Word: recess
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...Obama political team has concluded that cost inflation is mostly a Beltway issue, that August recess requires reform to be marketed in more personal terms: What does it mean for you? It would be nice if Obama stopped limiting his answer to that question to consumer protections against rapacious insurers. It could be: Your premiums won't double every decade, your economy won't sink and your government won't go broke. Then again, David Axelrod probably deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to selling reform...
Under normal circumstances, it takes a case of national importance to rile the Supreme Court during its summer recess. But in the words of an old axiom about capital punishment, "death is different." And so, on a sleepy mid-August Monday, Aug. 17, the court - over a strong dissent - dusted off an antique tool, unused for nearly half a century, to force a new hearing into the slow-rolling fate of a Georgia death-row prisoner named Troy Davis. In the process, the court has opened up new questions about the death penalty: most crucially, how far the courts must...
...health-care-reform bill the U.S. House of Representatives will debate when it returns from recess next month contains a provision that would have Medicare reimburse doctors for counseling patients on end-of-life care every five years. Opponents of health-care reform have latched onto the provision, claiming it would lead to forced euthanasia or "death panels" to decide whether lifesaving care for the elderly is cost-effective - despite the fact that the bill says nothing about either of these frightening issues. In fact, geriatricians - doctors trained specifically to care for the elderly - support the provision, arguing that...
Despite the name, summer recess is often as much work as it is play: Congress's members must press flesh back home to remind voters of all the good work they've been doing and to raise vital campaign funds. The Legislative Branch has made a tradition of taking August off, going back to the first Congress, in New York City in 1790. Back then, the break lasted until December (it often took weeks to travel between New York and some Southern states). Throughout much of the 19th century, Congress adjourned in June or July to escape the heat...
...perk-conscious lawmakers can be. In March, the nonprofit group Judicial Watch obtained e-mails from the Pentagon (under the Freedom of Information Act) written by aides to Pelosi seeking military airplanes. "It is my understanding there are no G-5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess," one May 2007 message said. "This is totally unacceptable." The Pentagon explained the planes were already booked by "White House military office taskings, the VP, Cabinet officers and multiple other executive users." (See pictures of military aircraft...