Good Bye Fort Dix

It was a pretty damn tough place to train at and I can't say I had to many fond memories. Pretty much it was cold and miserable, except when it was hot and miserable. I mobilized for Iraq at the place and it was one of the more excruciating experiences of my life. Oh well, Good Bye Dix and welcome Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst?

FORT DIX, N.J. (AP) -- For 92 years, being sent abroad or brought home by the Army has often meant passing through the New Jersey installation known as first as Camp Dix, then Fort Dix.

It was where Elvis Presley was demobilized after his duty in Germany ended in 1960; Hall of Fame Dodgers pitchers Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax had basic training there; even comedian Redd Foxx's Fred Sanford television character talked about kitchen patrol there.

Some 6 million lesser-known soldiers also passed through.As of Thursday, the name will be gone and the Army will be reduced to a tenant on the land.

Fort Dix is being merged with the neighboring McGuire Air Force Base and Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station to make the military's first three-branch base, a 65-square-mile behemoth stretching through farmland and forests and given the clunky moniker Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

What a terrible name!

Iraqi Nationhood Rising

They have a lot to be proud of. Under the most brutal and vicious assault by Al Qaeda and various terror groups the people of Iraq were massacred and tortured on a horrendous scale. After all was said and done they consistently emerged stronger and better positioned for the future.

DHULUIYA, Iraq — Iraqi politics has a new catch phrase, the “yes we can” of the country’s coming parliamentary elections. It is “national unity,” and while skepticism abounds, it could well signal the decline of the religious and sectarian parties that have fractured Iraq since 2003.

Across the political spectrum — Sunni and Shiite, secular and Islamic — party leaders have jettisoned explicit appeals to their traditional followers and are now scrambling to reach across ethnic or sectarian lines. In some cases, the shift is nothing less than extraordinary.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite whose party has deep Islamic roots, has enlisted support from Sunni tribal leaders in areas that once were — and might again be — the heartland of opposition to the central government.

Here in Dhuluiya, a lush town nestled in a bend of the Tigris River, a fiery Sunni cleric who waged war against American and Iraqi forces, openly courts an alliance with Mr. Maliki, saying that the time of religious parties in Iraq has passed. The cleric, Mullah Nadhim Khalil al-Jubori, said Iraq’s future now rested with secular political parties.“It would be ironic,” he said of his own evolution in an interview at his home, “if it were somewhere other than Iraq.”

With the elections only four months away, the emergence of national unity as a theme has been welcomed by Iraqis and by American officials, who fear that identity politics in Iraq will only worsen tensions and risk a return to sectarian bloodshed.

Some go so far as say the elections could reinforce a greater sense of Iraqi citizenship and nationalism out of the chaos of the war.

Is it redundant to point out that Biden wanted to partition the country?

Feingold To Hold Hearings on Czars Oct 6th

An interesting development and considering the liberal pedigree of its sponsor it will be difficult to label him a racist, paranoid, etc.etc.. :

Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, plans to hold a hearing next week on the subject of the so-called “czars,” appointees who don’t go through the usual vetting process like presidential nominees needing confirmation by the Senate.

Mr. Feingold, the chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, has been one of the Democrats lending a bipartisan edge to what had been largely Republican complaints about the number of Obama “czars.” (The White House and leading Democrats have forcefully rebutted the notion that the president has too many; former President Bush had placed many officials in the same/or similar positions.)

The Wisconsin senator, who is up for re-election in 2010, had recently cited concerns he had heard during the summer at town hall meetings about the issue. But both he and six G.O.P. senators, who separately raised the issue with the White House, also sought explanations because in their view, some of these appointments circumvent the role of the legislative branch, particularly the Senate’s advise and consent obligation.

For the record the White House is refusing to send any officials to these hearings, a sage move on their part. The second any "Czar" steps in front of committee the Senate has them at their mercy and the point of his Czar appointments was to avoid Congressional scrutiny in the first place.

Stossel Takes Down the Stimulus Nonsense

A good succinct take down from John Stossel of the President's saved jobs nonsense:

This has been the president's theme: His so-called stimulus package, bailouts for politically connected banks and industries, ludicrously wasteful programs like Cash for Clunkers, etc. have saved America from the greatest disaster since the Great Depression.But this theme runs up against some rather unfortunate facts.

In January, the administration's economic models warned that unemployment would hit 9 percent next year if its $787 billion "stimulus" wasn't passed. Passing it would keep the jobless rate under 8 percent before it begins to fall.Well, the packaged passed -- and unemployment in August rose to 9.7 percent.

Oops.

OK, economic forecasters make mistakes. Fair enough. But neither the administration experts nor President Obama will acknowledge that their models and strategy are flawed. Instead, they spin the numbers and proclaim success, insisting that the plan is working even though unemployment is higher than they said it would be.

For example, Christina Romer, chief of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, preferred to emphasize that the 216,000 jobs lost in August were about half a million less than six months before. Never mind that the economic strategy hasn't restored any of those 700,000 jobs previously lost. They'd rather distract us by focusing on the slowing rate of loss rather than the losses themselves.

But, New York University economist Mario Rizzo writes, to take credit for this is to imply that "in the absence of fiscal stimulus, the rate of increase in unemployment never falls". That's ridiculous. Should Obama get credit anytime things aren't as bad as they might have been?"The stimulus apologists are ignoring the original prediction based on a model. By that prediction, the stimulus is doing harm," Rizzo commented.

As Harvard economist Greg Mankiw writes, "In light of the shifting baseline, it is impossible to hold the administration accountable for whether its policies are achieving their intended effects.""The administration, however, has not been particularly forthright in admitting to this lack of accountability. Indeed, the act of releasing quarterly reports on how many jobs have been 'created or saved' gives the illusion of accountability without the reality".

The Obama 2012 slogan "It Could Have Been Worse"!

