Wheeling & dealing: Snowe pow-wows with Obama; Landrieu, Schumer, Daschle behind the scenes
Don’t mean to give you more indigestion on a Saturday night, but thought you should see this from The Hill:
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)…is still in talks with President Barack Obama regarding her final vote on the legislation. Snowe said that she spoke to Obama while he was aboard Air Force One en route to Asia earlier this week…”He restated his intention of working with me on this issue,” Snowe told a group of reporters. She said that there “there are still fundamental issues that still need to be confronted” before she would considering voting for the bill during later votes…Snowe did not define how many Republican senators would be needed to call the bill bipartisan, but said “I hope it is more than just me.” She also called on the president to attract more Republicans to vote for the bill. “This is a place where the president could play a pivotal role,” she said.
And this from The Hill as well on Chuckie Schumer’s backroom activities (which Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu spilled the beans on earlier today):
Liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a vocal proponent of the so-called public option as part of healthcare reform, is working behind the scenes to work out a potential compromise with centrist senators, Democrats said Saturday night.
Schumer’s office pushed back on these reports, saying he is merely in conversations with his fellow senators, but Schumer has been an active negotiator and a leader on crafting versions of the public option throughout the debate.
Note: The Kossacks aren’t happy.
The ghost of Teddy Kennedy may be watching overhead, but you know who’s in the middle of all the backroom negotiations right now, don’t you?
Hint: The K Street tax cheat who’s lobbying to save Obamacare.
See:
Anticipating a major struggle, the White House deputized Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to join Vice President Joe Biden in trying to clear the way for the bill’s approval over the next several weeks.
Salazar, a former Colorado senator, is viewed as a bridge to moderate Democrats who are far outnumbered by liberals inside the Democratic caucus.
Daschle was Obama’s first choice for secretary of health and human services, a position from which he was to try and oversee the administration’s drive to enact health care legislation. He withdrew his nomination when it was disclosed he had not paid more than $120,000 in federal taxes over several years.
More:
The Hill reports that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle helped Obama Administration officials strategize to win health care reform votes from Senators on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Daschle, who announced this week that he was leaving Alston & Bird for another lobbying firm, DLA Piper, “is unexpectedly at the heart of Washington’s highest-level negotiations at a key moment in the movement to reform the nation’s healthcare system. The ex-senator has repeatedly stressed he did not lobby for Alston & Bird and will not lobby for DLA Piper, but government watchdogs have noted both firms have many healthcare clients. Daschle’s title at DLA Piper will be ‘senior policy adviser’” (Bolton, 11/18).
USA Today reports that Daschle’s new firm “has a number of clients in the medical industry, including Rite Aid pharmacies and a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical firm called the Medicines Company that has spent $1.2 million on lobbying expenses with the firm so far this year” (Fritze, 11/18).
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I lived in New England most of my life, & for the most part, No good Politician comes from Maine any more than they do from Illinois..
Snowe is useless..
somehow I don’t think this is what the Framers envisioned when they set this in motion.
Well, at least one of them had the foresight to know for sure that tyranny was always just an election away..
Prediction: Snowe, Collins, Voinovitch, McCain, Kyl (yes Kyl), Graham, Lugar and Hatch. Assistant Democrats all. But then when you only have one party, was exactly is “bipartisan”? Government united against citizens in the biggest power grab in history.
Another prediction: as the Republicans listed above provide cover for “moderate” Democrats to vote against the bill, the fig leaf will sound something like this …
I’m going to start puking tonight. Why wait for tomorrow? You know it’s coming.
Why doesn’t Snowe just go ahead and put a “D” behind her name?
The unprincipled and unscrupulous villains that populate our Federal offices are determined to destroy this nation. I have never witnessed such rage in the common citizen as I have seen and heard this past year. And it is not just a few radicals who are outraged, but it is mostly common folk who are just plain fed up.
Ramming this bill down our throats, despite our protests may be the final straw.
Correction: Teddy Kennedy is not watching overhead, he is a crispy critter burning in hell; Hell was made for a person such as he.
*Bipartisan, not a four letter word, but equal to or greater than two and a half of the latter.
*The GOP will predictably get bogged down in the particulars of the bill, dance around the edges a bit, maybe become enamored after some tinkering, and then join up with the “Death to America” party and give P-BO the one gift he wants for Christmas; It is left to us to stop them; The Tea Party Nation needs a Tax Revolt plan that takes tax revenues down to a trickle to starve this beast of its’ addiction to OPM!
