[xico]

Originally Posted by poochee

Analysis: US-Israel spat fortifies Obama's hand
ROBERT BURNS | March 20, 2010 01:57 PM EST | AP

MOSCOW — An extraordinary test of wills between the United States and Israel has left the Obama administration a stronger negotiator both with its closest ally in the Middle East and with Arab nations needed to broker peace with the Palestinians.

The U.S. appears likely to pull Israel and the Palestinians back toward preliminary peace talks after more than a week of harsh words about Israeli housing policies that Arabs and many Americans see as land grabs.

The way ahead probably will become clearer in coming days as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington as early as Monday and U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell resumes his shuttle diplomacy Sunday.

Netanyahu's meetings with U.S. officials will test the limits of U.S. influence over its closest ally in the Middle East and the right-wing Israeli leader's latitude with even more hawkish elements of his fractious governing coalition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...east-analysis/

Our friend Jeff Blankfort sums up nicely the small turbulence in American-Israeli relations after Biden affront. He correctly doubts Netanyahu's innocence for Israelis always behaved like that just in order to rub the American statesmen's noses in the mud of their impotence. His conclusion: nothing will come out of it, because nothing ever did.
However, he is not necessarily right: there are signs that the US administration effectively stopped to supply Israel with weapons it requested. World Tribune claimed http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...0217_03_18.asp that
"Since taking office, Obama has refused to approve any major Israeli requests for U.S. weapons platforms or advanced systems. Officials said this included proposed Israeli procurement of AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, refueling systems, advanced munitions and data on a stealth variant of the F-15E. "All signs indicate that this will continue in 2010," a congressional source familiar with the Israeli military requests said. "This is really an embargo, but nobody talks about it publicly."
So the bottom line is not that obvious yet, as Jeff thinks. Israel prepares for war, and armaments' supplies can be crucial. An embargo may actually derail Israeli plans to attack Iran and/or its neighbours.
Weekend Edition
March 19 - 21, 2010
http://www.counterpunch.com/blankfort03192010.html

Little things going on behind the scenes. And maybe that's why the Israelis tweaked Biden's nose? Cos they weren't getting everything they wanted?

[poochee]

Ohio Democrat says she will vote for health bill.
March 21, 2010 10:52 AM EST |

In a statement, Kaptur says she is convinced that the bill will maintain existing law on abortion. She says the bill addresses the nationwide problem of affordability of insurance plans.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...erhaul-kaptur/

[poochee]

Democrats predict health bill will pass House
CHARLES BABINGTON | March 21, 2010 11:28 AM EST | AP

WASHINGTON — A pair of House Democratic leaders predicted Sunday the final tally on President Barack Obama's historic health care bill will meet or exceed the 216 votes required for passage. But they acknowledged having yet to nail down commitments from a handful of members, some of whom remained concerned about the abortion issue.Don't let the oposition brain wash you. Vote yes and get it over with.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...care-overhaul/

[poochee]

Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009
There's no denying Obama's race plays a role in protests
Telling it as it is.
By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In the pre-dawn hours of last Nov. 5, while much of the nation celebrated Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president, three white men in Springfield, Mass., doused the partially completed Macedonia Church of God in Christ with gasoline and burned it to the ground.

At about the same time, newspaper Web sites were filled with millions of hateful messages about Obama, and the computer servers of two large white supremacist groups, the Council of Conservative Citizens and Stormfront.org, crashed because they got so much traffic.

"You immediately got the sense that something significant was happening," said Mark Potok, who investigates hate groups as the director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.

In this summer of discontent, much of that outrage, rightly or wrongly, has been trained on President Obama. While it's an occupational hazard that comes with the turf at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., some of the criticism of Obama has the unmistakable stench of racism.

To many, South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie" outburst was only the latest racially tinged episode involving the party. Bositis said that much of the antagonism came from the Southern wing of the party, in part because Obama was the first Northern Democratic president since Kennedy and because the Republican Party's Southern clout had been marginalized.

"It has been a long time since they've had such a limited influence in the U.S. Congress," Bositis said. "A number of these people have gone out of their way to diss Obama, and that's a Southern thing, it's not a black thing. But what is it about Obama that they most want to diss? [B]A lot of it has to do with his race."Waterloo.[/B]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/09/1...k=omni_popular

[poochee]

Originally Posted by Littlefield

Obama wants the health bill to pass to make history (that means for him )and said it in a speech

That's your take on it.

