News Round-Up for 17 Dec 2009
AP: House approves $290 billion increase in debt limit
CNN: Obama weighs creating commission to propose tax hikes, spending cuts
McClatchy: Pelosi – Obama’s on his own to win money for Afghan buildup
NY Times: U.N. Officials Say American Aide Plotted to Replace Karzai
AP: Dean urges defeat of emerging health care bill
News Round-Up for 16 Dec 2009
AP: House OKs defense bill, rushes to finish for year
Bloomberg: ‘Buy American’ Rules to Be Strengthened in U.S. House Jobs Bill
CQPolitics: Kerry Assures Copenhagen Delegates Congress Will Pass Climate Bill
Charlotte Observer: Is Congressman’s immigration bill doomed?
QNotes: Log Cabin slams Jim DeMint for anti-gay comments
McClatchy: War bonds proposed to pay for Iraq, Afghan conflicts
NPR: African Leaders’ Climate Message Unheard at Home
NPR: Lawmakers Pressure Obama To Act On Sudan
So what is this health care reform for anyway?
In the last few months, the American public has been buffeted by one health care reform plan after another. Now, as we near what many believe is the endgame, I thought it would be helpful to look at where we’re at and what this reform will in fact do. It’s looking less and less likely that there will be a public option. Even a compromise option of expanding Medicare coverage to people as young as age 55 is looking unlikely of passing. [1] Many people, from small business owners to White House officials say that more work needs to be done for this reform to lower health care costs and to close the national budget gap. [2, 3] Loopholes have been found in the current legislation up for discussion that would allow health care insurers to place annual dollar limits on treatments for cancer and other ‘costly illnesses.’ [4] Having insurance plans cross state lines hasn’t been talked about for months. Thus far, all that it currently looks like health care ‘reform’ will bring is a requirement for everyone to have health care coverage, for employers to provide health care coverage to employees, and insurers would no longer be allowed to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. While the latter is a very good thing that should have been done years ago, the fact that that is the only true reform we’ll get for the cost of $1 trillion over a decade is rather ridiculous. [1] Throughout this process, though reform has been whittled down to accomplish less and less goals, the cost has not gone down a bit. In fact, last Friday, the Health and Human Services Department came out and said that the Senate’s health care plan could actually raise health care costs beyond our current annual $2.5 trillion health care tab and in fact raise costs faster than if we did nothing. Also, HHS said that current Medicare services could be cut due to spending cuts that are a part of the plan currently being devised. [5] What is this money associated with this ‘reform’ going to be used for then? Whose pockets are going to be lined even more than they already are by this ‘reform’? Even Howard Dean, a well-known health care reform advocate, is calling for this bill to be killed. [6] Let’s hope that Congressional leaders listen. We don’t need a New Year’s present, as Speaker Pelosi suggested. We need health care reform that will actually reform something and not cost us an arm and a leg while accomplishing nothing. [7] We need Washington to do it right, not do it fast. Jumping into things without having a solid plan doesn’t seem to work out too well for us. If you need proof, go and visit Iraq and Afghanistan. I urge everyone to write to their senators and representatives as well as the White House. Make your voice heard. Let them know that we want true reform that will help us, not an even more burdensome health care system.
News Round-Up for 14 Dec 2009
AFP: US Afghan surge to begin this week
AP: Lieberman resists Medicare buy-in plan
CQPolitics: Abercrombie to Resign From House
CQPolitics: Sen. Dorgan – TV Network Aimed at Cuba a ‘Total Waste’
AP: Senator Baucus gave girlfriend $14,000 raise
NY Times: Paterson to Withhold Aid to Schools and Local Governments
News Round-Up for 11 Dec 2009
AP: Health care loophole would allow coverage limits
The Hill: President Obama told me to stop ‘demeaning’ him, says Rep. Conyers
CNN: Jobless claims jump surprisingly to 474,000
AP: House scales back proposed Wall Street rules
AP: LaHood – Ban lobbyists, earmarks in second stimulus
AP: Obama says Afghanistan not US ‘protectorate’
AP: Treasury pay czar limits pay at automakers, banks
Reuters: Latin America’s Iran ties “a bad idea” – Clinton
CQPolitics: Sens. Cantwell, Collins Release Alternative Climate Bill
McClatchy: South Carolina’s DeMint wades into Texas Senate race
Just checking…
Ok, so let’s make sure that I have this straight. First, our president accepted a peace prize this week with a speech in which he justified war [1] (a speech which Newt Gingrich gave a big thumbs-up to, by the way [2]). Then, instead of going with his original plan to speak at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen while he was already in the neighborhood, he has instead changed his schedule to fly back to DC and then will fly back across the Atlantic again next week to speak at the conference in Copenhagen. [3] For those interested, I’ve done the math using Terrapass’s carbon footprint calculator, found here. CO2 emissions per person for a DC to Oslo roundtrip flight is 3,029 lbs and DC to Copenhagen is 1,898 lbs, thus bringing Obama’s carbon footprint total for these two separate trips to 4,927 lbs of CO2 released into the atmosphere, versus one way trips from DC to Oslo to Copenhagen and back to DC, which have emissions of 1,740 lbs, 154 lbs, and 949 lbs respectively, grand total 2,843 lbs. Not only has he missed the point of the peace prize, he also seems to missed the point of the climate change summit. Two round trip flights to the same region of the world in a week’s time doth not an eco-friendly president make.
