TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras' ousted president won overwhelming international support Tuesday as he planned a high-profile return to his chaotic country. The politicians who sent soldiers to fly him into exile in his pajamas said he will be arrested for treason if he tries.
The showdown was building to a climax as the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador signed on to accompany President Manuel Zelaya on a flight to Honduras on Thursday. Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi said Zelaya would be seized "as soon as he sets foot on Honduran soil" and face 20 years in prison on charges that also include abuse of authority.
"I'm going back to calm people down. I'm going to try to open a dialogue and put things in order," Zelaya said at the United Nations. "When I'm back, people are going to say ... `commander, we're at your service' and the army will have to correct itself. There's no other possibility."
The U.N. General Assembly voted by acclamation to demand Zelaya's immediate restoration, and the Organization of American States was meeting to consider suspending Honduras for straying from democracy.
What will happens when he lands? As of now it appears Zeleya has backed off as the government is threatening to arrest him.
The Trainwreck that is California goes full speed ahead as the politicans in Sacremento are sending a budget they know will be vetoed
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Senate has approved a Democratic budget that faces a certain veto from Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the state heads toward issuing IOUs.
The plan the Senate approved Monday would cut spending and increase taxes and fees to bridge a $24.3 billion budget deficit, but Schwarzenegger vows to veto it.
US troops have been withdrawing at a steady pace and today is the official end of the direct US partnership with Iraq. Of course we are still heavily involved and will be for some time. In other news the Iraqi government has put up its oil fields for foreign development. A significant action and one years in the making:
Symbolically, the sale, broadcast on television, coincided with the formal handover by American forces of security arrangements in urban areas to Iraqi forces — an economic counterpoint to the striving for political military independence underpinning the Iraqi takeover of patrolling Iraq’s restive cities.
At the auction, each contender offered a sealed bid containing details of how much oil the developing company would produce and how much they expected to be paid for each barrel of oil produced.
The auction has been billed as one of huge economic importance to Iraq, whose oilfields have been closed to foreigners for decades since they were nationalized under Saddam Hussein. Iraq is seeking to boost its oil production after six years of war.
But, according to reporters watching the auction, the first round o f bidding for the vast Rumaila field — the biggest on offer — stalled when Exxon Mobil and a consortium of BP and the China National Petroleum Corp. both wanted to earn more than the government’s offer of $2 a barrel. The BP consortium wanted $3.99 a barrel and pledged to produce 2.85 million barrels a day, and Exxon said it would produce 3.1 million barrels daily at a fee of $4.8o, news reports said.
The BP consortium later lowered its price to $2 per barrel and Iraqi authorities said they would give bidders several hours to revise their offers.
Almost 8 of 10 of the top oil firms in the world were involved in the bidding, of course the hard part as the deals will have to be approved and then built from the ground up. And a lot of building is needed:
Iraq’s oil sector has suffered over the past several decades from sanctions, and it’s oil infrastructure is in need of modernization and investment. As of March 31, 2009, the United States had allocated$2.05 billion to the Iraqi oil and gas sector to begin this modernization, but ended its direct involvement as of the first quarter of 2008, and does not have any on going construction projects in the oil and gas sector. The 2009 Iraqi budget allocated $3.2 billion to the Ministry of Oil, a 50% increase from the 2008 base budget, to continue this work.
According to reports by various U.S. government agencies, multilateral institutions and other international organizations, long-term Iraq reconstruction costs could reach $100-billion or higher, of which a third will go to the oil, gas and electricity sectors. In addition, the World Bank estimates that at least $1 billion in additional revenues needs to be committed annually to the oil industry just to sustain current production. Investment by the international oil companies will be aided by the passage of the proposed Hydrocarbons Law, which governs oil contracting and regulation. The law has been under review in the Council of Ministers since October 26, 2008, but has not received final passage.
Between the wars, Saddam's rule, and sanctions only the heroic efforts of Iraqi workers kept the system running. Having been in Iraqi did witness an amazing ability to come up with quick fixes using whatever happened to be on hand. Additionally Iraq also has significant natural gas resources:
According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Iraq’s proven natural gas reserves are 112 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). An estimated 70 percent of these lie in Basra governorate in the south of Iraq. Probable Iraqi reserves have been estimated at 275-300 Tcf, and work is currently underway by several IOCs and independents to accurately update hydrocarbon reserve numbers. Iraq’s proven gas reserves are the tenth largest in the world, and two-thirds of resources are associated with oil fields including, Kirkuk, as well as the southern Nahr (Bin) Umar, Majnoon, Halfaya, Nassiriya, the Rumaila fields, West Qurna, and Zubair. Just under 20 percent of known gas reserves are non-associated; around 10 percent is salt “dome” gas. The majority of non-associated reserves are concentrated in several fields in the North including: Ajil, BaiHassan, Jambur, Chemchemal, KorMor, Khashemal-Ahmar, and al-Mansuriyah.
