White House backs healthcare deal, sees victory

The White House on Sunday sought to preserve the fragile alliance of Democratic liberals and moderates backing broad healthcare reform legislation, with tough decisions looming on abortion and a new government-run insurance program.

Republicans vowed to continue to fight the measure, but admitted they probably were helpless to stop it in the Senate.

Senate Democrats planned a series of crucial procedural votes scheduled to begin at 1 a.m. on Monday, with debate possibly concluding with final Senate passage on Christmas Eve on Thursday.

Asked if Republican senators could do anything to stop the Senate from passing it by Christmas Eve, Republican Senator John McCain told “Fox News Sunday,” “Probably not. But what we can do is continue winning the battle of American public opinion.”

The White House predicted that the bill, President Barack Obama’s top legislative priority, will win final congressional passage, and called it a major achievement even if it does not give Obama and his fellow Democrats everything they want.

“While it is not perfect, the bill pending in the Senate today is not just good enough — it is very good,” Vice President Joe Biden wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.

Democratic holdout Ben Nelson announced his support for the Senate legislation on Saturday after securing language aimed at ensuring federal funds are not used to pay for abortions and winning extra healthcare funds for his home state of Nebraska.

Nelson’s support gave Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes he needs in the 100-seat Senate to pass Obama’s top domestic priority by Christmas.

But Democrats still have a lot of hard work ahead as they look toward ironing out differences between the healthcare bill already passed by the House of Representatives last month and the version Senate Democrats hope to pass this week.

The Senate bill would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans, expand the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor, provide subsidies to help some people pay for coverage and halt industry practices like refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

House and Senate negotiators will have to work out abortion language that satisfies abortion opponents like Nelson and Representative Bart Stupak without chasing off liberal abortion rights supporters. Stupak, who pushed more restrictive language on abortion in the House bill, said the compromise Senate language crafted by Nelson was “not acceptable.”

PUBLIC OPTION

Democrats must decide on including a government insurance program to compete with private insurers. Liberals want the “public option,” which is in the House bill, but not the Senate one. And they will have agree on how to fund the reform, with the House and Senate versions taking two different approaches.

Nelson told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that if the final bill that emerges from the House-Senate negotiations includes a public option, he could not vote for it. He also indicated that if the legislation is paid for the way the House measure proposes, “That would break it.”

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, a fiscal hawk and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the final bill will have to hew closely to the Senate’s version in order win final passage.

“Anybody who’s watched this process can see how challenging it has been to get 60 votes,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Congress has been tied up for months in acrimonious debate over healthcare reform legislation, with Republicans saying the Democratic measure is too costly and too intrusive into the healthcare sector.

Healthcare costs devour 16 percent of the U.S. economy — burdening states and the federal government while also hurting the competitiveness of U.S. businesses — even as tens of millions remain with no public or private health insurance.

White House senior advisor David Axelrod predicted congressional passage but declined to say when he thought the two chambers would iron out their significant differences, or which version he preferred.

“I think it will pass the Congress,” Axelrod said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think we’re going to get it done.”

Republicans said they would continue to erect procedural roadblocks even with Senate passage likely.

More improvements are possible after the bill becomes law, Axelrod said. The Obama administration will seek to allow Americans to buy prescription drugs that have been imported from other countries such as Canada, where medicines often cost less, he said. The Senate turned back efforts to include drug re-importation in the healthcare bill.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, editing by Vicki Allen and Will Dunham)

REUTERS

Copenhagen climate change rally leads to arrests

Thousands of protesters marched through Copenhagen to demand action on global warming from delegates at the UN climate change summit.

More and More Americans Think We Should Mind Our Own Business

As President Barack Obama is looking to thrust the United States ever more into global affairs, from Afghanistan to climate change, the American public is turning more isolationist and unilateralist than it has at any time in decades.

A survey by the Pew Research Center released last week found 49% of Americans think that the United States should “mind its own business internationally” and leave it to other countries to fend for themselves.

It was the first time in more than 40 years of polling that the ranks of Americans with isolationist sentiment outnumbered those with a more international outlook, Pew said.

The United States also is growing more unilateralist, with 44% saying that the country “should go our own way in international matters, not worrying about whether other countries agree with us or not.”

That was the highest percentage since the question was first asked in 1964.

