House Democrat holdouts agree to move forward on health care bill

Up dated 7-29-009
(CNN) -- A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats announced Wednesday they had reached a deal with the chamber's Democratic leaders on a bill that would revamp the nation's health care system.

President Obama stresses the urgency of health care reform at a town hall meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, speaking for four of the Blue Dog Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Wednesday that the agreement called for the panel to begin debating the bill later in the day, but for the full House not to vote until after the August recess.
Ross and the Blue Dogs had threatened to derail the bill in the committee because of concerns that it costs too much and fails to address systemic problems in the nation's ailing health care industry. It was not immediately clear Wednesday if other Blue Dogs beyond the four represented by Ross would agree to the deal he announced.
The Energy and Commerce Committee is the last of three House committees required to pass the bill before it goes to the full chamber.
The Blue Dogs had presented committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman a list of 10 items that they wanted changed in health care reform proposals. Neither side revealed what the 10 items were.
Waxman said his committee would take up the bill Wednesday at 4 p.m., with hopes of approving it by Friday.
Ross said the deal between four Blue Dogs on the House committee, the House Democratic leadership and the White House lowers the cost of the House health care reform plan by $100 billion and also exempts businesses with payrolls below $500,000 from having to provide health coverage for workers.
Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in reform
He also said the bill's government-funded public insurance option -- a key provision for President Obama and Democratic leaders -- would be a choice for consumers instead of coverage forced on people without health insurance.
Republican opponents of the public option and some Democrats, warn such a not-for-profit plan would have a competitive advantage over private insurers and eventually wipe them out.
"The public option will be required to negotiate with health care providers just like private insurance companies do to insure we have a level playing field," Ross said.
The announcement came as Obama held a town hall meeting on health care in Raleigh, North Carolina. Another town hall meeting is scheduled for later Wednesday afternoon at a Kroger grocery story in Bristol, Virginia.
If Congress fails to act soon, Obama warned the Raleigh audience, health costs will double over the next decade, make millions more Americans uninsured and bankrupt government on both the state and federal levels.
The president accused his critics of mischaracterizing his plan as a government takeover of health care.
"No one is talking about some government takeover," he said. "I'm tired of hearing that. ... These folks need to stop scaring everybody."
He also brushed aside criticism that the plan is being rushed through Congress without adequate time for review and debate.
Congressmen will have plenty of time to read the bill, Obama insisted. Noting that Congress won't finish deliberating the legislation until after its August recess, Obama said he'd be willing to invite any representative or senator over to the White House to review the bill "line by line."
Earlier Wednesday, CNN obtained an e-mail from a top aide of Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus that aimed to debunk a Washington Post headline that negotiators in that chamber were close to a deal.
"While progress has been made in recent days, neither an accord nor an announcement is imminent," wrote Russ Sullivan, Democratic staff director for the committee. "In fact, significant policy issues remain to be discussed among the Members, and any one of these issues could preclude bipartisan agreement."
While several senators have been more upbeat about the negotiators' progress over the past 24 hours, there is also concern about managing expectations, and about backlash from senators left out of negotiations who have not been briefed on all the details of the talks.
Still, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told National Public Radio on Wednesday morning they are "on the edge" of a deal this week.
CNN's Dana Bash, Evan Glass, Deirdre Walsh and Ed Henry contributed to this report.
---http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com

Poll: Obama's Popularity Lifts U.S. Global Image

The verdict is in: President Barack Obama is popular around the world and improving the U.S.'s global image