Production Iraqi natural gas production has risen since 2003, and has returned to levels reached during the mid-1990’s. However, its 2006 dry natural gas production of approximately 104 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per year is still far below its peak level of 215 Bcf reached in 1989. The Ministry of Oil reported that approximately 60 percent of associated natural gas production is flared due to a lack of sufficient infrastructure to utilize it for consumption and export. Significant volumes of gas are also re-injectedto enhance oil recovery efforts. In addition, the flaring of the natural gas has meant lost Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) output of an estimated 4,000 tons per day, while at the same time there are LPG shortages requiring imports of 1,200 tons per day. To reduce flaring, the state-owned South Gas Company signed an agreement with Shell in September 2008to implement a 25-year project to capture flared gas and provide it for domestic use, with any surplus sent to an LNG project for export.
At the end of the day this will be an Iraqi decision made by an elected government in the heart of the Middle East which is an extraordinary accomplishment for the Iraqi people and the Coalition forces who toppled Saddam and helped build a nation.
Iraqis danced in the streets and set off fireworks Monday in impromptu celebrations of a pivotal moment in their nation's troubled history: Six years and three months after the March 2003 invasion, the United States on Tuesday is withdrawing its remaining combat troops from Iraq's cities and turning over security to Iraqi police and soldiers.
While more than 130,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, patrols by heavily armed soldiers in hulking vehicles as of Wednesday will largely disappear from Baghdad, Mosul and Iraq's other urban centers.
Its still a dangerous place and US troops are still risking their lives to ensure Iraqi freedom continues. God bless them!
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The Israeli navy ordered a small ferry carrying medical supplies and foreign peace activists trying to break a blockade of Gaza to turn back, a spokesman for the group said Tuesday.
The Israeli military would not confirm or deny the report.
A statement by the voyage's organizers, the Free Gaza Movement, said the vessel, the Spirit of Humanity, left the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Monday bound for Gaza with 3 tons of medical supplies.
The 20 passengers include former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and other activists from Britain, Ireland, Bahrain and Jamaica.
''There is a patrol boat around us and we were told that if we did not turn back they would open fire,'' the movement's Web site quoted Derek Graham, an Irish activist, as saying by satellite telephone.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said today the U.S. government is refraining from formally declaring the ouster of Honduras's president a "coup," which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the Central American country.
Her statement appeared to reflect the U.S. government's caution amid fast-moving events in Honduras, where President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya was detained and expelled by the military yesterday. But the move could put Washington at odds with the rest of the hemisphere, which has roundly condemned the Honduran military's actions.
"We are withholding any formal legal determination," Clinton told reporters at a State Department briefing. She acknowledged, however, that it certainly looked like a coup when soldiers snatched a pajama-clad Zelaya and whisked him off to Costa Rica.
Later in the day, President Obama said the U.S. government believed the takeover was "not legal" and that Zelaya remained the country's leader.
So which is it? So far there has been limited demonstrations, but for how long will we ignore the new government.
Just after 2 a.m., a weary Mr. Kirchner told supporters, “We have lost and we don’t have any problem recognizing our opponents’ victory,” as results indicated the party had lost control of both houses of Congress.
With 74 percent of votes counted in the key Buenos Aires Province elections, Mr. Kirchner’s Front for Victory coalition had 32.1 percent of the vote, trailing the Union-PRO party led by Francisco de Narváez, a congressman and businessman, with 34.5 percent.
Mr. Kirchner, who as president guided the country out of its devastating economic crisis of 2001, ran for the lower house of Congress as part of an effort to save the Peronists from a humiliating defeat in Sunday’s elections. Without a first-place finish, the chances that the couple will continue their political dynasty in the 2011 presidential elections will dim badly, political and investment-risk analysts said.
We need the left defeated here in 2010 and Chavez's himself diminished.
The first read on what happened in Honudras was to describe it as a coup, which certainly holds an element of truth, but if one delves further into the story I believe Revolution might be a more appropriate term. Zelaya clearly attempted a power grab to make him dictator for life just like his patron Chavez. The people of Honduras toppled a tyrant in its infancy, no loss. The important thing now is to restore the democratic process and prevent retributions and recriminations from damaging the Nations future.
The arrest of Mr. Zelaya was the culmination of a battle that had been simmering for weeks over a referendum, which was to have taken place Sunday, that he hoped would lead to a revision of the Constitution. Critics said it was part of an illegal attempt by Mr. Zelaya to defy the Constitution’s limit of a single four-year term for the president.
Early this month, the Supreme Court agreed, declaring the referendum unconstitutional, and Congress followed suit last week. In the last few weeks, supporters and opponents of the president have held competing demonstrations. On Thursday, Mr. Zelaya led a group of protesters to an Air Force base and seized the ballots, which the prosecutor’s office and the electoral tribunal had ordered confiscated.