The survey of 2,000 U.S. adults was taken from Oct. 28-Nov. 8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Oh, yes — China: A plurality of Americans, 44%, now say that China is the world’s top economic power, while just 27% say it’s the United States. That’s a sharp reversal from nearly two years ago, when 41% thought America was the No. 1 economic power, and 30% thought it was China.

FREEP

John Bolton Right on UN?

I certainly don’t expect the New York Times to admit that one of their greatest bogeymen turned out to be correct about Iran’s nuclear game-playing. However, the Times Editorial Board did once say “John Bolton is right. Kofi Annan is wrong.”

Unfortunately it wasn’t about the Iran nuclear issue they were talking about – it was about his opposition to the UN’s ineffective Human Rights Council.

Nevertheless, someone needs to say it now. John Bolton was right.

When the Obama Administration proclaimed victory on October 1st by announcing that a break-through had been reached in Geneva and that Iran had committed to shipping 2,600 pounds of fuel to Russia, expert Iran watchers were appropriately cynical. Bolton cautioned, yet again, that the Iranians had used some of the same diplomatic nuances they had been using for years to successfully buy more time to continue enriching uranium and fake cooperation with the international community.

Usually, the Europeans were the first to take the bait but this time the Obama Administration got hooked first. Bolton, however, was the first to stand up and call the Iranian pronouncement a sham – and he did it within hours of the announcement.

But as Obama officials were rushing to pat themselves on the back and the New York Times was proclaiming atop the paper “Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia,” Iranian officials were telling reporters that they had not committed to anything. The Iranians called it “an agreement in principle” – code words for “we’d like to but…”

The Times’ reporter in Geneva, however, was taking what the Obama officials were saying and running wildly with the incredible news. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the Times had either not checked with Iranian officials or ignored their warnings in favor of the Obama Administration’s good news. Roughly a month later, the Iranian official statements confirmed the fact that the Obama Administration had been duped. The Times subsequently inched its way back to reality through multiple follow-up stories that increasingly showed skepticism in the Victory claims culminating with October 30th’s headline “Tehran Rejects Nuclear Accord.”

Today, while the Iranians reprocess more fuel, the Obama team continues to compromise and offer even more incentives to them. No wonder Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is waiting – the deal keeps getting sweeter. President Obama has offered the Iranians more time, more sites to place their illegal fuel, more personal correspondence with the Ayatollah, more excuses as to what happened to the original deal they announced and no Chinese and Russian arm-twisting. The Obama team also keeps claiming that if Iran ships 2600 pounds of fuel out to Russia for re-processing then Iran will be unable to pose a nuclear threat for at least a year.

This often told claim is a dangerous calculation based on an assumption that Iran doesn’t have more hidden fuel (we just found out about another reprocessing plant in September) and can’t quickly convert what would remain if the plan had been accepted. Additionally, the low enriched uranium in question was produced in violation of UN Security Council resolutions so any deal to help Iran convert illegal fuel undermines Security Council credibility. The naivety of President Obama could be chalked up to hope and inexperience in foreign policy matters if it wasn’t routinely and consistently happening.

Bolton should know. No American Ambassador has produced more Security Council Resolutions on the issue of Iran than John Bolton. Bolton was able to produce three UN Security Council resolutions on Iran, two with the increasing pressure of sanctions. The deadlines in the resolutions that Bolton insisted upon were kept mainly because he held his counterparts to their word.

When Iran tried to manipulate the process by asking for more time, more talks or giving empty and last minute commitments, Bolton enforced the deadlines. Bolton was incredibly patient and willing to have round the clock negotiations but in the end forced a vote of the Security Council to the dismay of the Europeans and the consternation of Russian and China. It’s true that John Bolton would not win the most popular Ambassador award at the UN but being popular shouldn’t be the priority.

I hope that the Obama team can now see that being popular at the UN doesn’t get us support from the Europeans on sanctions resolutions or an affirmative vote from Russia and China. If it did, President Obama would have passed another Security Council Resolution on Iran, North Korea and Sudan by now. Obama is so popular in foreign countries that one begins to wonder who is happier. But being popular only means you aren’t asking Countries to do anything different.

This month, the world is seeing the pressure turned down on Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. France’s Foreign Minister has signaled their refusal to block shipments of refined fuel to Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov called sanctions “counterproductive when there are talks underway” and China needs Iran’s oil so badly that it not only is refusing to consider further sanctions but is cutting new energy deals with Iran.

