Daily Loaf

Tomorrow night at 8 p.m. comes round two in the great Saturday night votes on health care reform.  Unlike Nancy Pelosi’s effort, even if Harry Reid wins tomorrow, it still ain’t over.

Florida’s Department of Community Affairs Secretary is sounding mighty upset about the controversial growth management bill S.B. 360 that passed the legislature and was signed by Governor Crist earlier this year.

And the Tampa City Council comes up big in voting solidly to give protections to transgender individuals in their human rights ordinance yesterday.  And we have an update on this story here.

Download the report here.

A variety of progressive activist groups, such as MoveOn, OFA, the SEIU and the Florida Health Care For America Now Coalition plan to present Tampa Congresswoman Kathy Castor with a pair of boxing gloves today at a news conference, urging her to keep fighting for health care reform legislation.

The event takes place just days after Castor joined up with 40 other House Democrats in sending a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, vowing to strip a controversial amendment included in the health care bill passed last week that  bars federal funding from subsidizing abortions.

CL reported exclusively on Wednesday that Representative Castor was one of the signatories to the letter.  That’s significant in that there have been reports in the past couple of days of some Democrats not wanting that list of signatories to be released.

Representative Castor also told CL yesterday that a second letter had been drafted to President Obama asking for a meeting to figure out how abortion funding can be restored.

Republicans are loving how the the issue is blowing up the Democratic Party. Read the rest of this entry »

Blue Dog North Florida Representative Allen Boyd and Orlando area Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas were the two Democrats who joined all of the Republicans in the Florida Congressional Caucus in voting against the $1.1 trillion health care reform bill.  The bill barely squeaked by in the House Saturday night on a 220-215 vote.

In a lengthy press release his office distributed before his vote, Boyd, who represents the Panhandle area, concluded:

“My vote against H.R. 3962, the House’s first attempt at a healthcare bill, is not a vote against responsible reform.  Rather, it is a signal that our work in Congress is not yet complete.  Reducing the cost of healthcare services must be the focus of any reform package, and I will continue working, as I’ve always done, to fix what’s wrong with our healthcare system, to continue what’s right, and to ensure Americans have access to affordable, quality coverage they need.”

Shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday night, the House of Representatives approved their $1.1 trillion plan to bring comprehensive and affordable health care coverage to an estimated 36 million people who currently do not have it.

The final vote was 220-215, with 1  Republican, New Orleans area Representative . Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana the only member of the House GOP to support the plan; 39 Democrats opposed it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly was able to cobble the 218 votes she needed by allowing that a controversial amendment sponsored by Michigan Representative Bart Stupak that would put tight restrictions barring any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions.

Many pro-choice Democrats hope that amendment can be altered after the Senate votes on their bill.

Tampa area Democrat Kathy Castor hailed the vote.  In a press release issued out immediately after the vote, she said:

“Floridians win. In the Tampa Bay area alone, nearly 2.3 million residents with health insurance will see improved employer-based health coverage. More than 100,000 area small businesses could qualify for tax credits to provide health insurance to their employees. And approximately 631,000 uninsured individuals will finally gain access to health insurance.

“The Affordable Health Care for America Act we passed today offers stability, security and vital consumer protections that will take effect immediately. You won’t have to pay co-pays or deductibles for preventive care and you won’t be denied coverage if you have a pre-existing condition. You do not have to worry about insurance companies canceling your coverage if you are diagnosed with cancer or another ailment. You do not have to worry about health insurance companies barring you from coverage because you had cancer that is in remission or have recovered from heart disease. You will not go bankrupt when serious illness strikes. You will have meaningful, affordable, stable and dependable health insurance coverage.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he hopes to have the Senate vote on their version of the bill by Thanksgiving, but speculation has it that it may not happen that soon.

As speculation continues on what led to Thursday’s crazed shooting spree by Nidal Hassan at Fort Hood yesterday, the Secretary of Veteran Affairs, General Eric Shinseki, is scheduled to speak today on the USF Tampa campus.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her underlings will be working furiously today to try to gather the 218 votes she needs to pass a health care reform bill that includes a public option tomorrow.

And the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce intends to honor Mayor Rick Baker tomorrow for all of the successes  that the Chamber believes have occurred under the Baker administration.  But there are activists who say the whole story needs to be told, and they plan on protesting the event tomorrow night.

We may not have an audio podcast up today.  But we’ll be back for certain on Monday a.m.

Later today, President Obama is expected to visit the House to rally support for the biggest issue of his young presidency domestically, health care reform.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told the members of the House to come to the Capitol at 9 a.m. Saturday to vote on the 10-year, $1.05 trillion health care legislation.

What a 24 hours it should be for Madame Speaker.

Pelosi needs 218 votes, which means doing whatever she can (legally) to convince the disparate members of her caucus to support the bill.  If the bill goes down to defeat, you will never hear the end of it from Republicans and the Washington press corps.

The president and House Speaker scored a couple of major endorsements yesterday when both the American Medical Association and the AARP came out in support of the bill.

The AARP has received scathing criticism from some conservatives throughout the year for speaking positively about health care reform.

Count Brooksville Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite among those critics.  After the AARP’s endorsement yesterday, she sent out a press release blasting the group by writing:

“There was a time when AARP represented the interests of retired people — this endorsement proves that those days are long gone.  The Democrats’ health care bill cuts $400 billion from Medicare — the very program that AARP’s members paid for and rely on.

“AARP is running a great risk by endorsing a bill that does not clearly determine which health plans will be allowed under this legislation.  This bill leaves it up to Washington bureaucrats to make that determination once the bill is passed and signed into law.

“AARP members deserve to know the true reasons behind their endorsement of this bill.  If they are not standing up to the interests of seniors, then whose interests are they standing up for?”

As I reported on yesterday, despite the mocking of Speaker Pelosi for saying of Tuesday night’s election results that it had actually been a good night for Democrats, it was a good night for her in her quest to get 218 votes by Saturday.

California’s John Garamendi, elected Tuesday in a district east of San Francisco, and Bill Owens, who won the much hyped New York District 23 race over independent conservative Doug Hoffman, both have said they support the health care bill that they’ll vote on tomorrow.

That’s not to say that there aren’t Democrats, particularly those from Republican-leaning districts in the South, who will oppose the legislation.  There are still negotiations going on today on delicate issues like abortion provisions and care for legal and illegal immigrants.

I got a fundraising e-mail from Charlie Crist the other day. It was a pretty good hoot the way Charlie “have it two ways” Crist is trying to paint himself as a Conservative. But hey, he’s starting to show some bravado – he’s even got the nerve to quote Ronald Reagan!Each paragraph of Chuckles’ original letter is shown below along with my version of what his letter would read like if he were to tell the truth.

What it should have said is in italics:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Joe Biden’s trip to Orlando last week barely made any ripples in state media coverage. The VP came to Florida to extol some of the virtues of the much criticized $787 billion federal stimulus package, on the six-month anniversary of the largest domestic spending bill in U.S. history.

Tracking the effects of the stimulus will continue to be the focus of economic and political analysts over the duration of its life, which will continue into 2011. But conventional wisdom has already declared it a failure now. Republicans called it that from the get-go, (which is why none in the House and only three Republican members of the Senate supported it), and then Gallup last week released a poll indicating that a majority of Americans now agree.

Read the rest of this entry »