U.S. National News
The House Oversight & Government Reform Committee approved the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act, which would offer the same benefits, including health insurance and pensions, to same-sex partners of federal workers and to opposite-sex spouses. (This news comes via the DC Agenda, the reincarnated Washington Blade.)
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [...]
(Manila, Philippines) A Philippine gay rights group is waging a legal battle to be allowed to run in next year's polls after the Elections Commission ruled it cannot register as a political party on grounds that it advocates immorality.
The decision last week against Ang Ladlad (Out of the Closet), a ...
Facts are stupid things department: Testifying as an expert on the stimulus Thursday, Dick Armey admitted before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he not only had not read the piece of the stimulus bill being discussed, but that he had actually not read any of the bill:
Ironically, as part of an effort to obstruct and derail the bill, Armey launched an online petition called “ReadTheStimulus.org.” In another bit of irony, although he postures as a fierce ideological opponent of the stimulus, Armey actually worked as a lobbyist to help businesses gain from the stimulus. According to disclosures, he was paid to lobby on behalf of Cape Wind Associates and the Medicines Company on the stimulus. His son, Scott Armey, who runs his own lobbying shop, has also worked with businesses to gain stimulus funds.
For Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the moderate Arkansas Democrat, the nation’s health-care woes may lead to more headaches than any medicine could alleviate.
Lincoln is a pivotal vote on the motion to begin debate on Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s health-care legislation; if the motion passes, she could be the swing vote on the eventual motion to close debate. Her decision isn’t simply a calculation about winning the right number of concessions, as perhaps President Obama and the Democratic leadership hope; it’s about her political survival.
The good news on the Senate version of the public option is (beyond the fact that there is one included in the bill, making conference that much easier) that it uses the essential components of the HELP version of the public option, with a few minor changes. The core of the public option remains pretty decent, with a single national plan set up and run by the Secretary of HHS, who has the authority to negotiate reimbursement rates with providers. Not as good as Medicare +5, but could be worse.
The bad news, of course, comes with the opt-out provision of the bill, which makes the public option less than national. When first proposed, the idea was that states would automatically be included, and would have to take action to opt-out sometime after implementation of the program. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out in the actual language [Sec. 1323, part (a)(3)]
EDITOR’S NOTE:The following is an excerpt from The First Assassin, by John J. Miller.
Saturday, February 23, 1861
When Lorenzo Smith heard the chugging of the train, he felt for the revolver at his side. His fingers met its smooth handle, hidden beneath his black coat. Then he found the short barrel and the trigger below. Smith had reached for it a dozen times in the last hour, but he wanted to be certain that the gun was still there. It will make me a hero, he thought. It will change history.
I don't know whether to fall out laugh or cry at the prospect of another major election cycle with this blowhard on the campaign trail followed by his Teabaggers, Birthers, and Brown MenaceTM-fearing fans. (Reuters):
A week after abruptly quitting his longtime job as a CNN television news host and commentator, Lou Dobbs said on Thursday he is considering career options including possible runs for the White House or U.S. Senate.
"Right now I feel exhilaration at the wide range of choices before me as to what I do next," Dobbs, whose outspoken views on immigration and other topics often angered liberals, told Reuters in a telephone interview from New York on Thursday.
...A Texas native, Dobbs has drawn fire from Latino leaders and civil rights groups for frequent on-air remarks about U.S. border control and immigration that critics saw as demonizing illegal immigrants.
...I meant in the election, not necessarily in life. That is for others to debate. What can be said now definitively, however, is that in the election held two-plus weeks ago, Democrat Bill Owens was properly elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, while de facto GOP nominee Doug Hoffman has officially run out of chances (scroll down for the vote totals):
It's over. Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, leads by 3,105 votes with 3,072 absentee ballots left to be counted.
Harry Reid offers the nation a mephitic Senate health-care bill that retains the worst features of Nancy Pelosi’s creation and adds fresh horrors of its own: It will force Americans to finance abortions and jack up some Americans’ Medicare taxes by 34 percent. On paper, the House bill costs a little more than $1 trillion, the Senate bill a little less than $1 trillion; more realistic estimates, minus the congressional accounting chicanery, put the price tag of each closer to $2 trillion over the first ten years of implementation. With trillions of dollars on the line -- along with the excellence of our health care and the energy of our economy -- Americans’ eyes must turn to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who has the opportunity to stop this bill from going to the Senate floor for advancement. If there is only scant chance of that happening, that tells us something about the real commitment of these vaunted moderates and the price at which they may be bought off.
EDITOR’S NOTE:This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext. 246.
Oh, how the international community loves Barack Obama -- loves to stiff him, play him along, and manipulate him. He’s the world’s celebrity ingenue, the slender naïf perpetually undone by the recalcitrance of foreign leaders.
Rasmussen Reports hits two of the biggest prizes in Election 2010, and in true Rasmussen fashion, find the Republican candidates doing better than any other pollsters in America.