By KRISTINA WONGJuly 23, 2009
A Pew Research Poll released today shows that the image of the United States has "improved markedly in most parts of the world," largely because of the high levels of global confidence and trust in Obama. Improvements were especially high in Western Europe, but attitudes toward America also warmed in Canada, Mexico, Argentina and urban populations in Brazil, India and China. Nearly 27,000 interviews were conducted in 24 nations, as well as the Palestinian territories.
"His personal popularity and new respect for the U.S. having elected him translates positively for the U.S. image," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today, speaking on a Washington, D.C., panel with Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut and former U.N. Ambassador John Danforth, who's also a former GOP senator from Missouri.
The survey notes that confidence in Obama's "foreign policy judgments stands behind a resurgent U.S. image in many countries" and those surveyed indicated a belief that Obama will "do the right thing" in regard to world affairs.
The survey, conducted by the non-partisan Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, showed that favorable ratings for both the nation and Americans have soared in Western Europe. In Germany, favorable opinion of the United States more than doubled, from 31 percent in 2008 to 64 percent in 2009.
There were "signs of improvement" in predominantly Muslim countries that held overwhelming negative views of the United States during the George W. Bush administration.
Among predominantly Muslim countries, the United States was most popular in Indonesia, where Obama spent part of his childhood. For the first time in the course of Pew's surveys among Muslim publics, confidence in Obama topped confidence in Osama bin Laden.
There was only a modest increase in favorable views of the United States among Muslims in the Middle East, with the largest being in Jordan, with a 6 percent increase.
While the survey showed that overall opinion of the United States remained "largely unfavorable" among Muslims in the Middle East, there was a three-fold increase in confidence in Obama from the Bush administration in 2008 in Egypt and Jordan.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com

Obama: Police who arrested professor 'acted stupidly'

(CNN) -- President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home.

Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. talks Wednesday about his ordeal with Cambridge police.
"I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played," Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference.
Cambridge authorities dropped disorderly conduct charges against Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Tuesday.
Obama defended Gates on Wednesday night, while admitting that he may be "a little biased," because Gates is a friend.
"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 ... that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."
The incident, Obama said, shows "how race remains a factor in this society." Watch the president address the incident »
The mayor of Cambridge said she is going to meet with the city's police chief to make sure the scenario that caused Gates' arrest does not happen again.
"This suggests that something happened that should not have happened," Mayor E. Denise Simmons said on CNN's "American Morning." "The situation is certainly unfortunate. This can't happen again in Cambridge."
Gates said Simmons called him to apologize.
He told CNN on Wednesday that although charges had been dropped, he will keep the issue alive.
"This is not about me; this is about the vulnerability of black men in America," Gates told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. Have race relations improved since Obama's election?
Gates said he'd be prepared to forgive the arresting officer "if he told the truth" about what the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research said were "fabrications" in the police report.
The officer, Sgt. James Crowley, told CNN affiliate WCVB earlier Wednesday that he will not apologize.
"There are not many certainties in life, but it is for certain that Sgt. Crowley will not be apologizing," he said.
Gates said the mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, called him to apologize about the incident, in which he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
CNN could not confirm Wednesday night that an apology was made. Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons did not respond to requests by CNN for comment.
Crowley wrote in the Cambridge police report that Gates refused to step outside to speak with him, the police report said, and when Crowley told Gates that he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" the report said.
The report said Gates initially refused to show the officer identification, but eventually produced a Harvard identification card, prompting Crowley to radio for Harvard University Police.
"While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me," Crowley said, according to the report.
Gates was arrested for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space" and was released from police custody after spending four hours at the police station.
He said Wednesday that he and his lawyers were considering further actions, not excluding a lawsuit.
Gates said that although the ordeal had upset him, "I would do the same thing exactly again."
Earlier this week, a prosecutor dropped the charge against Gates and the city's police department recommended that the matter not be pursued.
CNN.com-----Black in America 2

