NewsTrust - Democratic Party - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

Dems 'In Deep Trouble' On Health Care, The Only Options Are A Bad Bill Or 2010 Losses

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Sam Stein - Nov. 23 (Interview) - One of the leading progressive champions of health care reform is pessimistic about the state of the debate in the Senate, saying he sees virtually no path to passing strong legislation and predicting potential congressional losses for Democrats as a consequence.

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Easy Choices

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

OurFuture.org - By Terrance Heath - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - I'll say it again. Whether it's Sarah Palin's self-serving contradictions, or Democrats' and Republicans' cynical political compromises, in the realm of politics, the choices we make for others are the truly easy choices.

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What the Gay Boycott of the DNC Can Do

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Emma Ruby-Sachs - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - There is a gay boycott of the Democratic Party afoot, and it has the potential to turn into something that leads to real change in American politics. I'm not selling hope here, but I can't help but feel it when I see the momentum gathering behind AMERICAblog's "Don't Ask, Don't Give" campaign.

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Five Senators To Watch On Health Care

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Real Clear Politics - By Kyle Trygstad, Mike Memoli - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - With 60 Democrats in the Senate, the party has enough votes to pass any bill it pleases -- but that total includes two independents that caucus with the party and leaves no room for error. The tight margin is on display once again as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) searches for enough support to both bring health care reform up for a vote and actually pass it.

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Why Are the Loudest Political Voices the Most Extreme?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ABC News - By Lee Dye - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - Those bombastic self-appointed spokespersons who rant from both the political right and left are likely driven by the conviction that their extreme views are shared by the majority of the members of their political party, but they are probably wrong, according to new research.

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Is this the high-water mark for ObamaCare?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Hot Air - By Ed Morrissey - Nov. 08 (Opinion) - The Democrats wheedled, cajoled, begged, and finally abandoned its defense of abortion — truly a watershed moment — in order to get their version of ObamaCare passed … in the House of Representatives, where they enjoy a 75-seat majority. In the end, they could only muster a five-vote win on Nancy Pelosi’s bill out of that strong majority. Until this week, most had assumed that any ObamaCare bill would pass the House easily, but that the fight would be in the Senate.

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Obama Faces His Anzio

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 06 (Opinion) - President Obama chose a cautious approach rather than bold action on the economy, and the decision may haunt Democrats for years to come.

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Hark! The Voters Speak!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Gail Collins - Nov. 05 (Opinion) - Endorsements don’t work if they’re oblique and half-hearted, as if they had been sent via Candygram.

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It Doesn't Mean Squat

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Marc Ambinder - Nov. 03 (Opinion) - Along with tarot cards and goat entrails, a lot of people believe they can divine hidden meaning from the results of off-year elections, like the ones in Virginia, New York and New Jersey on Tuesday. I'm skeptical. For one thing, nobody bothers to wait for the polls to close anymore--the "meaning" of the results has been hammered out in advance. A GOP sweep will be taken as proof that conservatives are resurgent and President Obama's agenda is in trouble, while Democratic wins in New York and New Jersey--Virginia is hopeless--will demonstrate that conservatives have gone off the deep end. (Any other combination will mean a dull night for cable television.)

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The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Frank Rich - Nov. 01 (Opinion) - This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.

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In recent polls, GOP limited to Southern comfort

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

OregonLive.com - By David Sarasohn - Oct. 24 (Opinion) - For months, Barack Obama’s national approval rating has been hovering in the low to mid-50s. The level is respectable — his predecessor hadn’t been there for his last three years — but not exactly intimidating, not exactly a number to make congressmen think they’d better get in line

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The Great One

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Talkers Magazine - By Mark Levin - Oct. 21 (Interview) - I’d been a professional talk radio listener since I was a kid in Philadelphia. I used to listen to folks like Dominic Quinn and Bernie Herman and Joel A. Spivak. Maybe people haven’t heard of them but they were big time when I was a teenager. I used to listen to Bob Grant, Jean Shepherd and so forth. I loved it. I never really intended to pursue it, and so here I am 40 years later. I would say really it was Rush and Sean. First of all, I subbed once for Rush, not knowing anything I was doing and he said just go with it, do the very best you can. And Sean had me sub for him fairly frequently during the Christmas holidays. I remember telling him, you know, I get the substance part of this, but I’m not sure about the breaks –– how to get in and get out. He sat me down at his house one day and we did our little blue cards. Forty-eight of them. Just to remind me of who I am…“Hi, I’m Mark Levin.” That sort of thing. I think they called them formatics cards.