Where is the Obama Administration’s pressure on Iran to stop enriching uranium? Sadly, the Americans are getting hoodwinked by Iran and Europe is happy that they don’t have to vote for more sanctions or enforce the ones that are in place now. While the President gives up our missile shield to Russia, relaxes financial restrictions on Cuba, allows North Korea to violate their signed agreements and breaks campaign promises on a Sudan no-fly zone, the world applauds the most popular American President in history.

And here at home, Fareed Zakaria continues to call for more American compromises and more talk while characterizing Conservatives as unwilling to talk. It isn’t that Conservatives think speaking to Russia about Iran is bad, a claim Fareed Zakaria erroneously tries to tag Conservatives with, it’s that giving something without getting something in return is foolish and naïve. Zakaria and the other elites blinded by Obama’s global reset button want America to compromise and negotiate but fail to expect the same from the other side. Zakaria is that typical internationalist that views diplomatic success as merely sitting down to talk. Talking is the goal for them.

And if America needs to compromise in order to ensure that there are more talks, well, then so be it. Talking is success, right?

CBS NEWS

Wiki Leaks Release Half Million September 11th Messages

A website has published what it says are 573,000 intercepted pager messages sent during the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Wikileaks says it will not reveal who gave it the messages – some of which are from federal agencies as well as ordinary citizens.

Read the TEXT HERE at Wiki Leaks (911)

Internet analysts say they believe the messages are genuine but federal authorities have refused to comment.

The attacks on 11 September 2001 left nearly 3,000 people dead.

The messages are being published over a 24-hour period, ending at 0800GMT on Thursday. They are being released simultaneously on Wikileaks and social networking site Twitter.

‘Live’ broadcast

The website is broadcasting each message at the time it was sent originally in 2001.

The first message was from 0300 local time (0800 GMT), five hours before the first attack in New York and the last 24 hours later.

The messages are not all about the attacks. Some are mundane questions about what people are having for lunch.

However many are about the deadly plane attacks and range from people trying to find out if their loved ones are safe, to government messages, to computer server errors.

They include messages such as

* This is Myrna, I will not rest until you get home, the second tower is down, I don’t want to have to keep calling you after every event. Pls just go home

* President has been rerouted won’t be returning to Washington but not sure where he will go

* Bomb detonated in World Trade Ctr. Pls get back to Mike Brady w/a quick assessment of your areas and contact us if anything is needed

New York’s fire and police departments said they could not comment on whether messages purportedly sent from them were genuine while the US Secret Service refused to comment.

Pager company USA Mobility said it was troubled by the alleged interceptions, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Wikileaks allows people to anonymously post documents on the web, saying its aim is to promote transparency.

It was created in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Schmitt said the messages were submitted anonymously to the site several weeks ago.

He told Associated Press: “From the context information that the source provided we have strong reasons to believe that this is valid data.”

He said the messages would help provide a fuller picture of what happened that day.

BBC NEWS

Some people witnessing the attacks reached out to loved ones out of fear there might have been more attacks coming and they might die.

“The only thoughts I have are of Nicholas, Ian and you,” read one text message. “I am terrified. I needed to tell you that I truly love you. always, diane.”

“I want to hold you now,” one text message a minute later reads.

“I know you have a new relationship and do not care about me. But just in case anything happens know I love you hon. Missed Ya good bye.”

The first indication of a problem comes at 8:50 a.m., five minutes aft.er the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

“An aloha call is starting. This is for a fire at 2wt …”

Another text message references “a bomb detonation” in the World Trade Center and asks recipients of the message to report back assessments of their areas.

A minute later, firsthand reports started flooding in.

“The world trade center has just blow up, we seen the explosion outside our windows. Teresa …”

At 8:53 a.m. a message from the New York Police Department’s operations division mobilizes officers toward the World Trade Center, telling them to meet at Church and Vessey streets.

At 9:03 a.m. the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

“It’s a deliberate attack … a second plane just few into the second tower,” a message said 52 seconds later.

By 9:25 a.m. the personal messages have grown more frequent and more frantic.

Companies begin sending out messages asking for head counts on all employees.

People begin sharing reports of what they are seeing and hearing on TV,­ including early reports of people jumping from the World Trade Center.

Family members panicked, struggling to get through jammed phone lines to find out if their loved ones were OK.

9:25:40 a.m.

“Please call my work as soon as you get in the office. Need to know you’re safe.”