You know bjc, that’s one of the best ideas I’ve heard yet.. If they want their taxes. tell them to come get them.. But you know they are going to do away with cash for this very reason eventually.. So that they have complete digital control over our money, & they will bogus & unconstitutional pass laws to justify it.
oops, I meant pass “bogus & unconstitutional laws”
Dan Lee:
*I’m just saying, we have to have a Plan B; Maybe millions can send a W4 in to their respective Representative and Senators with 10 dependents listed(moocher 1 thru moocher 10) so as to say “hey, I can’t pay you any taxes until futher notice, I’m already supporting the couch sitting, donut eating, Oprah watching waste of humanity you created for us back in the sixties”.
This is a suicide party. They are determined to pass their socialist agenda at the expense of their elections.
During the last election -here on this site–I stated that the slow slide to tyranny had been utilized by both the Ds and the Rs and that I would never again vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’ (McCain was the LOTE at the time) ..
You would have thought I was blaspheming the R name….
I knew that we needed an avalanche for people to WAKE UP!!!
We have the avalanche and the people are awakening- I hope it’s not too late!!!!
C-CS
What I want to know is: how do we go about repealing this madness? What if we win back 10 seats in 2010 and it’s a 50-50 tie? Or close to that.
Can this bill be withdrawn? Or eliminated? Is it possible?
Sometimes, in the still of a dark, quiet night… if there are no other sounds to distract me, and if I listen real hard, I can hear Ted Kennedy screaming in Hell as his flesh burns….
I bet he’d dive into a pool of water NOW, wouldn’t he? Funny how circumstances changes things.
Burn, Teddy, burn!
Have you all forgotten , “all Politics are Local.” We the people have the power NOW to recall all these crooks. Are they not still residents of their States. Do we not have laws on the books against theft, bribing a public office is a Federal offence is it not? These so called common practices to get vote are just Bribbing a elected offical, Correct? So in that matter the senators and house members that partake in this are not protected from Federal Law. It is the members job to represent the people of their districts wishes. Therefore offering “bribes” and accepting them is a FEDERAL CRIME in all 50 States.
We the people call on our Reps. “both Senators and House ” to return home at once to answer the Questions to the Pratice.
Congress officials have been recalled home several times in our nations history for a lot less serious actions, NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT!!!!!!!!
Nothing is ever repealed. It may be modified but won’t be repealed.
You’d have to have at least 60 (maybe 67)senators (can’t remember how many to override a veto,off hand).
In 2010, you only get a crack at 1/3 of the senators and you’re not going to get conservatives in every race.
In the house, you’d have to have a complete turnaround.
A simple majority will do.
It doen’t matter what’s in the final bill to them.
They have the structure in place,now
Just another point, IT IS WE THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY MUST ENFORCE OUR LAWS BY HOLDING THOSE WHO SWEAR TO UPHOLD THEM, TO THEIR PLEDGE TO DO THEIR JOB.
wE NEED TO SWEAR OUT WARRENTS TO BRING THEM TO JUSTICE IN THE COURTS. NOT JUST WAIT FOR 2010, THE LAWS ARE BEING BROKEN NOW !!!!!!
Oops! Meant to say won’t
Sounds to me that Snowe has already made up her mind. She’s in favor of the socialization of America.
These people on Capitol hill must think they will be in office forever. Don’t any one of them realize, come 2010, and they are voted out, that they become “the rich”, and subject to their own folly in health care?
See? All that tea party stuff… all those town hall meetings… that HUGE march on Washington… what did it all accomplish? NOTHING.
The insanity here is expecting different results from the same behavior.
Our government is corrupt and it must be REMOVED. We owe nothing to it or to the system it has established. There’s no merit in our docile compliance… The Obama regime is methodically plodding along, securing it’s hold on power and one day – when you finally realize that you should have revolted – it will be impossible to do anything.
I am so SICK of conservatives “exposing” what’s going on, writing books about what’s going on, getting rich off of the people who have no hope… I will join with anyone who wants to DO something about the problem rather than play games with the problem. This is our lives, our families, our children who are destined to suffer through our inaction.
Our enemies are ruling over us and there is NO resistance.
What’s funny is I don’t really damn the Dems all that much. They’re only doing what Dems do, like birds fly. The ones I REALLY disdain are the so-called patriotic Conservatives who didn’t want to swallow bitter pills and hold their noses or break their single-issue fixations and even stayed home rather than vote for McCain, espousing specious excuses based on the political “purity” or fidelity of the guy (who wasn’t mine). Well, we just found out how many angels could dance on the head of that pin, and it’s “60″. So I hope those who felt they so honorably preserved their political/philosophical purity by withholding their vote are smug and peachy-keen these days that your rebel free expression left the country in FAR worst shape than you ever dreaded because these nannystate programs CANNOT be reversed — whether we sweep in 2010 0r 2012 or ever.
