Public Congress

At the close of an address on health reform to Congress, President Obama reminds people: “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan, than to improve it.”

“If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out,” he adds. “And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.”

He also talks about a letter he received from late Senator Ted Kennedy that was written in May, but delivered to Obama after Kennedy’s death. In the letter, Ted called health reform “unfinished business” but was confident that “this is the year” that it would pass.

Obama also remarked on when it is necessary fo government to step in.

Duration : 0:9:36

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March 23, 1992 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FChristopher-Hitchens%2Fe%2FB000APSKR0%3Fqid%3D1278211708%26sr%3D1-2-ent&tag=doc06-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

Barbara Levy Boxer (born November 11, 1940) is the junior United States Senator from California and a member of the Democratic Party. Boxer was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, becoming the second female Jewish U.S. senator, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She was reelected in 1998 and in 2004 for a term ending in January 2011.

With the convening of the 110th Congress, Boxer became the first female chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee and, following the resignation of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) from the post, she was also chosen as chair of the Select Committee on Ethics. This made her the only senator to preside over two committees simultaneously. She holds the record for the most popular votes in a statewide contested election in California, having received 6,955,728 votes in her 2004 re-election over former Republican Secretary of State Bill Jones.

She currently holds the position of Chief Deputy Whip of the Democratic Majority.

On August 17 at the Republican convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, George H. W. Bush called on Quayle to be his running mate in the 1988 United States presidential election. The choice immediately became controversial. Press coverage of the convention was dominated with questions about “the three Quayle problems”, in the phrase of H. Brent Bozell, executive director of the Media Research Center, a conservative group that monitors television coverage. The questions involved his military service, a golf trip to Florida with Paula Parkinson, and whether he had enough experience to be President. Quayle seemed at times rattled and at other times uncertain or evasive as he tried to handle the questions. Delegates to the convention generally blamed television and newspapers for the focus on Quayle’s problems, but Bush’s staff said they thought Quayle had mishandled the questions about his military record, leaving questions dangling. Although Republicans were trailing by up to 15 points in public opinion polls taken before the convention, they received a significant boost that put them in the lead, which they did not relinquish for the rest of the campaign.

Duration : 0:10:23

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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) says Washington Democrats’ unprecedented decision to cancel this year’s budget will wreak havoc on our economy and make it even harder to put people back to work.

The House Budget Committee’s top Republican, Ryan says Democrats’ plan to continue their out-of-control ‘stimulus’ spending spree and raise taxes on middle-class families is a “recipe for disaster.”

He also challenges President Obama and Washington Democrats to stop running out the clock and “make the tough choices they promised they would, put moral obligation before political expedience, and focus on what’s in the best interests of the next generation, not the next election.”

With economists saying immediate fiscal discipline is needed to create jobs, Ryan notes that Republicans have already identified $1.3 trillion in specific spending cuts that could be implemented right now.

Rep. Ryan is in his sixth term representing the people of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District.

Duration : 0:3:20

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White House Press Briefings are conducted most weekdays from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing. (public domain)

Duration : 0:45:4

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http://www.mindbites.com/lesson/4301-american-government-campaign-finance

This lesson was selected from a broader, comprehensive course, American Government. This course and others are available from Thinkwell, Inc. The full course can be found at http://www.thinkwell.com/student/product/americangovernment. The full course covers constitutional principles, civil liberties, civil rights, people and politics, choosing representatives, political institutions, public policy, key Supreme Court cases, changes in democracy, and more. The course features three renowned professors: Gerald Rosenberg, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Mark Rom, an Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy at Georgetown University, and Matthew Dickinson, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College.

Gerald Rosenberg directs the American Politics Workshop and lectures at the law school at the University of Chicago. He holds a Masters Degree in Politics and Philosophy from Christ Church, Oxford University, has a law degree from the University of Michigan, and has a Ph.D. from Yale. As a specialist on the judiciary, Prof. Rosenberg is the author of The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? and spent the 2000-2001 academic year teaching at Northwestern University Law School as Jack N. Pritzker Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and spent the 2002-2003 academic year teaching US law at Xiamen University in China. He has also been awarded the Llewellyn John & Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago.