Key Witnesses in Langford Trial Have Their Sentencing Delayed

As key witnesses against the Mayor, their delay isn't that big a surprise, add Mary Buckelew into the mix and you have over three top witnesses who can testify against the Mayor.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—- Judge Scott Coogler has resceduled the sentencings for the two co-defendants who plan to testify against Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford.Coogler postponed sentencings for Albert LaPierre and William Blount, previously set for November 19 and December 17 respectively, to January 7, 2010.

The two men have pleaded guilty in a corruption case against Langford.They’ve admitted to charges they bribed Langford while he served on the Jefferson County Commission in exchange from lucrative bond swap deals.Langford’s trial is set to begin three weeks from today in Tuscaloosa.

As nice as the political corruption angle is, it would be nice to see some evidence against the financial institutions who made out like bandits from these deals.

Public Option Killed, For Now

Eventually the Baucus bill, when its finished will be matched with the more liberal Dodd- Kennedy Bill and the whole public option battle will play out again. Of course the end point will be the conference committee between the Rangel-Waxmen version and whatever final senate bill hits the floor. For the record even advocates of the Public Option never firmly came down on what the final payment schedule of it would be, whether it would be 10% more then Medicare payments or more in line with entitlement program. More to the point if the public option is dead, the real question is what will be larded onto the bill to appease the left into supporting the more "moderate" proposal.

WASHINGTON — After a half-day of animated debate, the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday rejected efforts by liberal Democrats to add a government-run health insurance plan to major health care legislation, dealing the first official setback to an idea that many Democrats, including President Obama, say they support.

All of the other versions of the health care legislation advancing in Congress — a bill approved by the Senate health committee and a trio of bills in the House — include some version of the government-run plan, or public option.

But the Finance Committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, long ago removed it from his proposal because of stiff opposition from Republicans who call the public plan a step toward “socialized medicine.”

The committee on Tuesday afternoon voted, 15 to 8, to reject an amendment proposed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, to add a public option called the Community Choice Health Plan, an outcome that underscored the lack of support for a government plan among many Democrats.

Mr. Baucus voted no, as did Senators Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, , and Bill Nelson of Florida, joining all 10 Republicans in opposition.

After this bill is reported favorably on in the Finance committee, expect more internal Democrat fireworks and the details rip that party apart.

States Balk at Health Care Mandate

The first time we saw opposition from the states revolved around Governors who pushed back from the expansion of entitlement programs they would have to pay for. Now we have this push against the health care mandate. For starters the mandate has been one of the few places where Democrats managed to find some common ground, even Obama, who was against the mandate before he was for one has shown support for the idea. The problem with the mandate is that it leads to a massive increase in the insurance rolls without a corresponding increase in services. Common sense, this leads to waiting lists as happened in Massachusetts. Additionally the "Fee/Tax" that exists for those who do not pay is quite high and failure to pay could even lead to jail time! So across the country we are seeing Federalism in action as the various state legislatures push against the health care plan in an attempt to exercise some sovereignty on the issue:

ST. PAUL — In more than a dozen statehouses across the country, a small but growing group of lawmakers is pressing for state constitutional amendments that would outlaw a crucial element of the health care plans under discussion in Washington: the requirement that nearly everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty

Approval of the measures, the lawmakers suggest, would set off a legal battle over the rights of states versus the reach of federal power — an issue that is, for some, central to the current health care debate but also one that has tentacles stretching into many other matters, including education and drug policy.

Opponents of the measures and some constitutional scholars say the proposals are mostly symbolic, intended to send a message of political protest, and have little chance of succeeding in court over the long run. But they acknowledge that the measures could create legal collisions that would be both expensive and cause delays to health care changes, and could be a rallying point for opponents in the increasingly tense debate.

Not surprisingly the advocates of these measures tend to be libertarians who would prefer a free market approach to the issue. In reality Article VI contains the supremacy clause which all but guarantees the law as Constitutional. Of course if it can be be defeated on a Federal level it would make the state acts moot to all along.

Latest Foreign Policy Goof

Is it too much to ask that either the Spanish Government should have pointed this out or the American government asked what to do with the photos? Considering Zapaetro makes Obama look like reasoned centrist I am tempted to put the blame on him, but considering our state department couldn't spell reset and also thought giving DVDs to the family of out top ally was the way to go, I think the ball lands in Clinton's court.

Last week Barack and Michelle Obama hosted a reception for visiting foreign dignitaries at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over the course of the evening, the president, whose "amazingly consistent" smile created a viral video, and first lady posed for over 130 photographs with their guests, all of which were later posted to the State Department's Flickr page.

This caused a problem: Included was a shot of the Obamas posing with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, his wife Sonsoles Espinosa, and two daughters, Laura, 16, and Alba, 13, who've never had photographs of themselves published previously in print or online due to a Spanish law prohibiting the media from doing so. The photo of Zapatero and his family with the Obamas was quickly removed from Flickr at the request of the Spanish government but still lurks online (in the shot seen here their faces are blurred). The flap is adding concerns on the issue of the privacy of world leaders' children in the digital age.

Ready Day One. apply it to both of them.

Terror Attack on US Navy in Philippines

I hope this doesn't escalate and my sympathy to the family:

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Two U.S. Navy construction troops and a Philippines marine were killed Tuesday in a roadside blast in the southern Philippines that officials said was likely an attack by suspected al-Qaida-linked militants.

It was believed to be just the second time U.S. soldiers have been killed in the southern Philippines in violence blamed on the Abu Sayyaf group since American counterterrorism troops were deployed to the region in 2002, and the first fatalities in seven years.

One Philippine marine also was killed and two others were wounded in the blast on Jolo island, a poor, predominantly Muslim region where the Americans have been providing combat training and weapons to Filipino troops battling the Abu Sayyaf.

Our Cooling Planet: North East Set For Coldest Winter in Decade

Not that we didn't know the planet was cooling, and the Summer was mighty cold as well, just consider this further evidence as the situation goes from cold to freezing across the United States:

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Northeast may have the coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers, a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group.

