Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Joan McCarter: "GOP sets (HR) repeal date, Dems ready to fight?"

Joan McCarter:
GOP House leadership has set January 12 as the date for the Affordable Care Act repeal vote, or the day they fulfill a futile promise made to their rabid teabagger base that they'd repeal it.

It won't get past the Senate, but that doesn't mean there isn't some mischief there, as they'll take momentum from this vote to begin their efforts to dismantle it piece by piece. Obviously, Dems need to make this a fight, and at least one of them is making the right noises. Rep. Anthony Weiner talked with Greg Sargent about it today.

(SNIP)

This should be a no-brainer for Dems--turn the Republicans' tactics around on them and force them to take painful votes. Make them vote against the popular measures within the reform package. It's not a particularly "bipartisan" or "civil" approach to politics, but look where civility has gotten us so far. MORE...
Howie P.S.: More from Joan McCarter, on Obama and "Guantanamo restrictions."
Hope for any kind of actual justice for these detainees, not to mention some restoration of the U.S. as a nation of laws, is fading. The assertion of executive authority on Guantanamo with a signing statement would be a start, but it isn't enough. That authority has to be used in the interests of justice and the rule of law for it to be meaningful. MORE...

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