News Round-Up for 10 Dec 2009
Politico: Dems to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, fear 2010 backlash
McClatchy: Killing bin Laden crucial to defeating al Qaida, McChrystal says
Huffington Post: Outline Of Senate Health Bill Agreement Emerging
Reuters: Obama taps ex-Palin aide to oversee natgas project
AP: Black lawmakers grow impatient with White House
Reuters: NJ gay marriage vote could shape battles ahead
BBC News: Spain credit rating downgraded to negative
News Round-Up for 03 Dec 2009
Reuters: Obama aides defend ambitious Afghan scale-up
Politico: Illinoisans terse on Afghan plan
Politico: Few Dem senators back plan
McClatchy: Small business owners feel left out of jobs discussion
Reuters: More work needed to cut health costs – White House
Time: Europe’s Secret Nuclear Weapons – What Should NATO Do?
AP: Obama science advisers grilled over hacked e-mails
Reuters: New York state lawmakers vote against gay marriage
AP: Putin – Will consider running for president in 2012
BBC News: West Bank settlers reject Netanyahu plea for support
AP: Pentagon e-mails suggest distrust over ally Canada
BBC News: Bin Laden not in my country, Pakistan PM tells Brown
BBC News: Honduran Congress votes down Zelaya’s reinstatement
AP: Soda makers fight unlikely tax
CQPolitics: Tanner To Retire; Herron Switches Races, Will Run For House
And we have a war president
Though it’s been my contention that the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been the commander-in-chief’s since the 20th of January this year when he took the oath of office, there is no denying that the surge is completely Obama’s. However, many are left wondering whether the speech last night was something that the president found in a file cabinet left over from the Bush Administration. [1] In case there is any doubt, let’s do some comparison, shall we? I have taken six quotes from the President’s speech last night and six quotes from former President Bush’s speech at West Point in 2002. I have mixed them up. I’d like to see if someone can choose which quotes belong to which president.
| 1 | Building this just peace is America’s opportunity, and America’s duty. From this day forward, it is your challenge, as well, and we will meet this challenge together. | Most of all, I know that this decision asks even more of you – a military that, along with your families, has already borne the heaviest of all burdens. As President, I have signed a letter of condolence to the family of each American who gives their life in these wars. |
| 2 | This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. | For much of the last century, America’s defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence — the promise of massive retaliation against nations — means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies. |
| 3 | we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them. | Along with our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront regimes that sponsor terror, as each case requires. |
| 4 | We have our best chance since the rise of the nation state in the 17th century to build a world where the great powers compete in peace instead of prepare for war. The history of the last century, in particular, was dominated by a series of destructive national rivalries that left battlefields and graveyards across the Earth. Germany fought France, the Axis fought the Allies, and then the East fought the West, in proxy wars and tense standoffs, against a backdrop of nuclear Armageddon. | We will have to take away the tools of mass destruction. That is why I have made it a central pillar of my foreign policy to secure loose nuclear materials from terrorists; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to pursue the goal of a world without them. |
| 5 | And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom, and justice, and opportunity, and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are. That is the moral source of America’s authority. | The 20th century ended with a single surviving model of human progress, based on non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance. America cannot impose this vision — yet we can support and reward governments that make the right choices for their own people. In our development aid, in our diplomatic efforts, in our international broadcasting, and in our educational assistance, the United States will promote moderation and tolerance and human rights. And we will defend the peace that makes all progress possible. |
| 6 | We have a great opportunity to extend a just peace, by replacing poverty, repression, and resentment around the world with hope of a better day. Through most of history, poverty was persistent, inescapable, and almost universal. In the last few decades, we’ve seen nations from Chile to South Korea build modern economies and freer societies, lifting millions of people out of despair and want. | more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades – a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty. |
Where do the comparisons between Bush and Obama end? Bush’s excuses for the Iraq War went from weapons of mass destruction to defeating al-Qaida to ensuring democracy for the Iraqi people. Obama’s excuses for the Afghan War have gone from defeating al-Qaida to defeating the Taliban to ensuring democracy for the Afghan people. Bush used 9/11 as a justification for war. Obama now uses 9/11 as a justification for war. Bush said that we were building a coalition of nations while asserting our responsibility to go to war for national security reasons and to defend democracy. Obama now says that we are joined by a coalition of nations while asserting “America’s authority” in going to war to avoid ”an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies” and to ensure that “other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.” Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who once campaigned against Bush’s third term, has now adapted Mr. Bush’s language and tactics for war. Where will this lead? I leave you with a few choice responses to this speech.
Slate.com – Obama’s Afghanistan speech was confusing
Der Spiegel – Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic
LA Times – Obama’s revealing Afghanistan war speech: 4,582 words and not one of them was ‘victory’
Salon.com – Yes, It’s Obama’s War Now
And for those interested, transcripts from Bush’s speech in June 2002 and Obama’s speech last night.
