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I’m putting in a request to the world for less to happen tomorrow. I need a bit of a break:
• Obama met with the Chinese government today, and they reached agreement on joint cooperation on climate change and clean energy (here’s the White House’s document on that). However, doesn’t seem like much movement was made on China’s currency manipulation.
• That ABC/WaPo health care poll today produced headlines about opposition to reform in general, but it also showed strong support for the public option and the employer mandate. In addition, the big correlation in the poll: the more you understand reform, the more you support it. A rejection of true civic participation is killing the bill right now.
• I assumed that someone would call for hearings on those new guidelines on mammograms, and the perfect candidate was Debbie Wasserman Schultz, herself a breast cancer survivor under the age of 50. Expect hearings in December.
• I assumed that there wouldn’t be bipartisan support for regulatory reform. Mitch McConnell confirmed it, although he may be an unreliable narrator.
• Israel started building new settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem today. The White House at first wrote a condemnation of the action, but then took the word “settlements” out of it. This could be due to technical definitions of what a settlement is, but it’s not encouraging, at any rate.
• Gordon Brown may be using an Afghan pullout to save his political career. However, a timetable for withdrawal matches with the President’s apparent desires, and he has some interesting ideas about how to best manage the mess in Afghanistan. The Progressive Caucus wants to meet with Obama on the matter.
• The Senate blocked an amendment from James Inhofe that would have stopped the Obama Administration from transferring detainees from Guantanamo to US soil. House Republicans will try the same gambit. Meanwhile, someone should ask the Republican who represents Thomson, IL in the State Senate: he’s all for it.
• I’m reassured that Medicaid spending for states wound up in the House health care bill. Their bill expands Medicaid greatly, and without aid for the states they would have gotten nothing out of it.
• Thousands of offshore tax evaders settled their debts with the IRS this week, under a voluntary deal where they pay their bills in exchange for amnesty from prosecution for tax evasion. This results to billions of dollars for the US government.
• More soldiers committed suicide last year than have been killed in Iraq this year. The Army believes they are working on the problem and getting it under control.
• The uninsured die from their lack of insurance. This shouldn’t surprise anyone.
• I’m keeping an eye on Phil Angelides and his Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. He staffed up today, and public hearings could begin within months.
• The Danish Prime Minister wants to see some real emissions targets from that signature meeting in his city of Copenhagen on climate change, not a two-step process where little is done immediately.
• This was some brilliant activism out in Minnesota, getting a group of racists and xenophobes to cheer a speech against European immigration that are “taking Dakota jobs.”
• Question of the night: is Lee Siegel insane?
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About FDL News Desk
At last, the C Street house is no longer tax-exempt. And, yes, as somebody commented over at EW’s place where I also pasted the link, news like this makes me quite happy.
LINK.
Great roundup. Thanks!
Davbid, I would not be ‘reassured’ about Medicaid spending. Even in view of the ‘stimulus’ CA cut way back on what it would pay for in the Medi-Cal program.
And the thrust of the HOuse bill is to move people from Medicare to Medicaid.
This guy -from your link- nailed it : “Chris Whatley, Washington director for the nonpartisan Council of State Governments, said he sees an explicit political motive on the part of those backing the House bill. “It would force states to absorb huge new Medicaid cost loads, and they want states to look past their immediate crisis and believe it’s going to be okay. It’s a sugarcoating to help them swallow a very bitter pill.”
Arrrgh.
Obama Nominates Pesticide Executive to Be Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the US Trade Representative
“Islam Siddiqui is currently a vice president at CropLife America, a coalition of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto, and Dow Chemical. . . . A coalition of over eighty environmental, family farm and consumer advocacy organizations have sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee urging them to reject his nomination. [includes rush transcript]”
LINK.
“I assumed that someone would call for hearings on those new guidelines on mammograms, and the perfect candidate was Debbie Wasserman Schultz, herself a breast cancer survivor under the age of 50. Expect hearings in December.”
Is Susan Love an insurance industry shill, exaggerating, telling only half the truth, selling something, revising history, just misguided and confused, mistaken?
Or is this basically a rinse and repeat of what she’s reporting here?