2008 was a tough year for America’s Governor, Illinois superstar Rod Blagojevich. After being arrested for trying to sell Barack Obama’s senate seat on December 10th and putting on a series of intricate press conference shows where he recited poetry and put black people on wheelchairs in public display (“Is that an impeachable offense?”), we really expected to watch the off-beat politico lose heart and fade away. He did anything but.

For having the most impressive head of hair in politics, giving us the best Senator in history, and outdoing New Jersey in its outrageous corruption to the point that our state felt compelled to breed both a disgusting Rabbi-black-market-kidney-Peter-Cammarano scandal AND an MTV reality tv show, we commend 2009 Winner Rod Blagojevich! He may have been through some murky waters in 2008, but he had nothing but sunshine hanging over him this year!

Rabbis selling kidneys on the black market! Homo-sex scandals! Dead people signing recall petitions in West New York! All in a day’s work for the great politicians of New Jersey. But don’t worry, there are more important things to worry about than millions of taxpayers’ funds going to the dogs thanks to negligent politicians: Jersey Shore might have a tax fraud “situation” on their hands!

even more… Unemployment-insurance news

Posted 12/25/09 info from the people who know … esd
Congress and the President approved extending the dates Employment Security can pay emergency unemployment compensation (EUC) benefits by two months. EUC was scheduled to end on December 31, 2009, and has been extended until February 28, 2010. Payments were scheduled to end May 31, 2010, and now are scheduled to end July 31, 2010.

Can your benefits be extended for additional information.

If you click on the link above you will get all the info below … keep reading

Important notice for people claiming unemployment benefits

Workout notes 4000 yards of swimming: 1000 warm up (slow! 18:20), 10 x (25 fly, 75 free) on the 2: mostly 1:43-1:44 (range: 1:41-1:46), 10 x (25 side, 75 free) on the 2: 1:44-1:49, mostly 1:48, 5 x (25 drill, 75 swim) fins, 100 paddle, free, paddle, free, paddle.

I was pretty bloated; I have to be careful of the type of yogurt that I eat. Let’s just say that I used “jet propulsion” at times. Nevertheless, the swim went ok.

Posts The Senate passed the health care bill by 60-39.

Science

Magnetized Fluff and its interaction with the heliosphere If this title sounds strange, read on:

The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA’s Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.

“Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system,” explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. “This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all.”

Our solar system is surrounded by a magnetic field called the heliosphere (really a “helioball” of sorts) whose outer layer is the heliosheath. That forms a protective barrier for our solar system (of sorts); the outer layer is being distorted by pressure as our solar system passes thought his fluff cloud. It was a mystery why this fluff cloud (formed by supernova explosions millions of years ago) would hold together; it turns out that the cloud has its own magnetic field which does the job.

Note that the voyagers left about 30 years ago and are just about to exit our solar system.

Botany and evolution
Don’t be deceived by the title of this article:

Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too

This article doesn’t start out very promising; it sounds as if it is a “hey, plants have feelings too” type of…well…joke. But there is a ton of good information there on some natural selection adaptations made by plants.

Among these:

Plants can’t run away from a threat but they can stand their ground. “They are very good at avoiding getting eaten,” said Linda Walling of the University of California, Riverside. “It’s an unusual situation where insects can overcome those defenses.” At the smallest nip to its leaves, specialized cells on the plant’s surface release chemicals to irritate the predator or sticky goo to entrap it. Genes in the plant’s DNA are activated to wage systemwide chemical warfare, the plant’s version of an immune response. We need terpenes, alkaloids, phenolics — let’s move.

“I’m amazed at how fast some of these things happen,” said Consuelo M. De Moraes of Pennsylvania State University. Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues did labeling experiments to clock a plant’s systemic response time and found that, in less than 20 minutes from the moment the caterpillar had begun feeding on its leaves, the plant had plucked carbon from the air and forged defensive compounds from scratch.

Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within.

The article goes on to talk about plants having defense mechanisms against insect eggs. It also talks about some parasitic plants being able to chemically sense when a likely target is nearby so it can grow in that direction:

Plants eavesdrop on one another benignly and malignly. As they described in Science and other journals, Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues have discovered that seedlings of the dodder plant, a parasitic weed related to morning glory, can detect volatile chemicals released by potential host plants like the tomato. The young dodder then grows inexorably toward the host, until it can encircle the victim’s stem and begin sucking the life phloem right out of it. The parasite can even distinguish between the scents of healthier and weaker tomato plants and then head for the hale one.