When the army refused to help organize the vote, he fired the armed forces commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez. The Supreme Court ruled the firing illegal and reinstated General Vásquez.
As the crisis escalated, American officials began in the last few days to talk with Honduran government and military officials in an effort to head off a possible coup. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military broke off those discussions on Sunday.
Why the President decided to meddle in Honduras but not Iran is questionable. As of now there is a push to isolate the governmengt by the OAS and the US position has been critical. Of course Chavez has blustered about war but that was to be expected. As for the world reaction, of course the depose of an authoritarian leftists has many upset:
Micheletti (The New President) was sworn in as provisional president to the applause of members of Congress, who chanted, "Honduras! Honduras!" Outside the building, supporters of Zelaya protested, but their numbers were limited, and the streets remained mostly peaceful. Micheletti told CNN en Español Sunday evening that he had imposed an "indefinite" curfew.
Micheletti, the head of Congress, became president after lawmakers voted by a show of hands to strip Zelaya of his powers, with a resolution stating that Zelaya "provoked confrontations and divisions" within the country. A letter of resignation purported to be from Zelaya was read to members before the vote.
The coup was widely criticized in the region, in strongest terms by Zelaya's leftist allies, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. A statement from Venezuela's foreign ministry said Zelaya was "violently expelled from his country by a group of unpatriotic, coup-mongering soldiers."
The Bolivian government also condemned the coup, accusing Honduran troops of kidnapping Zelaya and violently expelling him from his country.Elsewhere, Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, strongly condemned the coup in a statement. And in Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement that he was "deeply concerned" by the news.
"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Obama said. "Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."
But in Honduras, the Supreme Court said in an official statement that the military was acting in accordance with a court order to put an end to Sunday's scheduled vote, which the court's justices had found illegal.
I was discussing the taxing of employee health benefits with a member of the Health Care industry last week and I pointed out how much opposition there was from the Unions over the issue, she quickly predicted they would exempt them and foist the taxes on everyone else. I was skeptical they would be brazen, and then I read this in the morning:
June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.
The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.
“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.”
Baucus, a Montana Democrat, is proposing to tax Americans whose health insurance is valued at a higher rate than what is offered to federal employees. About 40 percent of insured Americans have costlier benefits, and Baucus has said he is trying to set the level at which taxes would be imposed high enough so fewer people are affected.
Its amazing how Democrat platitudes about shared sacrifice vanish in the face of their special interests groups.
Speaking on Venezuelan state television, Chavez -- who has long championed the left in Latin America -- said he had put his troops on alert over the Honduran coup and would do everything necessary to abort the coup against his close ally.
He said that if the Venezuela ambassador was killed, or troops entered the Venezuela embassy, "that military junta would be entering a defacto state of war, we would have to act militarily." He said, "I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert."
Chavez, who has in the past threatened military action in the region but never followed through, said that if a new government is sworn in after the coup it would be defeated.A military plane flew Zelaya to Costa Rica and CNN's Spanish-language channel said he had asked for asylum there.
Some 2,000 pro-government protesters, some armed with shovels and metal poles, burned tires in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and two fighter jets screamed through the sky over the city.
Bluster and nonsense his military exists to keep him in power and as a vast patronage machine, not for actual fighting.
What you have here was an attempt by the president to maneuver himself into a president for life by changing the constitution, now the military has toppled him:
TEGUCIGALPA, June 28 (Reuters) - The Honduran army ousted President Manuel Zelaya and threw him out of the country on Sunday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to win re-election.
U.S. President Barack Obama expressed deep concern after troops came for Zelaya, an ally of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, at dawn and took him away from his residence.
A military plane flew Zelaya to Costa Rica and CNN's Spanish-language channel said he had asked for asylum there.Police fired tear gas at pro-government protesters in the capital, Honduran radio said, and two fighter jets screamed through the sky over the capital.
The impoverished Central American country had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s, but Zelaya's push to change the constitution to allow him another term has split the country's institutions.
Zelaya fired military chief Gen. Romeo Vasquez last week for refusing to help him run an unofficial referendum on Sunday on extending the four-year term limit on Honduran presidents.
Do two wrongs make a right? The military coup, even against someone trying to be a dictator is a very risky buisness and the slippery slope to tyranny and civil war has clearly been entered. Of course Zelaya brought the issue to a head. Expect Chavez to go ballistic and Obama to waffle, this story has just begun.
Massachusetts is as close an example to what the democrats and Obama are trying to accomplish and its simply not working. We have seen doctor shortages there and its has been more expensive then thought. The money has been running out for some time now now and the fiscal chickens are coming home to roost and no one knows what to do:
Because of a recession-related drop in state revenues and a surge in enrollment by the recently unemployed, the truth is emerging at an inconvenient time. Massachusetts doesn’t have enough money to pay for the coverage envisioned by the law.
In June, state officials announced they are cutting $100 million from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents. The poorest residents, along with the newest - legal immigrants - will take the hit.
