with this thing. The Democratic Leadership in the house needed to get into the heads of the General Public as well as the Senators across the Capitol building. We needed the full bundle of sticks for the aura of fiat accompli.

My next irritant is the 39 soon to be former Congresspeople who have the Audacity of Dope. 2010 will be a replay of 1994. It is because of health care and these Democrats that we will deserve to lose.

I am sure every one of those Congress people were asked what they wanted in the bill. I am sure many of them got provisions they asked for. Once you ask for something and it is included, you cannot turn your back on it and vote against it.

If your Congressperson was voting against this bill to preserve their seat in 2010, I have a newsflash for them, “It was already gone. You weren’t going to win anyway.” Do you really think that the GOP will let up on you? You may as well have cut you leg open in the water and announce to the sharks that you are in the water, it’s lunchtime!

If you live in a county served by one of these people, I would ask that you call your Democratic County Chairperson and committee persons and ask them not to circulate the Congressperson Twig’s nominating petition. This Congressperson has now rendered them self useless and weak as well as clueless.

4% of our people are still out in the cold. 300,000,000 x .04 = 12,000,000 people.

What are the core values for the American People? I keep thinking about Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want. I thought the Democratic Party was the best vehicle for serving all of us. The Democratic Leadership asked us, the electorate, to provide them with the tools to support President Obama. They weren’t shy about asking for money on this either.

We did our part. We not only expect, but demand, that heads get banged so we get what we have asked for.

Mike Lux: One More Step

2009-11-09T16:13:33Z

Health care reform was always going to be tough as hell, as difficult as any issue that could ever be tackled. As I learned from the agony of the 1993-94 Clinton attempt at health care reform, this issue is so massive, so complicated, so unwieldy that it is prone to be derailed by lobbyists pulling on any one of the hundred hanging threads and unraveling the whole thing. Culture war issues like abortion and immigration combine with issues peculiar to individual districts like having a medical device manufacturer based in a congressperson's district, and all of those things combine with bigger worries about overall ideological and political concerns back home.

When people over the weekend would ask why getting the votes for the health care bill was so hard, I would have to say: it just is -- it is the nature of the beast. Every step along the way will be tough and painful and decidedly not easy. Every time we complete a step, like we did on Saturday night, it is easy to look at how hard it was and say, "Oh my God, the next step is even harder, how we will ever get there?"

Determined leadership can find a way through. In the 1993 budget fight, every step of the way was complete torture, and at numerous times it looked like we were completely done for. But we kept battling, took on one step at a time, and we got it done.

Speaking of determined leadership, Nancy Pelosi deserves enormous credit for finding a way to get this done. Like all progressives, I am deeply unhappy with the abortion language that was allowed to be voted into this bill. That language is unacceptable and has to be changed in conference committee. But I was looking at the vote count on Friday night too, and we really were done unless that vote was allowed. There were literally no good choices at that moment, because to let the bill fail or pull the bill from being voted on would have caused everything to get unraveled. We still have a very good chance at stripping this terribly restrictive anti-abortion language in conference committee, and need to keep fighting to do that.

On the final vote, the whipping process was intense and impressive. Democratic leaders I have known in the past have rarely played this kind of hardball, but some kneecaps were broken Saturday night to get these votes, and the Speaker did a masterful job of doing every little thing that needed to be done. She gave no passes to people, and she was very clear there would have been consequences to all who voted no. She got the job done.

I also wanted to commend the congresspeople from tough districts likely facing very competitive races who did the right thing on this vote. It was a good political move on balance because it will help them turn out the base in the 2010 election, but when you are getting hammered by the big money forces against this bill, it never feels like a tough vote like this is going to help you. As a strong progressive, I give more conservative members of the Democratic caucus a lot of flack sometimes, but these Democrats from tough districts deserve a lot of thanks:

AZ-01 Kirkpatrick, Ann R+6

AZ-05 Mitchell, Harry R+5
AZ-08 Giffords, Gabby R+4
CA-11 McNerney, Jerry R+1
CT-04 Himes, Jim D+5
FL-08 Grayson, Alan R+2
IL-08 Bean, Melissa R+1
IL-11 Halvorson, Debbie R+1
IL-14 Foster, Bill R+1
IN-8 Ellsworth, Brad R+8
KS-03 Moore, Dennis R+3
MI-07 Schauer, Mark R+2
MI-09 Peters, Gary D+2
MN-01 Walz, Tim R+1
NH-01 Shea-Porter, Carol R+0
NV-3 Titus, Dina D+2
NY-01 Bishop, Timothy R+0
NY-19 Hall, John R+3
NY-24 Arcuri, Mike R+2
NY-25 Maffei, Dan D+3
OH-15 Kilroy, Mary D+1
OR-5 Schrader, Kurt D+1
PA-3 Dahlkemper, Kathy R+3
VA-5 Perriello, Tom R+5
WI-08 Kagen, Steve R+2

On the other hand, there are some Democrats I am appalled by. As a 30-year supporter of single-payer, and with full knowledge of the imperfections in this bill, I am angry that single-payer supporters Kucinich and Massa were happy to let any hope of health care reform for a generation die because the bill wasn't everything we hoped it would be. To let another generation go by where tens of thousands of people die every year from being under-insured, and have the insurance companies continue to be allowed to screw people over preexisting conditions, lifetime caps, and recessions is just wrong.

Then there is the large collection of Blue Dogs who care nothing about the President or the Democratic Party's top priority, let alone all those people without insurance. After all that Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi did for these reps in the 2006 and 2008 elections, all the money and time and staff and consultant help they gave them, for those Blue Dogs to walk away on the biggest issue, when they were needed the most, is a sign of their selfishness. These are Rahm's people, recruited by him and supported by him at every step of the way, and they don't care that they are making him look terrible by leaving him out to dry. They are also dumb about their own political fate: if Democrats don't deliver, Democratic base voters will walk away in massive numbers, and it will be the people in marginal districts that will suffer the most.

The health care debate was always going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight, with every stage a harrowing journey to get through. But we survived another big step on Saturday night, and are alive to fight for another round. We will figure out how to win this one way or the other, making history when we do.

Reps King, Hoekstra Attempt To Wrap Capitol With Health Care Bill

2009-11-07T17:05:09Z

Early Friday afternoon, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) announced his intentions to wrap the Capitol building in a massive copy of the 1,900-page health bill. "Let's do it," he proclaimed. "Let's wrap the building."

A security guard urged them not to try ("You can't do that sir, you can't do that.") but King was determined. King and his partner Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) don't appear to have made it all the way around the Capitol, but they did climb the steps and create a giant mess of paper.

Below, view their attempts to "wrap" the building.

House Health Care Vote: Breaking Updates

2009-11-07T09:44:39Z

After months of debate, the House of Representatives passed historic health care reform legislation late on Saturday evening. Read the overview AP coverage HERE, and follow Twitter reaction HERE.

In a victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed landmark health care legislation Saturday night to expand coverage to tens of millions who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous.

The 220-215 vote (click here to see how each member voted) cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

A triumphant Speaker Nancy Pelosi likened the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later. "Oh, what a night!" she proclaimed at the beginning of a press conference held after the vote. Obama issued a statement saying, "I look forward to signing it into law by the end of the year."

"It provides coverage for 96 percent of Americans. It offers everyone, regardless of health or income, the peace of mind that comes from knowing they will have access to affordable health care when they need it," said Rep. John Dingell, the 83-year-old Michigan lawmaker who has introduced national health insurance in every Congress since succeeding his father in 1955.

In the run-up to a final vote, conservatives from the two political parties joined forces to impose tough new restrictions on abortion coverage in insurance policies to be sold to many individuals and small groups. They prevailed on a roll call of 240-194.

Ironically, that only solidified support for the legislation, clearing the way for conservative Democrats to vote for it.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it. Large companies would have to offer coverage to their employees. Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government's mandates.

Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price fixing and market allocation.

At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private firms.

A cheer went up from the Democratic side of the House when the bill gained 218 votes, a majority. Moments later, Democrats counted down the final seconds of the voting period in unison, and let loose an even louder roar when Pelosi grabbed the gavel and declared, "the bill is passed."

The bill drew the votes of 219 Democrats and Rep. Joseph Cao, a first-term Republican who holds an overwhelmingly Democratic seat in New Orleans. Opposed were 176 Republicans and 39 Democrats.

WATCH: THE FINAL VOTE

WATCH: THE POST-VOTE PRESS CONFERENCE

From the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, "We realize the strong will for reform that exists, and we are energized that we stand closer than ever to reforming our broken health insurance system."

In his written statement, Obama praised the House's action and said, "now the United State Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will."

