1) Joe Lieberman: Ready to vote for reform
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday afternoon he thinks he's ready to vote for the Senate health care reform bill — and that his positions on the Medicare buy-in do not contradict his previously stated stances on the issue.
"To be as explicit as I can be now, if as it appears to be happening, the so-called public option, government-run insurance program is out, and the Medicare buy-in—which I thought would jeopardize Medicare, cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the long haul, increase our deficit—is out, and there's no other attempts to bring things like that in, then... I am getting to that position to where I can say what I wanted to say all along, that I'm ready to vote for health care reform."
Except how it will work, my dear Lieberman, is that after it passes in the Senate and goes into committee, where the work of reconciling the Senate and House Bills will begin, the public option will go back in.
See: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30623.html
1a) The liberals' weaselly panic
Harry Reid can rightly claim to be making history.
If he passes health-care re form, he'll depend on a series of historic "firsts." It'd be the first time Congress had passed a major new entitlement program without bipartisan support; it'd be the first time it passed such a program without popular support; and the first time it passed such a program without knowing or particularly caring what's in it.
John McCain complained last week that he had no idea what constituted the highly touted backroom deal that Reid sent to the Congressional Budget Office for evaluation. The No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, reassured McCain that he didn't know, either. This is bipartisanship Harry Reid-style -- nontransparency for everyone.
Reid reportedly proposed giving the uninsured aged 55-65 entree into Medicare, a departure from the program's long-standing limit to retirees age 65 and older. This is a radical change that didn't have a full and frank airing among senators, let alone a committee hearing. Reid wanted the provisions of the deal kept secret because -- as recounted by Joe Lieberman -- he thought they'd be "mauled" if made public. Who needs openness and legislative details when you're remaking one-sixth of the economy?
…Reid's struggle getting to 60 makes some liberals fear that America has become "ungovernable." In other words, it isn't putty in their grasping little hands. Unfortunately for them, the Founders created a balky system resistant to precipitate change. It is designed to frustrate ideologically drunken (and perhaps temporary) majorities insistent on passing sweeping, unpopular legislation. Reid's difficulty is exactly the way James Madison would have wanted it.
…But Reid knows long-term persuasion isn't an option. As his approval rating sags below 40 percent back in Nevada, even he might not be returning to Washington after 2010. Every day, every hour matters in the now-or-never calculus of Democrats who already feel their moment slipping agonizingly away.
…especially if you donate to his only conservative opponent with legislative experience. Please go to http://www.sharronangle.com/ and make a contribution to freedom.
See: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_liberals_weaselly_panic_ecP4ynDjysSmWeB4lFPANM
1b) Source: Dems Threaten Nelson In Pursuit of 60
While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Though Lieberman has been out front in the fight against the public option and the Medicare buy-in, Nelson was critical of both. Now that those provisions appear to have been stripped from the bill, Lieberman may get on board, but Nelson's demand that taxpayer money not be used to fund abortion has still not been met. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn't fall into line.
Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a "naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson's vote." They are "threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?" asked the Senate staffer.
Indeed, Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons. Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security (emphasis mine).
See: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/source_dems_threaten_nelson_in_1.asp
2) Senate sends $1.1 trillion spending bill to Obama
WASHINGTON – The Senate on Sunday passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill with increased budgets for vast areas of the federal government, including health, education, law enforcement and veterans' programs.
The spending bill combines six of the 12 annual appropriation bills for the 2010 budget year that began Oct. 1. Obama has signed into law five others.
…The final one, a $626 billion defense bill, will be used as the base bill for another catch-all package of measures that Congress must deal with in the coming days. Those include action to raise the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling and proposals to stimulate the job market.
…All but three Democrats voted for the bill, while all but three Republicans opposed it. Democrats said the spending was critical to meet the needs of a recession-battered economy. "Every bill that is passed, every project that is funded and every job that is created helps America take another step forward on the road of economic recovery," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after the vote.
Republicans decried what they called out-of control spending and pointed to an estimated $3.9 billion in the bill for more than 5,000 local projects sought by individual lawmakers from both parties.
…The legislation also contains numerous items not directly related to spending. It provides help for auto dealers facing closure, ends a ban on funding by the District of Columbia government for abortions (emphasis mine) and allows the district to permit medical marijuana, lets Amtrak passengers carry unloaded handguns in their checked baggage and permits detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to be transferred to the United States to stand trial, but not to be released.
…Congress must soon raise the debt ceiling, now at $12.1 trillion, so the Treasury can continue to borrow, and Democratic leaders are eyeing a new figure close to $14 trillion, pushing the issue past next November's election.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_spending
3) The coming debt panic
Only bipartisan action can avoid it.
