NYT's Peters Hits 'Waste of Time' Obama-Care Repeal Votes and GOP's 'Myopic Focus' on Deficits

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters let the Republicans in Congress know he was tired of their silly and "waste of time" attempts to repeal Obamacare in Wednesday's "House to Vote Yet Again On Health Care Repeal."

(Peters was last seen helping Chuck Hagel, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense, limp across the confirmation finish line.) He wrote on Wednesday:

The 37th time won’t be the charm. But House Republicans are charging forward anyway this week on a vote to repeal President Obama’s signature health care overhaul, which will put the number of times they have tried to eliminate, defund or curtail the law past the three-dozen mark.

“This is what, the 40th time they’re going to do it?” scoffed Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, confessing that she had lost count. “Thirty-eight? 39? 40? 41?” She eventually settled on “high 30s” as her best guess.

....since 2011, Republicans have spent no less than 15 percent of their time on the House floor on repeal in some way.

Liberals mock Republicans for what they dismiss as a waste of time. It represents a fitting ordering of priorities, they say, for a body whose few accomplishments this year include passing a bill that kept the Federal Helium Reserve open, heading off a critical shortage of the gas, and another that modifies the requirements for gold and silver coins commemorating the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Indeed, the Republican House leadership is sensitive to the perception that they are squandering even more time on a repeal vote that is going nowhere.

With the national debt at over $16 trillion, Peters accused the Republicans of suffering from "an almost myopic focus on deficit reduction and budgets."

Republican leadership put off scheduling a vote on an outright repeal of the health care law despite pleas from conservative members who believe it is an issue of paramount importance to voters back home. After losing the presidency and seats in both houses in Congress, the House leadership initially wanted to focus on pursuing an agenda crafted by Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, aimed at softening the party’s image by moving off an almost myopic focus on deficit reduction and budgets.

They were able to hold off a vote for some time. At this point in 2011, House Republicans had already voted nine times on some form of repeal.

But conservatives pressed on, noting that their newly elected colleagues had not had a chance to vote on something that is a Republican rite of passage.

Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times. Click here to follow Clay Waters on Twitter.

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U.S. FDA panel votes against approval of Noven's menopause drug

March 4 (Reuters) - A panel of advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended that the agency reject a drug for hot flashes associated with menopause made by Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical Co Inc's subsidiary Noven Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The panel voted 10-4 against approval, with the majority saying the drug's benefit was not sufficient to offset its risks. The panel was evenly divided over whether the drug was in any way effective.

(Reporting By Toni Clarke. Editing by Andre Grenon)

((toni.clarke@thomsonreuters.com)(617-856-4340)(Reuters

Messaging: toni.clarke.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: MENOPAUSE/NOVEN

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Maryland Senate Committee Votes To Repeal Death Penalty

A bill to repeal the death penalty in Maryland cleared the state Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee last night. The bill, a major priority for Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD), is expected to pass the state senate, where 26 of the body’s 47 members have said they will support the bill.

If the bill also passes the state house, where it is expected to have an easier road than it did in the senate, Maryland will join a growing national trend away from executions. According to a 2011 study by the Death Penalty Information Center, thirty-two U.S. jurisdictions executed no one in the proceeding five years. Moreover, although the death penalty is still technically legal in most states, executions themselves are rare outside handful of mostly Southern states. More than one third of all executions occurred in Texas:

The increasing rarity of the death penalty has constitutional implications. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishments.” Thus, as the death penalty becomes more and more unusual — or, as the Supreme Court has put it, as it no longer comports with “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” — it stands on weaker and weaker constitutional footing.

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Rep. Steve King says not to expect more Hastert-rule defying votes in House

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) predicted Monday that with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) working to unify the Republican caucus after the divisive “fiscal cliff” fight, House leaders would avoid offering votes on legislation driven by Democratic support.

"John Boehner's tone and his body language … was all about how we pull our conference together and work together," King told CNN. "I don't think you'll see another bill that comes to the floor that's got that large a number of Democrat votes."

"It's going to be a Republican agenda that he drives, and I think he's about unifying our conference," he added.

The "fiscal cliff" compromise passed 257-167, although Republicans voted 151-85 against passage. Coupled with Boehner's defeat on his so-called "Plan B" and a narrow reelection to the Speakership, many have been openly wondering if Boehner has control of the Republican Conference. 

The "fiscal cliff" vote violated the so-called “Hastert Rule,” by which Speakers customarily prevent a vote on legislation unless a majority of their majority supports it.

King also said that despite looming battles over immigration and gun control, Inauguration Day wasn't the time for politics.

"This should be a healing day, and then tomorrow we can start the harder work," King said.

The Iowa lawmaker also said Republicans had an obligation to their constituents to oppose the president's efforts, despite calls for bipartisanship.

"Those of us who won an election think of our constituents deserving of the best representation," King said.

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Ohio School Board Votes To Arm School Janitors

The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education in Montelier, Ohio voted unanimously on Wednesday night to allow handgun training for four custodians, who will then tote firearms on the school’s campus. In an explanation of this policy that echoes the National Rifle Association’s infamous claim that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” school Superintendent Jamie Grime claimed that “having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect.”

This is not the first time janitors were suggested as the first line of defense against a school shooter, in an article arguing that the Sandy Hook shooting resulted in more deaths because “[t]here was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred,” the National Review’s Charlotte Allen lamented that “[t]here didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees.”

[HT: Stephen Webster]

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Study: Rick Scott’s Long Voting Lines Cost Obama A Net 11,000 Votes In Central Florida

Credit: Joe Skipper/Reuters

Thanks in large part to a law signed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), which cut early voting opportunities in that state, many Florida voters endured six hour lines simply to cast a ballot. These lines did not wind up costing Obama Florida’s electoral votes, but, according to an Ohio State University study, they reduced the President’s margin of victory by thousands of votes in central Florida alone:

[A]s many as 49,000 people across Central Florida were discouraged from voting because of long lines on Election Day, according to a researcher at Ohio State University who analyzed election data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel.

About 30,000 of those discouraged voters — most of them in Orange and Osceola counties — likely would have backed Democratic President Barack Obama, according to Theodore Allen, an associate professor of industrial engineering at OSU.

About 19,000 voters would have likely backed Republican Mitt Romney, Allen said.

This suggests that Obama’s margin over Romney in Florida could have been roughly 11,000 votes higher than it was, based just on Central Florida results. Obama carried the state by 74,309 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast.

In the wake of the long lines triggered in the wake of Rick Scott’s law, several top Republicans admitted the entire purpose of this law was to keep Democrats from the polls. Indeed, one GOP consultant explained that “cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day [from early voting] was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves.” African-American voters overwhelmingly favored President Obama last November.

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