Politics

Senate Dems Close in on Reform: Details of Health Care Bill Revealed

Senate Democrats have posted the legislation on their web site.

Senate Democrats made a big step toward comprehensive health care reform Wednesday night as Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) unveiled a bill that merges the two plans that passed the health and finance committees.

With the House having already passed its own bill, Congress is now closer to achieving health care reform than it has ever been in the six decades that Democrats have pursued it.

Posted in healthcare, Politics

Senate Liberals Press Reid on Public Option

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who requested the meeting with Reid, said progressives believe they have compromised enough on the public option - from a Medicare-for-all proposal to Reid's proposal to create a national government plan with a provision for states to opt-out. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) aims this week to secure the votes of moderate Democrats on health care reform, a group of liberal senators Monday warned him not to abandon the public insurance option.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who requested the meeting with Reid, said progressives believe they have compromised enough on the public option - from a Medicare-for-all proposal to Reid's proposal to create a national government plan with a provision for states to opt-out.

Posted in healthcare, Politics

China Rounds up Dissidents as President Obama Touches Down in Beijing

China's President Hu Jintao (R) talks to U.S. President Barack Obama at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing November 16, 2009. Obama said he was not seeking to contain China's rise and called for more balanced trade between the two powers, which have sparred over currency and economic policy ahead of a summit.
(REUTERS/Alfred Cheng Jin)

Chinese officials have rounded up dozens of Beijings's tiny coterie of activists and petitioners in case any dissident tries to approach President Obama, who arrived in the city today.

The arrests continued to gather momentum even as Mr Obama told an unprecedented question-and-answer session with Shanghai students that freedom of information and expression were vital for a stronger, more creative society.

Calling the Filibuster Bluff

Welcome to Washington, where 60 is the new 51.As important legislation from health care to climate change moves through Congress, the conventional wisdom is that "you need 60 votes'' to get anything through the 100-member Senate. In fact, most bills can still pass with 51 votes. But a supermajority of 60 votes is needed to avoid a filibuster, a last-ditch option supposedly reserved for matters of deepest principle.

Posted in congress, Politics

Afghan Future Threatened by Ex-Warlords in Gov't

\"Chairman Karzai, I reaffirm to you today that the United States will continue to be a friend to the Afghan people in all the challenges that lie ahead,\" said then-President Bush in his remarks during a joint press conference. (White House photo by Paul Morse, 28 January 2002)

KABUL - Warlords helped drive the Russians from Afghanistan, then shelled Kabul into ruins in a bloody civil war after the Soviets left.

Now they are back in positions of power, in part because the U.S. relied on them in 2001 to help oust the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks. President Hamid Karzai later reached out to them to shore up his own power base as America turned its attention to Iraq after the Taliban's rout.

Posted in Politics, Afghanistan

Co-Authors Question Stand Alone Vote on National Single Payer

Dear Friends,

We thank you for your continued devotion to the cause of health care for All Americans. We have worked together for many years to write, promote and campaign for HR676, a single payer, not for profit health care system. Your work, in communities across America, has been instrumental in helping at least ten states create single payer movements, with many more states to come.

Obama Faces His Anzio

Remember those Republican boasts that they would turn health care into President Obama's Waterloo? Well, exit polls suggest that to the extent that health care was an issue in Tuesday's elections, it worked in Democrats' favor. But while health care won't be Mr. Obama's Waterloo, economic policy is starting to look like his Anzio.

Zelaya Says Honduras Crisis Deal Has Failed

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya gestures during a press conference at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. Zelaya said a deal aimed at ending the country's months-long crisis had failed after the interim leader announced a government without his participation. (AFP/Orlando Sierra)

TEGUCIGALPA - Ousted Honduras President Manuel Zelaya said Friday a deal aimed at ending the country's months-long crisis had failed after the interim leader announced a government without his participation.

"Practically speaking, we have decided not to continue with this theater of Mr Micheletti," Zelaya said, speaking on Radio Globo.

"The international community will have to see what measures" to take after the agreement faltered, he added. A Zelaya aide had earlier said the deal had "failed."

Posted in Politics, honduras

Time to Rally for Financial Reform

To paraphrase Marat-Sade: ‘the Election came,  and the election went, and unrest turned back into discontent.'   

The Dems lost two Governors, one an unpopular former head honcho at Goldman Sachs (not exactly a populist crusader), and picked up one house seat in a Congressional District no one ever heard about before.  

They hope that all the recovery-is-coming news will stem the tide of growing disenchantment with the centrists in Obamaland who have  been swimming hard to stay in place. 

'Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP'

Richard Viguerie, the legendary hard-right activist who spent much of the past decade arguing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were too liberal, now declares that the days of even the most minimal moderation are now over in the Republican Party.

"Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP," says Viguerie.

There is little reason to argue with the man whose direct-mail campaigning funded the rise of the Republican right in the late 1970s and who grumbled loudly when Newt Gingrich, Bush, Cheney and Republican leaders tried to soften the party's roughest edges.

Posted in Politics, rightwing
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