“Weak El Ninos are notorious for cold and snowy weather on the Eastern seaboard,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington. “About 70 percent to 75 percent of the time a weak El Nino will deliver the goods in terms of above-normal heating demand and cold weather. It’s pretty good odds.”

Warming in the Pacific often means fewer Atlantic hurricanes and higher temperatures in the U.S. Northeast during January, February and March, according to the National Weather Service. El Nino occurs every two to five years, on average, and lasts about 12 months, according to the service.

Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators increased their net-long positions, or bets prices will rise, in New York heating oil futures in the week ended Sep. 22, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data Sept. 25.

“It could be one of the coldest winters, or the coldest, winter of the decade,” Rogers said.U.S. inventories of distillate fuels, which include heating oil, are at their highest since January 1983, the U.S. Energy Department said Sept. 23. Stockpiles of 170.8 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 18 are 28 percent above the five-year average.

Heating oil for October delivery rose 1.38 cents, or 0.8 percent, to settle at $1.6909 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

By the way, last winter was no picnic either.

The Gradual but Superb Improvement of the Iraqi Military

Sgt. Heriberto Fuentes (right), of Bradenton, Fla., shows an Iraqi Soldier how much dirt and debris is in his weapon during a weapons cleaning session at Warrior Academy, Sept. 16.

Patience is key, and its something Democrats and Obama need in regards to Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON (Sept. 22, 2009) – Iraqi security forces continue to make progress in providing security for their own country, the deputy commander of Multinational Corps Iraq said Tuesday. Iraqi security forces are quickly improving as they train with American forces, Air Force Maj. Gen. James P. Hunt said during a videoconference from Baghdad with Pentagon reporters.

“This is all about partnering,” Hunt said. “We find that the closer we work with the Iraqi security forces, the better they are, the better they get and the faster they get better. “Whenever we, frankly, want to see them do better, our reaction is, let’s get closer to them; let’s hug them closer; let’s teach them what we know.”


It has been three months since U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq’s cities and towns as part of the U.S.-Iraq security agreement. Iraqi security forces are progressing well and continue to improve in taking over security, Hunt said.


“We’ve seen the enemy test the abilities of the security forces and the Iraqi people through several high-profile attacks,” he said, “but it’s encouraging to see the confidence of these forces and the strong will of the Iraqi people as they reject the violence and work through these situations for peace and stability throughout the region.”


Iraq is still a dangerous area -- especially in the north, Hunt said. Still, the enemy has lost the ability to conduct sustained operations, proving Iraqi forces’ increased capabilities, he said. The Iraqi government is taking advantage of the improved security to rebuild the economy and infrastructure and to put in place the political foundation -- local, provincial and federal -- needed to run the country.


“Although there is still much work to be done, our provincial reconstruction teams and the military work closely with the local governments on projects to improve the lives of Iraqi people,” Hunt said. “Whether it is civilians training Iraqis in civic-action programs or a civil affairs team helping to improve health care in a province, we are establishing a long-term relationship at every level of society.”


Iraq’s security has improved to the extent that U.S. forces have begun to drawdown in earnest. “We have closed over 200 bases and facilities, processed almost 50,000 pieces of equipment and saved over $647 million by efficiently scaling contract requirements,” Hunt said.


The 125,000 U.S. servicemembers in Iraq continue to partner with Iraqi units. American units help their Iraqi counterparts in building their intelligence, surveillance and investigative capabilities to defeat criminal elements. U.S. forces also provide certain logistics support to the Iraqis, but that is drawing down also.


“We partner with Iraqi security forces essentially from the battalion up through the corps level, so we are involved with them in day-to-day decision-making and leadership processes,” Hunt said.


The Iraqis have proved to be quick learners and are learning how to best protect the people. “As a general rule, they are respected by the populace in the cities,” he said. “And so they are able more and more to do this without our guidance and without our day-to-day involvement and advice.”


U.S. forces are to remain at about the current level through the Iraqi elections in January. Once the government is installed, troop strength is to drop to about 50,000 U.S. troops in country by the end of August 2010, with all American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

Good Work!

Reid to Obama: No More Voting Present on Health Care

Obama's decision to let Congress write its own legislature has been the cause of of most of their miseries and conflicts. By having a radical left proposal and a slightly more moderate bill emerge in the house he has opened up the fissures in the Democratic party for all to see. When Pelosi and the liberal take a hard line, understand she is not doing it against the GOP, but against her fellow Democrats and Obama himself. We have seen this time and again be it for Obama's Pharma deal, the payment schedules for any health care plan. the so called public option, the mandate, and at what level a person would be eligible for subsidies to purchase insurance. There is something striking about this story, that months into the health care debate Reid is asking Obama to stop voting present and choose what should be in the bill. This is supposed to be Obama's signature issues and even top Democrats aren't sure what he wants!

WASHINGTON — As the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, takes on the delicate task of melding two competing versions of major health care legislation, aides say he will lean heavily on President Obama to arbitrate a number of contentious issues that still threaten to divide liberal and centrist Democrats and derail a final bill.

Mr. Reid’s challenge is to stitch together legislation that can win 60 votes to stop a Republican filibuster. It must satisfy liberals demanding more generous subsidies and safety-net provisions for the middle class, without alienating centrist budget hawks or Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has indicated she might back the bill.

Democrats now control 60 seats in the Senate, with the appointment last week of Paul G. Kirk Jr. of Massachusetts as the interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, who died in August. But the party is far from united on the health care issue, even though Mr. Obama has declared it his top domestic priority and has expended enormous political capital on getting a bill passed.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said the task of merging the two bills would be “very challenging.” Democrats are also mindful of the disaster that befell them in 1994 after the majority leader, George J. Mitchell of Maine, failed to pull together competing health care proposals.

Of course there is the simple matter of how this is going to be paid for. In all likelihood expect a increase in taxes, fake numbers claiming savings, and they increase to the deficit anyway.

