Do the Numbers—While New York Times polling had 65 percent of the American public supporting a public option—a public health insurance company that would compete with private insurers—two amendments that would have provided a public option were rejected by the Senate Finance Committee. The defeat of Sen. John J. Rockefeller IV’s (D-WV) amendment (15-8) at a September […]

Read more

Gaming the Vote “In the 2002 election, the CDS software gave us the advantage we needed to overcome and defeat the massive Democrat turnout in Harris County.” — Republican testimonial deleted from Campaign Data Systems’ Web site —Houston, Texas “THIS IS GROUND ZERO of the conservative movement,” Garnet Coleman said. “I tell my friends around […]

Read more

Cracking Acorn—When Congress voted in mid-September to curtail all federal funding to Acorn, two people with costumes and a video camera achieved what the Bush Justice Department failed do in eight years. The community organizing group has been on the Republican Party’s hit list since George W. Bush’s 366-vote victory in 2000 in Florida energized […]

Read more

Who Do You Trust? “Who do you trust? The HMO-coddling, drug-company loving, Medicare-destroying, Social-Security hating Bush Administration? Or do you trust the Democrats?”  — Senator Ted Kennedy, Dec. 8, 2001 THE HUFFINGTON POST GOT IT RIGHT. SORT OF. “Senator Calls Out Frank Luntz from the Senate Floor” read a June 10 headline on the national Internet news […]

Read more

So much has been written about Senator Edward Kennedy’s extraordinary legislative achievement that it’s worthwhile to recall that he didn’t always win. And that he was as fierce an advocate in defeat as he was in victory. The Congressional Review Act allows the Congress to overturn any executive rule that has been posted on the […]

Read more