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Here is video last night of Sean Hannity talking with Sen. John McCain about the Democrats' Health Care Bill. McCain warns that he believes the so-called "Blue Dog Democrats" will cave in to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and help pass a bill in the House. He said they often "bark, but they don't bite." McCain said he and virtually all Republicans do not want any government takeover of health care. . . . . (Watch Video)

SIX months into the Obama ad ministration, it should now be clear: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles. Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the "Today Show" that he had met with CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf -- just as the number crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims. Yes, question the timing. The CBO is supposed to be a neutral scorekeeper -- not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting...

A House fight among Democrats on overhauling the nation’s healthcare system has spread to the Senate, where centrists and liberals are clashing over the direction the legislation should take. Trouble is brewing now that a bipartisan group of senators — led by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — has signaled it will exclude a government-run insurance option from the committee’s draft legislation that could be marked up next week. Leaving it out would be a major step toward attracting Republican support for President Barack Obama’s signature issue. But it also would alienate liberals, who say the effort is wasted...

A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009 Last Price: 35.0 1.0 You can buy this at 39.0 You can sell this at 29.0 http://data.intrade.com/graphing/jsp/closingPricesForm.jsp?tradeURL=https://www.intrade.com&contractId=683800 A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009 35.0

The Blue Dog revolt against the House leadership’s health care overhaul took a new turn Tuesday morning, when a several members of the centrist faction made overtures to House Republicans about joining forces to slow and reshape the bill. Republican aides said there was great interest among GOP lawmakers in trying to work with dissidents in the 52-member Blue Dog Coalition to try to stop the legislation. “Blue Dogs will be the main event all week,” said one GOP aide, referring to efforts by Republicans to woo Blue Dogs GOP leaders mentioned nothing at their press briefing about the participation...

Just pull over at this scenic overlook and admire the view. Maxine Waters, the wild-eyed Socialist from California sees the Blue Dogs killing Obama's Unicorns for Everyone Health Care Act of 2009, and she's pissed. She is now suggesting that more radical liberals take on her fellow Democrats in primary challenges next year, a motion I second. Pleeeease run some commie-pinko Dems in conservative districts.

Senate GOP Let House Blue Dog Democrats Off Hook Well, we knew the sellout on healthcare was coming but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow when it happens (read details here). And, it appears to be happening right on schedule, on script just as we at the Social Security Institute have been predicting here and here. We warned everyone what was coming down and how to stop it (read the SSI Strategy Memo) but the Republican instinct for selling out is just too inbred to resist. Despite decades of being sold down the river by the Republican Party...

During a crowded, hot meeting on Tuesday morning, the entire Blue Dog Coalition got a chance to review the conceptual healthcare compromise offered Monday night by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), but the only agreement reached was to let the seven Blue Dogs on Waxman’s committee decide the proposal’s fate. “We’re not there yet,” Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.), a Blue Dog co-chairman and member of the Energy and Commerce panel, said upon leaving the meeting. “We’ve had a good discussion with the Blue Dogs here this morning, and we’ll take it from there.” Hill then retreated to his...

With their health care plans in a holding pattern — and no George W. Bush to kick around anymore — Democrats are casting about for somebody to blame. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn says that Republicans have “perfected ‘just say no.’” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said insurance companies are chalking up “immoral profits.” But even if they won’t acknowledge it publicly, most Democrats in Congress know the truth: It’s their own colleagues who are slowing down progress in both the House and the Senate. Back in 2005, Democrats made a concerted push to recruit conservative candidates to help them win...

There is no way for the House to meet its Friday deadline for a vote on healthcare, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Monday night. "That clearly will not be possible at this time," Hoyer told reporters. He said the deadline can't be met because of procedural hurdles and promises leaders made to give lawmakers time to read the bill. But he added, "We have other days available to us." He has previously said that the House could meet Saturday, Monday or Tuesday. He made the remarks after leaving a negotiating session between House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman...