Books
Gwen Ifill discusses here book The Breakthrough

There is much in this book. One common theme is “sandpaper politics”: there is friction between not only blacks and whites, but also between older generation blacks and the younger generation. The older generation was about getting basic equality (voting rights, jobs, fair workplace treatment) whereas the younger generation is more interested in what everybody else wants (power, economic success); one person says this is the difference between “wanting to be able to eat in the diner and wanting to own the diner”.

Friction occurs when the younger generation seeks out power (e. g., runs for office) without waiting for the blessing of the established older generation.

We saw some of this during Barack Obama’s campaign; many of the older generation thought that an African American couldn’t win; the younger generation thought that he could and would.

Reading this book might even shed some light on the tension between President Obama and his former minister Rev. Wright. As then Senator Obama said:

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination – where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them. [...]

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

You actually see something like this in the tension between the old school feminists who see sexism everywhere and the newer feminists who see a bit more clearly in this day and age. This is NOT to say that sexism and racism are dead; they aren’t. But the things have gotten better with time and effort, even if such progress is shielded from “old school” civil rights leaders and old school feminists.

12.24.09

U.S. Senate: on C-SPAN2

Twas the day before Xmas and all through-out the Senate house Republican Creatures were definitely stirring even a mouse ……While VP Biden and Elizabeth Kennedy watched the vote… it was taken, moved and passed  60 -39 1not voting

The bill is a $871billion dollar HR3590 Bill  is now that much closer to becoming a reality … this is not only a historic moment it has been a issue that has been shoved under the rug for decades …this took 25days for the Senate to debate, vote and done.

some FAQs …

**Congress is guaranteed flights out of Washington,DC so don’t feel too sorry for them

**it has been reported that this is the first time a vote was taken on Xmas eve since 1895

**Senators will be taking the voted seated

UPDATES   UPDATES UPDATES…UPDATES   UPDATES   UPDATES

The Final Vote for HCR .. 60yeas 39nays 1did not vote Senator Bunning, all Democrats and both Independents vote YES  all Republicans obviously voting NO

The Vote on raising the debt ceiling …passes 60-39 to  $12.4Trillion through mid-February

HOUSE – SENATE start HCR negotiations

Enjoying a snowy sunset at Oostende beach in Belgium.    [Spiegel]

I realise I’m a couple of days off – – but no pleasing shot of the sun showed up on time.

Looking over Democracy NOW!  I noticed this timely tidbit…

God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!… Truly!

Report: ICE Runs Secret Immigrant Detention Sites in US

The Nation magazine is reporting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is holding undocumented immigrants in secret sites across the United States.

In addition to its publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices. Many of the offices are in suburban office parks or commercial spaces revealing no information about their ICE tenants.

In Los Angeles, ICE is holding immigrants in a barely converted storage space tucked away in a large downtown federal building.

During a conference last year, an ICE official, James Pendergraph, openly talked about ICE’s ability to disappear people. Pendergraph said, “If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.”

Meanwhile, The Nation magazine is also reporting ICE agents regularly impersonate civilians and rely on other illegal tricks in order to arrest longtime US residents who have no criminal history. ICE agents have posed as Occupational Safety and Health inspectors, insurance agents and even religious workers.

Joy to the World.  I doubt any of that will be changing anytime soon.

So…………. is it better when it is the same but just not BUSH?

*****

UPDATE, 12:49 am on the Pacific Ocean

More joy to the world:

And what of the amendments supported by members of the Progressive Democratic Caucus, the supporters of single-payer (SP): John Conyers, Anthony Weiner, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders and Jan Schakowsky?

At every critical moment these politicians with vertebrae composed of Jello compromised, backed down and conceded. Their allegiance to the Democratic Party and to President Obama trumped everything. There was nothing they were not willing to compromise away, no constituency that couldn’t be thrown under the bus for the sake of passing a bill; most appallingly women and abortion rights. With the exception of Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa, they all voted for the house bill that contained the Stupak Amendment. At a small protest in front of Jan Schakowsky’s home after the vote, she came out and told protesters she voted in favor of the Stupak Amendment because she knew it would be taken out of the Senate bill. She promised us it would be. As Schak strolled back into her opulent residence she protested, “I didn’t throw women under the bus.”   