Nearly unanimous in their opposition, minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

United in opposition, minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

"We are going to have a complete government takeover of our health care system faster than you can say, `this is making me sick,'" jabbed Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., adding that Democrats were intent on passing "a jobs-killing, tax-hiking, deficit-exploding" bill.

But with little doubt about the outcome, the rhetoric lacked the fire of last summer's town hall meetings, when some critics accused Democrats of plotting "death panels" to hasten the demise of senior citizens.

The bill is projected to expand coverage to 36 million uninsured, resulting in 96 percent of the nation's eligible population having insurance.

To pay for the expansion of coverage, the bill cuts Medicare's projected spending by more than $400 billion over a decade. It also imposes a tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on income over $500,000 in the case of individuals and $1 million for families.

The bill was estimated to reduce federal deficits by about $104 billion over a decade, although it lacked two of the key cost-cutting provisions under consideration in the Senate, and its longer-term impact on government red ink was far from clear.

Democrats lined up a range of outside groups behind their legislation, none more important than the AARP, whose support promises political cover against the cuts to Medicare in next year's congressional elections.

The nation's drug companies generally support health care overhaul. And while the powerful insurance industry opposed the legislation, it did so quietly, and the result was that Republicans could not count on the type of advertising campaign that might have peeled away skittish Democrats in swing districts.

Over all, the bill envisioned the most sweeping set of changes to the health care system in more than a generation, and Democrats said it marked the culmination of a campaign that Harry Truman began when he sat in the White House 60 years ago.

Debate on the House floor had already begun when Obama strode into a closed-door meeting of the Democratic rank and file across the street from the Capitol to make a final personal appeal to them to pass his top domestic priority.

Later, in an appearance at the White House, he said he had told lawmakers, "to rise to this moment. Answer the call of history, and vote yes for health insurance reform for America."

It appeared that a compromise brokered Friday night on the volatile issue of abortion had finally secured the votes needed to pass the legislation.

As drafted, the measure denied the use of federal subsidies to purchase abortion coverage in policies sold by private insurers in the new insurance exchange, except in cases of incest, rape or when the life of the mother was in danger.

But abortion foes won far stronger restrictions that would rule out abortion coverage except in those three categories in any government-sold plan. It would also ban abortion coverage in any private plan purchased by consumers receiving federal subsidies.

Disappointed Democratic abortion rights supporters grumbled about the turn of events, but pulled back quickly from any thought of opposing the health care bill in protest.

One, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., detailed numerous other benefits for women in the bill, including free medical preventive services and better prescription drug coverage under Medicare. "Women need health care reform," she concluded in remarks on the House floor.

A Republican alternative was rejected on a near party line vote of 258-176.

It relied heavily on loosening regulations on private insurers to reduce costs for those who currently have insurance, in some cases by as much as 10 percent. But congressional budget analysts said the plan would make no dent in the ranks of the uninsured, an assessment that highlighted the difference in priorities between the two political parties.

10:30 PM ET -- GOP health care alternative rejected. The Republicans' alternative health care bill was voted down in the House, 176-258.

Rep. Timothy Johnson (R-Ill.), an obscure member of the party, was the lone Republican to vote against the GOP plan. The purpose of doing so was unclear. Speculation had surfaced on Saturday that, if there were one Republican defection, it would have been Louisiana Republican Rep. Joe Cao. He ended up supporting Boehner.

Commenting on the Johnson vote, one Democratic health care activist emailed: "random."

-- Sam Stein

10:19 PM ET -- Blue Dog Democrats' anti-abortion amendment passes. The House has passed a provision advanced by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that severely restricts women's reproductive health choices under the health reform bill.

The vote was 240-194, with 64 Democrats voting in favor of the amendment (and 1 Republican, Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), voting 'present').

HuffPost's Ryan Grim detailed the Stupak amendment earlier:

Stupak's...amendment...would ban the public health insurance option from funding abortion and also ban any private plan operating within the exchange from funding abortions. Under Stupak's plan, a woman buying private insurance from within the exchange with her own money would not have a choice of a plan that covered abortion.

Here's a statement Reps. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Diana DeGette (D-Col.), co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus:

"Placing onerous new restrictions on a woman's right to choose sets a terrible precedent and marks a significant step backwards. This effort will effectively ban abortion coverage in all plans, both private and public - marking a significant scaling back of the options offered under existing laws. Such a terrible, last minute amendment to a critical, historic piece of legislation is a shame. This kind of outrageous interference in health care by the government marks a sad day in this struggle and will result in women across America losing the right to health care."

10:08 PM ET -- "Dean of the House" delivers final health care speech. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, who has introduced a national health care bill at the beginning of every session of Congress since he came into office, received a standing ovation as he began the final Democratic health care speech of the night.

9:54 PM ET -- A Republican vote for health care? Roll Call reports that Louisiana GOP Rep. Joseph Cao may vote in favor of the final health care bill if Rep. Stupak's anti-abortion amendment passes. Rep. Cao defeated scandal-plagued Democrat William Jefferson in 2008, and faces a major up-hill climb in keeping his seat in 2010 in his overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Multiple sources tell HuffPost that the White House has been working hard to win his vote, and that with the abortion amendment in play, his vote is up in the air.

9:31 PM ET -- "Republican ideas are already in there, thanks!" Debate is still taking place on the Republican health care alternative that will be voted on later this evening, before the vote on the Democratic-favored health care bill.

Several GOP members have argued tonight that the Democratic bill doesn't contain bipartisan ideas. Not so, say Dems, who have been distributing quotes from various Republicans declaring that they agree with most of the Democratic health care bill.

Rep. Eric Cantor: "[Cantor] said Republicans and Democrats agree on 80 percent of fixing the nation's healthcare system, but could not show the crowd a detailed plan that has been endorsed by House Republicans." [The Hill, 9/10/09]

Rep. Aaron Schock: "My hope is we could start over and focus on the 80 percent we both agree on," Schock said. "My hope is we could focus on a clean bill.'" [Herald-Review, 9/15/09]

Rep. Charles Boustany, after giving his party's official response: "In fact, I would venture to say that we agree on about 80% of the issues right now. It's just a matter of hashing out those few areas where we disagree." [MSNBC, 9/10/09]

Rep. Steve LaTourette: "LaTourette estimates that Republicans and Democrats agree on 80 percent of health care reform ideas, although they have serious disagreements on how to take care of underinsured and uninsured people in a way that won't harm those who have insurance." [Cleveland Plain Dealer, 10/17/09]

Here's a sample of the debate on the GOP alternative -- video of Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who was interviewed earlier tonight by HuffPost's Ryan Grim (see below).

Democratic aides: We've got the votes. "Today we will pass the Affordable Health Care for America Act," Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor Saturday evening. Politico is reporting that Democrats have at least the 218 votes needed to pass the bill. Four Democratic aides tell HuffPost the same thing.

Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), declined to confirm the number.

The news that Pelosi has the votes can have unpredictable effects on undecided members. Some members, seeing the bill passing, may want to pile on and get on the side of history. Others react by thinking that they can now oppose it, look tough at home, but not jeopardize passage. Toward that end, watch for a handful of no votes to dribble out from Dems over the next hour or so.

A note of caution: Republicans are still allowed a parliamentary procedure known as a "motion to recommit." Within that motion, they could include any sort of mischief they see fit: conventional wisdom is that the motion will include some language concerning illegal immigration, but if any decision has been made, aides are being mum about it. Depending on whether it passes and how it impacts the bill, it could sway a vote or two on final passage, but it's unlikely, because the motion can be ignored as the House and Senate work to merge their bills later in the legislative process.

A Dem aide guessed that 9:30 PM ET was looking like a rough approximation of the time for a final vote.

Here's Pelosi's speech on the floor:

-- Ryan Grim

8:20 PM ET -- Democratic Rep.: "It sounds corny but..." Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) guesses that Democrats have 225 votes for health care reform (218 are needed for passage), he told two reporters in the Speaker's lobby, one from Politico and one from HuffPost.

Miller, as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, played a key role in drafting the bill.

Politico asked him what would happen to freshman being forced to "walk the plank."

"Who's walking the plank?" Miller asked. "For national health care?"

Voting against the bill could, in reality, come back to hurt Democrats who broke with their party, National Journal is reporting.

Rather than danger, Miller saw a historic victory.

Asked by HuffPost how he felt about the impending passage, he said: "It's incredible, when you think you really have this possibility and you know the history. You know, obviously, over 35 years I've participated in a couple of efforts. So in that sense yes, it sounds corny, but this is the kind of thing that makes you proud to be a member of Congress. You get to do something like this. You get to participate in something like this. You get to participate in trying to figure out how to make this work in our society. So it's a real privilege. A big, big, big privilege is what it is, to be able to participate in this."

Is the vote solid?

"I think it's good. Yeah, I think it's good," he said.

