Congress: Manage without Obama?
Posted: Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:11 AM by Domenico Montanaro
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Congress
The Hill's Youngman makes the point that with Obama in Asia, health reform is losing its best advocate at a critical time.
USA Today examines the abortion debate in the health-care bill. "How congressional leaders resolve the issue as the health care debate moves to the Senate could determine whether legislation becomes law this year or next. Kaiser Family Foundation's Alina Salganicoff calls it a 'hugely charged issue' fraught with 'huge unanswered questions.' Right to Life's Douglas Johnson predicts: 'This is going to be a long, drawn-out battle.'"
Politico: “Abortion-rights advocates are calling in the cavalry to help fight off an anti-abortion provision House Democratic leaders swallowed in order to win passage of their health care reform bill.”
"Labor unions pounced on the idea of a new jobs bill as a way to include several provisions that were cut out of the $787 billion stimulus package in order to placate a trio of Republican senators," The Hill writes. "A day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told colleagues he plans to bring up such a measure ... the AFL-CIO began pressing lawmakers to include more fiscal aid for state and local governments and more spending on infrastructure."
"Democratic leaders plan to repeal the military’s 'Don’t ask, don’t tell' policy in next year’s defense authorization bill. Both the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) back the strategy of using the defense bill to change policy on gays in the military, an aide to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told The Hill on Wednesday." First hate crimes, now "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It's hard for Republicans to vote against defense funding.
"The bishop from America’s most Catholic state [Rhode Island], and increasingly one of the church’s most provocative prelates, has provided a rather concise explanation for his willingness to clash with politicians: Christians are not supposed to be nice, at least not all the time," The Boston Globe writes, adding, "Since his installation in 2005, he has challenged the Republican governor’s crackdown on illegal immigration, inserted himself into last year’s Republican presidential primary with a rebuke of Rudolph Giuliani on the abortion issue (in which he addressed him familiarly as 'Rudy' in a commentary), and took on President Obama in a mock interview published in another of his columns (in which he facetiously quotes Obama advancing the rights of foreigners 'to kill their children and use abortion as a form of birth control.')"
