AP - President Barack Obama has chosen a suburban St. Louis high school to make his closing argument for a health care overhaul, pushing a new anti-fraud plan as he cranks up the pressure on skittish Democratic lawmakers to act fast.
AP - Israel's new plan to build 1,600 apartments for Jews in Palestinian-claimed east Jerusalem overshadowed Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the West Bank on Wednesday.
AP - The Associated Press-GfK Poll on President Obama, the direction of the country and health care was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media from March 3-8. It is based on landline and cell phone telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,002 adults. Interviews were conducted with 702 respondents on landline telephones and 300 on cellular phones.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats on Tuesday cast doubt on their chances of meeting the White House's March 18 deadline for voting on a stalled healthcare overhaul, but said they are moving as fast as they can.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will on Wednesday propose to force banks to reveal how many of their staff earn top wages, in steps that go further than previous proposals, financial services minister Paul Myners said.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli cabinet minister apologized on Wednesday after Israel embarrassed visiting Vice President Joe Biden by announcing plans to build 1,600 more homes for Jewish settlers.
REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland's opposition turned up the heat on the center-left government on Wednesday to hold out for a tough new "Icesave" debt accord with Britain and the Netherlands, after a referendum rejection of its previous deal.
Not long after Eric Massa joined Congress in January 2009, several male staff members began to feel uncomfortable with the sexually loaded language their boss routinely used, according to accounts relayed to the House ethics committee.
Seeking to reclaim the reform mantle amid a series of scandals, House Democratic leaders are advocating a move that would shake up the multibillion-dollar practice of awarding no-bid contracts known as congressional earmarks.
As Republicans work to prevent a health-care bill from reaching President Obama, they are scrambling to exploit divisions between Democrats in the House and the Senate.
As he takes the reins of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Sander M. Levin is vowing to raise the profile of a once-powerful panel that, in recent years, has been overshadowed by the ethics troubles of its previous chairman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel.
The scandal surrounding ex-Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) took several extraordinary turns on Tuesday as new allegations surfaced that Massa groped male staffers and behaved improperly
The scandal surrounding ex-Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) took several extraordinary turns on Tuesday as new allegations surfaced that Massa groped male staffers and behaved improperly
Prudential, a British financial company, announced plans to buy the Asian life-insurance business of American International Group for $35.5 billion. AIG will use the money to help it repay some of the remainder of the $182 billion bail-out it received from the American government (the insurer recently reported an $8.9 billion quarterly loss), while Prudential will boost its already considerable presence in Asia. It is raising $20 billion in a rights issue to help fund the transaction. Its share price fell by 20% in the days following the deal’s announcement. See article
Goldman Sachs listed “negative publicity” about pay as a potential “risk factor” this year, acknowledging that “adverse press coverage” and statements by regulators could impact staff morale and hurt operations. Separately, the Wall Street bank disclosed that it made at least $100m on each of 131 separate trading days last year, beating its previous record of 90 days in 2008. ...
More than 800 people were confirmed dead and hundreds more were missing after an enormous earthquake, followed by a tsunami, struck south-central Chile. The government declared a state of catastrophe in two regions and sent troops to keep order after looting triggered by a slow start to the aid operation. See article
Authorities in Guatemala arrested the national police chief and the head of the anti-narcotics unit on charges of aiding drug-traffickers. The police chief is the second to be sacked over drugs charges within six months. ...
The Basics
The “Public Option” Debate:
I agree 100% with Bob Herbert’s August 17, 2009 New York Times article, that without the option of buying your insurance from a government plan, the insurance companies stand to make a windfall with the mandatory requirement for everyone to buy insurance. With a massive increase in customers and no incentive to lower prices, what could be better for them? As Obama has pointed out, the Republican’s argument that the “public option” will drive the insurance companies out of business is inherently contradictory. If a government plan is fundamentally too inefficient then the insurance companies have nothing to worry about. And if it is more efficient than the private sector, then that’s a plus for the American public and people should have that option.
The Republican argument is fundamentally flawed:
If the Republicans are worried that health care reform is bringing socialism to the U.S., then they should also be against Medicare. But in fact they are arguing the opposite. They are trying to scare seniors that they will lose benefits if the reform is passed. They are tacitly acknowledging the public wants socialized medicine (e.g. Medicare), but hoping nobody notes the inconsistency of their argument. Although I’m not sure I agree with his interviewing techniques, Lawrence O’Donnell in his interview with Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), makes it really obvious that the Republicans are very afraid of exposing this contradiction. Below is a clip from the interview:
Obama Is Outsmarting Everyone?
It is interesting that at the same time that the White House has indicated that they may have to try to pass the bill without Republican support, they are also saying that the “public option” is not a necessary component of the bill. On the surface he looks conciliatory, ready to cave in to the Republicans. But in actuality, he is purposefully enraging the “left”, leaving them to do the dirty work of fighting to push through a bill supported by Democrats only.
The administration is now floating the idea of sending 2 bills to the senate, the less controversial part by normal means, and the “public option” and other controversial measures by “budget reconciliation”. Obama may very well get the bill he wants and make the Republicans look bad at the same time. We will soon see.
This is a meeting with Rep. Mike Castle, a Delaware moderate Republican. The whole thing leaves me a bit speechless. I’m tempted to draw conclusions about the basic psychological functions of humans. We all believe something because everyone else believes it. I have to admit that I was drawn into it myself, thinking that there must be something to this. But in fact there is no basis at all to the whole “Birther” movement, just read here. Also, here is a link that Ben Smith provides, which is where I originally found this video.
A thank you to the TPM website that found this article buried in the New York Times. Here is a reprint of the relevant paragraph.
The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something like Medicare for those under [...]
The Obama administration’s recent push into the Helmand district of Afghanistan is a commendable improvement over the Bush administration’s emphasis on fighting only and ignoring the development of the country. Obama’s shift away from eradication as the principal way to control the drug trade is also moving in the right direction.
However, I think Obama, who [...]
Thought I’d pass on this article about a potential improvement in cancer treatment. The technique uses bacteria to deliver drugs directly to the targeted cancer cells.
Today on the Dish we saw Obama turn up the heat on healthcare reform (and his approach seemed to be working). More on HCR here. We also featured the first legal gay wedding in DC. In foreign policy, Israel flipped...
I'm feeling relieved. For a while it seemed like the historic election of our first African American president would give legitimacy to the idea that we live in a "post-racial" America. The idea that race is no longer a part of people's daily experience is not merely false. It's potentially dangerous when a majority of people are struggling to understand what's happening to them economically.
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