Told that both HuffPost and Politico were reporting Dems had the votes, he jokingly called to Pelosi: "Madam Speaker! Take a rest."

With 218 needed, Miller's prediction of 225 would make it a fairly close vote. Politico asked if he was upset it wasn't higher.

"Look, you go through this entire history and nobody's done it? Take it," he said, punching one hand with the other. "Whatever it is."

-- Ryan Grim

7:49 PM ET -- A reporter takes a spill. After a full day of debate, House staffers and reporters are passing around this video today for comic relief.

7:30 PM ET -- Michele Bachmann wears a lei, critics go to town. Outspoken Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann (somewhat inexplicably) was sporting a Hawaiian lei when she spoke out against health care reform tonight. She said she was doing so because people in Hawaii told her to vote against the bill.

A Democrat blasted out an email: "I feel it is my duty to point out that Hawaii has a health care mandate where EVERY employer has to provide health care benefits to ALL employees who work over 20 hours a week."

7:00 PM ET -- The newest member of Congress speaks: My district needs this. Speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives for one of, if not the, first time since being elected to office, Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.) made it clear that he would vote for health care reform and viewed the legislation as a boon for small business.

"My district needs one thing: jobs," said the newly elected Democrat. "In upstate New York, small businesses are the jobs engine. Over the past 15 years, they have been responsible for nearly two-thirds of all the jobs created in [the area]. But the cost of health care is grinding the engine down. Over the last decade, small business insurance premiums are up 129 percent. That means much higher expenses, more businesses dropping coverage, and a sicker, more financially-strapped work force, and enormous pressure on small business owners...

"This bill can change that. It creates a competitive marketplace where individuals and small businesses can shop for polices at fair rates. It guarantees preventive care for a healthier, more productive work force, and it encourages Americans to start businesses of their own because the cost of health care will no longer tie them to the same job. The people of my district need jobs. They need me to vote yes. I came to congress to move America forward. This will do that."

Owens' vote, in the end, likely won't be the deciding margin if the House passes health care legislation Saturday evening. While the margin of the final vote seems likely to be small, it's mainly because Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have allowed a group of moderate Democrats to vote against the legislation for electoral purposes.

But Owens' vote is indeed a potent symbol in the eyes of Democratic leaders. Earlier in the day, President Barack Obama pointed to Owens' victory in upstate New York earlier this week as a reason that the party should rally behind the House's legislation.

"He said to look at Bill Owens," a senior Hill aide who was at the meeting recalled. "There is a House seat that's been in Republican hands for more than one hundred years. But Owens didn't run away from reform. He campaigned on it. And he still got elected."

5:46 PM ET -- How Rep. Clyburn introduced Obama. An aide to Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) passes on the speech he made earlier today while introducing the president to the Democratic caucus:

"As I listened to the previous speakers, I thought about last year's campaign. Congressman Marion Berry and I spent a few days together traveling throughout South Carolina in a little RV that I leased for about 10 days. Accompanying us on parts of those trips was my grandson. As the father of 3 wonderful daughters, having a grandson was a real blessing to me. But he arrived three months before he was expected. He was three pounds and eight ounces at birth, and had three operations before he was 20 pounds. I can still remember the looks of excitement on the faces of my daughter and son-in-law when they made the last payment on their 15% co-payment.

"One day as we rode around in that RV, we watched on a television monitor as then candidate Senator Barack Obama was talking about the need for health care reform. I looked at that young man and thought about how fortunate he was to have had the best doctors and treatment available.

"Today that young boy is 15 years old, and while playing golf with him not long ago, using my driver, I had made one of my longest drives of the day. He pulled out his three-wood and drove his ball right past mine. He is where he is today because of what we're trying to do for every child. He was fortunate to be born to parents who had health insurance. But every child born in America should have the same chance he had. That is what we are trying to do today, and the man who has brought us to the point of being able to do just that is here with us today. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United State of America, Barack Obama."

4:54 PM ET -- Rep. Rangel to GOP Leader Boehner: "Shame on you." Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) just got into a testy exchange when Boehner asked Rangel if he would guarantee that pro-life language in the House version will remain in the bill through conference committee with the Senate.

"You've been here long enough to truly understand how this system works," Rangel responded, saying that he couldn't guarantee him anything. Even if he could, said Rangel, who is under ethics investigations, such a guarantee "might be a violation of our ethics laws."

The press gallery and the House floor erupted in laughter.

From there it heated up, with Boehner saying that allowing a vote on the amendment was a "shell game" because the party planned to remove it later.

"Shame on you," responded Rangel, with one of the more direct insults you'll see on the House floor, where speakers are supposed to direct their comments to the chair, not directly to other members.

-- Ryan Grim

4:39 PM ET -- Progressive group releases new poll timed to health care vote. In light of a tough loss in Virginia's gubernatorial election, a progressive advocacy group is trotting out some new poll numbers making the case that the Democratic Party lost by abandoning the principles of its base.

A Research 2000 Virginia Poll conducted for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee reveals that 64 percent of Virginians who supported Barack Obama but did NOT vote in 2009 said that the party's gubernatorial candidate, Creigh Deeds, was "not progressive enough." Driving the point home further, 58 percent of Virginia voters who are registered as Independent but supported Obama in 2008 election, likewise, said that Deeds was "not progressive enough."

The findings cut against the argument that emerged from the 2009 gubernatorial elections, which held that Democrats lost in Virginia and (to a lesser extent) New Jersey because they were not moderate enough.

Only eight percent of Democratic Obama voters in Virginia and 16 percent of Independent Obama voters in Virginia said they thought Deeds was "too far to the left."

In its survey, PCCC also looked at how a public option for insurance coverage played in the Virginia governor's race. It concludes that Deeds was hurt by his opposition to the public plan. Forty-one percent of respondents said that Deeds' declaration that he would consider opting out of a public plan as governor made them less excited about his candidacy. Only six percent said it made them more excited.

-- Sam Stein

4:22 PM ET -- GOP Rep. uses "granddaughter" (not his own) as political prop. Things are getting a bit weird on the House floor, as Republicans and Democrats continue their daylong debate over health care legislation.

At roughly 3:40 p.m., Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz) took to the microphone with a baby girl in hand. Named "Maddie," he began by proclaiming that the child was not, in fact, his granddaughter. But he didn't say whose it was.

And yet, for the next minute, there was Shadegg bopping the baby up and down and using her as a prop to rail against the government option.

"I wish this was my granddaughter," Shadegg said. "This is Maddie. Maddie believes in freedom. Maddie likes America because we have freedom here. And Maddie believes in patient choice health care. She asked to come here today to say she doesn't want the government to take over health care. She wants to keep her plan."

The chamber was either a bit freaked out or slightly humored. It was difficult to say.

"Mr. Speaker that was a remarkable child and a great ventriloquist," responded Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

-- Sam Stein

4:18 PM ET -- Rep. Stupak on progressives: You can't be crying wolf all the time because you lose your wolfiness. For weeks, the Congressional Progressive Caucus threatened to withhold substantial support from the health care bill if it didn't include a robust public option tied to Medicare rates. For weeks, a gang of pro-life Blue Dogs threatened to withhold the support of at least 40 members -- to "take down the rule," in House speak -- if it didn't include language tightly restricting reproductive rights.

There is no robust public option, but the abortion language is in.

HuffPost asked Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the lead Blue Dog negotiator, why he succeeded and the progressives failed.

"Because I didn't threat[en]. These are the facts," he said.

But you did threaten, a reporter pointed out.

No, Stupak said, it wasn't a threat. It was a promise. "No, they know I'll vote against the rule," he said.

Stupak said the Blue Dogs have gradually been sending a message to leadership and that much of it goes back to a previous vote involving an appropriations bill that Blue Dogs wanted to include pro-life language.

In July, the House considered a Financial Services Appropriations bill that would allow publicly-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. Stupak and allies were not allowed an amendment, so they sought to "take down the rule" -- in other words, round up enough votes to deny he bill a chance to get voted on on the floor. When time expired, the pro-lifers had prevailed. But Pelosi held the vote open for extra time and persuaded four members to switch their votes.

They didn't win in the end, Stupak said, but they accomplished their goal.

"We wanted to send a message," he said. "We went back and I said, 'See, I can take down your rule.'"

He has held his fire since then, saving his strength for the health care bill.

"Now, I have not threatened that every time that we went to Rules Committee and we didn't always get our pro-life amendments, I did not try to take down any rules. You have to pick your fights at the right time. You can't be crying wolf all the time because you lose your wolfiness. You lose your credibility," he said. "So I'm not going to lose my credibility. So you use it at certain times when it's appropriate."

-- Ryan Grim

4:12 PM ET -- Timeline of today's votes. A Hill aide sends over the general timeline for the rest of today's activities in the House.

