Yesterday evening, guests convened at Lincoln Center to celebrate Tony Bennett's 85th Birthday. Mr. Bennett gave several musical performances throughout the evening, including a duets with Aretha Franklin and Elton John. Guests included Robert de Niro, Richard Gere, Whoopi Goldberg, Nanci Pelosi, Bill Clinton, Katie Couric, and Alec Baldwin, who chose to attend Mr Read More
The votes are in for the budget bill, and the final tally is 260-167 in favor of the bill's passage. There were a few interesting changes from Friday's vote, which was seen as the first referendum on the last-minute deal to cut $38 billion dollars in spending, which averted a government shutdown.
Nobody Read More
It’s October 2008, the middle of the global financial apocalypse, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has kayaked to a private island. The most expensive government spending act in American history passed a day earlier, but now he’s hunting redfish. “I felt like myself for the first time in a long while,” he sighs in On Read More
All year, the biggest fault line in the health care debate has been the public option—a proposed government-run insurance plan that Americans without access to group coverage would be eligible to sign up for.
To liberals, it has been the reason for doing health care reform, an innovative tool that will break up private insurers’ monopolies Read More
All year, the biggest fault line in the health care debate has been the public option—a proposed government-run insurance plan that Americans without access to group coverage would be eligible to sign up for.
To liberals, it has been the reason for doing health care reform, an innovative tool that will break up private insurers’ Read More
ALBANY—Bill Owens, who is being sworn in as a member of Congress today, has announced his intention to vote for the health care restructuring bill backed by Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. He resisted taking a specific position on the issue throughout his campaign.
Owens announced the vote in a press release and Read More
ALBANY—Former House speaker Newt Gingrich never mentioned Doug Hoffman's name during a radio appearance this morning, but had a clear message for Republicans in the 23rd Congressional District: "The vote you're going to cast for a third-party candidate is going to guarantee the election of a Democrat. If you think that adding another vote Read More
The rather surprising news that Harry Reid may now be ready to include a public option in the health care reform bill he will bring to the Senate floor next week has potentially huge short- and long-term political implications.
First, it would resolve the issue of whether Senate Democrats, who have exactly the 60 Read More
ALBANY—David Paterson will headline a fund-raising dinner in St. Lawrence County tonight, and Bill Owens will be there.
This is the first public appearance that Paterson, suffering from persistently low poll numbers, has had with Owens, the Democratic Party's candidate to replace John McHugh in Congress.
Spokesmen for both men confirm they will Read More
Every few months for the last year or so, Congressional Republicans—and their various amplifiers in the media—kick up a fuss about Charlie Rangel and the financial and ethical clouds hanging over him, demanding that the Ways and Means chairman step down and then feigning surprise when Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to push Read More
The standard talking point from proponents of the public option is that, contrary to the Republican fear-mongering, it is absolutely not a stalking-horse for an eventual shift to a single-payer health care system.
To say anything else would be to play directly into the right’s time-honored reform-killing warnings about “government takeovers,” “socialized medicine,” Read More
ALBANY—Bill Owens has been to two fund-raisers outside his district in the last week.
Last Wednesday, he attended a $1,000-a-head fundraiser at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. According to a person who was there, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Representatives Joe Crowley, Nita Lowey and Scott Murphy Read More
Last weekend, the Obama administration seemed ready to give up on the public option, sending all sorts of signals that the president would sign a health care reform bill with a co-op provision, if that’s what it would take to get a package through the Senate.
But now a key Congressional backer Read More
About that threat by dozens of members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to vote against any health care legislation that doesn’t include a “robust” public option, two things can be safely said: No one in the White House or the Democratic congressional leadership is surprised by it, and everyone expects that that the progressives Read More
Very soon, Congressional leaders are expected to announce the creation of a new commission to investigate the real causes of America’s crippling financial disaster. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that this investigative panel will be modeled on the legendary “Pecora Commission,” which held a series of hearings on Capitol Read More
