Liberal Democrats

The path to enacting the first major healthcare overhaul in decades opened wider today, as liberal Democrats and President Obama rallied behind a decision to put aside an idea they had long held as an article of faith -- creating a government-run alternative to private medical insurance. Obama summoned Senate Democrats to the White House today to urge them not to let disagreements over details of the legislation derail or delay the landmark effort. Reflecting that push for unity in the face of divisions, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat-turned-independent who only days before had thwarted Senate leaders in a last-ditch effort to include a modified form of the public option, was among those attending the meeting.

Princeton's Cornel West, one of the most famous black intellectuals in America, says that President Obama is afraid of "free black men. " Because of Obama's atypical upbringing, West says, "when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow [sic] and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a de-racination. " With whom does the rootless cosmopolitan-in-chief find himself most comfortable? Jews and rich white men, says West.

After months of marching in line as senior Democrats worked with the White House to develop healthcare legislation, liberal lawmakers from solidly Democratic districts are threatening a revolt that could doom President Obama's bid to sign a major bill this year. In the House, liberals are furious at their leaders for striking a deal with conservative Democrats that would weaken the proposal to create a government insurance program, a dream long cherished on the left.

Acting with minutes to spare, President Obama approved a four-year extension of expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, after Congress overcame mounting opposition from both parties to narrowly avoid a lapse in the terrorist surveillance law. Obama, attending an international summit in France, awoke early Friday to review and approve the bill, directing that it be signed in Washington by automatic pen before the provisions expired at midnight Thursday...

Frustrated by the Gulf War's overshadowing of domestic politics, Democratic Party leaders and activists Saturday launched an effort to draft a postwar political agenda--and a blueprint for recapturing the White House in 1992. "We are united behind our forces in the Persian Gulf, but we must see to it that they come marching home to an America that cares," declared Ohio Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum as he opened this first partisan meeting of Democrats since U.S.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party suffered a political setback Friday, losing a House of Commons seat in one of its traditional strongholds to the minority Liberal Democrats in a special election. The reversal in a southern England seat held continuously by Conservatives since 1906 surprised party leaders and could mean a delay in the national election that Thatcher had hoped to call sometime next year.

Two centrist opposition leaders who hold the votes to determine who will run Japan's next government informed the country's perennial leaders, the Liberal Democrats, today that they will side with five opposition parties to form an opposition-led coalition. Barring any unpredictable 11th-hour snags, the development appeared to ensure the end of the Liberal Democrats' 38-year rule of Japan.

Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party, a conservative organization, was expected to overcome a Socialist surge and retain its 35-year control of the House of Representatives as voters went to the polls in a general election today. The polls were unanimous in forecasting a conservative victory, although the Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi and Nihon Keizai newspapers and the Kyodo News Service all predicted a relative setback for Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's party.

New Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa finished distributing plum government and parliamentary jobs Thursday, virtually shutting out the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party from its traditional power bases. The eight-member coalition gave the scandal-tainted LDP only 10 of the 29 chairmanships of standing and extraordinary committees in the important lower house of Parliament, coalition officials said.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday decided to receive applications from candidates for the party presidency on Saturday and then hold a caucus Aug. 8 to choose a successor to outgoing Prime Minister Sosuke Uno.

Four liberal California House members are among a group of lawmakers pushing for a "near term and significant" drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan no later than July in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death. "In the wake of Osama Bin Laden's death, now is the time to shift toward the swift, safe, and responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Afghanistan," members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus wrote to President Obama on Wednesday. They include Democratic Reps.

Voters gave a thumbs-down to Britain's ruling coalition Thursday, electing a new member of Parliament from the opposition Labor Party in a sign of brewing discontent over the harshest government austerity plan in decades. It was the first electoral test for the Conservative-led coalition that took power last spring after 13 years of Labor dominance. The new government has announced a series of massive cuts in public spending to close a yawning budget deficit and to remold a society that it says has grown too dependent on the state.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg pledged Friday to restore "our great British freedoms," saying that too many basic liberties had been eroded in the name of keeping Britain safe from terrorism. Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats who last year teamed with Conservatives to form a new coalition government, accused previous Labor Party governments of a relentless assault on civil liberties, pledging to reverse it. "The British people have become accustomed to a vast array of infringements on their freedom: widespread and indiscriminate surveillance, their DNA being held [in a database]

After a lifetime on the political sidelines, Nick Clegg finally knows what it means to be in government: People hate you. Angry students burn him in effigy. Former supporters say he makes them sick to their stomachs. Famous actors say they're profoundly disillusioned. It's been a head-spinning year for Clegg, the fresh-faced leader whose charm and promise of a new way of doing things took the political world by storm and brought some much-needed zest to a stuffy election campaign last spring.

The House approved President Obama's sweeping tax-cut compromise at midnight Thursday, preventing tax rates from rising Jan. 1 and sending the president a bipartisan agreement that few could have imagined in deeply polarized Washington. The vote to accept the $858-billion Senate-passed measure was 277 to 148. Now it goes to the president for his signature, which is expected to be swift. Obama campaigned incessantly for passage despite his opposition to extending the George W. Bush-era lower tax rates across the board, including on family income above $250,000.

While his overall approval rating has remained about the same, President Obama's support among liberal Democrats and independents has slipped to a new low in recent weeks, according to a Gallup tracking poll released Thursday. The poll shows that support among liberals, part of Obama's core group of backers, has dipped to 79%. A week before the midterm election, Obama stood at 88% approval with those who called themselves liberals. According to Gallup, Obama's standing with liberals has averaged 89% since he took office.

Recalcitrant Republicans and liberal Democrats combined to block House consideration Friday of a plan to give President Clinton limited power to veto individual items in spending bills. House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) had the bill withdrawn when it appeared Democrats would lose a procedural vote. But he promised he would bring the measure back after the Easter recess. "This matter is not at an end," Foley said. "Any suggestion that this is off the table is absolutely untrue."

Prime Minister Sosuke Uno today announced his intention to resign after his ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered a humiliating defeat Sunday in an election for the upper house of Parliament.

The British government is set to give voters a chance next May to overhaul the country's electoral system, fulfilling a key pledge by the ruling coalition that came to power two months ago, news reports here said Friday. A national referendum will ask voters whether they want to jettison the longtime "leader-takes-all" method of electing members of Parliament in favor of a more proportional method that could permanently change the face of British government. Such a system, allowing voters to make first and second choices when they vote, would boost smaller parties and make coalition governments more likely, breaking up the longtime Labor-Conservative duopoly.

The last time Britain's Labor Party was banished to the political wilderness, it wandered there, chastened and weak, for 18 years. This time, party stalwart Frances Butt doesn't expect such a long exile. "I don't feel quite as depressed about this, because in my mind, it's only temporary," Butt, 66, said of the party's recent fall from grace. "It gives us time to regroup, to get ourselves organized, to get focused and to get our energies back." After 13 years in government, the left-of-center Labor was exhausted and limping by last month's general election.