This is the new Mothership .. Please Rec
Tay Tay offers up the first child diary here.
Math4Barack liveblog Part 2
Papicek offers Part #3
Ivv offers part IV
slinkerwink has also asked to have a diary linked to here, and I'm more than happy to comply.
With 560+ amendments to pass, the Senate Finance Committee ambles their way through them. Votes on a handful of amendments have been recorded, with votes going down party lines, except for Senator Snowe breaking ranks once with an amendment offered by Senator Hatch.
Tay Tay
Republican committee members are intent on stalling the process by offering "modified" amendments, apparently on the fly, by Hatch and Kyl. Baucus has impressed me today, and I was totally unprepared for this. It has become evident that he has found this public grandstanding, the fear-mongering and the stalling tactics by the the republican members distasteful.
It has also become apparent that the repugs will later claim that the democrats are trying to ram this through committee, and that Baucus is being overly authoritarian as chairman.
Not so. The republicans are trying to stall. Pure and simple. Senator Kent Conrad, sitting at Baucus' right hand, seems to be tasked with refuting the republican's bogus talking points, and he's doing well, very well indeed.