A three-time winner of his school’s Outstanding Faculty Member Award, Mark Rom received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin and worked for four years as a senior social science analyst for the General Accounting Office. Prof. Rom is the author of Fatal Extraction: The Story Behind the Florida Dentist Accused of Infecting His Patients with HIV, Poisoning Public Health, Public Spirit in the Thrift Tragedy, and coauthor of Welfare Magnets: A New Case for a National Standard.

Matthew Dickinson received his Ph.D. from Harvard. A specialist on the presidency, he is the author of Bitter Harvest: FDR, Presidential Power and the Growth of the Presidential Branch. Prof. Dickinson has published numerous articles and has provided television commentary on the presidency, presidential decision-making, and presidential advisers. His current research examines the growth of presidential staff in the post-World War II era.

Duration : 0:2:33

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BREAKING NEWS: We have confirmed that the federal budget planned for fiscal year 2011 has been canceled.

The cause: Washington Democrats’ out-of-control spending spree.

We are here now outside the Capitol awaiting an apology from Washington Democrats for this betrayal of hard-working American taxpayers.

Duration : 0:1:56

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The signing of this Directive was generally not covered by the mainstream U.S. media or discussed by the U.S. Congress. While similar executive security directives have been issued by previous presidents, their texts have been kept secret; this is the first to be made public in part. It is unclear how the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive will reconcile with the National Emergencies Act, a U.S. federal law passed in 1976, which gives Congress oversight over presidential emergency powers during such emergencies. The National Emergencies Act is not mentioned in the text of the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive.

After receiving concerned communications from constituents, in July 2007 U.S. Representative and Homeland Security Committee member Peter DeFazio made an official request to examine the classified Continuity Annexes described above in a secure “bubbleroom” in the United States Capitol, but his request was denied by the White House, which cited “national security concerns

This was the first time DeFazio has been denied access to documents. He was quoted as saying, “We’re talking about the continuity of the government of the United States of America…I would think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee.”

After this denial, DeFazio joined with two colleagues (Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee; and Chris Carney, chairman of the Homeland Security oversight subcommittee) in a renewed effort to gain access to the documents.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSPD_51

Duration : 0:7:45

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White House Press Briefings are conducted most weekdays from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing. (public domain)

Duration : 0:44:45

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The President calls on Republicans in Congress to put scoring political points aside, and instead to focus on solving the problems facing the nation. At the time of this address, the Republican leadership is blocking progress on a bill to boost the economy, retain jobs for teachers and cops, and help people buy their first home; another bill which would hold oil companies accountable for any disasters they cause by removing the current $75 million liability cap; and 136 highly qualified men and women who have been nominated to government positions.

Duration : 0:4:24

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WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama told Congress on Wednesday that while he is not the first president to take up the cause of health care reform, “I am determined to be the last.” – 09-09-09 –

Pre President Obama is delivering an address to a joint session of Congress to present the most detailed description of his idea of health reform.

Obama has been criticized as the health care debate has devolved into rancorous town hall meetings and a partisan split over reform plans. Obama has also faced a split in his own party over how to best go about reforming the nation’s health care system.

“Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action,” Obama said. “Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.”

While much of the debate over health care has been over a government-backed public option, Obama said that’s not the only problem plaguing the system.

“Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today,” he said of Americans who have lost their insurance when they have lost their jobs or have had their coverage dropped when they have suffered an illness.

Obama will say that there is agreement on about 80 percent of what needs to be done, “but what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government.”

“Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics,” he will say.

Obama was tweaking his pivotal health care address right up until the last, top aides said. He worked on the speech late into Tuesday night in the White House residence, bringing a new draft for his staff to work through Wednesday morning, they said. He even took a first draft of the speech to Camp David this weekend. sident Obama tells Congress the “time for bickering is over” as he presents the most detailed description yet of his ideas for health reform to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. “The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action,” Obama will say, according to excerpts of the speech released by the White House – Sept. 9, 2009

Duration : 0:10:32

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