It currently looks like the final vote on the full health care reform bill will occur around 9PM ET. Here is the order of events until then:

* General debate will continue for about three more hours
* Debate on the Stupak anti-abortion amendment
* Debate on the Republican health care substitute
* Votes on the Stupak amendment and the GOP substitute
* Debate on the "motion to recommit," a procedural move used by the minority party
* Vote on the motion to recommit
* Vote on the full bill

-- Nico Pitney

3:37 PM ET -- A photo of the health care bill sitting in Speaker Pelosi's office.

3:33 PM ET -- A Blue Dog for health care reform. Rep. Patrick Murphy, writing for HuffPost, explains "why we can't afford to fail."

3:15 PM ET -- Rep. Stupak: Health care has the votes whether anti-abortion amendment passes or fails. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) told reporters that regardless of the outcome of the vote on his amendment, which would severely restrict coverage of reproductive health issues, the House health care bill is headed for passage. He is whipping support for the amendment and estimates he has 225 votes. If he's right, the amendment will pass, and he predicted enough pro-life Democrats will vote yes on the final bill to put it over the top. But if it fails, he said, enough pro-lifers -- ten to 15, he said -- will have been satisfied to have had their vote on the floor that they'll turn around and support the final bill anyway. Picking up ten to 15 votes would give the bill a comfortable margin for passage.

Again, If Stupak is correct -- and there's no reason to think he's wrong -- then it's a done deal, and the bill will pass the House.

"The forty members who stood strong with me through this whole deal, I think at least 15 will not vote for the bill no matter what, even if Stupak is adopted," he said. "Then there might still have been ten to 15 who would vote for it even if we didn't get our amendment."

So enough to put it over the top?

"It should be," he said.

Stupak talked to reporters about yesterday's on-again-off-again negotiations, describing how he had come to a deal with Pelosi in the evening, only to have her call him back at 9:00 p.m. to say she had to walk away from it because the pro-choice base of the caucus wouldn't support it.

Instead, Stupak was offered the amendment that will be voted on later today. Stupak's tale confirms what the Huffington Post reported last night.

His amendment, Stupak noted, is in fact more restrictive than the language he had previously agreed to include in the bill. The pro-choice crowd, demanding the right to vote their consciences, Stupak said, overplayed their hand and look to be handing him a bigger victory. Stupak's amendment is extremely restrictive -- any individual or any business that gets any subsidy or tax credit -- which will be most people in the country -- will not be able to purchase a health care plan that covers abortion, even with their own money. They can, however, buy supplemental coverage from a separate plan. Stupak's amendment would represent the most significant rollback of reproductive rights in decades.

Is it even Constitutional?

"It may not be. I don't know," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) told HuffPost. "But we're certainly not looking to resolve this in the courts." They may not be, but someone, somewhere, might be.

The progressive site FireDogLake has posted an action item on Stupak's amendment -- "Call Bart Stupak's Donor PACs and tell them you're staying away because they finance anti-abortion activism."

-- Ryan Grim

3:10 PM ET -- GOP Rep. Mike Pence: Dems who help GOP block reform will be akin to World War II vets who risked lives for freedom.

3:02 PM ET -- Rep. King contemplates wrapping Capitol building with health care bill. Ten minutes after Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-M.D.) took to the House floor to relay the tale of a young boy who died because a tooth infection went untreated and spread to his brain, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was trying to literally wrap the Capitol building with the legislation.

The House, on Saturday, began what should be a lengthy process of debating and voting on the final language of reform. But not everyone was willing to simply sit through the event. Outside, King and others were leading a mob of angry tea-party protesters in a round of bizarre and disruptive shenanigans.

About 20 feet off the House floor, at the entrance to the lawn in front of the Capitol building, King and two colleagues were wielding a massive copy of the 1,900-page bill, rolled up around a wooden poll. A man accompanying a clearly excited King, suggested that they wrap the legislation around the building.

"Let's do it," he proclaimed. "Let's wrap the building."

A security guard, looking on disapprovingly, patiently urged them not to try. "You can't do that sir," he said. "You can't do that."

In the background, the tea party protesters who had gathered for a second day of railing against health care's passage were dispersing. Sensing a lost opportunity, King turned to go back outside, asking his co-conspirator to grab the rolled up bill.

A Hill aide tells the Huffington Post that he and others have been plotting to tape pieces of the bill to the Capitol building for several days.

-- Sam Stein

2:00 PM ET -- President Obama's Rose Garden remarks on health care. Here's video:

1:58 PM ET -- Democrats pass key hurdle. Democrats passed a key parliamentary hurdle easily, 242-192, the result of the deal struck late last night. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) began a standing ovation on the Dem side. Texas Republican Louie Gohmert rose to congratulate Dingell on the victory. He asked for unanimous consent "to restore his chairmanship back to him." The GOP side erupted in applause, but Democrats remained mostly silent, unhappy to be reminded of the internal battle between Dingell and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), which cost Dingell the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

-- Ryan Grim

1:55 PM ET -- Male GOP congressmen try to shout down female lawmakers. During early debate over the health care bill, a group of House Republicans -- led by Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia) -- attempted to stop the Democratic Women's Caucus from making their arguments about how the health bill would benefit women by screaming over them.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif) only had time to say "Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to--," before Price shouted "I object." The presiding chair, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) made gestures to maintain control, declaring "the request is not yet before the House," and Price was "out of order," to little effect. Capps attempted to go on, but Price continued shouting "I object, I object, I object, I object."

The same shouting tactics were used on Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio) who asked angrily: "do I not have the right to be able to continue my sentence without objections that are trying to censor my remarks here on the floor that I have a right to make as a member of this House?"

Watch the compilation reel that Think Progress put together below.

-- Lila Shapiro

1:54 PM ET -- President Obama points to Bill Owens. President Obama referred to Congressman Bill Owens, the Democrat who won the special congressional election in New York on Tuesday, as an example of why Democrats should vote for the health care bill. Owens won the seat, held by a Republican for the last hundred years, running on a progressive health care platform.

1:43 PM ET -- Emotions running high. Emotions are running high on the House floor, as Rep. John Dingell - the longest serving member in the history of the House - is presiding over the health care debate -- the first time he has presided over the chamber since the 1965 Medicare vote.

And if that didn't tug at the hearts of soppy pols enough, a source sends over word that Dingell is actually using the same gavel today that he brandished 44 years ago.

"They took it off the wall," said the source, who noted how tightly the congressman was holding it.

There is, indeed, a lot of strategically produced nostalgia filtering its way into the final House vote on health care reform. At a meeting with members earlier in the day, President Barack Obama referenced the historic nature of the vote and Dingell's role in the Medicare debate to persuade members of the need to back the legislation.

-- Sam Stein

1:42 PM ET -- Are Democrats confident? Well, they're passing around copies of the nearly 2,000 page bill and autographing it for each other on the floor. Some members have only gotten Pelosi's autograph, others have the entire first page of the bill covered in the signatures of their colleagues.

-- Ryan Grim

1:38 PM ET -- Key vote called. John Dingell (D-Mich.) calls for a vote on rule -- a key vote that Pelosi has been whipping furiously; it's the vote anti-abortion Dems had threatened to "take down." But things are going smoothly for the Speaker so far. The vote on a "previous question," which concluded just before the rule was called, passed 247-187, a comfortable victory. The vote on the rule is timed for 15 minutes.

-- Ryan Grim

1:32 PM ET -- Details from Obama's meeting with House Democrats are HERE.

1:20 PM ET -- One more 'no' vote. One more 'no' vote: Rep. Mike McIntyre, a Democrat from North Carolina, will oppose the health care bill. Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, sends out the news to reporters and includes "just a thought."

The GOP campaign-man's thought: "How are vulnerable Democrats who vote 'Yes' going to feel when we are using their fellow Democrats' statements against them in ads next year? Members of their own party are citing out-of-control spending, debt, tax increases, kills jobs, etc."

Among other reasons, McIntyre says he is opposing the House bill because it "costs way too much money" and "raises too much in new taxes."

Vulnerable Dems certainly won't be thanking Mike McIntyre.

-- Ryan Grim

1:10 PM ET -- CBO has bad news for House GOP. The Congressional Budget Office has bad news for the House GOP. It had originally estimated that the Republican health care plan would save $4.4 billion from fraud enforcement. The number raised some eyebrows for -- it turns out -- good reason. The CBO corrected its estimate on Saturday in a letter to Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.). Stark is chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee with control over health care.

From the CBO letter:

The HCFAC funding at issue is $266 million a year of direct spending under current law. CBO's earlier understanding was that the intent was to increase funding by $300 million a year, for a gross direct spending cost of $3 billion over 10 years. As drafted, however, the substitute amendment has the effect of setting (and freezing) HCFAC funding at exactly $300m a year. In other words, the language as drafted would increase funding by $34 million a year, or approximately $0.3 billion over 10 years (not the $3 billion).

