Democrats lay health care blame on Obama, not Lieberman or Baucus

Barack Obama has failed to lead and the Senate health bill will be defeated by real Democrats.

Huffington Post, December 16th, 2009

Congressional Democrats are starting to voice their anger at President Obama over the way health care legislation has been compromised, blaming him for not fighting harder.

“The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). “No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God!” he exclaimed about the Senate health care bill to Roll Call. “The insurance lobby is taking over.”

Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), told Politico of Senate delays, “It’s ridiculous, and the Obama administration is sitting on the sidelines. That’s nonsense.”*

While many House Democrats have expressed anger with the Senate for the watered-down bill, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued that it was really Obama who let centrists take control. “Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge?” he said. “It’s time for the president to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate.” More….

New York Times, November 28th, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still secretly holding inmates for sometimes weeks at a time and without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the site on the Bagram Air Base.

The site, known to detainees as the black jail, consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day. In interviews, former detainees said that their only human contact was at twice-daily interrogation sessions.

“The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place,” said Hamidullah, a spare-parts dealer in Kandahar who was detained there in June. “They don’t let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray.” More…

Talk of war surtax for Afghanistan expenses heats up

Los Angeles Times, November 24th, 2009

Reporting from Washington – As President Obama is preparing to announce a troop increase and new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, several powerful House committee chairmen have proposed a surtax on Americans to pay the future military costs.

Talk of the levy escalated Tuesday after Obama said he soon would deliver a plan to “finish the job” in Afghanistan. “I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals,” Obama said, “that they will be supportive.”

The suggestion that a surtax be used to help fund the increasingly unpopular war, though unlikely to pass, illustrated the fiscal anxieties that the president will face if he asks Congress to write another big-ticket item into the budget.

“There is serious unrest in our caucus” over whether the U.S. can afford the war, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in a conference call with economists and bloggers. “We have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on.” More…

Associated Press, November 24th, 2009

WASHINGTON – War-weary Americans will support more fighting in Afghanistan once they understand the perils of losing, President Barack Obama declared Tuesday, announcing he was ready to spell out war plans virtually sure to include tens of thousands more U.S. troops.

He is expected to make his case to the nation in a speech next Tuesday night, even as the military completes plans to begin sending in reinforcements in the spring.

Eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Obama said it is still in America’s vital national interest to “dismantle and destroy” al-Qaida terrorists and extremist allies. “I intend to finish the job,” he said.

Obama said he would announce after Thanksgiving his decision on additional troops, and military, congressional and other sources said the occasion would be a Tuesday night televised speech laying out his plans for expanding the Afghan conflict — and then ultimately ending America’s military role. More…

CNN Money.com, November 16th, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday. The Department of Agriculture report, which has been released annually since 1995, said the number of Americans that were hungry rose to 14.6%. In 2007, 13 million households or 11.1% of Americans had trouble getting enough food.

The one-year jump is all the more significant, given the number of hungry Americans had never been higher than 11.9% since these surveys began.

Of the near-15% of the nation that couldn’t secure enough food last year, the USDA said one-third of them had “very low food security,” meaning they reduced the amount that they ate or disrupted their eating patterns during the year. That group made up 5.7% of all U.S. households, which was also a record high.

More than 500,000 households that scaled back the amount that they ate were households with children, making up 1.3% of all U.S. homes with children.

The USDA said the main cause of hunger and food insecurity in the country is poverty. More…

All five Arizona Democrats voted for the bill

New York Times, October 8th, 2009

WASHINGTON — Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.

After a daylong clash with Republicans over what has been a Democratic goal for decades, lawmakers voted 220 to 215 to approve a plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Democrats said the legislation would provide overdue relief to Americans struggling to buy or hold on to health insurance.

“This is our moment to revolutionize health care in this country,” said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and one of the chief architects of the bill.

Democrats were forced to make major concessions on insurance coverage for abortions to attract the final votes to secure passage, a wrenching compromise for the numerous abortion-rights advocates in their ranks.

Many of them hope to make changes to the amendment during negotiations with the Senate, which will now become the main battleground in the health care fight as Democrats there ready their own bill for what is likely to be extensive floor debate. More…

Last Night’s Big Lessons

Daily Kos, November 4th, 2009

There will be much number-crunching tomorrow, but preliminary numbers (at least in Virginia) show that GOP turnout remained the same as last year, but Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:

1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary “bipartisanship”, you will lose votes.

2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.

3. If you forget why you were elected — health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform — you will lose votes.

Tonight proved conclusively that we’re not going to turn out just because you have a (D) next to your name, or because Obama tells us to. We’ll turn out if we feel it’s worth our time and effort to vote, and we’ll work hard to make sure others turn out if you inspire us with bold and decisive action.

The choice is yours. Give us a reason to vote for you, or we sit home. And you aren’t going to make up the margins with conservative voters. They already know exactly who they’re voting for, and it ain’t you. More…

Small Business Faces Sharp Rise in Costs of Health Care

New York Times, October 24th, 2009

As Congress nears votes on legislation that would overhaul the health care system, many small businesses say they are facing the steepest rise in insurance premiums they have seen in recent years.

Insurance brokers and benefits consultants say their small business clients are seeing premiums go up an average of about 15 percent for the coming year — double the rate of last year’s increases. That would mean an annual premium that was $4,500 per employee in 2008 and $4,800 this year would rise to $5,500 in 2010.

Higher medical costs aside, some experts say they think the insurance industry, under pressure from Wall Street, is raising premiums to get ahead of any legislative changes that might reduce their profits. More…

The Hill.com, October 23rd, 2009

The White House is concentrating on winning Senate votes to pass health reform with a public option, a spokesman said Friday.

As questions swirl about the number of votes in the House for several versions of the public option, varying in strength, Deputy White House Secretary Bill Burton said that President Barack Obama is working on votes in the Senate.

“I will say that the president continues to think that the public option is the best way to achieve choice and competition, and that’s what he’s working toward,” Burton said during a press gaggle on Air Force One this morning.

“We’re working on getting healthcare reform done, and in order to do that, obviously you’re going to need some votes in the United States Senate to move it forward, and that’s what we’re working on,” Burton added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called an emergency meeting of House Democrats this morning to emphasize that she had not lost the votes for a “robust” public option, contrary to reports this morning. More…

Congress has passed legislation to make violence against gays and lesbians a category of hate crime.

Los Angeles Times, October 23rd, 2009

The Senate approves the measure, 68 to 29, and Obama is expected to sign it. The legislation, previously passed by the House, is named for Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.

Reporting from Washington – A bill to make violence against gays and lesbians a federal hate crime cleared the Senate on Thursday and headed to the White House. The 68-29 vote was a victory for civil rights groups that have long sought to expand the federal statute beyond attacks motivated by religion, race, color or national origin. The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign, includes penalties for assaults based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., whose Justice Department would be charged with enforcing the provisions, praised the bill’s passage. “There have been nearly 80,000 hate-crime incidents reported to the FBI since I first testified before Congress in support of a hate-crimes bill 11 years ago,” Holder said.

Recent incidents — such as the June shooting death of an African American security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum by a white supremacist — “demonstrate that there are still those for whom prejudice can translate into violence,” he said. More…