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Care exchanges? according to chris frates, reid is the only top congressional leader to grant exceptions to some of his staff. lisa day jordan has been tracking congresss own health care decisions and certainly helped with the story. how is harry reid able to do what hes doing and why is he the only congressional leader that has made this decision? >> he is the only of the top four congressional leaders, the top democrat and republican, both the house and senate to make this exception. why is he...

Lost their unemployment insurance, which is what will happen if congress does not act before they leave on their holiday vacation. >> so sort of painting republicans as ebenezer scrooge there, wolf. then the other thing you heard and you mentioned this as you were tossing it out to me, the president did offer again another stout defense of obama care. he said that republicans owe it to americans to say not just what theyre against but what theyre for, and on that front, wolf, we should also ment...

Out, wolf, is that for many lawmakers, especially those who are on the republican side in the house and the senate, they believe that being in congress, legislating, isnt just about passing bills and sending them to the president for his signature. it is about stopping legislation, stopping laws from being passed they think are the wrong thing to do. so that is possibly part of the reason why that number is so low. the big one, though, is of course, just partisan gridlock. >> very quickly, is th...

Under the law, but its a question of was the intent when congress pass a law saying that congressional staff should go on the exchanges, are they following the intent? thats up for debate. they certainly are following the law here, wolf. >> its only been a little while since chris wrote the story. is it giving ammunition to republicans to further their attack against obama care? as far as the democrats in congress are concerned? >> xwrae, as you say, has just been broken in the last 12, 16 hours...

The question is, who are those designated staff members and frankly, wolf, it is up to each member of congress to determine that for themselves. is my member of staff someone who should qualify for this? and what weve seen a patchwork throughout both the house and senate of some members exempting their staff from the exchanges, others not. but harry reid is the only one of the top four leader whos has exempted his own staff. he is able to do this under the law, but it is a question of the wordin...

With the affordable care act. but at the same time, you know, white house officials say there was something substantive going on in this speech and that the president was talking about income inequality and that is something youre going to be hearing this president talk a lot about during the remaining three years he has in office. hes going to be talking about it in the state of the union speech, for example. he ticked off a number of things he would like to see happen over the next several mon...

Eyebrows this morning. a house committee on science, space, and technology held a hearing on extra territorial life. the hearing chaired by lamar smith focused on whats being done to find out if aliens exist. but critics say lawmakers should focus on getting things done right here on earth. democrats, i take it, dana, democrats are tahaving some fun with all of this. whats going on? >> of course, they are. it is certainly like shooting fish in a barrel to be talking about the fact that republica...