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Blair House:The HCR School House

In this setting Mr Obama was in his element due to his exceptional ability to make an argument based on his encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject matter. It was really no contest - and one quickly had the feeling that Republicans knew they were dead ducks from the outset. The President treated his guests with the utmost courtesy. Even allowing the meeting to go overtime to ensure that Republicans had no reason for complaint. They complained anyway - but left it until after the meeting to whine to the media. Some things never change.

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A collection of the latest web articles being read by John.

• Obama delays Australian trip / ABC – Australia 'AM'
  Lisa Millar reporting: ” The White House has portrayed this trip as an important moment for the President’s foreign policy agenda and just yesterday indicated there’d be no delay”. 13/3
• Parliamentarian's blow to Democrats' healthcare reform chances / The Hill
  A blow to Democrats by ruling President Obama must sign the Senate healthcare legislation before the upper chamber can take up changes demanded by the House. 13/3
• Pelosi: Public option will not be in health bill despite liberal efforts / The Hill
  She shut the door on a possible pathway opened by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who said earlier on Friday that he would “aggressively” push senators to vote for the plan if the House included it in the fixes.13/3
• Dems move toward grouping HCR with student-aid bill / Washington Post
  Key Senate Democrats initially balked at combining the health-reform bill with a measure that overhauls the nation’s student-loan program, but on Thursday they had warmed to the idea. 12/3
• The Public Option's Last Stand: A Matter Of Will, Not Votes / Huff Post
  With more than 40 senators publicly willing to vote for a health care reform reconciliation package that includes the option, the opportunity to reinsert it into the final bill has never been greater. 12/3
• Arianna: If Obama Supports Public Option, It Could Pass Senate / Huff Post
  She’s convinced that if Obama comes out and supports the public option, the Senate will support it. “It’s clear that we can easily have 50 [votes], or even 53 [votes] provided the White House makes it clear that they want the public option.”12/3
• Chief Justice Roberts is a big crybaby / Washington Post
  “The image of members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court– has to sit there expressionless – is I think very troubling”. 12/3
• Wake Up, You Can Fix This Financial Mess / Huffington Post
  We need regulation that is both more muscular and smarter than the feeble oversight of the past 25 years. Where is the political courage to take on the vested interests in Congress (i.e., campaign dollars) that preserve this fragmented mess? 12/3
• Virginia OKs bill banning mandated health coverage / AP
  Virginia’s General Assembly became the first in the nation Wednesday to approve legislation that bucks any attempt by President Barack Obama and Congress to implement a national health care overhaul in individual states. 12/3
• Health Bill Could Cut Deficits by $118 billion / Politics Daily
  CBO cautioned that its estimate for deficit reduction was “imprecise,” due to uncertainty over cost factors and the final shape of the package. The overall cost of the measure — over a 10-year time frame — stands at $875 billion. 12/3
• Dems look to health vote without abortion foes / Associated Press
  Before a vote, Pelosi, D-Calif., said lawmakers must first receive a cost report from the Congressional Budget Office on changes to the bill being worked out among the White House and Democratic congressional leaders. 12/3
• Buck stops with Obama / A B Stoddard / The Hill
  Not yet 18 months away from the campaign trail, he is losing public sentiment and losing touch. To put a stop to the slide, and the parlor game about his lieutenants, Obama must remember that the buck stops with him. 12/3
• Goldman Deal-Maker Now Advocates Regulation / The New York Times
  Brooksley E. Born sounded alarms more than a decade ago about the dangers hiding in the poorly understood derivatives market and was silenced by the same Washington power brokers that counted Mr. Gensler as a member.11/3
• Chief Justice John Roberts Addresses Univ. of Alabama Law School / C- Span
  I hour 19 min Video: In response to a student, Justice Roberts said the Senate’s confirmation process for federal judges is “broken down ” and stated that Pres. Obama’s State of the Union speech degenerated “into a political pep rally.” 11/3
• Obama's So-Called Narrative Problem: Politics Daily
  What’s been proposed earlier involves much more than words — Mario Cuomo receives credit in quotation books for the chestnut “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” 11/3
• What happened to Obama's middle path on HCR? / Washington Post
  They advocated a public option that would compete with private insurance companies and prove the superiority of government-run care. But Obama rejected a single-payer approach and signaled that the public option was expendable. 10/3
• DC Pressure Cooker: If You Can't Take It, It's Time to Go / Politics Daily
  The first is that David Axelrod is speaking the language of a person who appears to be burning up and burning out. We read later in the story that Axelrod’s friends “worry about the toll of his job.” They have reason to be concerned. 10/3
• Reconciliation bill will be hard for GOP to derail / Associated Press
  But GOP lawmakers will still be able to force votes and make arguments that could give them ammunition for November’s congressional elections. Some questions and answers about the reconciliation process. 10/3
• Gibbs Defends Court Criticism After Roberts Remarks / Bus Week
  Roberts said that the State of the Union address has “degenerated to a political pep rally,” AP reported.10/3
• 6 Reasons Obama is Still the Odds-on Favorite in 2012 / Politics Daily
  In other words, the next Republican nominee will come before the electorate carrying baggage of his own — or her own – whether that candidate hails from Wasilla, Alaska, or anywhere else. 9/3
• Dreaming the Possible Dream / Thomas L Friedman / The New York Times
  ” Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers. They don’t know from hunkering down. They just didn’t get the word”. 8/3
• Arabia: Inshallah, Obama / Maureen Dowd / The New York Times
  “He said all the right words in his speech,” said Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister. “But the implementation took traditional roads.” Privately, other highly placed princes in the family oil business groused louder. 8/3
• Up-or-Down Vote on Obama’s Presidency / Frank Rich / The New York Times
  “They are waiting for us to act,” Obama said on Wednesday of the American people. “They are waiting for us to lead.” Actually, they have given up waiting. Some 80 percent of the country believes that “nothing can be accomplished” in Washington. 7/3
• Brown's election may end up a positive for health-care / Washington Post
  But rather than dooming the effort, Brown’s win appears to have helped Democrats refocus the legislation and their strategy for selling it. 7/3
• Feelings Toward the Administration by Those Who Elected It / Prof Drew Westen
  What they feel summarizes what they see: where before they had hope, they now feel frustration and resentment. As one said to me, the cadence of Obama’s speeches that used to give her shivers is now starting to grate on her nerves. 6/3