As noted above, our original estimate shows an increase in direct spending of $3.0 billion over 10 years. With that level of funding, we estimated nonscoreable savings of $4.4 billion over the budget window. (Those savings are "nonscoreable" because Scorekeeping Guideline #14, as adopted by the Congress several years ago, specifies that any estimated reductions in direct spending or increases in revenues that stem from direct spending for program administration purposes cannot be counted for purposes of budget enforcement.)

The corrected estimate, to reflect the language as drafted, is an increase in direct spending of $0.3 billion over 10 years. With that change in HCFAC funding, we estimate nonscoreable savings of $0.5 billion over 10 years. The net result of that correction is to increase the net pay-as-you-go savings of the Boehner substitute by about $2.7 billion (by removing $3 billion in direct spending cost and adding back in $0.3 billion). Because of Scorekeeping Guideline #14, the change in nonscoreable savings does not affect the tally of direct spending for budget enforcement purposes.

12:58 PM ET -- White House pool report on Obama's meeting with House Dems.

Motorcade departed Cannon 12:25, arr. WH 12:30, taking route down Independence Ave.

POTUS walked toward Oval w/ axelrod, Reggie Love, and Phil Schiliro of leg affairs.

Readout of caucus meeting from Bill Burton:

The President made the case that Congress has a historic opportunity today to provide stability and security for those who have insurance, affordable coverage for those who don't and bring down the cost of health care for families, small businesses and the government. He said that we have made more progress on comprehensive reform than any administration and any Congress in the past 70 years - and we should take this historic opportunity to pass health care reform so that he can sign a bill by the end of this year.

12:23 PM ET -- Democrats finish meeting with President Obama. House Democrats are speaking to reporters after concluding a meeting with President Obama about the health care vote today.

12:09 PM ET -- Dem: I'll vote for health care if anti-abortion amendment passes, predicts it will. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), one of the few remaining undecided votes on health care, said she would support the legislation if it included a provision that would restrict the ability of insurers to cover abortion.

If the amendment offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) is not passed by the House - and a vote will come on Saturday - Kaptur said she would remain "undecided" on whether to support the broader reform effort.

"For some people this is a make or break issue," she said, when asked if other anti-abortion Democrats would be satisfied enough to vote for health care reform merely by having the Stupak amendment come to a vote.

Speaking to reporters before going into a caucus meeting with President Barack Obama, the Ohio Democrat predicted, ultimately, that the Stupak amendment would pass. The entire Republican caucus, which includes 177 members, seems likely to support the measure. And Stupak claims to have 40 Democratic lawmakers backing his effort. That would give the amendment 217 votes - one shy of passage. But Kaptur said she believed others would come on board.

"I honestly don't have a list," she said. "I think Mr. Stupak and others might be the best ones to ask about that but I believe that there are large numbers that will vote for our amendment and I think it will pass."

Asked what she was hoping to hear from the president on the issue, Kaptur replied: "I hope he says something!" The White House, she added, had yet to talk to her about her concerns with the legislation.

"Nothing in our amendment changes existing law," she said, "it maintains existing law, but it doesn't absolve the bill of existing law."

-- Sam Stein

11:39 AM ET -- Dem: Anti-abortion lawmakers will support bill without anti-abortion amendment. A high-ranking Democrat said on Saturday that he expects many of the party's anti-abortion members to support health care legislation even if a provision making abortion less accessible is defeated on the floor.

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) told the Huffington Post he felt confident that a compromise reached last night -- to allow a vote of Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) amendment, which would make it harder for insurers to provide abortion -- would placate lawmakers on the fence, regardless of whether the amendment passed.

"Will that be sufficient?" Honda asked. "I didn't hear anybody say 'Yeah, that would be sufficient. But I think there is a sense that it would (satisfy these folks)."

Honda similarly predicted that if the Stupak amendment were to pass (likely with full Republican support), he did not suspect that pro-choice lawmakers would drop their support of the bill.

As for what he hoped to hear from President Obama, who is briefing lawmakers starting at 11:25, Honda said:

"I think he is going to come in and reassert his principles. I hope that he says that he thinks we have a good situation now."

-- Sam Stein

11:24 AM ET -- Rangel feeling confident. A stream of lawmakers have been arriving in the Cannon House Office building for today's big health care strategy session with the president. Virtually all have been ignoring the press. But as he walked by the roped off reporters, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) turned and smiled.

"You feeling confident Chairman Rangel?"

"Yep," he replied, before moseying into the conference room.

Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) seemed similarly chipper, telling the Huffington Post that he felt good about the upcoming vote.

Those two, however, were far more optimistic than others. Most lawmakers seem sullen as they are entering the premise and several have simply offered don't-know-like shrugs.

-- Sam Stein

11:02 AM ET -- Obama set to brief lawmakers at 11:15. A White House aide tells the Huffington Post that the president is on schedule to come to Capitol Hill to rally support for health care legislation.

Obama's trip to the opposite side of Pennsylvania Avenue was announced on Friday. But there was nervous chatter on the Hill that he would delay or even cancel the trip if the Democratic leadership felt passage of legislation was out of reach. The president, an aide said, remains slated at this point to arrive and talk with lawmakers at 11:15 -- a small point of relief for anxious Democrats.

The aide did not elaborate as to whether Obama would field questions from his fellow Democrats or merely help whip up support for the legislation. Among the big questions left unanswered is how the President feels about the amendment offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D- Mich.), which would drastically restrict the coverage of abortions by health care insurers.

-- Sam Stein

10:46 AM ET -- The President's pitch. What is the White House telling fence-leaning Democrats? The AP's Eric Werner talked to Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Penn.) who "said he heard from Obama, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Their message: 'This is a historic moment. You don't want to end up with nothing,' said Altmire, who remained undecided."

10:10 AM ET -- Rep. Dingell to preside over House for first time since 1965 Medicare vote. Democrats wavering on the health care bill will have their heart-strings tugged by the man overseeing today's planned vote: Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the Dean of the House of Representatives and the longest-serving member in history.

Dingell's late father, also a congressman, introduced the first bill to provide national health insurance in 1933, and his son has continued a tradition started by his father by introducing health care legislation at the beginning of every session of Congress.

Rep. Dingell last led debate on a vote on April 8, 1965, the day the House passed legislation creating Medicare, according to his office.

10:08 AM ET -- House Hispanic Caucus balking at bill over immigration provisions. (AP) As drafted, the health care legislation permits illegal immigrants to purchase coverage with their own money inside the insurance exchange that would be created -- a provision that the 23-member Hispanic Caucus wants retained in any final compromise that reaches Obama's desk.

The controversy surrounding illegal immigrants remains "a work in progress," Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a New Yorker and chairwoman of the Hispanic Caucus, said after a meeting in Pelosi's office on Friday.

One lawmaker who attended the session, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said members of the Hispanic Caucus sought and received assurances from Pelosi that she and the leadership would support them as the bill made its way through the House and ultimately to the president's desk. But this lawmaker said the speaker was not able to get a pledge in return that the Hispanics would all vote for the bill regardless of how their issue was ultimately settled.

Despite the uncertainty, Hispanic lawmakers generally have a strong incentive to support the legislation. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 31 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, roughly double the rate of 15 percent for the U.S. population as a whole.

10:02 AM ET -- What happens if Democrats don't have the votes? The answer is easy: they won't vote -- at least on Saturday. Democratic leaders insist that they can get the legislation passed today, but

9:20 AM ET -- Bishops endorse health care bill. "The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delivered a critical endorsement to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions."

8:39 AM ET -- Compromise reached on major potential health-care hurdle. HuffPost's Ryan Grim reports: As the House of Representatives inches toward a final vote on comprehensive health care reform this weekend -- the most dramatic domestic policy debate in several generations, a reorganization of a sixth of the economy - the only thing the parties can talk about is abortion and immigration.

"It tells you something about our country," remarked one distressed member of Congress, who didn't want to be named speaking ill of this fine land.

What it tells isn't pretty: The ranks of the uninsured are steadily being filled, with the number approaching 50 million. Health care costs are rising at a rate several times that of inflation, eating into the take-home income of the majority of the American people and threatening to break the federal budget in less than a decade.

Yet the talk is of abortion and immigration.

All day on Friday, House leaders struggled to reconcile the pro-life and pro-choice wings of the Democratic Party. Over the last several weeks, the pro-choice bloc, consisting of nearly 200 Democrats, had gradually come to terms with an amendment authored by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.).

The intent of the amendment was to keep the debate about health care rather than abortion and it would make clear that - as is current law - no federal funds would be used for abortion. "Our hope was that we could continue the current ban on federal funding for abortion so the issue wouldn't bog down the overall health reform legislation," wrote Capps at the time.