Social Security Goes into the Red

He Said it was Coming and they Booed Him

No surprise, this was leaked to HA not to long ago:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s.

The deficits -- $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 -- won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.

What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.

''A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire,'' said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. ''If they were younger, we would call them unemployed.''

The 72 Hour Resolution

Having the bill ahead of time to read whats in it, Heaven Forbid!

That's why the bipartisan duo of Rep. Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat, and Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, came up with the "72-hour resolution," which would require all non-emergency legislation to be posted online, in final form, for at least 72 hours prior to a floor vote. "Members of Congress are too often asked to make decisions on bills that can be longer than telephone books and are only given a few hours to actually read them," says Rep. Baird. "Both parties are guilty, and both should stop doing it."

Although Barack Obama campaigned last year for transparency and openness in government, their idea has languished in committee since June. It has 67 Republican and 31 Democratic co-sponsors—a rare show of bipartisanship. Normally, bills can't be considered for a floor vote until House leadership schedules them. That's why Messrs. Baird and Walden filed a discharge petition to dislodge their bill from committee this week. If a majority of members (218) sign it, their proposal can be voted on over the objections of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

But the notion of a 72-hour waiting period is anathema to Democrats who fear that they are running out of time to pass a sweeping health-care bill. This week, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told Bloomberg News that "the goal" is to finish the entire health-care debate "over the next six weeks or so, maybe sooner." The six-week deadline is critical because it would mean a health-care bill would pass into law just before voters in Virginia and New Jersey go to the polls on Nov. 3 to elect a governor and state legislators. Right now, the GOP leads in both states and nervous Democrats see that as a measure of their stalled health-care reform plans.

So it appears Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress have decided to ram a bill through as quickly as possible. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee voted 12 to 11 to reject a proposal to require a 72-hour waiting period and a full scoring of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office before the committee casts any final vote. Only one Democrat, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, voted for the waiting period. Chairman Max Baucus said the idea would delay a vote on the final bill for two weeks and he didn't want to waste another moment.

On the House side, Mrs. Pelosi has told reporters that members will have "a period of time that is sufficient" to consider the final health-care language. But she clearly doesn't want her hands tied. House leadership aides were stationed on the House floor where members must go to sign the 72-hour discharge petition. Mr. Baird acknowledged that leadership aides were strongly discouraging his fellow Democrats from signing. As of yesterday, 173 members had affixed their names, but they included only five of the 31 Democratic co-sponsors.

Mr. Baird isn't phased. "If Americans contact their representative and encourage him or her to sign this discharge petition, I'm confident it will become law," he told me.

It appears Baird supports Health Care but doesn't think it should be done in the middle of the night or shoved down the nations throat. How Refreshing!

Axis of Criminal, Evil, and Stupid Meets

Its like a UN meeting without the moral clarity:

PORLAMAR, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez hosted some of Africa's longest-ruling leaders at a Caribbean resort on Saturday for a summit he says will help end Western economic dominance.

Chavez set a provocative early tone with an announcement on Friday by his government that it is working with Iran to find uranium in Venezuela.That came amid a fresh uproar and sanctions threats from the West over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Chavez's high-profile summit guests included Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who is celebrating four decades in office and had a white limousine flown to Venezuela to meet him at the airport. Also present was Robert Mugabe, 85, who has led Zimbabwe since the end of British rule nearly 30 years ago.

Chavez has governed for just over 10 years and makes no bones about his aim to stay in office for decades more while he works to turn Venezuela into a socialist state.He said the two-day meeting of African and South American leaders, which also includes many recently elected presidents, would help the mainly poor nations build stronger trade ties and rely less on Europe and the United States.

Chavez said Europe and the United States were empires that have imposed poverty on much of the world."We are going to create two great poles of power," Chavez told reporters at the luxury Hilton resort on Venezuela's Margarita island. We are "seeking a world with no more imperialism where we will be free, uniting to escape poverty."

How many decades of oppression must these guys have between them? On another note coming of his 2 hour ramble, Gaddafi arrived in style:

Gaddafi, whose entourage arrived in two matching Airbus passenger jets and pitched a Bedouin tent beside the Hilton's pool, on Wednesday told the United Nations that big powers had betrayed the U.N. charter with vetoes and sanctions.

King Mswati III of Swaziland, who was crowned in 1987, was also due to appear on Margarita, among an anticipated 28 African and South American leaders in total.

Ultimate Weekend Trial Balloon: One Year Gitmo Pledge Looking to be Broken

The Obama's admins tendency to release info on the weekends has been documented again, and again. Normally you do this when the population as a whole would get angry, this admin seems to save the info that will infuriate its base for just the weekends. There are times I look forward to the weekend simply because I know the One will hint or announce a policy I support. After months of coming to grips with Gitmo and accepting military tribunals, they have finally come around to laying the final groundwork to the announcement that Gitmo will be staying open for the time being.

President Barack Obama may not be able to meet his stated goal of closing the much-criticized Guantanamo Bay prison by January as his administration runs into daunting legal and logistical hurdles to moving the more than 220 detainees still there.

Senior administration officials acknowledged for the first time Friday that difficulties in completing the lengthy review of detainee files and resolving other thorny questions mean the president's promised January deadline may slip.

Obama's aides have stepped up their work toward closure and the president remains as committed to closing the facility as he was when, as one of his first acts in office, he pledged to shut it down, said the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to more freely discuss the sensitive issue.

They said the White House still was hoping to meet the deadline through a stepped-up effort.

The U.S. military prison in Cuba was created by former President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a landing spot for suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But it has since become a lightning rod of anti-U.S. criticism around the globe. There are approximately 225 detainees still being held at the prison.

Obama promised soon after taking office — and many times since — to close the prison, arguing that doing so is crucial to restoring America's image in the world and to creating a more effective anti-terror approach.