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Obama and the Left's Old Schism

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - However, another branch of progressives – let’s call them the “pragmatists” – recognize the daunting challenges that a liberal politician faces in the United States because the Right has built such a powerful propaganda apparatus, dominating the message reaching the American people through newspapers, magazines, books, cable TV, talk radio and the Internet. When a liberal politician also has to deal with careerist mainstream journalists who bend to the right for self-protection – think CNN – “pragmatic” progressives agree that it is unrealistic to expect perfection from someone trying to advance a reformist agenda and maybe win the next election.

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Healthcare has rationing in abundance

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Doyle McManus - Oct. 11 (Opinion) - Late last month, as the Senate Finance Committee labored to produce its version of a healthcare bill, the Republican whip, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, renewed an old warning. If the federal government intervenes to hold healthcare costs down, Kyl said, the result would be something nobody wants: rationing. "The federal bureaucrats would, in effect, reduce the payment to providers, forcing them to reduce the care," Kyl warned. "It's not the government directly that is actually rationing care; now, we wouldn't want to do that. We cut the providers to the point that they have to do it instead -- and that result is still rationing. As far as the patients are concerned, it's still the same result."

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Sen. Sherrod Brown: Health Insurance Reform Must Include Public Option

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Sen. Sherrod Brown - Oct. 08 (Opinion) - A majority of Americans support a public option. An overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress support a public option. Doctors support a public option. Why then is the public option seen by some as the third rail of health insurance reform?

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How Alan Grayson and Michael Moore Changed the Conversation

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Cenk Uygur - Oct. 08 (Opinion) - It's not the answer that matters, it's the question. So when Alan Grayson suggested that the Republican's health care plan was for people to die...

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Government-Run Health Care

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Neil Cavuto - Oct. 07 (Interview) - Key Democrat is confident health care reform will pass with a 'public option'?

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Stocked Exchange

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - Ten years from now, if health care reform is a boondoggle, you might be able to trace that failure back to a decision in the wee hours of last week's Senate Finance Committee hearings. It happened on Thursday night, just before midnight, when John Kerry put forward an amendment. It was amendment C-8: "Empowering State Exchanges to be Prudent Purchasers." The title may sound innocuous, if a bit arcane. But if you've followed the health care reform debate, then you know (or should know) that anything involving the insurance exchanges is important.

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Government-Run Health Care?

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Neil Cavuto, Elijah Cummings - Oct. 06 (Interview) - Video interview by Fox anchor Neil Cavuto with Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who expresses confidence that health care reform will pass with a public option.

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Why Reid Shouldn’t Include The Public Option In The Merged Senate Bill

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Think Progress - By Igor Volsky - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - Lawrence O’Donnell — who served as Senate Finance Committee staff director during the debate over President Clinton’s failed health care reforms — tells Politico’s Live Pulse that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shouldn’t merge the Senate Finance Committee’s health bill with the HELP Committee’s far more progressive alternative. Sen. George Mitchell tried that in 1994 and Republicans went line-by-line successfully defeating the bill

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Glenn Beck Crying with a Little Help from His V...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

allvoices.com - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - Fox News host Glenn Beck is captured on video during a photo shoot having Vick's vapor rub smeared under his eyes as he jokes that his eyes are getting used to it.

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Democratic Super Majority

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Sep. 30 (Comedy News) - The Democratic supermajority fails to pass health care reform, but succeeds in funding abstinence-only education.

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American Politics stands at a crossroads

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Walter Russell Mead - Sep. 14 (Opinion) - Walter Russell Mead, PoliticoAmerican politics stands at an unusual crossroads. Buoyed by victories in the 2008 election and feeling vindicated by the financial crisis. liberal Democrats headed into 2009 feeling that their hour had come. The fallacies of Reaganite free-market economics had been exposed; Americans were returning to the old time religion of the New Deal. History, which for liberal Democrats had been running disastrously off the rails since Richard Nixon's election in 1968, was finally back on track.

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Progressives shouldn't confuse a party with a movement

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By David Sirota - Sep. 08 (Opinion) - Though the 2006 and 2008 elections were billed as progressive movement successes, the story behind them highlights a longer-term failure. During those contests, most leaders of Washington's major labor, environmental, antiwar and anti-poverty groups spent millions of dollars on a party endeavor — specifically, on electing a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. In the process, many groups subverted their own movement agendas in the name of electoral unity.

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At OpEdNews: Change is Scary! Are You Afraid?

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By R. Francis Rubio - Sep. 07 (Opinion) - With all the confusion about health care and lets be frank some outright lies, it's getting harder and harder to get at the truth. The problem with getting at the truth is most people don't pay a whole lot of attention to policy and when they do the loudest and the most sensationalized voices usually get heard. Change is scary and unfortunately when people get scared they tend to believe the things that can justify their fear, it's human nature.

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