Word: whiteness
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...After months of criticism that he wasn't personally involved in shaping the health reform conversation, Obama on Monday finally released his own plan for legislation. Posted on a series of glitzy new Web pages, it was heralded by the White House as "the President's proposal." The plan, however, can more accurately be described as the Senate's reform bill with a series of adjustments meant to placate more liberal Democrats in the House. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said the Obama plan was "yet another partisan, backroom bill that slashes Medicare for our seniors." While the Administration...
...Republicans, convinced that the Thursday meeting will be pure political theater, have been trying to frame it as that ever since the event was announced. First, House Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor sent the White House an open letter calling on the President to scrap the existing Democratic reform bills and "start over." This idea gained no traction, and Republicans realized they could not skip the meeting - it's hard politically to turn down an invitation to be bipartisan. Boehner then sent a follow-up open letter deriding congressional Democrats for "plotting legislative trickery" to pass health reform...
...Boehner was referring to budget reconciliation, a legislative maneuver that would allow the Senate to pass changes to its reform bill with only 50 votes. (Vice President Joe Biden could, in this case, cast a tie-breaking vote.) The White House has been very careful not to explicitly say it intends to pursue a reconciliation strategy, which Republicans insist is a radical, undemocratic move - this, even though the GOP used it during the Bush presidency to pass two rounds of tax cuts. But during a briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said of the approach, "The avenue...
...Still, in an apparent effort to showcase its efforts at bipartisanship, the White House drew reporters' attention on Monday to the GOP ideas already in the House and Senate bills and in the President's reform plan. But in doing so, the White House was also communicating that Democrats have already adopted all their favorite Republican ideas and won't be adding any major new ones to their reform legislation. (One possible exception is medical-malpractice reform. Obama has said he's open to the idea, which is often cited by Republicans as a major driver of rising health care...
...Lebanese groups engaged in a territorial war with Israel are the sworn enemies of the al-Qaeda-inspired radical extremists who are at war with the West. In the struggle against Islamic extremism, Israel risks becoming less of an asset to America and more of a liability. The Obama White House, recognizing that the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict is a recruiting tool for radical Islam, has said that peace in the Middle East is a matter of U.S. national security. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East...