But eight months after Obama's initial pledge and with only four months to go before the January deadline, a number of difficult issues remain unresolved. They include establishing a new set of rules for military trials, finding a location for a new prison to house detainees and finding host countries for those who can be released.

Exist question: When they announce it stay open will they give another phony deadline for closure or claim an intention in the future to close?

McChrystal Pleads for Reinforcements

Decision time Mr. President, you talked a big game about the "good" war and even came up with whole strategy designed to defeat the Taliban, now your hand picked general is pleading for help, will you listen to the generals on the ground or will the demands of your base drive your decision:

KABUL (Reuters) - The commander of Western forces in Afghanistan hand-delivered a request for more troops to U.S. and NATO commanders at a meeting in Germany, his spokesman said on Saturday.

General Stanley McChrystal gave his long-awaited request for more troops to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.

"At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," Sholtis said. McChrystal returned on Saturday from the unannounced meeting in Europe.

Considering the dramatic increase in terror threats, its clear the Afghan front is more important then ever.

Knee slapper of the Day: Democrat Whines about Palin Criticizing President Oversees

Ah for the good old days of decorum as Democrats respected Bush at home and around the world. Anyway Obama has made criticism of US policy overseas a staple of his speeches so I don't get what this democrat is whining about:

Her 90-minute speech, delivered Wednesday to an investment conference, touched on issues from financial markets to health care, Afghanistan and U.S-China relations. It was generally considered more moderate in tone than those Palin delivered during her 2008 campaign for vice president as Republican John McCain's running mate.

Still, a Democratic congressman chastised Palin for criticizing U.S. foreign policy during her first visit to Asia.

''Leaving aside the propriety of criticizing the president while on her first trip to Asia, the assertion that the United States is ignoring areas of disagreement with China is flat wrong,'' said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The administration regularly discusses a range of issues with Chinese officials, Berman said.

In one regards Berman is right, the Obama admin has been trying to start a trade war with China to our mutual detriment, so maybe he is right in that we haven't ignored that country.

Senate Targets Flexible Spending Accounts

They just can't help themselves, here you have a program that gives people the ability to spend the money as they see fit, and they have to destroy it. The medical savings account is similar to a 401 (k) in that you can steer money pre-tax into them but must use the money for "medical" purposes and spend it that year.

Who would have thought that so many people would go to the mat over the lowly flexible spending account?

Flexible spending accounts allow people to take money out of their paychecks before paying taxes on it and to set it aside to use for health care expenses that insurance doesn’t cover. There is no legal limit on how much you can set aside each year, though employers generally set a cap around $4,000 or $5,000.

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and author of the Senate health care bill, would like to place a much lower $2,500 annual limit on what people can save, among other restrictions. The House-Senate Joint Committee on Taxation figures this will allow the government to take in $14.6 billion from 2011 and 2019. So far so good right? We have to pay for the health care bill somehow.

The problem, however, is that to people who put more than $2,500 away each year, this looks an awful lot like a tax increase. After all, if they can’t put as much money aside, they’ll pay more in income and payroll taxes. And President Obama, when he was running for office, promised that no family earning under $250,000 would see higher taxes.

Now, a not-quite grass-roots effort has sprung up, led by companies that administer flexible spending accounts and others. At savemyflexplan.org, the group encourages individuals to write their representatives in Washington and sound off.

They just can't help themselves.

Economist on Iran

Iran and the Presidents announcement have been the order of the day and its clear the Iranian Nuclear program is more widespread then original feared.

Western diplomats hope that if Russia agrees to more punitive measures, China would not oppose them alone. But for the moment Beijing is wary. China imports much of its crude oil from Iran and recently signed a deal to sell back refined fuel. Its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said the issue of Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved through “peaceful negotiations”.

Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under pressure at home over allegations that his re-election in June was rigged, has championed the nuclear programme as evidence that the Islamic republic had joined the ranks of the world's most scientifically advanced nations.

He says Iran has no intention of acquiring an atomic bomb; it is only making low-enriched uranium to fuel nuclear-power stations. But the fear is that the same centrifuges could be reconfigured to make high-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. A series of discoveries by inspectors suggests that Iran has, at the least, been experimenting with components for nuclear warheads. A secret annex to an IAEA report last month said Iran had, for instance, developed a warhead with a chamber that seemed designed to carry a nuclear bomb.

The underground plant at Natanz, filled mostly with early models of IR-1 centrifuges and monitored by the IAEA, has already produced enough low-enriched uranium which, if diverted, could make several nuclear bombs. The plant in Qom, only modest in size, may have two possible functions. It could be an alternative plant to be used in case Natanz were destroyed by America or Israel. Or it could be used secretly with more sophisticated machines quickly to turn Iran’s legal stockpile of low-enriched uranium into high-enriched uranium for weapons, for example if Iran were to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Either way, the Iranian regime has a lot of explaining to do.

Now what, sanctions, negotiations, military strike. Many people have discounted the chance of war, I think they seriously underestimate the chance as Iran continually thumbs its nose at the rest of the world, the chances of conflict grow. Don't be surprised if in the next couple months Hezbollah or Hamas orchestrate attacks on Israel to build pressure and deflect from this growing crisis.

Another Bin laden Tape

Seems like there are lot more terror threats and tapes coming out, no sir I don't like it:

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden demanded that European nations withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in a new audio tape aired on Friday, saying they were sacrificing men and money in an unjust U.S.-led war.

"We are not demanding anything unjust. It is just for you to end injustice and withdraw your soldiers (from Afghanistan)," he said in the tape, released on the Internet with a background picture of bin Laden and with German and English subtitles.

"One of the greatest injustices is to kill people unjustly, and this is exactly what your governments and soldiers are committing under the cover of the NATO alliance in Afghanistan," bin Laden said in the recording, entitled "A message to the people of Europe."

It goes on and on, but couple this with the recent terror threats and you have a troubling pattern of increasing threat emerging.