The progressive Democrats sold out on single-payer early on when they backed the public option. This created enormous confusion: How could they advocate for both single-payer and the public option when the two are diametrically opposed? It didn’t take long before they all shilled almost exclusively for the public option. Schakowsky spoke at numerous HCAN meetings and rallies, never at single-payer events. Weiner was regularly interviewed by the press and focused the discussion on the public option, not single-payer.    

John Conyers, the lead sponsor of the single-payer bill H.R. 676, immediately endorsed the principles of Health Care for America Now (HCAN), an organization opposed to single-payer. When confronted by single-payer supporters at a Health Care Now! national conference, Conyers couldn’t explain the contradiction. Joel Segal, one of his staffers, became enraged and attempted to shut down the discussion. Soon after, Mr. Conyers became irrelevant to the movement for single-payer and a colossal embarrassment to it. It’s tragic, really. Conyers completely abandoned his magnificent legislation, H.R. 676: the only legislation that could transform health care from a commodity to an entitlement for all and solve the crisis. Instead of fighting for that legislation, he was holding briefings with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee to discuss “Why the public option must be included to have true health reform.”

All of them in it together.

******

UPDATE, 4:54 am – on the Pacific Ocean………

Just made it to the end of the The Nation article (all of two pages…) and this is the close:

[A]n attorney who had a client held in a subfield office said on background, “The president released in January a memorandum about transparency, but that’s not happening. He says one thing, but we have these clandestine operations, akin to extraordinary renditions within the United States. They’re misguided as to what their true mission is, and they are doing things contrary to the best interests of the country.”

His feet are utterly elusive of the fire.

When you read this, Press Secretary Gibbs will say that polls are meaningless, just as he and Obama always say when the poll numbers are showing them in a bad light.
However, have you taken an “good look” at Barack Hussein Obama lately? He appears to have lost weight, his hair has more gray and it appears to be falling out. All are signs of worry/stress. Obama knows he is not popular as he was and is in danger of following Carter and S.H.WW.Bush as a one term President.
I am not saying the numbers are 100% correct BUT they are indicitive of a major problem that is only getting worse.

Gallup: Obama Lowest Rated 1st Year President In History
posted in Politics
I noted earlier that the most recent Gallup poll has Obama with a measly 47% approval rating. What I didn’t realize is that it’s the lowest approval rating ever recorded for a 1st year President.Of course this is the Obama administration and when someone points out something unpleasant, Barry switches Worst-Press-Secretary-In-History Robert Gibbs to “attack” mode. Gibbs was asked about the polls by Fox News. His response?
“If I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I’d visit my doctor. I’m sure a six-year-old with a Crayon could do something not unlike that. I don’t put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is daily Gallup trend. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the meaninglessness of it.”Of course, Mr. Gibbs. The polls are always meaningless when they spell trouble, right?Gallup wasn’t particularly thrilled with the insult and issued an uncharacteristic reply. “Gibbs said that if Gallup were his EKG, he would visit his doctor. Well, I think the doctor might ask him what’s going on in his life that would cause his EKG to be fluctuating so much.”
At least every one’s in agreement that the President’s popularity is on life support.Here’s a list of every President that Gallup has polled from the beginning of their administrations, and their approval ratings at this point in their first terms:
– George W. Bush, 86 percent
– Bill Clinton, 52 percent
– George H.W. Bush, 71 percent
– Ronald Reagan, 49 percent
– Jimmy Carter, 57 percent
– Gerald Ford, 52 percent
– Richard Nixon, 59 percent
– Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent
– John Kennedy, 77 percent
– Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent
– Harry Truman, 49 percent

U.S. Senate: on C-SPAN2

Wednesday …12.23.09 … Which side of the aisle will get what they want under the Xmas tree ?