9:29:38 a.m.

“Wondering where you are. Are you okay. Give me a call back asap. I just need to know these things. Even if it’s collect. Call me. Darryl”

11:32:56 a.m.

“if i do not hear from you by high noon, i am going to pick laura up at school and tell her her father is dead.”

“goodbye my sweety…..im going to miss yo,” another said.

“Honey wanted to tell you how much i love you,” one sender wrote. “I was a little worried. I Don’t want to lose you now that I got you back. You mean everything to me. You have my whole heart and life. I love you so much.”

Democrats Roll Out New Health Care Bill

Senate Democrats have unveiled an $849 billion bill, designed to remake the nation’s health care system. The bill relies on cuts in future Medicare spending to cover costs, as well as an increase in taxes.

10 Things to Know about Iran

Here is an essay talking about the Beliefs of most people when it comes to Iran and the reality that is Iran. Though people have been wrong before. Interesting though.

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the U.S.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to “wipe it off the map.”

Belief: But didn’t President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to “wipe Israel off the map?”

Belief: But aren’t Iranians Holocaust deniers?

Belief: Iran is like North Korea in having an active nuclear weapons program, and is the same sort of threat to the world.

Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.

Belief: The world should sanction Iran not only because of its nuclear enrichment research program but also because the current regime stole June’s presidential election and brutally repressed the subsequent demonstrations.

Belief: Isn’t the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutally assured destruction just would not work with them?

Belief: The international community would not have put sanctions on Iran, and would not be so worried, if it were not a gathering nuclear threat.

Read the responses to all these beliefs HERE

Governors resist Medicaid Increases

The nation’s governors are emerging as a formidable lobbying force as health-care reform moves through Congress and states overburdened by the recession brace for the daunting prospect of providing coverage to millions of low-income residents.

The legislation the Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve this week calls for the biggest expansion of Medicaid since its creation in 1965. Under the Senate bill and a similar House proposal, a patchwork state-federal insurance program targeted mainly at children, pregnant women and disabled people would effectively become a Medicare for the poor, a health-care safety net for all people with an annual income below $14,404.

WASHINGTON POST

Supreme Court has a busy schedule

Cases involving US gun laws, videos depicting dog-fighting and the presence of a cross in the Mojave desert are among those expected to dominate a fresh session of the US Supreme Court which opens on Monday.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a new addition to the nine-member panel, replacing liberal Justice David Souter, who retired.

The court is expected to hand down rulings on the cases it considers in the spring.

Among the cases to watch out for are:

CHALLENGE TO GUN CONTROL LAWS

PRESENCE OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOL ON FEDERAL LAND – Interesting

FREE SPEECH CHALLENGE OVER DOG-FIGHTING VIDEO

CAMPAIGN FINANCE – We’re still dealing with this? If the gov’t wanted it fixed, it would have been done by now. Hell, I wasn’t even born when these REFORMS started.

CHALLENGE TO LIFE SENTENCES FOR JUVENILES

CHALLENGE TO LAW MAKING IT A CRIME TO AID TERROR GROUPS

DISPUTE OVER HUMAN RIGHTS CASE AGAINST EX-SOMALIAN PM

Read Full Article HERE

Alternative Energy Projects Stumble on a Need for Water

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. — In a rural corner of Nevada reeling from the recession, a bit of salvation seemed to arrive last year. A German developer, Solar Millennium, announced plans to build two large solar farms here that would harness the sun to generate electricity, creating hundreds of jobs.

Ed Goedhart, a farmer and Nevada legislator, said farmers would grow less of alfafa if they decide to sell their water rights.

But then things got messy. The company revealed that its preferred method of cooling the power plants would consume 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 percent of this desert valley’s available water.

Now Solar Millennium finds itself in the midst of a new-age version of a Western water war. The public is divided, pitting some people who hope to make money selling water rights to the company against others concerned about the project’s impact on the community and the environment.

“I’m worried about my well and the wells of my neighbors,” George Tucker, a retired chemical engineer, said on a blazing afternoon.

Here is an inconvenient truth about renewable energy: It can sometimes demand a huge amount of water. Many of the proposed solutions to the nation’s energy problems, from certain types of solar farms to biofuel refineries to cleaner coal plants, could consume billions of gallons of water every year.

Read the Full Article at the NY TIMES

This is a good reason to not set up farms and towns in the middle of the desert.

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