Gary Rumor’s Anti-Entropic Continuum

Today Senator Reid presented the Senate version of the Healthcare bill.

This is an excerpt from CNN Money today.

“Senate’s health care bill cost: $849 billion
Congressional Budget Office says the Senate’s version of the the health care overhaul would cost $849 billion over 10 years and would cut the deficit by $127 billion.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the Senate health care bill would cost $849 billion over 10 years, according to a senior Democratic source and an administration official.

The CBO projects the measure would reduce deficit by $127 billion and insure an additional 31 million Americans, according to the sources.

Ninety-four percent of Americans would be covered under the bill, the sources noted.

The news came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, met behind closed doors with Senate Democrats to unveil the bill before a news conference later Wednesday.

Reid needs to round up 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to overcome a certain GOP filibuster attempt and open the chamber’s debate on the bill. Democratic leadership sources have said a Saturday vote to start debate is likely.

It remains unclear, however, whether Democrats will have enough votes to fend off a filibuster.

Earlier Wednesday, Reid met with Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska — three moderate Democrats who have expressed concerns about the cost and scope of health care reform proposals.

The trio will play a pivotal role in the success or failure of health care reform in the Senate. If Republicans stay unified in opposition to the health care bill, Reid would need the support of all 58 Senate Democrats as well as independent Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to reach the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.

If the Senate manages to pass a bill, a congressional conference committee would need to merge the House and Senate proposals into a consensus version requiring final approval from each chamber before moving to President Barack Obama’s desk to be signed into law.

Democratic leaders in both chambers have been wrestling with a series of controversial issues tied to health care reform, including abortion and immigration. They’re also at odds over how to pay for reform.

They have, however, reached agreement on a broad range of changes that could impact every American’s coverage.

Among other things, they’ve agreed to subsidize insurance for a family of four making up to roughly $88,000 annually, or 400% of the federal poverty level.

They’ve also agreed to expand Medicaid and create health insurance exchanges to make it easier for small businesses, the self-employed and the unemployed to pool resources and purchase less expensive coverage.

They also would limit total out-of-pocket expenses and prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Insurers under the Democratic plans would be barred from charging higher premiums based on a person’s gender or medical history.”

Tonight I heard a great idea. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck run for President and Vice President as a conservative team. They run as a third party. Great. Wonderful take the base away from the Republican Party. And let the Republicans run as the party of Business, their traditional position. That would make the Republicans the centrist-right party again.
The Democrats can be the centrist party they are now and what is missing. Hmm, let me think. A conservative party a center right party, a center left party and oh I remember a left wing or labor party. Gee I wonder if any group will get their act together and provide a decent left perspective. Maybe the progressives will leave the democrats and join the greens and turn America into a real multiparty democracy. Wow that would be something!!

Attorney General Holder spoke today at hearings. This is an excerpt from a McClatchy Newspaper story.

McClatchy D.C. Bureau
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
GOP senators, Holder clash over New York trials for 9/11 plot
James Rosen - McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Republican senators confronted Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday over his decision to try the Sept. 11 terrorism suspects in civilian court.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, expressed certainty that they’ll be found guilty and executed.

Holder didn’t go as far as Obama did in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, though the nation’s top prosecutor said he was confident that justice would be delivered to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“I think you’ve made a fundamental mistake here,” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a military lawyer who’s served active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, told Holder.

“You have taken a wartime model that will allow flexibility when it comes to intelligence gathering, and you have compromised this country’s ability to deal with people at war with us by interjecting into the system the possibility that they may be given the same constitutional rights as any American citizen,” Graham said.

Holder said he foresaw no judicial obstacles to convicting the five terrorism suspects and putting them to death, though he acknowledged that prosecutors will have to persuade jurors.

“I do not see any legal impediments to our seeking the death penalty,” Holder said. “We will obviously have to convince a jury of 12 people that the death penalty is appropriate.”

Obama, in a TV interview during his tour of Asia, suggested that death sentences will vindicate Holder’s and his decision to hold a federal trial for Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 assault, which killed almost 3,000 Americans.

When the president was asked whether he understood why some people might take offense at the decision, which Holder announced last week, he told NBC News: “I don’t think it will be offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”

Obama, a former law professor, appeared to realize immediately that such a statement risks harming the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial.

“What I said was people will not be offended if that’s the outcome,” he added. “I’m not prejudging” the verdict.”

Oops, is this a fair trial or a show trial. It seems more to me like this trial is about as real as the Soviet Union trials in the 1930’s of the persons Stalin wanted to get rid of. I am not suggesting that Obama is another Stalin, far from it. He is more like a Gorbachev if he is like any Soviet leader. But it seems to me that they are more concerned with relieving right wing fears that these guys might get away than with any desire for justice. It seems to me that anyone who was water boarded over 100 times deserves to be found not guilty due to illegal arrest and torture. But it will be interesting to see how they twist the concept of justice to make liberals breathe a sigh of relief that the forms of democracy were maintained while the substance was torn apart to appease the right wing.

Karzai was reappointed Ruler of Afghanistan and Hillary Clinton was there to give him a list of approved candidates for office and to put some muscle on him to make sure he knows that giving deals to the Chinese for big bribes is not kosher. Those bribes should go to Americans.

This is from the USA Today.

Afghan official said to take bribe for copper deal
Posted 11/18/2009 6:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Afghan official allegedly took a $20 million bribe to steer a copper mining project to a Chinese company, a glaring example of the claims of corruption clouding the Obama administration’s deliberations over expanding the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan.
In Washington, two U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports said that Afghanistan’s minister of mines, Muhammad Ibrahim Adel, allegedly accepted the money soon after the $3 billion contract was awarded in late 2007 to China Metallurgical Group Corp.”

On another matter remember Katrina? Well a judge in New Orleans today awarded money to litigants who sued the US government for not properly maintaining the ship canal built by the Army Corp of Engineers.

This from the NY Times.

Ruling on Katrina Flooding Favors Homeowners
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: November 18, 2009
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge found Wednesday evening that poor maintenance of a major navigation channel by the Army Corps of Engineers led to some of the worst flooding after Hurricane Katrina. The ruling was a major victory for homeowners who suffered damage in the aftermath of the storm.

It was the first time that the government has been held liable for any of the flooding that inundated the New Orleans area after Aug. 29, 2005, vindicating the long-held contention of many in the region that the flooding was far more than an act of God.

If upheld, the ruling could force the federal government to pay tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to homeowners whose property was lost or damaged by water from the navigation canal, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known as MR-GO (pronounced Mister Go).

“It is the court’s opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness,” wrote Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of Federal District Court.”

This means the Federal Government gets to pay. Unfortunately that means we the tax payers pay. But this should never have happened. Another Bush Administration holdover effect. As I have said elsewhere Obama is the janitorial president. He is the clean up man.

Tags: Afghani Bribes, Katrina Payout, Palin & Beck., Reid Healthcare, Terror Trials

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Gnosis:, History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.