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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Daily Democratic Wire 12-17-2009

George Wenschhof

President Barack Obama heads to Copenhagen Climate Summit tonight as health care reform sputters at home -
with his approval numbers dropping, Democrats fighting among themselves on health care reform and U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the President heads to another hornet's nest. You can read more here.

Last night, the president appeared on ABC News with Charles Gibson. You can watch below.




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Can Secretary of State Hillary Clinton save Copenhagen Accords? - she arrived at the Summit yesterday and pledged the U.S. would build a 200 Billion fund to help poor nations cope with climate change if agreement is reached between developed countries and major developing countries. Meanwhile, China says no deal. The Washington Post has more here.

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Howard Dean, from the left, does his best Lieberman impersonation by calling for Democrats to kill the current health care bill in the Senate -
infuriated by Senator Joe Leiberman's seemingly singular effort to stymie anything close to resembling a "public option", the former Democratic National Committee chair and 2004 presidential candidate took to the airways last night and this morning. His appearances on MSNBC's "Hardball" and "Rachel Maddow Show" gave enough talking points to the Republicans to make them giddy in their efforts to kill the bill. Dean followed up with an op-ed in the Washington post today. You can read it here.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who caucuses with the Democrats says he will not vote for the current bill -
FirstRead has more here.

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House passes 174 billion Jobs bill -
in a close vote; 217-21 with no Republicans in support and 38 Democrats voting against. TheHill.com has more here.

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On the international front, the NY Times is reporting an American UN official; Perter Galbraith, suggested White House develop a plan to replace Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai -
more bad news for the Obama administration. Galbraith's suggestion reportedly came during the time leading up to the Afghanistan election in which widespread fraud and abuse was documented. When the suggestion came to light of day, Galbraith left Afghanistan and was fired several weeks later. The NY Times has more here.

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Adding to the woes in the region, fresh calls for Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to step down are being made -
the Supreme Court recently ruled against any amnesty that protected him and his associates from corruption charges stemming from when his late wife; Benazir Bhutto was in office. During that time, Zardari was given the name "Mr. 10 per cent" for the kickbacks he allegedly demanded for doing business with the government. Time.com has more here.

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