That wasn't enough for pro-life Democrats. On November 3, Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.) offered a more conservative compromise, one that restricted abortion in a bunch of extra ways and would require one private plan in the exchange not to cover abortion.

The divorce from reality had been filed by this point, considering that most insurance plans -- even using pro-life numbers -- do not cover abortion.
Story continues below

Still, pro-choice Democrats swallowed the compromise, but said they'd go no further. Health care reform, said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), a staunch pro-choicer and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, should not be a vehicle to drive a pro-life social agenda.

That's when Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) re-entered the debate. Stupak is a longtime pro-life advocate and had been pressing his concerns upon House leadership. On Friday, Ellsworth withdrew his compromise language from negotiations, according to several House sources, sending the debate back to the starting line, where Stupak was waiting.

Stupak, in meetings with Pelosi and other members of leadership, pressed to include, instead, his own amendment that would ban the public health insurance option from funding abortion and also ban any private plan operating within the exchange from funding abortions. Under Stupak's plan, a woman buying private insurance from within the exchange with her own money would not have a choice of a plan that covered abortion.

During the early afternoon, Pelosi was leaning toward including some more moderately blended version of Stupak and Ellsworth's amendment's as part of the health care bill that would be sent to the floor, several aides told HuffPost. Just before 5:00 PM, Stupak and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who battled over abortion while the bill moved through Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee, huddled on the House floor. Leaving the floor, the generally talkative Waxman gruffly brushed off reporters, asserting his alleged right "not to be swarmed."

Tempers flared. A Democratic congressman told House Republicans, who then told the Huffington Post, that Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) was asked to leave a leadership meeting where the pro-life agreement was being considered. DeGette is firmly pro-choice, and it was thought, the source said, that she would not agree to the deal. "False," said a leadership aide, saying that "she had to leave to attend another meeting. Other pro-choice members [were] in there with leadership, as well as Waxman."

Either way, the question came down to who had the votes. Stupak's driving argument was that he had more than the forty members he needed to "take down the rule" - legislative lingo for defeating a bill on the House floor before it comes for a final vote. No one was sure whether Stupak actually had the 40 votes, but pro-choice Democrats were skeptical.

As the night and the meetings wore on, Pelosi shifted, multiple aides said, and was leaning toward allowing a floor vote on the Stupak-Ellsworth amendment rather than inserting it into the bill. The logical conclusion is that Pelosi determined she would lose too many pro-choice and progressive votes in the process of harnessing pro-life Democrats.

Shortly after midnight, Stupak addressed the Rules Committee and requested a floor vote on the amendment, ending a day of drama, but leaving open questions that will be answered tomorrow: Does his amendment have enough votes to pass? If it does, will pro-choice Democrats flee and sink the bill?

The thinking among leadership is that allowing a vote -- regardless of the outcome -- helps win votes for final passage. If it passes, then pro-lifers line up behind health care reform. If it fails, at least they had their vote. For pro-choicers, if the amendment passes they can still fight to remove it during negotiations with the Senate -- which rejected tough abortion restrictions.

Meanwhile, aides from both parties say, the GOP is planning out how it will game the language in its motion to recommit - an alternative measure aimed at stamping out the bill that the minority is entitled to introduce. The GOP could include language supporting Democrat-backed proposals, such as single-payer health care or a robust public option -- and then vote present, allowing a majority of Democrats to carry the vote to victory and complicate things for leadership. (Dems probably wouldn't have the votes, however, for single-payer, believe it or not.)

Or the GOP could toss out anti-immigration language. That effort could garner the support of a big enough bloc of Democrats to give Pelosi genuine concern that it could prevail. Here we wander further from reality: undocumented workers currently get free medical care at great expense to the American people at emergency rooms across the country. The GOP's alternative approach, as it's been described in the past, denies that reality while simultaneously turning businesses into immigration-enforcement arms. People here illegally, however, would still be able to go to the emergency room for free.

Lost in the back and forth are the tens of millions without insurance and the nation's broken health care system. More surprising than the behavior of Congress, perhaps, is the fact that it has gotten as far as it has.

7:45 AM ET -- The Democratic 'no' votes. HuffPost's Jeff Muskus reports: House leaders, with the help of the White House, frantically whipped for health care votes Friday in advance of a floor vote, but the number of Democrats planning to vote against reform continues to rise.

As of 6 p.m. Friday, 26 House Democrats have stated that they will oppose the health care bill. The confirmed "No" votes so far: John Adler (N.J.), Brian Baird (Wash.), John Boccieri (Ohio), Dan Boren (Okla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Artur Davis (Ala.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Parker Griffith (Ala.), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.), Larry Kissell (N.C.), Suzanne Kosmas (Fla.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Jim Marshall (Ga.), Eric Massa (N.Y.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike McMahon (N.Y.), Charlie Melancon (Louis.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Ike Skelton (Mo.), Bart Stupak (Mich.), John Tanner (Tenn.), Gene Taylor (Miss.) and Harry Teague (N.M.).

This level of opposition isn't fatal to health reform -- Democrats only need 218 of their 258 votes to pass the bill -- but it makes leadership's margin for error much smaller.

Unsurprisingly, 15 of those 26 are Blue Dogs. Several from rural areas cited the familiar Blue Dog complaint of "regional disparities" -- typically a shorthand for the different state levels of reimbursement under Medicare -- although the bill headed for a vote contains a public option that is not tied to Medicare, not the so-called "robust" option Blue Dogs have opposed for months.

Some of the bill's opponents are from districts where lack of health care coverage is less of an issue. Bart Stupak's longstanding drive for stronger anti-abortion language made his opposition a virtual certainty. And Baird said that he would oppose the bill in part because a report from Medicare actuaries is still forthcoming.

The most common complaint among the confirmed "No" votes, however, is overall cost. "Congress should not pass a bill that costs more than $1 trillion or increases the financial burden on middle class families and small businesses," Adler said in a statement Friday. "First and foremost, I cannot vote for legislation with this big of a price tag in today's economic climate," Childers said Wednesday.

Several of the confirmed "No" votes said they would prefer a package more like the weaker Senate Finance Committee bill.

Health Care Vote: Latest Updates

2009-11-07T09:15:38Z

WASHINGTON — In a victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed landmark health care legislation Saturday night to expand coverage to tens of millions who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous.

The 220-215 vote cleared the way for the Senate to begin debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

Harry Moroz: Putting Off Health Care

2009-11-06T12:47:50Z

Conservative blogs have transformed into a hit parade of reasons why the House Affordable Health Care for America Act will kill jobs and the unborn, stifle economic recovery, and destroy ... education. Of course, the need to unsheathe so many harbingers of doom is mostly proof of the good that the health care bill promises to accomplish.

Admittedly, questions still remain. The legislation's effect on premiums for upper middle-income households with employer-sponsored coverage is uncertain. Cuts to Medicare will require serious backbone from a week-kneed Congress. Reform of the fee-for-service system blamed for our high health care costs is not really accomplished. And the public option's capacity to create competition among insurers is limited by its small size: the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 6 million individuals will enroll.

However, one of the bill's most significant defects is its delayed implementation. In 2010, very limited reforms, such as a ban on rescissions and improvements to cost-sharing in Medicare and Medicaid, come into effect. 2011 and 2012 are essentially down years. It is not until 2013 that the most important and substantive provisions become effective: a complete ban on denials of health care for preexisting conditions, a ban on pricing according to health status, the opening of the Health Insurance Exchange with affordability credits.

The political consequences of these delays have been well publicized: Politico has reported that Democratic Representatives and Senators are pressuring their party leadership for real results from reform that they can point out to constituents in the 2010 midterm elections.

But the economic consequences of the delays have not been addressed.

In many ways, the situation is similar to the circumstances surrounding the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, which banned abusive and unfair credit card practices. As I described several weeks ago, Congress delayed implementation of these protections until next year, allowing card companies to raise interest rates and fees in the interim. Just this week, the House passed an emergency measure designed to speed up implementation of the provisions, arguing that the card companies' rate and fee hikes were harming consumers at a time of great economic stress.

The House should apply this lesson to health care. Delaying implementation only allows the relentlessly increasing unemployment rate to push up the relentlessly increasing rate of the uninsured. An immediate expansion of health care, particularly of Medicaid eligibility, would help break this causal chain.

Indeed, a recent Kaiser report on health coverage in the early months of the recession finds that the number of uninsured adults increased between 2007 and 2008 by 1.5 million people primarily because public coverage was unable to offset the decline in employer-sponsored insurance. Those who lost coverage were primarily low-income (and, for reasons also related to income, white), but not eligible for public programs. In contrast, an expansion of Medicaid and SCHIP, which offer benefits to children with much laxer eligibility requirements, ensured that a drop in the percentage of children covered by employer-sponsored insurance did not result in an increase in the number of uninsured children. In fact, the number of uninsured children declined.