This outcome is not surprising, but it is instructive as President Obama pushes for a national healthcare plan.On the day that Republican Governor Mitt Romney, for once, made Bay State Democrats happy, by signing the sweeping new healthcare bill into law, the Globe headline said it all: “Joy, worries on healthcare. As Romney signs bill, doubts arise about revenues.’’
In Massachusetts, the numbers never added up, as everyone involved in crafting the new law understood. But for a variety of reasons, ranging from Romney’s presidential aspirations to Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s longstanding commitment to health care reform, everyone smiled for the cameras and hoped for the best out of this noble experiment.
Today, the current governor, Deval Patrick, a Democrat, is skeptical about the end product. Asked during a televised town hall meeting in March if he believes national healthcare legislation should be patterned after the Massachusetts plan, he said, “I don’t know. I had real misgivings about it as a candidate. . . . I’m proud of it, but I don’t know if it’s a model for the nation.’’
The foundation of the Massachusetts law is the so-called individual mandate. That means everyone must have health insurance. From that perspective, the Massachusetts experiment is a success. The percentage of residents without insurance was down to 2.6 after two years
But, the law never provided an absolute way to pay for the expanded coverage, and it never addressed how to reduce costs."They decoupled the access issue from the cost issue,’’ said Philip Johnston, chairman of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, which played a key role in expanding healthcare coverage here. “The lesson is, there needs to be a dedicated revenue source to support health reform.’’
What else is new, Tennessee has been ripe for the picking in regards to the muni- bond scam and a quick look at CDR Financial products on a state and local level shows they spread cash all over the state. This guy Tobin ha splayed the job of contact and middle man, he works as an "advisor" or consultant, then funnels the money to the politicians to make everything nice and legal, textbook pay for play.
A financial adviser based in Bellevue, Wash., James Tobin, has been paid lucrative fees on Tennessee Municipal Bond Fund deals, and has directed thousands of dollars back to politicians in Tennessee through campaign contributions. Another former financial consultant with the fund, David Rubin, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., has also given thousands to Tennessee candidates.They're examples of the broad political web of the nonprofit bond fund and its influential president/CEO, Charles G. "Bones" Seivers.
Tobin, of Paragon Municipal Consultants, has been the fund's financial adviser for about two decades. He and Linda Tobin, listed at the same Bellevue address, have given approximately $68,000 in state and federal political contributions in Tennessee since 1998, according to various campaign contribution databases.
Many are to candidates Seivers and his family have given to as they've made tens of thousands in contributions — almost all to Democrats — over decades. Some even match Tobin's or Rubin's by date.
The Times did an expose on the themuni-bond scandal with a focus on the company Morgan- Keegan and so its not like this that much of a surprise that the state is rife with pay for play in regards to bond scams.
The President has been lying about the cost savings since day one and his allies in Congress have been no better. Yesterday Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics just destroyed the arguments of Paul Krugman and John Alter. Its a masterpiece of logic exposing the logical sleight of hand to make the case for socialized medicine:
But the administration of Medicare is a miracle of low overhead and a model, despite all the fraud and abuse, of what government can do right. Three percent of Medicare's premiums go for administrative costs. By contrast, 10 to 20 percent of private-insurance premiums go for administrative costs. Roll that figure around on your tongue. When you swallow and digest it, you'll understand that any hope of significantly reducing health-care costs depends on a public option.
How is it possible, you may wonder, that the federal government, which is notoriously inefficient in almost everything it does, is suddenly a model of efficiency and able to create a "miracle of low overhead" when it comes to Medicare? Such a claim flies in the face of common sense.
Yet there was Paul Krugman yesterday morning, repeating the claim almost verbatim:
And that’s why the public plan is an important part of reform: it would help keep costs down through a combination of low overhead and bargaining power. That’s not an abstract hypothesis, it’s a conclusion based on solid experience. Currently, Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance companies, while federal health care programs other than Medicare (which isn’t allowed to bargain over drug prices) pay much less for prescription drugs than non-federal buyers. There’s every reason to believe that a public option could achieve similar savings.
In fact, President Obama has made this claim several times. This statistic about Medicare's low administrative costs has become one of the linchpins in the argument for a "public option" on health care. The only problem, not surprisingly, is that it's hogwash.
I am glad Alter at least acknowledges Medicare is rife with waste and fraud, by some accounts its between 3 and 20 % of the costs. Back to Krugman's and Alter's Argument have the argument that medicare is run with less administrative costs then private insurers, hence proof positive Government run a smoother more efficient plan then the private companies. You would have to be in a state of willing disbelief to accept that argument, and here is where Bevan just demolishes the both of them:
The explanation is really quite simple, and it's provided here by Robert Book of the Heritage Foundation. The statistic cited by Alter and Krugman uses administrative costs calculated as a percentage of total health care costs (For Medicare it's roughly 3 percent and for private insurers it's roughly 12 percent).
