Obama’s joint-session effort yet another attempt at The Big Speech effect
Nate Beeler at the Washington Examiner frames the viewer choice perfectly for tonight:
HotAir.com
To say that expectations are low heading into Barack Obama’s speech tonight to a joint session of Congress is to engage in the art of pointed understatement. Never in the history of extraordinary joint-session speeches has so little been expected of a President. Even before his joint-session speech two years ago on the topic of health-care reform, the White House stoked speculation that Obama had a new plan that would change the debate. Instead, he delivered an ambiguous, rambling series of platitudes and generalities that created more problems for Democrats than it solved.
GOP: Defeat of Health Law Repeal Is Step Toward Victory in 2012
FoxNews.com
Associated Press
Published February 03, 2011
WASHINGTON — To hear Senate Republicans tell it, the defeat of their attempt to repeal the Democrats’ health care overhaul was really a victory of sorts on the long the march to the 2012 congressional and presidential elections.
The repeal effort sank Wednesday along party lines, 51-47 as expected. But in the process, Republicans forced Democrats on the record in favor of President Barack Obama’s signature overhaul and launched what they described as a two-year effort to discredit it in the lead-up to a bid for a second term.
“These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012, whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses in this legislation,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the party’s campaign chief.
“We think this is just the beginning,” said Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “This issue is still ahead of us.”
Idaho Set to Nullify Obama’s Health Care Law
FoxNews.com
Associated Press
Published January 20, 2011
BOISE, Idaho — After leading the nation last year in passing a law to sue the federal government over the health care overhaul, Idaho’s Republican-dominated Legislature now plans to use an obscure 18th century doctrine to declare President Barack Obama’s signature bill null and void.
Lawmakers in six other states — Maine, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming — are also mulling “nullification” bills, which contend states, not the U.S. Supreme Court, are the ultimate arbiter of when Congress and the president run amok.
It’s a concept that’s won favor among many tea party adherents who believe Washington, D.C., is out of control.
Though a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court decision reaffirmed that federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land,” Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter is promoting the idea, too. In his January 10 State of the State speech, he told Idaho residents “we are actively exploring all our options — including nullification.”
Sen. Monty Pearce, an Idaho GOP lawmaker who plans to introduce a nullification bill early next week, wanted to be the first one to give Otter a recently published book on the subject, “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century.”
Republicans Plot Course for ObamaCare Replacement
FoxNews.com
By Jake Gibson
Published January 20, 2011
AP – In this Feb. 25, 2010, file photo Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., left, walks past Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., during a meeting at the Blair House in Washington. Reid has promised he will not let GOP’s health care repeal effort come up for debate on Senate floor, while McConnell says the Senate will vote on a bill to repeal ObamaCare.
House Republicans may have been able to pass a repeal of President Obama’s national health care law with a unanimous vote on a two-page bill, but the task ahead of them — replacing the controversial program – will not be so simple.
In broad terms, GOP leaders agree on the goals. Lawmakers told FOX News that their broad goals include: cut waste, fraud and abuse; expand insurance coverage; reduce premiums; allow people to keep the coverage they have and block federal funding of abortion.
House Democrats scoff at the Republican effort, which is now underway on the committee level, as an empty promise.
“This vague resolution stating so-called Republican principles on health care reform is like giving the American people a wish sandwich,” said Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida. “There’s nothing between the bread, but we wish there was.”
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