Banks with bailout funds say loans rise: survey

Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:29am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 80 percent of the U.S. banks that received federal bailout funds said the money had helped them increase lending or avoid a drop in lending as the recession worsened earlier this year, according to a new survey released on Sunday.
The survey by the Special Inspector General for the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) found nearly 40 percent of the 360 banks surveyed had used some of the funds to build up capital cushions to absorb unanticipated losses.
And a third of the institutions said they had invested some of the TARP money into mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae (FNM.N) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N).
The survey, conducted from February to June, was aimed at answering a question on the minds of many lawmakers, policy makers and commentators: What have banks done with their bailout money?
The original bank capital infusion program approved by the administration of George W. Bush in October 2008 did not require detailed information from banks on use of TARP funds.
TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky recommended in the report that Treasury require TARP recipients to submit periodic reports to Treasury on their use of the funds, "such as lending, investments, acquisitions and other activities, including a description of what actions they were able to take that they would not have taken without TARP funding."
The survey did not make public results from individual banks, partly to address their concerns about divulging business-sensitive information.
But of the 360 banks surveyed, 300 or 83 percent, said it was used to supplement lending activities. About 29 percent of institutions said they used TARP funds to make residential loans, 18 percent used TARP funds for commercial mortgages and 17 percent said they made other consumer loans with TARP funds, such as auto loans and personal lines of credit.
Among the 40 percent of banks that said they used TARP funds to bolster capital cushions, economic uncertainty was a key factor cited. The report cited the following quote as a typical response in this area: It was "in the best interest of (the bank's) shareholders for the company to gain additional liquidity and a further capital cushion against the economic uncertainties that lay ahead."
Another 52 institutions, or 14 percent, said they used the funds to pay off other debts because the government funding was more cost effective.
Another 15 banks, or four percent, said they used TARP funds for acquisitions, mostly to take over failed banks at the request of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the regulator that administers most bank failures.
Most TARP participants said they did not segregate the taxpayer funds from their other capital or borrowings.
(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Todd Eastham)

Obama Visit Stirs Pride Among Ghanaians

By Karin Brulliard Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, July 11, 2009; 2:24 PM

ACCRA, Ghana, July 11 -- President Obama gave no public speech for the masses on his first visit as president to sub-Saharan Africa on Saturday. So Ghanaians who had eagerly awaited his visit listened to his words in places like Nyasa Enterprise, a dim one-room barbershop with a plastic wall clock and a poster of Jesus.
There, as owner Ebenezer Owusu, 30, shaved the head and face of a client, three of his friends sat in lawn chairs and watched a small television, on which Obama was pledging to help Africa but insisting Africa also help itself.

"We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans," Obama said, speaking before parliament at a conference center a few miles away.
It was a message that went over well in this single outpost of Ghana's capital. Ghana, a stable democracy, is doing better than many African countries, the patrons said, but it has plenty of problems. Indeed, Ghana ranks in the middle on Transparency International's corruption index, and 80 percent of its population lives on less than $2 a day.

"It's good that he was hammering on that point," Kofi Kennedy, 30, a hotel manager. "Because the money comes in, and as I'm sitting here, I'm not privy to what they're using it for. At the end of the day, it's the Ghanaians who suffer."
Out in the streets, several proud Ghanaians sported t-shirts, stocking caps and dresses printed with images of President Obama, who is making rounds this morning on his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa.

But although the setting was the sultry West African coast, the environment was American-style security. About 10,000 police officers lined city streets and blocked roads near Obama's itinerary stops, dogs sniffed around the building where Obama addressed parliament and helicopters flew overhead. Despite the excitement, some Ghanaians expressed regret that they had no chance to see the first American black president, a man they view as one of them.
"We are not tourists. We are Africans. This is our home," said Muhammad Bako, a businessman who was standing with about 40 onlookers near a police checkpoint several blocks from the conference center. "So they should set up a situation where we could see him."

In Ghana, like many African countries, life is largely lived in public. But Obama outlined his Africa policy to lawmakers and dignitaries in a conference center, not in the oceanfront Independence Square named for Ghana's emergence in 1957 as the first African country to shed colonialism.
Ghanaian officials attributed the indoor venue to security concerns and seasonal downpours, but some analysts said Obama made the choice to underscore the seriousness of his visit. Obama has said he chose to come to Ghana for its strong history of holding elections in which power has been peacefully handed to one party to another, and to emphasize good governance.
Early this morning, Obama told his hosts he had opted for a quick stop in Ghana at the tail of a world tour -- as opposed to a one-week visit to various African countries -- to emphasize that "Africa is not separate from world affairs."
That was welcome news to Ghanaians, who have been oozing thrill about Obama's visit. Even so, the private speech meant no large crowds formed, and many went about their days as usual.
From---Washington Post
See--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/

Australian Town Bans Bottled Water

By Steve Aquino Thu July 9, 2009 7:13 AM PST
Residents of Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia have voted to ban the sale of bottled water in their rural town—probably the first in the world to do so. Only two voters opposed the ban. Why?
Bundanoon's battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company's proposal in court.

