It’s been a disastrous week for Donald Trump’s Presidency. I won’t the list the cataclysms because there are endless articles cataloguing them. This article does a very good job in summing up the situation.
What struck me was that a situation which led to the Affordable Care Act (ACA – “Obamacare”) becoming law was repeated as the Republican “Skinny Repeal” of the ACA failed in the US Senate early on Friday morning.
In the December 2009, the late Senator Robert Byrd, then 92 years-old with fragile health, was instrumental in passing the Affordable Care Act through several late night voting appearances in his wheelchair.
While I was on holiday, BBC 2 sneaked out the first episode of a fantastic series: Inside Obama’s White House. You can currently watch the first three episodes of the series here on BBC iPlayer.
This is a brilliant series produced by Brook Lapping for the BBC. They’ve got some truly sensational behind-the-scenes footage. So, as they tell the story of Obama’s presidency, they are able to show specific video of that event behind-the-scenes – advisers emerging from a crunch meeting or whatever. And they have a remarkable parade of players giving their retrospective view on events: from Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, to John Kerry, Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and chief adviser David Axelrod.
Nominally an extremely safe seat for the Democrats, the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley should be a shoe-in.
And yet Republican former centrefold star Scott Brown, once voted by Cosmo as America’s Sexiest Man (the link is fairly safe for work, but does contain a tastefully cropped naked man) has been closing the gap in the polls, and in some cases even taken a lead.
Of key importance in this battle is the senatorial supermajority, which we have covered on The Voice in the past. In the US senate, a party with 60 of the 100 senators – or the votes of 60 senators – can move a vote of cloture which can end a filibuster. This removes from the minority party a powerful tool to veto legislation by talking it out. This has become all the more fraught recently since Obamacare, the extremely controversial healthcare legislation currently under consideration. If the Republicans win the Massachusetts, the Democrats lose their right of veto and they could lose Obamacare.
Here’s a video for each candidate to give you a flavour of the battle.
First, President Obama is staking his political reputation to support Martha Coakley and underlining the future of Obamacare:
Jana “ They may support us but decide that they need to vote for someone else to prevent another candidate from winning.”
Of course, tactical voting works bot...
David Allen @cim
Yes, we're both struggling to get beyond the waffle, to "do a single thing which will improve anyone’s life", rather than just theorising about "proce...
Caracatus All the focus groups highlight town centre regeneration as a key issue, the lib dems have a great policy and for 8 years, they have kept it a secret so not eve...
Mick Taylor Actually what is really needed is fearless politicians, unafraid to make difficult decisions. What we have seen over many years is vacillation and u-turns. In t...
Jonathan Parry Good article, Roz. I hope that in your essay you will flesh out what you mean by 'communities'. It's a neat word for Lib Dems to use, but part of the party's ...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Goodbye Dolly
Argent: Hold Your Head Up
Why do different species have a different lifespan (two potential reasons)
Can Reform UK even organise a booze-up?
Jana 
David Allen 
Caracatus 
Mick Taylor 
Jonathan Parry 