Everyone was talking about this Will.i.am/John Boehner mashup yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to actually watch it until this morning. It’s really close to perfect. Watch.
Responding to news that the House will have to take up the reconciliation bill again, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says: “I expect to get this bill back from the Senate sometime this afternoon, and I would expect several hours after we will have the bill on the floor, and we will pass the bill and send it to the President.” That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
The provisions are minor and the changes don’t appear to substantially change the legislation. But over night Republicans won two parliamentary points of order which will require a slightly revised reconciliation bill to be passed again by the House.
In the latest report: Rep Betsy Markey (D-CO) received two death threats the day before Sunday’s Health Care Reform vote.
Seems like we’ve got a new craze: faxing pictures of nooses and gallows to congressmen’s offices.
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the House Majority Whip, got one today.
And Rep. Stupak (D-MI) got one too.
Where are the major instances of anti-Health Care Reform violence and terrorism so far? Justin Elliott plots them out on an interactive map. Regrettably I suspect this is a map we’ll be updating.
Click the map below to see the full-size interactive map and story.
At an impromptu press conference earlier this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that over ten Democratic members of Congress have been threatened since the Sunday vote on Health Care Reform. Without naming her directly, he also called out Sarah Palin for a post on Facebook that placed cross-hairs to identify members of Congress who voted for Reform.
Another example of Senate Republicans chaining themselves to the levers of power: They are now using Senate rules to limit when during the day committee hearings can be held, which has had the effect of scuttling some hearings. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was just on the floor decrying this latest stalling tactic after she wasn’t able to hold a scheduled hearing on police contracting in Afghanistan.
How popular or unpopular is Health Care Reform?
As you can see in the graph below, Reform’s unpopularity was at its highest in December and January and has become a bit more popular and a bit less unpopular since then.
(To see the full size graph and the full data table, click here or just click the “read more” link below.)
I’m not sure it’s hyperbole any more to say that we’ve now got a small scale domestic terror campaign going on against members of Congress who voted for Health Care Reform.
We already noted the handful of incidents over the weekend in the offices of Democratic members of Congress had their offices vandalized in response to their votes in favor of Reform. While that was happening, a Tea Partier in Virginia suggested people “drop by” the home of Rep. Tom Perriello. But they mistakenly provided the address of Periello’s brother.
Now the FBI is investigating an incident in which someone apparently cut the gas line into Perriello’s brother’s home, thinking it was the congressman’s residence.