Daily Democratic Wire 1-4-2010

George Wenschhof

President Barack Obama and his family will arrive at the White House late this morning - after ending a 11 day vacation in Hawaii. Unfortunately, for the First Family, the attempted terrorist bombing of an airliner managed to interrupt most of the vacation. The President did get in some rounds of golf and the family did go see the movie "Avatar". Time.com has more here.

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Democrats likely to bypass formal conference committee on Health Care bill reconciliation - negotiations will still take place between the House and Senate as they move to merge their passed bills on health care reform. Avoiding the naming of a formal conference committee will allow Democrats to avoid additional procedural hurdles sure to be used by Republicans to slow down passage of the bill and allow a bill to be presented to the President by the end of the month. You can read more here.

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New airline screening rules go into effect today - all passengers will be subject to random searches and those who are departing from 14 known terror-prone nations will be given pat down searches. The Washington Post has more here.

You can be sure some will question how a country was determined terror-prone and issues surrounding profiling will arise from this action. However, security versus individual rights is likely to win the argument.

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U.S. and Britain say threats led to Embassy closings in Yemen - the threats were received from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The NY Times has more here.

Do not be surprised if these Embassy closings were in advance of military action by the U.S. in retaliation to the attempted airline bombing on Christmas day.

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Party switcher gets what he deserves - New Republican Alabama Representative Parker Griffith just received notice from his Chief of Staff that all of his staff who worked for him when he was a Democrat have resigned. TheHill.com has more here.

To rub more salt into an already bad move, Republican challengers are lining up to run against him in the primary. Politicians who change political party for their own benefit have always left a bad taste in my mouth.

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