Health care reform that expanded coverage to low-income adults now could keep many low-income individuals insured, not only improving health outcomes but also preventing the mutually reinforcing spiral of high medical costs and debt at a time when the economy needs financially secure consumers who are willing to spend. The House bill does just this, expanding Medicaid coverage to individuals at 150% of the poverty line. But it waits until 2013 to do so, when -- hopefully -- the downturn will be well behind us.

Hastening implementation of this provision would be a significant benefit to struggling households. Committing the federal government to funding the entire expansion for the duration of the economic downturn would ensure that reform does not exacerbate states' fiscal woes. And moving up the effective date would prevent Congress from having to return to the issue several months down the road after an already overlong debate about health care.

Rep. Eric Massa VIDEO: War In Afghanistan Must End

2009-11-05T12:22:05Z

2,950.

That's the number that echoes throughout Rep. Eric Massa's (D-N.Y.) five minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, as he fervently calls for an end to the war in Afghanistan. Massa builds his speech by listing off numbers that underscore the massive amounts of money that have been spilled into the war: 2,950 is the number of days we have spent in Afghanistan, $300 billion is how much we have now spent, which comes out to $3,947.36 spent by every family of four.

"Tragically, that's just the good news," Massa says. The financial losses are small when compared with the "irrevocable loss comprised of 911 American combatants killed and 4,198 seriously wounded -- and we do not have the ability to estimate the long-term wounds that we cannot see or quantify -- that will be carried by the soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines of this conflict for the rest of their lives."

This undoubtedly strikes a personal chord for Massa, as he served in the U.S. Military for 24 years and holds a degree from the United States Naval War College. A former Republican, he left his party over his issues with the Iraq War. Now, with the war in Afghanistan, he explains why he's just about had enough:

"...Since becoming a member of the United States Congress, the expansion of the war in Afghanistan has drawn my late night focus. There, in the quiet of the office, I have arrived at the inevitable conclusion that the deployment of troops in Afghanistan and the continuation of this conflict is both not in the the interest of our nation, and in fact is on a par with a potential error the size of our initial invasion in Iraq. The recent election in Afghanistan has underscored the fact that we will never create a Jeffersonian democracy in that nation ... to continue to fight and die for what the people of Afghanistan will not fight and die for is simply wrong."

WATCH Massa's full speech here:

Paula Duffy: Fireworks at NFL Brain Injury Hearings on Capitol Hill

2009-11-03T16:03:14Z

Gay Culverhouse, former executive of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and daughter of former owner of the club, Hugh Culverhouse, says she has been told she has only six months left to live.

Alan Schwarz of The New York Times met with her prior to her appearance last Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D MI). She explained why she is trying to make a difference right now.

She suffers from blood cancer and renal failure and there is no time like the present for Culverhouse to do as she told Schwarz: "I watched our team do anything it could to get players back on the field. We have to make that right."

In her opening statement to the committee on Wednesday morning (full transcript, here), she made it clear that she was there to focus on two problems: the conflict of interest inherent in teams' medical personnel determining the readiness of players and incentive laden contracts which don't account for time off the field for injuries.

On the first point, Ms. Culverhouse said:

The team doctor's role is to find a way to have that man on the field the following game, if not the same game. ... If it is a head injury, he is told to 'shake it off'. The players get to the point that they know better than to complain that they have suffered a concussion.

And therein lies one of the big factors in preventing serious injury after a concussion.

Ms. Culverhouse talked about non-guaranteed contracts with performance bonuses that make it even less likely a player would want to remain on the sideline when injured. "The player is very aware that there is a back-up player on the bench waiting his chance to replace the starter and hold onto the position. Therefore, an injured player cannot afford to leave the field of play."

She is working as an advocate on behalf of former players she knew as a young woman and then as an executive. She was seated next to Commissioner Roger Goodell at the witness table on Wednesday and knows that she has broken ranks with her fellow owners. Her closing remarks to the committee were: "Safety must come first. Business comes second."

Needless to say, she was the most plain spoken witness in support of player safety. Presumably that happens when your time on this earth is limited. No matter why, her point of view was given great deference by Chairman Conyers. Better late than never.

GOP Identity Crisis Finds New Home: Upstate New York

2009-10-31T10:43:14Z

A special election for an open seat in the U.S House of Representatives has turned into a high-profile proxy war over how the party should come back from the stinging losses of both the House and Senate in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

Chris Kelly: Doug Hoffman Wins an Olympic Gold Medal, Gets Reagan Elected and F***s a Rat

2009-10-28T18:02:27Z

Doug Hoffman is running for Congress on the nonentity ticket. A millionaire accountant who's not even eligible to vote in the district he seeks to serve, Doug has never previously held nor sought elected office. He has no public record of, well, anything. He seems to own cars -- that comes up a lot in his campaign literature -- and I guess that says something. He was in the Army Reserves in the seventies, just like Dan Quayle, but it's unclear if he ever served in an area east of Lake George. He has a full raft of Christian prejudices, but if he's a practicing member of any church, it hasn't come out.

It's not just that he doesn't have a record. He doesn't have dental records.

And, according to 300 people polled by the Club for Growth (the same people who just gave him 300 grand) he's pulling into the lead.

What Doug Hoffman really has is an accountant's willingness to repeat what he's told. Glenn Beck is mad as hell about ACORN? So is Doug Hoffman. The Concerned Women for America don't like abortion? Neither does Doug Hoffman. The Family Research Council hates gay people? So does Doug. Did you bring the check?

No one cares about their accountant's life story. They just need him to get the numbers to work.

Still, it must be hard to get a crowd fired up. Even the name, "Doug." It's like someone started writing "Douglas" and lost interest.

A candidate needs a backstory, if only to prove he wasn't born in Kenya. And here's Doug's, in his own words:

In 1980, I helped Lake Placid with our Olympics when the US beat the Russians in hockey - the same year Reagan was elected. It's time to send Washington a new message now.

Also, did I mention I own a car?

Vote for me, I had an indeterminate job in winter sports the year the Hostages came home? Is this some kind of gag?

Now, this would just be kind of tragic, if the speaker didn't have a fair chance of being elected to the U.S. Congress, a job once held by Lincoln. Which is the name of a car.

I guess Doug Hoffman had some role in the Miracle on Ice, although, if memory serves, the assist went to Pavelich. Hoffman was the Olympics' accountant. (The Games ended up $6 million in debt and had to be bailed out by Jimmy Carter.) The connection between Hoffman's math skills and the Reagan Revolution is a bit of a stretch.

Aristotle called this particular stretch Spurious Enthymeme #7:

Another line consists in representing as causes things which are not causes, on the ground that they happened along with or before the event in question. They assume that, because B happens after A, it happens because of A. Politicians are especially fond of taking this line.

And you can trust Aristotle, because he was from Greece, and so are elections, like the one Ronald Reagan won.

If I can editorialize for a second, are you kidding?

Here's something less amusing -- but more revealing -- about Doug Hoffman's website: It contains an Internet era update of a dirty trick Nixon's men used to call "rat fucking."

Dems love Dede

According to the Draft Dede as a Democrat blog, "we will have her on all of our key issues from card check, to health care, to taxes, social issues and who knows what else."

And then it has the web address of a blog called PlanetAlbany, linking to a blog called Draft Dede as a Democrat. Pretty damning stuff, right? Dede Scozzafava - Hoffman's Republican opponent - is actually a Democrat! And the proof is right there in this blog that links to this other blog, by some Democrats so proud of Dede Scozzafava that they prefer to remain completely anonymous.

That's how crafty they are.

Dede Scozzafava is their secret puppet and their plan is so fiendishly clever they can't wait to blog about it.

Or maybe Draft Dede at a Democrat isn't real. Take a look, and judge for yourself.

Classic rat fucking involves things like printing fake campaign literature for the other candidate where he promises, if elected, to commit unspeakable crimes and making infuriating late night phone calls from non-existent groups, The Child Pornographers' League, for instance, endorsing your opponent. The fake blog is a new wrinkle.

Why are half the articles on Draft Dede about how clever it would be to trick people into voting for her and the other half about what a disaster she is?

Why would a Democrat write something like:

It took years for one of ours to finally infiltrate the National Republican Party apparatus and wreak civil war within the GOP. Call it the Socialist Watergate of 2009, but with Scozzafava as the Republican nominee in NY-23 we will finally have the keys to the National Republican Party -- and with it -- almost certain access to all its ugly organs of operation...