Great going guys!
James Greenidge
Queens NY
4 National Tax Strike
(they can’t cage us all!)
There is resistance. The harder the Left pushes the harder we have to push back.What did the tea parties and such accomplish? Local recruiting of battalions, brigades. The Left will over reach.
Only 1/3 of Senators are up for re-election in any election. There are a few this time running for open seats.
Neither of mine have to run this time, Levin & Stabenow. I’ve never voted for them or any other Dem but they’re running my state anyway.
yes there is resistence….check these billboards out…we need a bunch more…
http://chattahbox.com/us/2009/11/20/missouri-billboard-calls-for-revolution-and-war-against-the-government/
On November 22nd, 2009 at 6:01 am, jamesgreenidge said #845670
But they sure will try.
Now that HAS to hurt.
Where are all those people saying that the congressional vote last week was no big deal? That we ought to just chill out and not scare the chillren?
I say to thee still: idiots.
Purge the GOP of all RINO’s!!! Or lose all conservative support.
Yes, like the small amount of our money the govt. hasn’t redistributed yet and the last vestiges of freedom. However this should be taken care of in another bill, say cap and trade.
Regrettably if all the Dimocrats up for election in the Senate for 2010 are voted out, and assuming all the Republican seats remain Republican and/or Conservative the Dims will still control the Senate by 4 votes and the White House even if the Dims lose the House (and there are no guarantees that’ll happen).
Don’t worry, they have made sure their personal fortunes won’t be affected by any of this.
I regret to say that we are watching the end of our Republic.
“Nothing is ever repealed. It may be modified but won’t be repealed.”
While repealed may not be the right word and technically you may be correct, the point of your answer is incorrect. Anything the Congress does can be undone. Reagan rolling back taxes, tax increases being stopped when we had a conservative movement with Reagan are examples.
The doom and gloom, we’re all gonna die rhetoric is inaccurate.
There is work to be done. Get busy. If the best we can do on the conservative side of things is continue to sound like chicken little and set off all these doom and gloom alarms, then we don’t have much of a message hey?
I agree, it’s obvious that what’s in the bill doesn’t matter, though the more complex the better. Once signed into law it can be molded into anything they want with very little effort.
And it won’t be repealed.
There has to be something illegal about Daschel being involved w/the arm twisting in the the secret back room mtgs!
“And it won’t be repealed.”
You are assuming a power for yourself you do not have.
There is a process to enact change in this country and that process is intact.
It is up to us to get busy and work that process.
Part of how we got in this mess is for many of us we lulled ourselves to sleep thinking we could elect a person and send them off and that person would do the right thing by us. And then we went about our business not paying enough and the right kind of attention to our elected officials.
That day is gone.
Just because we are dealing today with the consequences of our assumptions does not mean our tomorrows will be determined by our past.
Get busy, get going, get real, do not get down. We are the reason we can hope.
Once government control of the health industry goes into effect, plus climate control legislation, I look to see more industries and corporations head overseas to save money. There are countries, like Ireland, that would welcome them with lower corporate taxes.
“like Ireland”
Time to brush up on my Irish!
And a dangerous one!
Fixed it.
I would rethink that they just gave up their sovereignty by signing the Lisbon Treaty!
“I would rethink that”
I guess I’ll stick with my Austrian.
Come on Maine get your head out off your a$$…….I”m looking to buy a 2nd house their…………..
Sorry I believe they signed it as well!
The bill, once established would be very difficult to repeal. The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that government entitlements are property and cannot be confiscated without due process. An unconstitutional system is being put into place that would be back by the U. S. Constitutional.
Is it possible that this socialist takeover of our country by traitors in the congress and the WH will spur on a de facto civil war in this country. Those with assesta and wealth, will not willfully see the government steal their money to give to their “hands out” constituency. The tax stream can be depleted and it will be. from where then will socialist scumbags get their money from to give away to slackers? I just sense a breaking point being reached, and very soon. What different forms the civil war takes will be interesting to see.
Bruce, you sound like a liberal whining about Iraq. We went the same route with the two amnesty debacles and won. The final bill (renamed for Jon Kyl as John McCain ran for prez) passed cloture but was strangled on the floor when we “losers” descended on DC in full force and brought to a halt. The only difference this time is that we are fighting a Democratic president and a Democrat-led Congress. Same Kabuki play with a different face. It will end the same way. Now go back to building your bombs or whatever your solution is.