Today’s  schedule of events are …

**a vote to approve Senator Reid’s substitute bill with added managers  amendments

**a vote to limit debate on the bill

**The Senate will also deal with the point of order challenge Senator Ensign placed, stating the bill provisions are in violation of the Constitution…

**discussion on the debt ceiling

2:15 ET UPDATES …

**a vote to validate Senator Ensign’s challenge of the constitutionality of  the HCR bill and its amendments–failed 39yeas 60nays 1 not voting

**a vote  to waive Budget Act motion by Senator Coker challenges… that the bill violates the budget rules,point of order of unfunded mandates waived …  55yeas   44nays 1not voting

**a vote to kill Senator Cornyn’s procedural motion …challenges that the bill violates budget rules, passed 57yeas  42nays 1not voting

**a vote to kill Senator Hutchinson point of order that the bill violates the 10th amendment of the Constitution, passed 60nays 39yeas  1not voting

All Constitutional challenges by Republicans were rejected

SC and TX AG to explore legal action on the constitutionality of the vote and bill

**a vote to table Senator DeMint’s amendment, passed 53yeas 46nays 1not voting

**a vote to adopt Sen Reid’s substitute language into official bill, motion to adopt Reid language, approved and agreed to 60yeas  39nays,

cloture invoked moves HCR forward 60- 39

**a vote to limit debate on HCR, 60yea  39nays

**final procedural vote on HCR, 60 – 39nays

UPDATE … discussion moved to the debt limit, ceiling

as bad weather looms The Senate moves time of FINAL VOTE to Thursday 7am ET…

U.S. Senate: on C-SPAN2

While i have personally complained about our legislative  process, it is obvious that the system set-up enabled them to take time to manipulate, debate, think, re-think, vote and vote again, the process is slow but in some instances very deliberate, the idea i guess was to get it right and the road meant allowing for a lot of challenges, changing of minds, meetings off the floor for deals and deliberate votes to get to the result… a law. This gets lost with all the politicking  we all see.

My take and hope is that liberals, lefties, democrats, progressives will stop and think… how long has HCR been shoved under the rug, Health Care has always been a significant problem part of our economy, people gave up wage increases in exchange for health insurance. our economy broke down just before President Obama took office, it needs to be fixed, the fix is a big undertaking, it will change America but it needs to be done; we have to start somewhere, it  has parts and pieces “we the people,” have no idea  but have and are hurdles to be jumped, House speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats, which are more left than the Senate  put together a bill that was acceptable, the Senate, which is made up of very conservative republicans/some democrats that seem more elitist to me;definitely believes in the status quo.  The idea that a new administration could walk in and tell everyone the old ways will be completely abolished asap is absurd, change takes time, change takes cooperation among the Congress members.  Democrats are unique, we have a big tent and our members are not in unity in thought 24/7 like the right, its taken over a decade for enough people to be on the same page and a President who believes in change; the combination of both the House and the Senate bills might just be the change we are looking for

… we are our brother’s keeper

Barack Hussein Obama THINKS he is doing a great job his first year in office, RWD has many questions that point to a grade different than the B+ he gave himself. I did a bit of research on nominations for appointments Obama has made for cabinet, staff advisory and department positions that have shown badly and were either dropped by Obama or withdrawn by the appointee. Below you will find a listing of SOME of those appointments gone bad!

We have Timothy Geithner who doen’t pay his income taxes being put in charge of the Treasury Department and overseeing the IRS. In addition it seems he has an “undocumented alien” as a houskeeper. He is currently serving as Secretary of The Treasury!

We also have Ken Jennings who is a Homosexual Advoate in charge of safety in education at the Department of Education. Jennings is a proponent of teaching homosexuality in schools and is the founder of The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network . Of course he currently is on staff of the Department of Education.

Then we have the likes of Chai Feldblum, who is Obama’s nominee for the EEOC,who throws her support to government-recognized polygamy, relationships other than traditional marriage between two people, same-sex or otherwise (what the hell is “otherwise”, she is a lesbian gay rights attorney who believes that sexual freedom tops religion. Need I say more on Ms. Feldblum?

We also saw Van Jones the environmental activist who called all Republicans “assholes” and was a member of several socialist organizations. Possibly one of Jones’ most egregious positions is that he believed and promoted 9/11 as an “inside job”.

Along comes Sen. Tom Daschle, who was to be the new head of Health and Human Services, that it seems forgot to pay an exorbitant amount of taxes and some questionable “lobbying” associations.
Of course we can’t forget Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s appointee to be Secretary of Commerce, who was/is bing investigated by a federal grand jury fin a pay for play situation while he was New Mexico’s Governor with a California firm.

It was Obama ” who said that Nancy Killefer’s appointment was “one of the most important he would be making” to the new position of performance czar. That appointment was called into question for her failure to pay taxes on household help unemployment taxes and a tax lien on her home for unpaid UEC yaxes by the District of Columbia. She of course pulled the pin and resigned before she started.

