INCUMBENT POLITICIANS TO ADD TO YOUR "REMEMBRANCE" LIST
In the wee hours last weekend, five Democrats participated in the ultimate in deal-making.
Bringing forward the anti-abortion issue to take away a woman's right to choose, Stupak, Ellsworth, Kaptur,Lipinski, and Kahlkemper joined with Republicans, Pitts and Smith, to add kerosene to an already extremely disappointing bill that has now been kicked over to the Senate where the MEGA bought-outs will now start taking their shots.
Our former vice presidential candidate, who was kept in his committee chair position for some as-yet-unexplained-reason after LEAVING the DEMOCRATIC PARTY and running as an independent, is vowing he'll single-handedly kill the bill. Yea Joe! Way to go! Show Reid how much he screwed up by trying to keep you "in the caucus" with Democrats. But wait, Lieberman's wife's on the payroll of WHICH insurance and pharmaceutical companies? And she makes how many millions?
Leave it to Pete Stark (CA-13) to tell it exactly like it is.
Moderate Blue Dog Democrats ''just want to cause trouble,'' said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who heads the health subcommittee on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
''They're for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead, but they're just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process,'' Stark told reporters on a conference call.
Most of the legislative process involves posturing. The Blue Dogs want something for their districts, liberals want to represent their constituents, et cetera. When someone like Stark cuts through the posturing and lays out its consequences, it's quite revealing. He's one of the few people who can say this. He also in the same interview called co-ops the equivalent of a "medical unicorn".
Late last week, Democrats temporarily shelved a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of mortgages on primary residences (also known as "cram-down"). Moderates who put the hold on this legislation, particularly former Wall Street investor Ellen Tauscher, crowed about it to the media.
This hardly amounts to a breakthrough win for party moderates - or a major concession by the speaker. But it was a consequential moment in the minds of moderate leaders who often find themselves marginalized in a caucus dominated by liberals.
"It shows we have bench strength, and it shows we can flex," said California Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, who chairs the New Democrat Coalition and played a central role in negotiations over the bankruptcy bill [...]
Moderates worry Pelosi is routinely staking very liberal positions to push House versions of big bills as far to the left as possible to enhance their standing in negotiations with the historically centrist Senate. This might be a smart tactic, but it often hurts Democrats who rely on Republican votes to win reelection. Put bluntly, it makes them look too liberal [...]
That prompted lawmakers, like Tauscher, to limit the scope of the bankruptcy bill as much as possible, even though this measure is only loosely related to the president's broader proposal.
Tauscher's New Democrat Coalition teamed with their natural allies in the Blue Dog Coalition to impose 10 significant changes, including requirements that bankruptcy judges use federal guidelines to determine the fair market value of a home and that modified loans must be "unaffordable and not just underwater" to prevent wealthy homeowners from taking advantage of the process, according to a widely distributed e-mail from Adam Pase, executive director of the New Democrat Coalition.
This, of course, angered some liberals. "The New Dems' position is the banks' position," a senior Democratic aide involved in the bankruptcy negotiations complained on Friday. "New Democrats are shills for the banks."
It's confounding that any New Democrat thinks their constituents give a ring-a-ding about banking industry concerns, and are not in fact the very people struggling to keep their homes that this legislation would help.
More, including Tauscher staffers lying to bloggers, on the flip...
