Jim McDermott

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Jim McDermott

Michele Bachmann's Foster Care Contradiction

Benjy Sarlin | July 6, 2011, 5:45AM

U.S. Rep Michele Bachmann (R-MN) with husband Marcus Bachmann, launching her campaign for President. June 27, 2011.

Michele Bachmann's extended family of 23 former foster children have become the unexpected stars of the Republican primary even though few details are known about them individually. The Minnesota Congresswoman brings them up frequently in debates, speeches and interviews as a showcase for her commitment to family values.

But Bachmann's personal devotion to disadvantaged youth may be at odds with her public record on foster care. Critics warn that her zeal for budget cuts threatens vulnerable youngsters, while a leading Congressman on the issue says she's been AWOL on foster care policy.

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Topics: 2012, 2012 Presidential Primaries, 2012 elections, Jim McDermott, Medicaid, Michele Bachmann, Minnesota

Health Care

Now Is Our Health Care Moment, House Democrats Say

Evan McMorris-Santoro | January 20, 2011, 8:39AM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

In the basement of the Capitol Wednesday, House Democrats gathered to do something that would have been almost unheard of in, say, October of 2010: openly discuss the health care law they passed last March. But he House vote to repeal the law, which came courtesy of the newly-crowned Republican majority Wednesday, has turned the minority Democratic caucus into a lean, mean, health care bill-defending machine.

It was quite a change from the party of election 2010, which seemed more interested in discussing just about anything else than the landmark law that was at the center of President Obama's domestic policy agenda and dominated political discussion for more than a year.

Reporters in the room Wednesday afternoon -- part of a "bloggers row" set up by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to set the stage for the Republican-led repeal vote -- noticed the change in tone on the health care law, and we asked the Democrats to explain what happened.

The simple answer, from multiple Democrats today: The law that was just a vague plan to improve the nation's health care delivery system for much of 2010 is now beginning to go into effect, meaning that Democrats now have something tangible to defend. And thanks to the voters in November, most of the Democrats who were really wary of reform (and voted against it when it came up) are now gone.