In other words, bottling water wastes an incredible amount of resources—natural and capital. (Producing the bottles for the American market requires 17 million barrels of oil; three liter of water are needed to produce a liter of bottled water.) So officials in Bundanoon will install more drinking fountains and encourage residents to use them to fill reusable water bottles for free.
I hope something like this catches on elsewhere. It's certainly possible. When San Francisco announced it would ban businesses from giving out plastic bags for free, some store owners griped it would hurt their bottom lines because paper bags are more expensive than plastic. But walk in to any Trader Joe's or Walgreens and you'll see a majority customers bringing their own bags or reusing them from previous trips.

That's the power of a collective mindset, albeit one driven in part by a law. Of course, there are other benefits to reusable bags, the least of which is not having to dedicate a cupboard to a heap of plastic stamped with CVS's logo.
But there are more potent incentives to banning bottled water. For one, the environmental benefit is greater (Americans recycle less than seven percent of their plastic, compared to 55 percent of the paper they use.) To me, though, the most potent incentive is purely economic: Part of the reason we pay taxes is so that we have clean drinking water. Whenever I buy a bottle of water, I feel like I'm doing something incredibly irrational, spending money on something for which there exists a free and arguably better substitute—tap water.
See---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/

Revisions to Health Bill Are Unveiled by Democrats

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: July 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — To warm words from President Obama, the Democratic leaders of the Senate health committee unveiled a revised plan Thursday to provide health coverage to nearly all Americans. The plan would require most employers to offer benefits to their workers or pay fees to the government and would create a public competitor to insurance companies.
The proposal clears the way for the committee to vote on a package next week as the House and the Senate hustle to pass separate health bills this month before Congress leaves on its August break. But a second Senate panel, the Finance Committee, is still struggling to reach consensus.

The health committee’s blueprint builds on an incomplete version that was much criticized two weeks ago when the Congressional Budget Office reported that it would cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years and still leave up to 37 million Americans uninsured. That budget report was widely considered a setback for a health care overhaul, Mr. Obama’s top domestic priority.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the health committee chairman, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut subsequently filled in details of the plan and scaled back subsidies that would help low-income people buy insurance.
Attached to the revised outline they presented Thursday was a new budget office analysis projecting that the plan would cost $611 billion over a decade and, together with expected changes from the Finance Committee, cover 97 percent of Americans.

The Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid is expected to propose expansions to that government health program for the poor that would add several hundred billion dollars more to the legislation’s cost, depending on how it is designed.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who control Congress are seeking to hold the upfront costs of overhauling the health care system to roughly $1 trillion over a decade. In the course of time, they argue, the changes would rein in health care spending through efficient practices and lower insurance costs.
Their main idea for controlling insurance costs is the proposal for a public option. Along with private insurers’ offerings, it would be part of a new insurance exchange from which consumers without employer-provided coverage could choose. On Thursday, Mr. Obama said again that the public option would help in “keeping the insurance companies honest.”

In a statement, the president hailed the Senate health committee’s work. It “reflects many of the principles I’ve laid out,” he said, including the insurance exchange and a requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Under the Kennedy-Dodd proposal, employers with 25 or more workers would have to provide coverage or pay the government an annual fee of $750 for each full-time worker and $375 for each part-timer. The government would pay the start-up costs for the public insurance option as a loan to be repaid, and premiums would be set up so that the option was ultimately self-sufficient.
See--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com/