IT'S TIME to stop worrying about the deficit -- and start panicking about the debt. To put it another way, short-term deficits aren't the real problem. The punishing hangover of borrowed money is. The ballooning national debt once looked like a long-term problem. Now, the long-term has become the middle-term, fast-forwarded by the cratering economy and the unavoidable and immense spending in the service of saving it.
Consider: In the space of a single fiscal year, 2009, the debt soared from 41 percent of the gross domestic product to 53 percent. By way of comparison, the average for the past half-century has been 37 percent. This sum, which does not include what the government has borrowed from its own trust funds, is on track to rise to a crushing 85 percent of the economy by 2018. Getting the debt back down to a reasonable level will require extraordinary, almost unimaginable, fiscal discipline and political cooperation. Failing to do so will lower the national standard of living and ultimately threaten America's economic stability.
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/13/AR2009121302442.html
4) ‘Smart’ Electric Utility Meters, Intended to Create Savings, Instead Prompt Revolt
WASHINGTON — Millions of households across America are taking a first step into the world of the “smart grid,” as their power companies install meters that can tell them how much electricity they are using hour by hour — and sometimes, appliance by appliance. But not everyone is happy about it.
Customers in California are in open revolt, and officials in Connecticut and Texas are questioning whether the rush to install meters benefits the public.
Some consumers argue that the meters are logging far more kilowatt hours than they believe they are using. And many find it unfair that they will begin to pay immediately for the new meters through higher rates, when the promised savings could be years away.
…Ms. Keogh reported to the utility that the meter recorded 646 kilowatt-hours in July, for which she paid $66.50; last year it was 474 kilowatt-hours, or $43.37.
…Scores of electric customers with similar complaints have turned out at similar hearings. At one in Fresno, Calif., Leo Margosian, a retired investigator, testified that the new meter logged the consumption of his two-bedroom townhouse at 791 kilowatt-hours in July, up from 236 a year earlier. And he had recently insulated his attic and installed new windows, Mr. Margosian said.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/us/14meters.html?_r=2
5) Inflation rising
…Overall wholesale prices jumped 1.8 percent in November, the Labor Department said. That was more than double the gain analysts had expected. Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, rose 0.5 percent, the sharpest increase in more than a year.
…Wholesale energy prices posted their biggest surge since August. The price increases for gasoline and home heating oil were especially sharp.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy
6) Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.
The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.
Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
…However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
See: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6956783.ece
6a) CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL: 100 REASONS WHY
HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:
1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.
3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.
5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.
6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.
7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.
8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.
9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists – in a scandal known as “Climate-gate” - suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate global warming
10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.
11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct cause of global warming but sea levels rates have been increasing steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago.
And it goes on and on and on…
See: http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138
7) Rules of engagement killing U.S. soldiers
You won't believe how politics handcuff troops in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON – New military rules of engagement ostensibly to protect Afghan civilians are putting the lives of U.S. forces in jeopardy, claim Army and Marine sources, as the Taliban learns to game plan based the rules' imposed limits.
The rules of engagement, or ROEs, apply to all coalition forces of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Their enactment is in response to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's complaints over mounting civilian deaths apparently occurring in firefights.
…The impact of new restrictions has created increasing frustration and concern among U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops who now are compelled to follow these rules despite the danger of letting the Taliban live to fight again another day.
The actual ROEs are said to be classified U.S. and NATO secrets, but based on individual soldier accounts, those restrictions include the following:
-No night or surprise searches
-Villagers are to be warned prior to searches
-Afghan National Army, or ANA, or Afghan National Police, or ANP, must accompany U.S. units on searches
-U.S. soldiers may not fire at insurgents unless they are preparing to fire first
-U.S. forces cannot engage insurgents if civilians are present
-Only women can search women
-Troops can fire on insurgents if they catch them placing an IED but not if insurgents walk away from where the explosives are.
See: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=118941
8) Court to hear case of Christian student group that refused to admit gays
The Supreme Court agreed today to hear an appeal from a Christian student group in San Francisco that refused to admit gays and lesbians and to decide whether the group’s right to religious liberty and freedom of association can trump a university’s ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The case, to be heard next year, could set new rules for campus groups across the nation.
The UC Hastings College of Law says its officially recognized student groups must be open to all of its students. The law school also has a general non-discrimination policy that applies to student groups and programs. It forbids discrimination based on “race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation.”
See: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2009/12/court-to-hear-case-of-christian-student-group-that-refused-to-admit-gays.html
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