That, and a few other choice headlines from the world of the campaign trail, grace the Thursday evening edition of the Wrap.
NY-Gov: Rasmussen Claims Giuliani Within 3 of Cuomo
Ah, it's pathetically ignorant, perpetually re-elected NC U.S. Congresscritter Virginia Foxx opening her trap again to contribute batsh*ttery to the public discourse and historical record with the ludicrous claim on the House floor that the Republican party had a progressive record on civil rights and Congress passed legislation in the 1960s without much help from Dems. (Think Progress):
During a debate on the House floor today over designating 21 miles of the Molalla River as "wild and scenic," Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who opposes the legislation, tried to claim a progressive environmental record for her party. "Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country," said Foxx.
Thursday has been a day of great intrigue in the Empire State as it relates to 2010 electoral politics. First, fairly early in the day, came this bit of breaking news, courtesy of Danny Hakim at the New York Times:
Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has decided not to run for governor of New York next year after months of mulling a candidacy, according to people who have been told of the decision.
His decision is a blow to many Republican leaders, who had viewed Mr. Giuliani as the strongest potential candidate in a year in which voter anger and anti-Albany sentiment appeared to be swelling.
Julia Boseman did fabulous, difficult work on the School Violence Protection Act in our state Senate, earning her Equality NC's Legislative Award this past weekend. I'm sorry to hear that she's not running again (she'd most certainly win), but being the only out member of our General Assembly has to be tough with all those good-old-boys in there. Family always comes first. (Q-Notes):
State Sen. Julia Boseman (D-New Hanover), the only openly gay or lesbian member of the General Assembly, announced Thursday she will not seek re-election when her term ends in 2010.
Have you heard this one yet? That the Senate public option requires a "monthly abortion fee"? Apparently, Boehner claims on his blog that "a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan" under the Senate bill.
Here's what RHRealityCheck has to say about the fiction, and the fact:
Given the record of Goldman Sachs (as detailed in McClatchy's five-part series), AIG, Halliburton and other supposedly upright U.S. corporations, it's a tad arrogant to complain about the corruption of other countries. Endemic or not, the wink-wink, nod-nod deals of much of the Third World amount to peanuts when compared with the rip-offs visited on taxpayers, investors and consumers here at home. So, while the U.S. ranks 19th on the Transparency Index's corruption scale, and Afghanistan ranks 179th, one step off the bottom, there's a little more to the picture than can be addressed by such metrics.
Be that as it may, corruption is viewed as one of the key obstacles in dealing with the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. That corruption, as the "leaked cables" sent to the White House by U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry pointed out, may make the sending of more troops foolish if President Karzai, newly sworn in after a tainted election, cannot be made to root it out. As Tom Engelhardt explains, however, rooting it out is like asking Karzai either to commit suicide or "drink the sea":
(NOTE FROM PAM: Karen Ocamb of LGBT POV gave permission to the Blend post this great and unsettling piece.}
(Karen: I first met Charles Stewart in the late 80s/early 1990s when his close friend Phill Wilson was running the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum. Those were the days when the late poet Essex Hemphill and filmmaker Marlon Riggs were hot and controversial with Rigg's artistic documentary "Tongues Untied: Black Men Loving Black Men." Charles went to work for Diane Watson, an elected official from the Los Angeles area who now represents her district in Congress. On Sunday, Nov. 8, the day after the healthcare bill passed the US House of Representatives, Charles wrote an email to his father about the experience of watching history being made. While many of us are still rankled over the inclusion of the anti-abortion provision and we await the Senate version of the bill, it is important to remember this night - and Charles, an openly gay congressional staffer, graciously gave me permission to share it with you. It is especially significant to note how Charles' email to his father concludes. Herewith the letter - Karen Ocamb)
The extreme abortion language included in the House bill has been left out of the Senate bill, in favor of a provision that more closely tracks with the Capps amendment that was originally included in the House bill, only to be replaced by the Stupak Coathanger amendment, as well as used for the original Senate Finance committee language. The current Senate bill has added a provision stating that the HHS Secretary must ensure that no federal funds are used for abortion, if he/she determines that abortion should be a benefit in that plan. It continues to require that plans participating in the exchange have to include two plans, one that covers abortion services and one that does not.
Here's Capps's statement on the Senate bill, via e-mail.
The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.
Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided.
U.S. National News
The House Oversight & Government Reform Committee approved the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act, which would offer the same benefits, including health insurance and pensions, to same-sex partners of federal workers and to opposite-sex spouses. (This news comes via the DC Agenda, the reincarnated Washington Blade.)
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [...]
During a debate on the House floor today over designating 21 miles of the Molalla River as "wild and scenic," Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who opposes the legislation, tried to claim a progressive environmental record for her party. "Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country," said Foxx.
(Karen: I first met Charles Stewart in the late 80s/early 1990s when his close friend Phill Wilson was running the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum. Those were the days when the late poet Essex Hemphill and filmmaker Marlon Riggs were hot and controversial with Rigg's artistic documentary "