John Cannon, who was nominated by Obama to the number two post in the EPA left because a group, of which he was a board member (America’s Clean Water Foundation) was the subject of governmental close scrutiny.

Obama selected Arne Duncan as his Secretary of Education and Duncan was confirmed. The main problem with Duncan, another Harvard educated friend of Obama and William Ayres, is that while the head of The Chicago Public School system (CPS), the CPS deteriorated and learning scores dropped or were stagnant at best. The best reason for Obama to appoint Duncan was either his frendship, a big donation or Mayor Richard M. Daley told him to do it!

Here is one I can’t believe; Rosa Brooks was appointed by Obama as senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Military Policy. Rosa Brooks has been an attorney for George Soros, a Law Professor at GoergeTown University, she is a rabid leftist who has called the Bush administration viles names and taken them to task for everything from economics to blame for Al Queada’s growth in the terrorist world. She called Cheney and Bush psychos to be dealt with like psychos, referring to their “crimes”. Her actions and comments in the past have shown her to be stronly anti-sematic. It appears safe to say that this fellow traveler of Obama’s is another liberal lunatic.

This one alomst takes the prize for idiocy, John Holdren,appointed “science czar, has championed forced abortions and sterilization since prior to 1977. He once advocated a shocking approach to the “population crisis” feared by scientists at the time: namely, compulsory abortions in the U.S. and a “Planetary Regime” with the power to enforce human reproduction restrictions. In 1977, when many scientists were alarmed by predictions of harmful environmental effects of human population growth, Holdren teamed with Paul R. Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb,” and his wife, Anne, to pen “Ecoscience: Population, Resources.

What or who can be next?

RWD

U.S. Senate: on C-SPAN2

Tuesday 12/22/09 Dems and Repubs battle it out … a lot of verbal sparring …will be going on ALL day

The Senate vote to limit debate on the substitute bill, written by Majority leader Senator Reid with added amendments, needing 60votes, was offered and approved by the Senate 60yeas – 39nays, invoking cloture; this advances the HCR bill, the next procedural votes will be on Wednesday and  Final vote Thursday?

UPDATEs  for Tuesday … are folks getting tired?

Senator Harry Reid’s comments about let’s get along by Rodney King… who btw ended being a real jerk and Roland burris? his version of the night before Xmas was strange, but he put positive thoughts out there for the Vote coming up !!!

Democrat Senator Parker Griffith, from Al has announced he will be switching to the Republican Political Party.

Republican Senator Ensign has raised a point of order that the HCR bill and the amendments are indeed in violation of the US constitution and gets a separate vote, thus taking a new path using a new tactic to slow HCR, this would only require a simple majority of 51 votes to prevail.

RNC chair Michael Steele continues what some have said to be outrageous comments about HCR and the substitute bill, that Dems are giving the bird to the American people,his political party continues to be obstructionists.

Senate leaders, Democrats and Republicans… are discussing if they can push the HCR vote up based on the bad weather yet to come by Xmas eve, the agreement would be for the Final Vote on HCR.

Howard Dean comments about the President are offensive, will it get the President to react? or is he acting out … again.

New info … The Senate will vote on a 2Month extension of the debt ceiling … Thursday?

Tuesday 12/22/09

The Senate vote to limit debate on the substitute bill, written by Majority leader Senator Reid with added amendments, needing 60votes, was offered and approved by the Senate 60yeas – 39nays, invoking cloture, and this advances the HCR, the next procedural vote will be on Wednesday

Early this morning, the Senate made history and health reform cleared its most important hurdle yet — garnering the 60 votes needed to move toward a final vote in that chamber later this week.

I’m grateful to Senator Harry Reid and every senator who’s been working around the clock to make this happen. And I’m grateful to you, and every member of the Organizing for America community, for all the work you have done to make this progress possible.

After a nearly century-long struggle, we are now on the cusp of making health insurance reform a reality in the United States of America.As with any legislation, compromise is part of the process. But I’m pleased that recently added provisions have made this landmark bill even stronger. Between the time when the bill passes and the time when the insurance exchanges get up and running, insurance companies that try to jack up their rates do so at their own peril. Those who hike their prices may be barred from selling plans on the exchanges.