But here's the catch: because Medicare is devoted to serving a population that is elderly, and therefore in need of greater levels of medical care, it generates significantly higher expenditures than private insurance plans, thus making administrative costs smaller as a percentage of total costs. This creates the appearance that Medicare is a model of administrative efficiency. What Jon Alter sees as a "miracle" is really just a statistical sleight of hand.
Furthermore, Book notes that private insurers have a number of additional expenditures which fall into the category of "administrative costs" (like state health insurance premium taxes of 2-4%, marketing costs, etc) that Medicare does not have, further inflating the apparent differences in cost.
But, as you might expect, when you compare administrative costs on a per-person basis, Medicare is dramatically less efficient than private insurance plans. As you can see here, between 2001-2005, Medicare's administrative costs on a per-person basis were 24.8% higher, on average, than private insurers.
So it will actually cost more rather then less, which is pretty much what we all know anyway. Alter, Krugman and the President are liars and their talk of reform is a fraud.
Senior Airman Adam Leland marshals in a KC-135 Stratotanker to a stop earlier this month at Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz parliament ratified an agreement June 25 that allows the United States military to keep using the base.
Heck and its only an extra 43 million! Anyway this is a good thing and should allow the United States an easier time to move men and material. But talk about down to the wire negotiations, just last week we were ready to leave the base. Conisdering it was alleged pressure from Moscow which I do wonder what has changed?
WASHINGTON (June 25, 2009) – The Kyrgyz parliament Thursday ratified an agreement between the United States and Kyrgyzstan to extend U.S. access to Manas Air Base, a key logistics hub that supplies troops in Afghanistan, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed.The agreement must now go to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev for signature.
“It’s not a done deal until the president signs it,” Whitman said. “Out of respect for their processes, we’ve been trying to give them the time and space to give this the consideration that it needs.”
The agreement provides for a transit center at Manas International Airport, operated by the United States, to provide logistical support to coalition forces in Afghanistan. About 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo move through the base every month, and the base’s importance has increased as more troops deploy into Afghanistan.
Officials said on background that the United States agreed to pay $60 million a year to use the base, up from $17.4 million under the previous arrangement.Today’s vote, if approved by the president, reverses Kyrgyzstan’s previous decision to end the arrangement the United States and Kyrgyzstan entered three years ago that gave the U.S. annual renewal rights through July 2011. Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry notified the U.S. Embassy in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek in February that it had six months to leave Manas.
15,000 troops a month is pretty damn significant. The post has a report as well:
The United States has agreed to pay $180 million to Kyrgyzstan to keep open the last remaining U.S. air base in Central Asia, a key refueling point for U.S. aircraft in NATO operations against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
Washington had been haggling to keep the base open since February, when the former Soviet republic announced its closure after securing pledges of $2 billion in aid and credit from Russia.When asked about the deal, a Kremlin official accompanying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Egypt told Reuters that Kyrgyzstan had agreed its decision with Moscow.
"Kyrgyzstan agreed its decision (on the base) with Russia," the source said. "We support all steps aimed at stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan."But Russia's Kommersant newspaper quoted an unidentified Russian diplomat as saying that Moscow felt it had been tricked by Kyrgyzstan over the base and that Russia would make an "adequate response" to the deal.
"The news about keeping the base was a very unpleasant surprise for us -- we did not expect such a trick," the diplomat was quoted as saying by Kommersant."The real character of the U.S. military presence in Central Asia has not changed, which goes against Russian interests and our agreement with the Kyrgyz leadership," the Russian diplomat was quoted as saying.
Kyrgyzstan's ruling party said on Wednesday it had approved the agreement with the United States to keep the Manas air base open."Kyrgyzstan can not step aside from fighting terrorism," said Kabai Karabekov, a member of Ak Zhol party led by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Karabekov said the deal would probably be approved by parliament on Thursday.
Russia doesn't sound to pleased about this, not that one should lose sleep over the Putin Regime.
The weekend dump is nothing new to politics, Obama's use of it comes with a different twist. Whereas most politician dump harmful information that might raise public ire, Obama does to dodge his own base. The last one about fast tracking the death penalty for gitmo detainee remains my favorite. The most recent example would be to detain terrorists indefinitely without a trial.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said…
Some of Obama’s top legal advisers, along with a handful of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have pushed for the creation of a “national security court” to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried.
But the three senior government officials said the White House has turned away from that option, at least for now, because legislation establishing a special court would be both difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama’s own party…
“Legislation could kill Obama’s plans,” said one government official involved. The official said an executive order could be the best option for the president at this juncture. Under one White House draft that was being discussed earlier this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review. U.S. citizens would not be held in the system…
One administration official said future transfers to the United States for long-term detention would be rare. Al-Qaeda operatives captured on the battlefield, which the official defined as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly the Horn of Africa, would be held in battlefield facilities.