The socialists will use the threat of handcuffs, or the barrel of a gun to get the wealth from those who don’t want to play I’m afraid.
“what did it all accomplish? NOTHING.”
It depends on what you set your sight on to determine “something” from “nothing”. Part of what I don’t quite understand is how some conservatives are reacting to what they see this second, this moment, in front of them.
Did the left get here by taking that approach and when defeated acted like a law or bill that passed against the left’s positions was the final word?
Well no they didn’t did they.
Why are conservatives acting like what happens this second is what will be forever?
And then freaking out.
Go to http://www.GlennBeck.com
He is gathering everyone on August 28, 2010 at the feet of Abe Lincoln in DC. My husband and I are planning to combine that with a genealogy road trip. I will wear a shirt with “happyscrapper” on it and maybe some of us will meet!!
Wish I could go happy. Go for those of us who can’t.
I will!!
I think we need to make hotel reservations like NOW. I have a feeling this will be big. We plan to drive from Minnesota to Swanton, Vermont, up on the Canadian border, then drive down to Plymouth, MA…then over to DC. That way, I get a good look at some of my ancestors graves and old homesteads. I am already salivating at the prospect! I wish this was taking place sooner, but Glenn has his reasons.
I agree 100%, where in the constitution does say a law or bill cannot be changed after being in acted into law. What was all that about liquor in the 20′s and ended in 1933? I realize they were both amendments, but I also see where it can be changed back, somehow.
You want to blame someone for pile bile we have running our country now, just look back to the Contract with America and see who was running the show and how greedy and arrogant those Republicans became. There is where you need to point fingers if your pointing and I am, BASTARDS!
This so funny about Sen. Schumer! He was just a guest of Ben Nelson’s at the Nebraska/Oklahoma game in a cozy little skybox. This, told to me by a person who was in the skybox seating at that game. I’m sure it was just a coincidence of timing.
In the 2007-8 grassroots revolt (pre-Tea Party) over the Bush/Kennedy/McCain amnesty bill, we were completely ignored by the media, we were far fewer in number, less organized and not anywhere near as angry as we are now. I don’t think either party understands what they are in for if they don’t kill this bill. I would not be surprised to see it die by Xmas.
Unemployment in this country is not easing and no one is investing in US job creation. Obama will soon be talking about jobs and nothing else. The global currency markets are poised for a major meltdown and it’s all about runaway US government spending while the Fed is creating a global emerging markets financing bubble. That was why the markets shuddered last week and it looks like this week will be worse.
If Congress actually does pass a bill, it will probably be next year when I would not be surprised to see an Obama veto in reaction to global pressure.
We are going to win on DemCare as we did with amnesty and Cap and Tax. Afterwards, we need stay focused and make everyone pay next November.
***
The TEAPARTIES are having an effect. The AMERICAN PRAVDA (not MSM) media can not avoid covering them when Fox TV and the Internet provide them to many people.
***
And Sarah Palin has “taken point” on the war against these Corruptocrats of both political parties. She can not be ignored, and is playing the same role that President Ronald Reagan (May God bless his soul) did in 1976. He took down Jimmy Carter four years later and returned sanity to our government.
***
Teaparty them at all opportunities. Close the republican primaries to crossover voters. Donate to the conservative movement and candidates to give these patriotic Americans more “ammo” to get the message out.
***
When the 2010 tax hikes hit home the 53 percent who voted for Comrade Obama will wake up as they see their money, healthcare, and country going down the toilet. A 4 percent swing dooms the “democrats” / liberals / socialists / statists / marxists / communists who have taken over our government. TSUNAMI COMING!
***
John Bibb
***
“we were completely ignored”
Get used to it. We can not expect the media to get it right. They have telegraphed their agenda for long enough that we would be lunatics to suspect main stream media to get it right now.
The MSM does not want us to be free and independent any more than the left does. The MSM loses its power too. As always the issue is power.
“I agree 100%, where in the constitution does say a law or bill cannot be changed after being in acted into law.”
I’m pretty sure the left is more than happy for us on the right to act as if whatever the left does now is unchangeable.
Let me add this. We are not going to stop the left from being the left. We are not going to stop Obama from being Obama. The idea that we might be able to do so and so we can invest all kinds of energy, emotional and other wise, into doing so is lunancy. We aren’t going to make one dent in the MSM nor Obama’s agenda.
Yes we voice opposition. No we don’t join in like Snowe seems to want to do. We maintain our opposition.