And while insurance companies will be prevented from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions once the exchanges are open, in the meantime there will be a high-risk pool where people with pre-existing conditions can purchase affordable coverage.    

A recent amendment has made these protections even stronger. Insurance companies will now be prohibited from denying coverage to children immediately after this bill passes. There’s also explicit language in this bill that will protect a patient’s choice of doctor. And small businesses will get additional assistance as well.

These protections are in addition to the ones we’ve been talking about for some time. No longer will insurance companies be able to drop your coverage if you become sick and no longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for treatments that you need.

Under this bill families will save on their premiums; businesses that would see their costs rise if we don’t act will save money now and in the future. This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program. Because it’s paid for and gets rid of waste and inefficiency in our health care system, this will be the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade.

Finally, this reform will extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who don’t have it.

These are not small changes. These are big changes. They’re fundamental reforms. They will save money. They will save lives.

And your passion, your work, your organizing helped make all of this possible. Now it’s time to finish the job.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Just in case you have a life or are not near a TV but def near a computer or phone …              C-SPAN2—->click on link   Senate Floor: 1pm ET on C-SPAN2

HR3590, clearly is a historic Bill, it has taken over a decade to tackle and get done; Senate Democrats with all of their own issues have put up a good fight against the ever stalling Republicans. The Media is reporting that Reid has 60votes;  the 60th being Senator Ben Nelson …  The final version of the Senate health care bill faces its first challenge in a late-night procedural vote. Sen. Nelson (D-NE) said he’s prepared to vote for the bill.   The Senate will hold general debate all day Sunday and then recess until 12:01am ET in preparation for the 1am ET vote.

So, Sunday promises to be interesting as the snow is now knee deep in Washington …kind of like the stuff going on the Senate floor… stay tuned.     Senate Floor: 1pm ET on C-SPAN2

The first UPDATE… what possibly could be considered a critical error in the future; is that the CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote a letter to Senate leaders informing them of an error in the original cost estimate that results in less estimated deficit savings after 2019, though the new figures have no impact on the 2010-2019 figures.  Senate Republicans continue to practice fear mongering, using the CBO error and props to make their point that HR3590 will not improve health care but kill jobs, kill grammy …i guess and create death panels, really? i thought we all had gotten past that; is it possible that Republicans are obstructing progress to bring our President down?; no bill will be perfect to begin with, people have to know that adjustments will be made, health care reform will not only provide more health care to more people but will create jobs as well.

While Republicans continue political rhetoric (D)Senator Harkin gives viewers a great history lesson, maybe Republicans are listening? wouldn’t hold my breath but gotta say he is schooling everyone, even reminded Republicans of the 2001 Tax cuts to the wealthy, done by reconciliation in order to by pass any Democratic obstruction and or objection.

The 60votes needed to move HCR forward were there for Democratic leader, Senator Reids, 58 Democrats and 2 Independents voted yea and 40 Republicans voted nay. Cloture has been invoked, request was agreed to.  There will be 2days of procedural votes leading up to Xmas eve Final Vote…

U.S. Senate NOW on C-SPAN2

12/19/09  A long day ahead to be sure and it’s not just stormy in the city itself check out it out… read what’s been happening since you woke up…  and stay tuned, it ain’t over …

House Leader Republican McConnell of KY, required the (D)Reid Amendment be read aloud by the Senate Clerks,  this started at 8:30AM after which time debating will resume. The reading is typically waived, the 383 page amendment has new abortion language and contains changes to the Health Care Bill, added to secure 60 votes needed to pass.

While this reading is going on; off the Floor Democratic Caucus is meeting with Democrat leaders… it appears that (D)Senator Ben Nelson of NE, once a HCR holdout has changed his mind and will now support the health care Bill HR3590 … details to follow when available …