Iran admits to Second Nuclear Site to Pre-Empt Western Accusations

Sept 25th-VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency that it has a second uranium enrichment plant under construction, diplomats told Reuters on Friday.They said the Islamic Republic told the International Atomic Energy Agency of the plant's existence in a letter to IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei earlier this week.A senior diplomat close to the IAEA said the Iran had told the agency the facility was a pilot, or experimental-level, enrichment site that was not yet in operation.

Surely its no coincidence that Iran admits to this on the same day it becomes public that the Western Powers led by the US will kick off the G-20 summit by accusing Iran of doing this:

PITTSBURGH — President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France will accuse Iran Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying it has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years, according to senior administration officials.

The revelation, which the three leaders will make before the opening of the Group of 20 economic summit here, appears bound to add urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambitions to build a nuclear weapons capability. Mr. Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will demand that the country allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

American officials say that they have been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said nothing about the plant during his visit this week to the United Nations, where he repeated his contention that Iran had cooperated fully with inspectors, and that allegations of a nuclear weapons program are fabrications.

The newly discovered enrichment plant is not yet in operation, American officials said, but could be next year.

Now what? Iran is a dictatorship and a brutal one at that, they have oil and allies who will support here against a push, and despite the much ballyhooed Russian "support" on toughening sanctions, the reality is Iran continues to hurt US troops and our allies throughout the world and is operating with impunity in regards to their nuclear program.

Odama Gitmo Deadline as Firm as his Other Promises

Ready day one, well no one forced Obama to call for its closing without a plan and we have gotten the Chinese Water torture of leaks as his admin has slowly but surely backed away from his deadline

With four months left to meet its self-imposed deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is working to recover from missteps that have put officials behind schedule and left them struggling to win the cooperation of Congress.

Even before the inauguration, President Obama's top advisers settled on a course of action they were counseled against: announcing that they would close the facility within one year. Today, officials are acknowledging that they will be hard-pressed to meet that goal.

The White House has faltered in part because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities involved in determining what to do with more than 200 terrorism suspects at the prison. But senior advisers privately acknowledge not devising a concrete plan for where to move the detainees and mishandling Congress.

To address these setbacks, the administration has shifted its leadership team on the issue. White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week.

Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. "I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives," he said.

It appears Craig will be made the fall guy and punted off as a Federal judge or some other diplomatic assignment as a booby prize. This leaves the admin with one Gitmo promise still unbroken, the admission that it will remain open as the primary anti-terror detention facility in the Western Hemisphere. By the way doesn't this seem odd:

In May, one of the senior officials said, Obama tapped Pete Rouse -- a top adviser and former congressional aide who is not an expert on national security but is often called in to fix significant problems -- to oversee the process. Senior adviser David Axelrod and deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer were brought in to craft a more effective message around detainee policy, the official said.

Isn't this typical, the admin taking a serious issues and viewing merely as a political distraction to be handled rather then a life and death issue, couple that with Afghanistan and you get the impression these guys aren't all that serious about the war on terror.

The Cooling Planet

What is there to say, one of the key architects of the warming consensus has done an about face and now says the planet is cooling. My question, how do they call this guy a denier?

Latif is one of the leading climate modellers in the world. He is the recipient of several international climate-study prizes and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has contributed significantly to the IPCC's last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing the planet to warm dangerously.

Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN's World Climate Conference--an annual gathering of the so-called "scientific consensus" on man-made climate change --Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool."

The global warming theory has been based all along on the idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, then they would let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land.

But as Latif pointed out, the Atlantic, and particularly the North Atlantic, has been cooling instead. And it looks set to continue a cooling phase for 10 to 20 more years."How much?" he wondered before the assembled delegates. "The jury is still out."

But it is increasingly clear that global warming is on hiatus for the time being. And that is not what the UN, the alarmist scientists or environmentalists predicted. For the past dozen years, since the Kyoto accords were signed in 1997, it has been beaten into our heads with the force and repetition of the rowing drum on a slave galley that the Earth is warming and will continue to warm rapidly through this century until we reach deadly temperatures around 2100.

There you have it.

Obama Admin Faulted for Missile Timing

The decision was a disgrace , the timing just pathetic:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration came under fire from U.S. lawmakers on Thursday for surprising Congress and American allies with its decision to drastically alter European missile defense plans.

In the first congressional hearing on the move, Pentagon policy chief Michele Flournoy said that the administration rushed its public announcement of the overhaul because details were beginning to leak out.

Lawmakers said they resented first hearing of the decision last week in news reports that ran before they were briefed by the administration. NATO allies were informed in the middle of the night before the announcement, they added.

''I am appalled at the poor communication and consultation with our allies that clearly could have been done in a far better way,'' Republican Susan Collins said at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

''We too would have preferred a longer period for consultation and rollout, but leaks and speculation in the press sort of forced us to go sooner to set the record straight,'' Flournoy said.

Ready Day One!

A Thought on Afghanistan

The United States and Iraqi people successfully delivered a death blow to the Jihadist movement in the heart of the Middle East. This defeat was compounded by the disgusting behavior of this terror movement in the various atrocities they committed throughout that country, the killing of school children, the torture rooms, the sectarian massacres. Here it was the apocalyptic battle Bin laden always wanted to transform the Middle East, and the forces aligned to him were swept from the field by the joint actions of Muslims and Coalition forces working together to build a better future for the people of Iraq and the people in the Middle East as a whole. Now we have talk in of pulling out of Afghanistan and letting the chips fall where they may. This would be a disaster that we will all pay for.

To hand the country back to all of the warlords, Taliban, and Jihadists would pump oxygen into the extremist movement as nothing else could. Having been prevented from attacking the US again and wiped out in Iraq, and despised by many in the Middle East, these terror groups would point to Afghanistan as their victory to prove they are still relevant. Just as importantly they would be able to establish their bases and safe havens to plan and train their operations. Surely the fact that Al Qaeda and its affiliates have been relegated to the hills of Waziristan has made it more difficult to put operations together. This is one of the key reasons why we were never attacked again. Is something of a cliche to say we fight over there so we don't fight them here, but there is more truth to that phrase then many might wish to acknowledge.