Then in 2010 and in 2012 we retake majorities and undo this stuff.
We are not going to stop it.
And the sky is not going to fall and we aren’t going to be the USSR.
We do however need to get busy and get involved and we need to do so driving from internal values and commitments. Not from any hope of making the left into anything but the left nor in hope of making the MSM anything but the MSM.
We do the right thing now and next and we keep doing the right thing next because we know what the right thing to do is.
We are no longer being ignored. On Fox Sunday, the coming grassroots deluge was a panel talking point.
I agree with your point that we should not expect fair coverage but it would help a great deal if they were to succumb to enlightened self-interest and become reconnected with America. I see that beginning to happen. Have you noticed that NPR is prominent in covering the ACORN issue?
We are finally penetrating the wall and once we are through, it will be a flood.
Correction: NPR has become prominent in covering the Fort Hood terrorism issue, not ACORN. So has NYT.
These traitors, scammers and thieves want desperately to ram this down our throats as a way of generating more money for their endless spending sprees. I can’t wait for BHO to have his job summit after this current vote. What business in its right mind would respond to his thug tactics and create jobs with massive tax increases looming. BHO may create an even longer recession with his inept understanding of business and economic principles. The unintended consequences of his loopy policies will be massive and inflict the most harm on the very people he professes to help.
so much of the healthcare bill will end up in court, half of us will be dead before the results are actually implemented. the house (nancy) thinks she can mandate people buy health insurance or go to jail. she also thinks she can mandate a worldwide capital gains and business tax to keep the “rich” from leaving tax and spend democrat havens like new york and california (not to mention the u.s.).
Another key issue to remember, especially when contacting your senators and congressmen, is that the only reason this bill does not technically bust the federal budget is that most of the a large proportion of cost is transferred to the states after two years. So the nation goes bankrupt anyway.
The reason this bill is over 2,000 pages long is because obfuscation demands it.
Correction (dammit):
the only reason this bill does not technically bust the federal budget is that
most of thea large proportion of the cost is transferred to the states after two years.And the “gifts” have only just begun. You gotta know Senators from other states are looking at what Louisana “got” and licking their chops.
The process will continue to put the left’s lunancy front and center.
Haha! Yes! Well done!
Come on olympia, you can do better than that LA gal! She got 300 M. You should at least get 500 or 750 M or go for the big bucks a cool 1 T for you cratering our country. How high is YOUR pay off price? I hope every single person who votes for the final bill is on the un-employment line after the 2010 elections. I will vote against every one of you I can. YES, I am a very bitter person today, thank you dc bunch!
L
There’s an old joke about an old man goes into a bar, sits down next to this babe quite younger and says,
“Would you have sex with me for a million dollars?”
And the babe thinks for a minute and says,
“For a million dollars, yes I think I’ll have sex with you.”
The old guys says,
“Ok, how about for 20 bucks?”
And the young babe slaps him and exclaims, “What kind of girl do you think I am!”
And the old man says, “We’ve already established that. Now we’re just negotiating on price.”
The setup is now Reid will do anything to get votes and he has telegraphed that to folks who think getting as much as they can from the government for there states keeps them in office. Reid has telegraphed what kind of person he is. Now we’re just negotiating…..
The feeding frenzy is about to begin!
Truth!
The lefts lunacy will be hidden by the corrupt education system and the communist media that is out to destroy this once great country.
“will be hidden by”
Could be. Seems to me we’re seeing it pretty closely and up front now.
at 11:02 am, cactusjoe said:
The bill, once established would be very difficult to repeal. The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that government entitlements are property and cannot be confiscated without due process. An unconstitutional system is being put into place that would be backed by the U. S. Constitutional.
Can we use this argument to stop the stealing and “redistribution” of our Medicare entitlements that we paid into our whole life? It is a trust fund and an entitlement that they are just taking and transferring to a new entitlement without due process.
Also the Supremes have used the equal protection clause to allow illegals access to emergency room medical care,etc., based on the premise that you can’t provide to one group without providing to all groups, or deny one group.
Instead of trying to force Congress to be held to the same health exchanges/public option that we are, why not use the equal protection clause to say that we cannot be denied the same gold plated health insurance plan that they have. You can’t provide to one group without providing access to all groups.
Well, now we know why all the barrels of Astroglide were going to the White House and Congres….
Good point. You might also like George Will’s editorial of a few days ago (http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/11/19/fighting_a_coercion_clause) It is all about using the Dem’s own legal arguments to support abortion against them, among other things.
What goes around, comes around…