Senator Nelson’s press conference details are below

(D) Senator Ben Nelson from NE announced his demands and reasons for a yes for cloture and health care reform… feels as a former Governor he knows and feels change is hard but it is needed…again states he will give a yes for cloture  and vote yes to health care reform for the People of America.  Senator Nelson believes in the free market place (does not want to undermine the Private Insurance market) as the foundation of our economy and is the  primary focus that should drive our health care system and debate. He opposes the Public Option but supports Market Exchanges because a competitive health care system will drive down health care costs and provide better health care for Americans. He feels he has to comment on abortion by stating that he has fought hard to prevent using Federal tax dollars for abortions, fought hard to give States the right to regulate tax dollars being used for abortions, he fought for States the right to restrict or ban abortion, the Exchanges will be required to have at least one plan be available without an abortion  insurance choice, if it does the premium will be increased for that portion of abortion coverage, you have to choose abortion coverage to get the coverage, the conscious clause will be included, money for pregnant teens will be available, adoption credit has been increased and refundable tax credit, lower income people will be able to adopt, stating he reserves the right to vote against cloture if the provisions are changed, the new provisions will save lives, feels he is apart of historic legislation, he opposed public option because it would undermine private insurance for 2oomillion Americans, worried about the flexible spending account cap, but it will be dealt with, didn’t like the buy in …to Medicare, wants the private market to prevail, worried about home health care, medical malpractice and tort reform, rural care, and has requested changes to those and feels those will be done. Senator Nelson says the so called mandate needs work, he would have organized this bill in a different way. Major compromises were made to get what they think will be 60votes, 100mil to his state, indefinite Medicard and States have the right to opt out of abortion insurance, if your state offers it, it will be paid by the consumer.    More UPDATES below …

Senator Bernie Sanders …has been able to secure 10billion dollars for Community Health Care Centers.

Details of the manager’s amendment package is below …

Senators …Harry Reid, Baucus, Harkin and Dodd press conference on the amendment added to the HCR bill. This Bill HR3590, is fully paid for and does not include a public option(the model is a not-for-profit plan similar to what federal employees are getting now) it provides tax credits for working families and small business in 2010, the largest tax cut since 2001, provides insurance affordability for Americans, multi-state exchanges, extends insurance coverage for over 30mil people, will drive costs down, more consumer protections against harmful insurance company practices, additional funds for Prenatal Care,  covers at least or over 94% of American people under age 65yrs old, the CBO states it saves 130billion dollars, requires the insurance industry to spend more on consumer benefits and less on administrative costs and profits. The bill includes no discrimination against pre-existing conditions for children up to the age of 18yrs old which starts in 2010, any insurance companies increasing premiums before Exchanges go up will be penalized. Senator Harry Reid of NV included a 10%tax on tanning salons and 5%drop in elective surgery.

President Obama held a press conference, stating he supports the Senate health care bill going forward, saying “we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality.” This follows the announcement of Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) support, which will likely give the 60th vote needed for passage. After over a Century we will make  historic HCR. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, over 10 years, the revised bill will cost $871 billion while cutting the budget deficit by $132billion dollars. The President also commented on Climate Change … progress did not come easily and it is not enough, going forward we need to continue our efforts to build on a clean energy economy here at home and abroad. We still have a long way to go.

Even More UPDATEs …   The reading of Senator Reid’s amendment finished…   the Senator offered a move to bring to a close & proceeded with several amendments … 3277&3278,3279 language to be stricken, has asked to move to commit the bill A3280, A3281 instructions,A3282 to amend A3281…

The CBO said the Cost went up but it also raises revenue by about 12%, the original cost was 848bil over 10yrs, and now  it’s 871billion over 10yrs.

Senator Harkin came to the floor and stated that HCR3590’s cloture vote and  Final Vote will be Monday, giving everyone the required 72hours to read this bill online giving the Floor to Republicans.

The Senate adjourned for the day…and will resume the debate 12/20/09 Sunday and the big Vote should take place on Xmas eve, barring any surprises on Sunday…  The Senate did in fact send the Defense Appropriation bill to President Obama to sign today.

Frances Martel

To read the rest, click here.

I have a headache; it sure feels like a caffeine headache. But I won’t take any as I need to sleep.

Workout notes Easy day: 2200 yard swim (lots of drill, mixed strokes, etc.) and that was it. I am planning on doing something prior tomorrow’s graduation exercises which I was roped into going to.

Posts
This will be more of a link dump than anything else;

Humor An adult lady actually throws a tantrum and throws herself on the ground, crying and screaming….over a traffic ticket.

Beer-Lambert law: Fail.

see more Epic Fails

Oh no…what if all we get out of addressing climate change is a…better world?

(from PZ Myers blog)
Note: this was an argument that even Senator McCain made. See about 3:20 into it:

Science
This underwater volcano footage is stunning:

More here.