When Blue Dog Democrats revolted over the cost of ObamaCare 10 days ago, the White House quickly came up with a plan to give them political cover: a government board that would tell Congress how to restrain costs. Well, so much for that, as the Congressional Budget Office has now exposed this idea as another false economy. But it’s worth understanding the reason because it also exposes the core problem with government-run health care. Over the weekend CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said the proposal will only save $2 billion over the next 10 years. That’s less than 0.2% of the...

The Democrats’ self-styled fiscal conservatives don’t have a voting record to match their rhetoric. The Blue Dog Democrats could make or break health-care reform. That’s both good news and bad. It’s good news because the Blue Dog coalition, formed in 1995, currently lists 52 Democrats in the House of Representatives and boasts of being “fiscally conservative.” To emphasize their point, the Blue Dogs post the national debt (more than $11 trillion)—and the share every American has in that debt ($36,683)—on their Web site. The Blue Dogs have even growled recently that the House’s health-care reform legislation is too expensive. It...

News as of 3:08PM eastern Time ...Pelosi has scheduled an arm-breaking closed session this PM for all House members... Senate version still frozen in finance committee... continuing...

Contact: Katie Moreau PHONE (202) 225-5315 Congressman Baron Hill's Web site Tuesday, July 21, 2009 [Baron] Hill Reacts to Health Care Meeting with President Obama (Washington, DC) - This afternoon, Congressman Baron Hill was invited to the White House to discuss the health care bill pending before the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Hill was joined by his Blue Dog Coalition colleagues who are also members of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Following the meeting, Hill issued this statement: “We had the opportunity to meet with the President for several hours this afternoon regarding health care. And,...

Washington -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) vowed Sunday to overcome lingering obstacles and pass healthcare reform in the House, restoring momentum to President Obama's top domestic priority and order to her own unruly Democratic caucus. "When I take this bill to the floor, it will win," Pelosi said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” "This will happen." The speaker, who has struggled to overcome a series of recent setbacks, raised the stakes by planning to restart talks today among bickering Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of three House panels with jurisdiction over healthcare and where...

Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have finally hit some resistance in their push towards socialism. Last week, something truly amazing and totally refreshing happened in Washington D.C. A group of fiscally-conservative Democrats known as the “Blue Dog” Coalition signaled that they could not support the bastard child christened “Obamacare”. Barely two weeks ago, it appeared as if the disaster of socialized medicine would indeed be rammed through Congress and down the throats of the American people. But, the stalwart opposition of the Blue Dogs means that Congress will likely adjourn for their August recess without an agreement on Barack Obama’s...

Right now the fate of health care reform seems to rest in the hands of relatively conservative Democrats — mainly members of the Blue Dog Coalition, created in 1995. And you might be tempted to say that President Obama needs to give those Democrats what they want. But he can’t — because the Blue Dogs aren’t making sense. To grasp the problem, you need to understand the outline of the proposed reform (all of the Democratic plans on the table agree on the essentials.) Reform, if it happens, will rest on four main pillars: regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition. By...

The single most important thing to remember in the current debate about the nation's healthcare system is that free market solutions are available, and they work. Barack Obama's contention that there are only 2 choices--his government takeover of healthcare, or doing nothing--is patently FALSE. Other solutions, better solutions, are available and have never been tried on a national scale.

If President Obama thought fighting Republicans was tough, he’s learning real fast that battling with his own party isn’t exactly a good time. As many of his former colleagues in the US Senate and the House voice outrage and opposition to his push for universal healthcare, the man once deemed “untouchable” currently finds himself in the political battle of his life. And he’s losing. His own party is running ads to press Democratic senators from Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Nebraska and Ohio. If Obama cannot get socialized medicine passed with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, his...

Rep. Mike Ross's phone won't stop ringing. Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh has fans calling to thank the Democrat for stalling health care reform. Angry liberals -- some prompted by MSNBC's Ed Schultz -- call to berate him for the same reason. So how did an Arkansas pharmacy owner become a major power broker? He's a member of a rare breed -- a "Blue Dog" Democrat. "We're a group of conservative, common-sense Democrats that feel like we have been choked blue by the extremes of both parties," Ross, D-Ark., chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition's Health Care Task Force, told ABC...