The Times has reported on this as well and of course this right into Gitmo:
Such an order would be controversial — seemingly aligning the administration with a disputed legal doctrine of former President George W. Bush, whose lawyers held that the president had sweeping authority in wartime to imprison those he deemed threats to national security.
Obama officials sought to play down the significance of the discussions by an administration panel, saying that consideration of such an order was still in an early phase and subject to change. They said that lawyers had not written a specific proposal and that nothing had been submitted to the White House for review by senior officials.
Still, the possibility of the order appeared to reflect increasing frustration within the administration over the difficulties posed by the effort to meet Mr. Obama’s commitment to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by January and the dwindling options for dealing with the detainees before then.
The president had no plan nor idea about Gitmo but committed himself with that stupid photo-op on his first day of business. As expected there is already some opposition:
“Detention without charge is a regime we don’t want to see,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who led a study of options for closing Guantánamo. “Having an executive order rather than Congressional legislation is even worse. Then, it’s a continuation of the kind of super power within the executive branch that you saw with the Bush administration.”
Several human rights advocates met with Mr. Obama and his top advisers before his National Archives speech and warned him that indefinite detention had many of the same flaws as holding prisoners at Guantánamo.“We told him to make sure that the cure doesn’t perpetuate the disease,” said Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First.
Fine, but I am sure they will get over it in time for 2010 and 2012. One of these days he will announce that he is shutting Gitmo but not within the one year framework, will he be up front or will he dump it on the weekend again?
Leave it to The Economist to fill in the details on how this bill got passed. Basically house members from agriculture districts were promised favors in exchange for support.
To mollify the farmers, Mr Waxman had to agree that “indirect land-use changes” would not affect how American farmers producing crops to make ethanol would be considered under the bill. Farmers had howled that, by the original proposals, planting more crops to produce ethanol would mean less land devoted to food crops. This would clearly cause food prices to rise. Farmers in (say) Brazil might then cut down Amazon rainforest to make up the shortfall in America. That chopped-down Amazon would have counted against the Iowan corn farmer when carbon credits were doled out. Mr Waxman agreed to suspend the provision for five years, so the National Academy of Sciences could further study the subject.(How many inane aspects such as this made it through? Question mine)
The next big trade-off also came late in the day at the insistence of the farmers. The Department of Agriculture, rather than the Environmental Protection Agency, will determine what counts as a carbon “offset”. This means that farmers who prevent carbon emissions by, for example, planting trees or reducing tillage, would get carbon credits. The EPA is reckoned to be a tough regulator that would make sure farmers did not get credits for doing things that they would do anyway. The Department of Agriculture is expected to be more friendly to farmers.
Offsets that could be sold as to energy companies as a revenue stream. Of course I am assuming the biggest winner will be the agri-buisness folks, you know the same people who have made a killing off of ethanol.
Many of the mainstream environmental groups-the Natural Resources Defence Council, the Environmental Defence Fund, the Sierra Club and others-have said that the bill is flawed but far better than nothing. More than that, they claim that once in place it can be tightened over time.
Of course if the GOP gets its act together they could be watered down or even repealed.
But the bill must pass the Senate where farm states have even more clout than in the House (since each state, no matter how sparsely populated, gets two senators). It must go through another clutch of committees, each of which is susceptible to lobbying by special interests with long experience of getting their way. The energy committee, for example, has already passed a bill on renewables that has disappointed greens. The Senate’s majority leader, Harry Reid, wants a vote on the package by mid-September.
Between health care and this I am skeptical that both will get through this year, more likely the Senate will pass a bill the house finds unpalatable, but Obama will end up pushing for just so he could sign something into law.
The key to passage of the bill was a compromise over "indirect land-use changes". Anyway the only way this bill reduces emissions is by killing economic growth. The bill is a disaster and just like the stimulus bill contains favors and boondoggles. As for the cap and trade program, most of the permits are free for starters and then the government begins to charge the energy companies who in turn will roll the cost onto us. Talk of rebates and cost offsets is a scam and leaves government with an even bigger favor machine, which is what this bill is all about in the first place.
Climate change legislation still must get through the Senate. Senators were expected to try to write their own version but prospects for this year were uncertain.
After the House vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped the Senate can pass a bill "this fall."Obama praised the House for taking "historic action" and urged the Senate to act. "It's a bold and necessary step that holds the promise of creating new industries and millions of new jobs, decreasing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil," Obama said.
With the House action, Obama will be able to tout significant progress toward tackling global warming after years of foreign countries criticizing Washington for not participating in international efforts.
The bill requires that large U.S. companies, including utilities, oil refiners, manufacturers and others, reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases associated with global warming by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels.
They would do so by phasing in the use of cleaner alternative energy than high-polluting oil and coal.At the core of the bill, which is around 1,500 pages long, is a "cap and trade" program designed to achieve the emissions reductions by industry.Under the plan, the government would issue a declining number of pollution permits to companies, which could sell those permits to each other as needed.