Our place in the universe

(hat tip: Uniform Velocity)

Top 10 Astronomy photos of the year: here.

Health Care Reform
Confused by conflicting polls? Perhaps it is because they ask the wrong questions.

Paul Krugman Break the inertia and pass the bill.

Rants
Some liberals: launch a primary challenge against President Obama?
People like myself: you’ve got to be kidding me.

This guy hates the Mummer’s Parade, I think:

When every vapid, overweight decaying blob in South Philly, who spends the other 7/8 of their year voting Republican, bitching about gay marriage and enthusiastically buying pickup trucks they will never need gathers to stick peacock feathers up their ass and practice choreographed group dance moves to the smooth tunes of the Village People, the dramatic irony has surely not escaped my grasp. More stunning still, is that the the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and general stench of impending death is not only somehow higher than it was when I passed this crowd last year, but is also impressive by even American standards. Watching a crowd of XXL sweat suit clad percentage points chug bud light (it’s ok, it’s low carb now!) at 10:30 am on a Sunday morning while talking about their new Camaro is a humbling sight for even the strongest of resolves.

(hat tip: Recursivity)

I admit that I don’t know anything about this parade but I enjoy a good rant.

Click on the Link below… sign the Petition …

http://www.sealthedeal2009.org/

So, during the course of my mind numbingly boring day at work I’ve been staving off the immanent explosion of my brain by delving into the archives of a blog called Cajun Boy in the City. I’ve currently just gotten through his converage of the last presidential election (which is where that link back there came from), and I am completely amazed at what I’ve learned about some of the shit that went on during all of that. Personally, I hate reading or listening to most political news. It’s just… boring. Really, really boring. It doesn’t keep my attention, so nothing sinks in and any research I did ends up being completely pointless anyway. The exception to that is the Daily Show, which is one of the only places that seems capable of discussing politics in a way that isn’t boring as shit, but I don’t pay enough attention to tv to know when that’s on generally. Well, after reading Cajun Boy’s account of the election, I think I might make an effort to find news outlets that don’t bore the shit out of me and try to get a little more informed about this stuff. I mean, the last election was pretty easy. "Which candidate is NOT Bush 2.0? Whichever it is, that’s who I’m voting for." But the next election is going to be more difficult I think. So I’m going to need to start educating myself.

Adjourning Thursday night leading into Friday around  midnight, The Senate will re-convene at 11AM Friday and resume consideration of the House Message with respect to H.R. 3326, Department of Defense Appropriation Act… Cloture was invoked… Senators have 30 hours to debate. The  items affected include  short-term unemployment insurance, health care benefits, highway and transit funding, the Patriot Act(anti terror) saves Doctors from a 21% cut to Medicare payments; funding ends at midnight on Saturday so the efforts to pass the package is important.

it’s FRIDAY …Republicans are definitely holding up progress. The Senate will resume debates Saturday 12/19/09. Senator Ben Nelson has decided to be a difficult Democrat. and Senate Republicans have made it completely clear that they have no intentions of passing in what was implied as such an extravagant spending package. However, the longer they stall, our Veterans, people who need to have unemployment insurance now will suffer. it’s about 4pm et and the long winded Republicans continue to obstruct progress on the Spending Package … looks like a vote is pending but who knows when.UPDATE:

CLIMATE CHANGE TALKS have become a struggle between China and the US, so much so that President Obama and the Chinese Premier had a private meeting that lasted at least an hour. In a last minute effort to keep negotiations going… a decision of dropping the previous reference to the 2010-deadline legally binding treaty agreement was made; a new draft, named the “Copenhagen Accord,”was debated and negotiated by world leaders over the language; facing a defining moment in climate change efforts, not everyone was willing to stay or happy with the way negotiations were going, some wondered whether if  there was really a good faith effort in accepting a meaningful deal.

As Friday went on, Chavez and others  complained about the language being used in the new deal, transparency, money so on;  Chavez threatened to leave and did as well as many others; leaving early among rumors of deals and failed negotiations; President Obama stated he was there to act not talk.

UPDATE… In what many are calling an important and good first step; President Obama  reaches climate deal with China, Brazil, India and South Africa. The deal, which, is not binding; would give 30billion to help poor and developing countries organize strategies and technology to combat global warming… over a 3yr period. A goal of 100billion a year by 2020.

It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one in Copenhagen