However, when the bill passes Obama will have earned his place in history as the first black President and as the reformer of healthcare in America. He won't have to be elected again because he will have made his mark on history. But he will also achieve more before his term is up. And guess what, he won't have to attempt to revise history like the last administration is trying to do.

[ekim68]

I read an article recently that said that administrations have been trying to change health care for 100 years. Shows who's been winning that battle...

[poochee]

Originally Posted by ekim68

I read an article recently that said that administrations have been trying to change health care for 100 years. Shows who's been winning that battle...

Change is taking place!

[poochee]

House leaders announce impasse-breaking deal on abortion funding
By Shailagh Murray, Paul Kane and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 21, 2010; 6:38 PM

After 5 1/2 hours of often contentious floor speeches and a string of procedural votes, the House approved the rules for final debate on a Senate-passed health-care bill and a House package of fixes by a vote of 224 to 206. That vote set the stage for what House Democratic leaders hoped would be the penultimate milestone later Sunday night of Obama's year-long effort to overhaul the nation's $2.5 trillion health-care system.

Rallying last-minute support for the overhaul, Obama announced Sunday afternoon that he would issue an executive order after passage, attesting that the bill is consistent with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions.

The arrangement won the support of a key bloc of anti-abortion House Democrats, whose leader, Rep. Bart Stupak D-Mich.), said at a news conference, "I'm pleased to announce we have an agreement."

Appearing with Stupak were half a dozen other holdout Democrats. With them on board, "we're well past" the 216 votes needed in the House to approve the health-care legislation, Stupak said.

"While the legislation as written maintains current law, the executive order provides additional safeguards to ensure that the status quo is upheld and enforced, and that the health care legislation's restrictions against the public funding of abortions cannot be circumvented," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement. "The president has said from the start that this health insurance reform should not be the forum to upset longstanding precedent. The health care legislation and this executive order are consistent with this principle."

In one of a series of procedural votes in the rare Sunday session, the House voted mainly along party lines to shelve a Republican challenge to the legislation, rejecting a bid to declare that the bill imposes an "unfunded mandate" on the states. The vote was 228 to 195. Key votes on final passage of the Senate-passed bill and a package of House fixes were expected later in the day.

As the debate and a series of votes went ahead, Democratic leaders and the White House continued their efforts to come up with a deal to assuage some Democrats' concerns over abortion funding through an executive order to be issued by Obama affirming his commitment to a long-standing ban on public funding of abortion except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[poochee]

Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA
By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 21, 2010

On the morning of Aug. 5, CIA Director Leon Panetta was informed that Baitullah Mehsud was about to reach his father-in-law's home. Mehsud would be in the open, minimizing the risk that civilians would be injured or killed. Panetta authorized the strike, according to a senior intelligence official who described the sequence of events.

Some hours later, officials at CIA headquarters in Langley identified Mehsud on a feed from the Predator's camera. He was seen resting on the roof of the house, hooked up to a drip to palliate a kidney problem. He was not alone.

Panetta was pulled out of a White House meeting and told that Mehsud's wife was also on the rooftop, giving her husband a massage. Mehsud, implicated in suicide bombings and the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was a major target. Panetta told his officers to take the shot. Mehsud and his wife were killed.

Panetta, an earthy former congressman with exquisitely honed Washington smarts, was President Obama's surprise choice to head the CIA. During his 13 months in the job, Panetta has led a relentless assault on al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan, delivering on Obama's promise to target them more aggressively than his predecessor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[poochee]

AMEN!! Healthcare reform just passed

[Remus_Lupin]

Originally Posted by poochee

AMEN!! Healthcare reform just passed

[ekim68]

I agree.....

[poochee]

Congress clears historic health care bill
Congratulations to Mr. President and those in Congress that voted yes!
DAVID ESPO | March 21, 2010 11:12 PM EST |

WASHINGTON — Summoned to success by President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved historic legislation Sunday night extending health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and cracking down on insurance company abuses, a climactic chapter in the century-long quest for near universal coverage.

Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote. Republicans were unanimous in opposition, joined by 34 dissident Democrats.

Obama watched the vote in the White House's Roosevelt Room with Vice President Joe Biden and about 40 staff aides. When the long sought 216th vote came in – the magic number needed for passage – the room burst into applause and hugs. An exultant president exchanged a high-five with his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...care-overhaul/

[Remus_Lupin]

Reconciliation package just passed as well

Republicans had to show their low class by yelling 'baby killer' during this historic moment

[poochee]

Originally Posted by Remus_Lupin

Reconciliation package just passed as well

Republicans had to show their low class by yelling 'baby killer' during this historic moment

Yes, that is disgusting but consider the source.