Sounds like Gov. Tim Pawlenty plans on running for president on a phase-out Social Security and Medicare agenda.
You probably remember how a guy named Ryan Sorba went off script at CPAC and denounced the organizers for allowing a gay Republican group, GOPride, into the conference, arguing that homosexuality violates natural law. To the credit of the attendees, Sorba’s rant was greeted mainly by boos. But despite being a big advocate of natural law, Sorba doesn’t seem to be too big a fan of just plain old regular law. He’s got a history of run-ins with the law including a restraining order for domestic violence and another guilty plea for creating a disturbance at a polling station over Prop 8 back in 2008. According to Sorba, he was turned in in the latter case by “some homosexual guy.”
Just to be clear, if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t be betting the farm on a health care reform bill with a public option. To put it mildly. But just a couple weeks ago, not only did reform seem pretty much dead but any thought that a public option would be included in a deal seemed pretty much crazy. And yet, out of the blue, through a pretty organic and somewhat fortuitous process, it’s back.
Our Brian Beutler explains what happened.
Remember all the whining from Minority Leader John Boehner and other Republicans about how the health care reform bill was too long? Now Boehner is complaining that Obama’s reform proposal is too short. Seriously.
In a bit of a surprise, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says now is not the time to try to push through a public option.
Some 290 bills have been passed by the House this Congress but are stalled in the Senate. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
CPAC wouldn’t be complete without The Daily Show‘s rendering of it. Watch.
It looked for a time like even Harry Reid’s stripped-down jobs bill might stall with less than the required 60 votes, but at least two Republicans — Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe of Maine — have joined with the Democrats, which should be enough to advance the bill through this key procedural vote.
Late Update: The final vote was 62-30. The Dems lost Ben Nelson (D-NE), who voted against the bill; and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is undergoing cancer treatment and did not vote. So that knocked the Dems from 59 votes down to 57, but they picked up five Republicans, Brown and Snowe, as I mention above, plus Susan Collins (R-ME), Kit Bond (R-MO) and George Voinovich (R-OH).
Sen. Johnson (D-SD) agrees to sign public option/reconciliation letter.