Its a tax increase and breaks another of Obama's pledges not to raise taxes in a recession. By the way no one really knows whats in the bill or how it works so just like the stimulus package expect outcry and scandal after it becomes law. Of course the offset aspect is even more inane then any credit derivative swap:
The bill also sets a national standard of 20 percent for the production of renewable electricity by 2020, although a third of that could be met with efficiency measures rather than renewable energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power.It also devotes billions of dollars to new energy projects and subsidies for low-carbon agricultural practices, research on cleaner coal and electric vehicle development(PORK BARREL!)
The only silver lining is that some of the more onerous costs start in a couple years which would allow the GOP time to get back into power to reverse the worst of this bill. Its clear they got the votes by buying them with favors and pet projects. In the Senate they might be able to kill it and they certainly will create a different one, a bill we hope will be unpalatable to the house leading to its defeat. Waxmen and Markey need to be defeated, period.
link to a feed they are voting: Update: The filibuster’s over and the final 15-minute vote is in progress. With nine minutes left, it’s 193-183. 9 minutes left
219-212 8 republicans defected, what a disaster for our country and our posterity. 219 voted for a bill they have no idea about especially with 300 magic pages just added today. Updates Via HA:
SEOUL, South Korea – The United States will not use force to inspect a North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned goods, an American official was quoted as saying Friday.An American destroyer has been shadowing the North Korean freighter sailing off China's coast, possibly on its way to Myanmar.
Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy met with South Korean officials in Seoul on Friday as the U.S. sought international support for aggressively enforcing a U.N. sanctions resolution aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its second nuclear test last month. The North Korean-flagged ship, Kang Nam 1, is the first to be tracked under the U.N. resolution.
North Korea has in response escalated threats of war, with a slew of harsh rhetoric including warnings that it would unleash a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" and "wipe out the (U.S.) aggressors" in the event of a conflict.
The vote was 217-205 to advance the White House-backed legislation to the floor, and 30 Democrats defected, a reflection of the controversy the bill sparked.
Doesn’t look like one republican vote for it.
What a disgrace, the stimulus bill may have been a tragedy, this is a tragedy and a farce and they don't even bother with the legislative process anymore. More Via HA
The uninsured include 20.5 million non-Hispanic whites, 14.8 million Hispanics and 7.4 million blacks. Many of the uninsured live in households that make $50,000 or less a year -- 28 million Americans. A significant number are children -- 8.1 million. People living in the South or the West are most likely to be without insurance -- 20.2 million in the South and 11.8 million in the West.
According to the census report, 33.2 million of the uninsured are native-born Americans, 2.7 million are naturalized citizens and 9.7 million are non-U.S. citizens. There are probably many additional uninsured people who are illegal immigrants -- a group that doesn't tend to be very receptive to census takers.
Of course this doesn't tell us why they lack insurance. There are several factors involved of course, lack of employment or working at a job that does not offer a plan. Failure to take advantage of plans that are being offered, and of course the so called invincible. The people who can afford insurance but decline for personal reasons.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Austin Horse talks about his collision with a taxi cab with the sort of droll indifference you might expect from a 24-year-old."Every now and then, you know, there'll be accidents or mishaps where a car hits me," said Horse, a full-time bike messenger, smiling as he leans against his mottled, rusted bike frame. "You try to avoid those."
His apathy might be understandable if he had not already had a cab roll over his legs, had not already plowed into car doors while biking, and had not already had countless other mishaps during the past four years cycling around New York City streets.
"Once I was run over by a taxi and another time I had a livery cab knock me off my bike and I got stuck in a sewage grate," said Horse.Despite his inherently dangerous job -- Horse has made a couple of trips to the emergency room in the past few years -- he is working without health insurance.
Horse is one of millions of what the insurance industry has dubbed "young invincibles," a group of 18-to 29-year-olds who reside in a precarious gray area when it comes to insurance coverage. Many work low-wage jobs, yet they just miss qualifying for government low-income health insurance programs. They can no longer get insurance under their parents' plans
Its estimated that almost a third of the people who uninsured could be classified as invincible.
Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an interview that union leaders believe Obama is ''a person of his word.'' He was referring to Obama's opposition to taxing those benefits during last year's campaign. "'They're not going to tolerate that,'' McEntee said of workers' views of that proposal.
There is little chance any health care bill comes out of the Senate with taxes on health care benefits. How the President is going to get this through Big Labor is the political question of the Summer. yes he will be mocked for attacking McCain over the issue, but if his base can swallow a 106 billion war bill and the adoption of so many Bush policies he will get away with it. This on the other end is an action that will hit his supporters right in their benefits, benefits Unions fought years to get.
“The Congressional Budget Office now tells us we have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill, fully paid for,” Mr. Baucus said.
The bill is likely to include a new tax on some employer-provided health benefits and a requirement for employers to help pay the cost of health insurance for some of their low-income workers — those who enroll in Medicaid or get federal subsidies to help them buy insurance on their own. The third major source of financing is cutbacks in Medicare payments to hospitals and many other health care providers.
Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said the overall cost of the bill had been reduced mainly by limiting eligibility for the federal subsidies and reducing their value. The subsidies would originally have been available to people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level ($88,200 for a family of four). Democrats have lowered the ceiling to 300 percent of the poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four).
A bipartisan group of seven senators, including Mr. Baucus and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, had been hoping to announce a deal on Thursday. With no agreement, they issued a statement in which they promised to keep working.“Over the past several months, we’ve made progress toward workable solutions,” the group said. “We are committed to continuing our work toward a bipartisan bill that will lower costs and ensure quality, affordable care for every American.”
The statement was a status report but also a political document, meant to buck up the spirits of advocates of sweeping health care legislation, who insist that public opinion is on their side, despite setbacks on Capitol Hill.
The cuts in Medicare are also questionable at best, there comes a point where seeing patients costs doctors and hospitals money, this is not sustainable. People need to understand these brutal battles have occurred simply over the proposals, wait till they try to pass them into law.
The health care debate has been heating up and the broad ideas are seen, but the details of achieving those policies have been deliberately left out by the President and his allies to avoid any bad press. The Broad Ideas:
Mandate Coverage-What is missing is what type of penalty will be given to those who refuse to buy coverage but can afford it, the so called "invincibles". In addition there has been talk of employers mandated to provide coverage or pay a penalty to the Fed, but that appears to be dead for now.
Subsidized purchases- At what income level will a household receive federal aid in buying insurance. The only number I have seen so far is 88,000 dollars or less will qualify a household.
A public option: Easily the most contentious and expensive, cherished by the left opposed by the right, centrist democrats, and the health care industry, it has one big supporter by the name of President Obama. Very few details have been included, most importantly what will the payment schedule be to the health care industry.(Medicare Rates, 10% more , some number in between?)
Electronic Records and Preventive Care- Not controversial, although there are obvious privacy issues involved. It will cost money to accomplish these things and they may have merit, but they will certainly not provide the savings Obama is claiming
Health Care Exchanges- Basically we would be able to shop around among competing plans and the public plan.
Revenues- Ideas include taxing health care benefits,a 2% increase for the upper bracket on the income tax, a soda tax. For political reasons Democrats have refused to commit, although clearly the taxing of employee benefits has been a favorite of some key senators.
As part of the deal with insurance companies who now have a flood of new customers courtesy of the mandate, the companies in turn will accept people without pre-condition. The logic being that the increases expenses of covering ill people will be matched by the money of these new customers who are healthy.
Baucus who has been front and center on the health care debate has aggressively pushed the idea:
June 25 (Bloomberg) -- Zappos.com’s warehouse and customer-service workers are paid $10 to $11 an hour and get health benefits worth about $7,500 a year.Lawmakers led by Senator Max Baucus are talking about slapping a $495 tax on some of those covered by the medical plan to help pay for extending coverage to some of the 46 million Americans who lack it.
Under the funding proposal being considered by the Senate Finance Committee, the tax for Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., would be about $9,600, based on the $40,543 value of his health insurance last year.
Baucus, 67, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says the best way to pay for a $1 trillion overhaul of American medical care would be to tax health benefits provided by employers that are more generous than those offered to federal workers -- including lawmakers like him. The government benefits are worth $4,200 for individuals and $13,000 for families.
The problem is that Obama excoriated McCain over the issue although in usual Obama fashion he has left the door open to it.(My Guess is that he wants the Democrats to offer it as a Fait Accompli so that they suffer politically and he avoids a "read my lips" moment) . But its not just that the President has flip flopped on an issue, he has done that on plenty of issues. The Unions who have fought hard for health benefits are now about to see taxes lumped on them in the name of reform, leading to such dyed in the liberals like Rangel to declare the idea dead. Last night the Labor quickly moved on the issue:
Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an interview that union leaders believe Obama is ''a person of his word.'' He was referring to Obama's opposition to taxing those benefits during last year's campaign. "'They're not going to tolerate that,'' McEntee said of workers' views of that proposal. (I am sure they will scrap off the Hope and Change sticker and get the Palin 2012 gear out!)
Over shadowing all of this is the massive expense the programs contain, so bad to the point that Democrats have decided to shoot the messenger at the CBO as a way to provide cover for the President. With the public increasingly skeptical, its clear the Democrats may have the votes, but will they want to use them. We have seen how the Massachusetts model has been a less then exemplary project, do we really need to do this to the whole country?
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This blog is for the 46 percent who supported McCain/Palin and wish to see policies that strengthen this nation are adopted. The focus of this blog will be to illustrate why I was one of the 46 with the eventual goal to restore elected leaders whose vision of reform, prosperity, and freedom will keep this nation strong for us and our posterity. I myself am a family man, an Iraq War veteran, and patriotic American.
