With War Powers Act Deadline Looming, Libya Stalemate Continues
FoxNews.com
By Mike Emanuel
Published May 13, 2011
AP2011 – Mahmoud Jibril, representative for foreign affairs with the Libyan Transitional National Council, a political group opposed to the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, listens during a news conference in Washington, Wednesday, May 11. 2011.
As a congressional deadline on military action in Libya looms next Friday, and both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill question the mission, the situation on the ground is at a stalemate two months after the conflict started.
President Obama, through his constitutional authority with the War Powers Act, gave the go-ahead for the Libyan mission, which included military support on a United Nations resolution enforcing a no-fly zone. The administration however does not classify the conflict as a “war.”
Obama Administration: Time Running out on Healthcare Reform
Tuesday, 15 Dec 2009 01:24 PM
LIBERAL HEALTHCARE is a down payment on Socialism.
By: David A. Patten
The Obama administration is warning Democrats and the media that healthcare reform has reached a do-or-die stage and is in danger of imploding unless a deal is struck soon.
Vice President Joe Biden sounded the alarm on today’s Morning Joe program: “If health care does not pass in this Congress — and every day gets closer to the election as opposed to having more breathing room to actually have discussions and real open fights here – it’s gonna be kicked back for a generation,” he said.
Political analysts have seen little sign in recent days that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., whose Hail Mary insistence on a public option has altogether collapsed, has a workable plan to achieve a compromise before year’s end. And the coming New Year will drastically escalate Democrats’ fears that healthcare reform, which is increasingly unpopular in most opinion polls, could be a political millstone come November.
The ineluctable realities of the electoral calendar have apparently led the administration to conclude that its best chance to get a reform bill through Congress is to light a fire of urgency on Capitol Hill. This is the “do or die” message President Obama that is expected to deliver at a special meeting of all Senate Democrats at the White House this afternoon.
According to Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook: “Look for [Obama] to make the case that this is the last chance for healthcare reform.”
The White House is privately warning that if President Obama and congressional Democrats, who enjoy a supermajority and 60 votes in the Senate, can’t pass healthcare reform soon, future presidents may view the issue as a political third rail, avoiding reform altogether.
“If President Obama doesn’t pass health reform,” said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, “it’s hard to imagine another president ever taking on this herculean task. For those whose life’s work is reforming health care, this may be the last train leaving the station.”
Most observers still believe Democrats will still achieve a compromise, finally embarking on the legislative march toward a successful vote in the Senate. But with Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s declaration that he will not support either a public option or a massive expansion of Medicare coverage, the White House for the first time sees a scenario where Democrats become so ensnared in squabbles over various aspects of the incredibly complex, 2,100-page bill that reform implodes altogether.
Yesterday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs sidestepped a question about a report that the White House had urged Reid to cut a deal acceptable to Lieberman, in order to move reform forward.
Asked to confirm the report, Gibbs would only say with a canny smile: “The president is anxious to see progress, and we’ll continue to work with Democrats and Republicans and independents and everyone in between to make that progress.
Lieberman’s support is vital because he represents the 60th vote that would be needed to cut off a Republican-led filibuster. The administration’s willingness to jettison the expansion of Medicare coverage has been generally viewed as a signal that any bill passed by the Senate is not likely to include any form of the controversial public option, which conservatives fear would be a step toward single-payer, government run healthcare.
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