So here we are, decision time, the generals want more troops to win, the President wants the issue to go away, and significant amounts think it doesn't matter or imagine the war is Vietnam. (By the way I do not recall Ho Chi Mihn launching terror operations within the United States). Final thought, how will those who claim Afghanistan doesn't matter explain the news footage of a Bin Liden or Zwahari openly walking around Kabul surround by their coterie of armed followers and calling for Jihad against the US, what happens then?

Obama: We Have Right to Hold Suspects Without Trial

Oh that Obama, brags about restoring America to rule of law as a put down on Bush, then turns around and adopts a Bush policy:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided not to seek new legislation from Congress authorizing the indefinite detention of about 50 terrorism suspects being held without charges at at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, officials said Wednesday.Instead, the administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies.

But President Obama’s advisers are not embracing the more disputed Bush contention that the president has inherent power under the Constitution to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely regardless of Congress.

The Justice Department said in a statement Wednesday night that “the administration would rely on authority already provided by Congress” under the use of force resolution. “The administration is not currently seeking additional authorization,” the statement said.

The department pointed out that courts would continue to review the cases of those held without charges through habeas corpus hearings. The Washington Post first reported the decision.

This is primarily about sparing Congressional Democrats an embarrassing vote on the Gitmo detainees as well as further acknowledgment that the the anti-terror policies following 9/11 were correct. As for not accepting Bush's claim that he has the inherent authority, they need at least something to throw as a sop to their base.

Al Qaeda Threats in Africa

Stay Alert, this would be the second Al Qaeda connected threat we have seen in the past couple days and considering the groups propensity for dramatic attacks we can only hope all Security forces are on higher alert:

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The security threat that led to all U.S. government facilities in South Africa being closed this week came from an al-Qaeda splinter group, a South African newspaper reported on Thursday.

The U.S. facilities were closed from Tuesday following a threat that the U.S. State Department had said was based on "pretty credible information."

The Star newspaper said that, according to "well-placed security sources," the group had telephoned the U.S. embassy in Pretoria on Monday warning of planned attacks against several of the country's buildings in South Africa.

The planned attacks were believed to be in response to last week's killing in Somalia of one of the continent's most wanted al Qaeda suspects in a raid by U.S. commandos, the newspaper said.

Oil Discoveries Rising Across the Globe

Peak oil has always been something of myth bandied about by people looking to kill fossil fuels. For the record the problem is rarely the finding and extracting the oil, the problem is the gangster governments that try and steal everything, leading to inevitable declines. Hugo Chavez is probably the prime example today of such behavior but to be frank their is nothing unique about the collapse in Venezuela. Anyway its good news and I am happy these guys are making the finds:
Discoveries Rising

The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough economy.

These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty investments that began earlier in the decade when oil prices rose, and of new technologies that allow explorers to drill at greater depths and break tougher rocks.

More than 200 discoveries have been reported so far this year in dozens of countries, including northern Iraq’s Kurdish region, Australia, Israel, Iran, Brazil, Norway, Ghana and Russia. They have been made by international giants, like Exxon Mobil, but also by industry minnows, like Tullow Oil.

Just this month, BP said that it found a giant deepwater field that might turn out to be the biggest oil discovery ever in the Gulf of Mexico, while Anadarko Petroleum announced a large find in an “exciting and highly prospective” region off Sierra Leone.

It is normal for companies to discover billions of barrels of new oil every year, but this year’s pace is unusually brisk. New oil discoveries have totaled about 10 billion barrels in the first half of the year, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. If discoveries continue at that pace through year-end, they are likely to reach the highest level since 2000.

“That’s the wonderful thing about price signals in a free market — it puts people in a better position to take more exploration risk,” said James T. Hackett, Anadarko’s chairman and chief executive.

Of course more resources means more stable and lower prices, an excellent contribution to a strong Global and American economy.

Inevitable: Obama Admin Leaks Plans for Dramatic Scale Back in Afghanistan

This is a PR strategy designed to make him look look like a hawk while calling for a full retreat. As for Biden the so call foreign policy expert, this is the same guy who advocated the partition of Iraq and the admin's point man on the stimulus, in other words an expert in media minds but not in reality.

WASHINGTON — President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.............

In looking at other options, aides said, Mr. Obama might just be testing assumptions — and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war — before ultimately agreeing to the anticipated troop request from General McChrystal. But the review suggests the president is having second thoughts about how deeply to engage in an intractable eight-year conflict that is not going well.

Although Mr. Obama has said that a stable Afghanistan is central to the security of the United States, some advisers said he was also wary of becoming trapped in an overseas quagmire. Some Pentagon officials say they worry that he is having what they called “buyer’s remorse” after ordering an extra 21,000 troops there within weeks of taking office before even settling on a strategy.

Mr. Obama met in the Situation Room with his top advisers on Sept. 13 to begin chewing over the problem, said officials involved in the debate. Among those on hand were Mr. Biden; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; James L. Jones, the national security adviser; and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They reached no consensus, so three or four more such meetings are being scheduled. “There are a lot of competing views,” said one official who, like others in this article, requested anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.

Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics.

That buyer's remorse line rankles me, if its the case, are worse view of Obama as a total fraud on keeping America safe have been confirmed. As for the abandonment of the AFPAK strategy in favor of the lighter foot, that goes back to flawed assumption of the elites and the left. These guys view the presence of American troops as causing the antagonism. As we learned with the surge, nothing could be further then the troop, the closer the proximity to the locals the stronger the bonds and the less likely the insurgents would gain a foothold. Obama's priority in Afghanistan is limit his domestic political damage, other considerations have now become secondary.

Nation Building Through Honeybees in Afghanistan

A beekeeper in the Dara district of Afghanistan’s Panjshir province tends to one of his hives.