When Dede wins, she will carry our water and also give us greater insight into the broader internal workings of the right-wing nuts running the corrupt partisans, otherwise known as the Republican House Caucus (talk about a self-inflicted wound)...

Dede Scozzafava, a wolf in sheep's clothing. This could be one of the greatest "Alinksy" coups of all time.

... and I'm telling you all this, Mr. Bond, because you won't be alive to see it.

Why would anyone write anything like that?

Except to rat fuck someone.

In The Man Who Was Thursday, a secret organization of anarchists disguises itself as a secret organization of anarchists, but I'm pretty sure Chesterton was kidding. I think Draft Dede only exists in some creepy liar's head and the Hoffman campaign either knows, or should know.

Because winning isn't worth it, if you cheat. Didn't Doug Hoffman learn anything when he was playing hockey in the Olympics?

Robert J. Elisberg: The Public Option, and Why Letting It Snowe Is Foolish

2009-10-27T11:40:02Z

The debate over health care has had its share of strange issues. But one has been stranger than the others - which is saying a lot, considering the lunacy of these others.

For example, claiming that the Administration wants to kill its senior citizens is certainly a classic. (I was going to say "golden oldie," but didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea.)

Watching tea baggers turn on their own, eating conservatives like Lindsey Graham, that was another bit of odd street theater.

My personal favorite has been the convoluted twisting of illogic as conservatives have attempted to claim out of one side of their mouths that a public option was bad because the government is too incompetent to run anything - while out of the other side insisting that the government is just too good and would be uncompetitive. Even Lewis Carroll wouldn't have attempted writing jabberwocky this contradictory in Wonderland.

But the biggest lunacy has been the Herculean effort to reach the magic number of 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, in order to show bipartisan support. That attempt appears to be over, almost, but there's still a lot of dancing going on. And look at what shenanigans it took to get us here.

(To be clear, I understand getting 60 votes to block a Republican filibuster, but that's another matter. Close, related, but different.)

Mind you, I understand the desire to have bipartisan support. In a perfect world, showing the nation that not only Democrats but also Republicans are concerned about the public's health and both want to provide the choice of a public option that 77% of the country has said it's in favor of. But this is not a perfect world (if it were, the Chicago Cubs wouldn't have gone 101 years without winning the World Series). So, trying to get one Republican senator, not inclined to vote your way, to vote your way and dismantling the desired result in the process is an exercise in pointlessness.

But let's say Olympia Snowe did vote for a health care bill. In what universe does anyone think the America public would suddenly view health care as "bipartisan." Because of one vote?? That one vote wouldn't show bipartisanship, it would shine a beacon on the imbalance.

The public understands that the Republicans are against the health care bill. They understand this not because of grasping political subtleties - but because Republicans have said so. Republicans have said - literally - that it was not in their interest to pass a health care bill. In every instance in the House, Republicans have voted zero for health care. Zero. So, if somehow there was actually one, single, lone Republican vote for health care (or, let's dream of miracles, two!), the public wouldn't leap up and say, "Oh, my, it's bipartisan!!" They know Republicans are against a health care bill, and Democrats are pushing it. Know it.

Republicans are against a health care bill. We Get It.

Yet there is a greater reason why this pursuit of one, lone Republican vote - and even any Blue Dog Democrat votes - is lunatic in the hopes of "bipartisanship," all at the expense of watering down the choice of a public option that almost all Democrats in Congress want, the nationally-elected Administration wants - and 77% of America wants.

Why is it lunatic? Let's answer it with some questions.

What was the vote in Congress when it passed Social Security?

Do you care?

What was the vote in the Senate and House that passed Medicare?

Does the answer matter to you?

What were the vote totals that passed the Civil Rights bill?

Are you glad that it passed?

Do you think most Americans are thrilled that all of these bills passed? Do you think there would be national outrage if any of them were revoked? Does it make even the slightest different to you today whether the original votes were bipartisan or not?

Democrats in the Senate and House have been saying that health care and a public option are critical for the American public and for the nation's economic strength. The White House has been saying it, too - that health care and a public option are critical for America's health and the nation's economy.

It doesn't matter one single whit if - today - there is bipartisan support for a health bill. It would be nice. But It Doesn't Matter. If a strong health care bill is as critical as the House, Senate, White House - and American public - say it is, then what matters is passing it in as strong a form as possible. And not gutting it for the sake of one, empty Republican vote.

If Republicans want to be on record against health care, let them. Let them run on that record.

Let Democrats be the party of health care.

When you're facing crushing medical bills. When you're facing being unable to afford any health care. When you're facing catastrophic illness. When you're facing financial ruin. When you're facing death:

You don't care about bipartisanship. You care about health care.

History shows us that no one will care about bipartisanship. They never do. They care that people saw what was necessary and acted on it. For the public good, for now and forever.

House Panel Says States Can Protect Consumers

2009-10-21T14:50:49Z

WASHINGTON — The House Financial Services Committee agreed Wednesday to ensure states can impose their own tough consumer protection laws against big banks, dealing a blow to a financial industry blamed for bringing down the U.S. economy and lobbying furiously against more government oversight.

The measure, approved by voice vote, would allow federal regulators to exempt national banks from state laws if those laws would "significantly interfere" with the bank's ability to do business. Otherwise, banks would be forced to comply with a myriad of state laws that are often tougher than federal laws, under the House plan.

House Republicans Fiercely Divided Over Dede Scozzafava Congressional Bid

2009-10-15T09:38:33Z

The House GOP conference is bitterly divided over a centrist New York Republican's run for the House seat vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh.

Tom Matzzie: Take the "Opt Out" Public Option--Good Policy, Politics

2009-10-09T11:15:47Z

In recent days a proposal has emerged in Senate discussions over health care reform legislation. The idea is an adaptation of the much-debated Public Option proposal that would create a government-backed insurance choice for consumers trying to buy coverage.

In this new proposal, called the “Opt Out,” individual states would be able to choose whether they want to participate in the Public Option or not. The method of the “Opt Out” isn’t entirely clear but it could take many forms from executive order to state legislation to ballot measures.

There is a strong case for a Public Option. From a policy perspective, the best outcomes for lowering health care costs would come from a robust, national Public Option choice. This would provide the largest insurance risk pool that allows the cost risks to be spread out among more people thereby lowering the price tag for everybody involved—businesses, consumers and the government. The economics of it are clear. For American consumers sick and tired of being jerked around by their insurance company it also offers an alternative.

The genius of the “Opt Out” version is that it starts from the point of universality. This is not an “Opt In” it is an “Opt Out.” Every state would start IN the Public Option. If Democrats can agree to the “Opt Out” it is a de facto victory for supporters of the Public Option but it also includes a safety valve for conservative Democrats worried about the plan’s success. Conservative Democrats could claim they won the opportunity for their state to set their own course if they want. Win, win.

The downside is that the states who most need a Public Option might be the most likely to opt out—some of our poorest and least healthy states are in the Deep South controlled by conservative Republicans who have sworn against the Public Option. But I think that is a bigger risk if the plan was an opt in instead of an opt out. Taking away health care choices isn’t something politicians like to do once they’re in place. SCHIP, Medicare and the Veterans’ Administration hospitals are as popular in more Republicans states as they are in more Democratic states.

Progressives should see in the “Opt Out” an opportunity to win their policy proposal and create a political bulwark of public support behind the Public Option.
Politically, Republicans should be quaking in their boots over the idea of an “Opt Out” or even an “Opt In.” State-by-state political and legislative fights to stay in the Public Option would give Democrats a rallying cry and mobilization tool. If these fights took the form of ballot measures there would even be Election Day opportunities for health care fights. Progressives would have a soft-money vehicle to mobilize voters most supportive of health care reform, namely progressive votes who make up the Democratic base. Republicans would be better off politically accepting a straight-up Public Option than having an “Opt Out.”

Such crass political calculations aren’t the reason to accept or reject any policy idea. But imagining a political framework to support a policy is what has made some big policy wins sustainable. When Social Security was enacted, President Franklin Roosevelt pushed for the payroll tax that pays for it knowing that it would create a sense of entitlement among the public that politicians couldn’t take back.

There is some precedent to this “Opt Out.” Until the early 1980s local governments, such as counties, had the right of opting out of Social Security and establishing their own retirement plan. This option had been provided when the Social Security Act was passed in the thirties. Today thousands of counties have opted to stay in Social Security while only one in Galveston, Texas has stayed out. Galveston exists as some sort of bizarre libertarian footnote but Social Security is everywhere.

The “Opt Out Public Option” is a great idea—Democrats, and their feisty progressive base, shouldn’t miss this opportunity to take a big step forward. Too often progressives metaphorically suffer from Anhedonia—a psychological condition described as the inability to experience pleasure. Democratic consensus around an “Opt Out Public Option” would be a victory. Embrace it and feel good about it.