What colony collapse disorder?

BAGRAM AIRFIELD (Afghanistan, Sept. 15, 2009) – In an effort to increase agricultural productivity and boost economic capacity, 450 families throughout Afghanistan’s Panjshir province were supplied with training and materials to operate and manage their own honey production businesses.


The program, sponsored by the province’s agriculture ministry, began in July 2008 with the delivery of 900 bee boxes called “lower deep supers,” or brood chambers, complete with a queen bee and a starter colony.


Initially, starter colonies produce only enough honey to survive, but as the colonies continue to grow, they produce excess honey that can be harvested. This natural progression requires an “excluder” for the queen, “deep upper supers” for the bees and additional training for the beekeepers.


“The deep uppers are where the bees store the excess honey that will be harvested and will allow the queen growing room for the colony to keep them from swarming to another location,” said Greg Schlenz, a U.S. Department of Agriculture representative to the provincial reconstruction team. “The training is necessary to ensure understanding in bee colony development and use of received materials.”


Local residents said they had no recollection of a substantial honeybee population ever existing in the province. Abdulla Shah, a lifelong resident of the valley, said Dara district had some honeybee hives prior to the team’s arrival, but doesn’t know what happened to them.


“I remember seeing the hives and the farmers selling honey in Dara about five years ago,” Shah said. “But, I don’t remember them anywhere else in Panjshir, not even as a child.”

Of course the bees pollinate the local areas and generaly contribute the local ecosystem, in addition to providing a product to sell on the market.

Orszag: Health Bill by November

Its All Lies:

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Congress will likely complete a health-care bill within six weeks, and a measure being drafted by the Senate Finance Committee may provide the basis for final legislation, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said.

“The goal would be, yes, over next six weeks or so, maybe sooner,” Orszag said in an interview as the finance panel headed by Montana Democrat Max Baucus began revising the measure, President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

Orszag praised Baucus’s $856 billion proposal, saying it “definitely” shows that “you can devise a health-reform bill that significantly expands coverage while doing so in a way that is not only deficit-neutral” but “deficit-reducing.”

In reality they have no idea, its just assumed the Democrat Congress just has to pass something.

Mad Rush to Modify Baucus Health BIll

The closest thing Obama has to bill is the Baucus plan. Yes I know he never officially took a stand on what bill he wanted, but this is it. Now we have a mad rush to peg amendments to the bill as politicans scramble to cover their base and push their pet projects:

Senators have offered 564 amendments, all posted on the committee Web site, and the Republican proposals generally reveal seemingly irreconcilable differences. While they would gut the bill, one Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, wants important changes but appears ready to get behind it, provided Mr. Baucus can keep his fellow Democrats in line.

For Mr. Baucus, the challenge will be to stop his fellow Democrats — they outnumber Republicans 13 to 10 — from shifting the bill so hard to the left that they chase away Ms. Snowe, who could provide the crucial 60th vote needed to get the measure through the Senate.

Consider Ms. Snowe’s most important amendment: to trigger the creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan in any state that fails to provide affordable insurance to 95 percent of residents. Mr. Baucus will have to fend off powerful Democrats, including Senators John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Charles E. Schumer of New York, who want to create the public plan from the outset.

The proceedings promise to be a wild ride for other reasons. Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, wants to delete the word “fee” everywhere it appears in the bill and replace it with the word “tax,” a signal that Republicans intend to oppose the bill by framing it as a huge tax increase.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who along with Ms. Snowe engaged in months of intense negotiations with Mr. Baucus, would do away with a core component of the proposal — a requirement that virtually all Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty if they fail to do so.And Mr. Grassley would eliminate proposed fees on the health industry, including insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers. Instead, he would pay for a large chunk of the bill with economic stimulus money that has not yet been spent.

The trigger is nonsense, as for replacing fee with tax, its reasonable but symbolic. As for the mandate, none of these "reform" proposals makes sense without one, unless you are from the "left" and believe all care should be free. Most importantely, Rockefeller is trying to strike out the co-op model to leave the public option as the only option.Snowe on the other hand appears ready to stay in the deal, offering 21 ammendemnets to the proposed legislation.

Zeleya in Honduras

Just a disaster and a powder keg waiting to happen, all courtesy of Chavez with a big time assist from the feckless Obama admin:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Deposed President Manuel Zelaya made a dramatic return to Honduras' capital Monday, taking shelter from arrest at Brazil's embassy and calling for negotiations with the leaders who forced him from the country at gunpoint.

The interim government initially ordered a 15-hour curfew, but then extended it to a 26-hour shutdown of the capital, but thousands of Zelaya supporters ignored the decree and remained outside the embassy, dancing and cheering.

Others in the capital rushed home, lining up at bus stands and frantically looking for taxis. Electricity was cut off for hours at a time on the block housing the embassy and in areas of Tegucigalpa where news media offices are located -- something that happened the day of the coup that ousted the leftist leader.

Security Vice Minister Mario Perdomo said checkpoints were being set up on highways leading to the capital to keep out Zelaya's supporters from other regions, to ''stop those people coming to start trouble.'' Later, Defense Minister Lionel Sevilla said all flights to Tegucigalpa had been suspended indefinitely.

Understand, this is about Chavez building a sereis of client states beholden and allied to him, at the expense of freedom and democracy for the people of the America's. As for Clinton's response:

Reuters reported on Ms. Clinton’s comments to the media, after she met the Costa Rican president, who is trying to help resolve the political crisis.

“It’s imperative that dialogue begin … (that) there be a channel of communication between President Zelaya and the de facto regime in Honduras,” Clinton said after she meet Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who sought to broker a resolution to the crisis that followed Zelaya’s June 28 ouster.

“It’s also imperative that the return of President Zelaya does not lead to any conflict or violence but instead that everyone act in a peaceful way to try to find some common ground,” she told reporters.

You helped make this bed, get ready to deal with it.