http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:38:32 -0500 MyBB http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7372 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:11:18 -0600 Peter http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7372 Buzz up!89 votes Send
Associated Press Writer Ivan Moreno, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 9 mins ago
LEADVILLE, Colo. – Before her daughter disappeared last fall, Christine Mott recalls that the 31-year-old who had been held in connection with an alleged assassination plot announced she had converted to Islam and told her family they'd go to hell if they didn't follow in her steps.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez also began talking about Jihad with her Muslim stepfather and spent most of her time online as she withdrew from her family, Mott said.

"We were enemies," Christine Mott said. "We couldn't even speak to each other."

Last year, on Sept. 11, Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville, Colo., an old silver mining town west of Denver that was Colorado's second-largest city during its heyday. She took her 6-year-old son with her, her mother said.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that Paulin-Ramirez had been detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had offended many Muslims.

Irish police said later Saturday that they had released without charge an American woman, who they didn't identify, and three others arrested in Ireland over an alleged plot to assassinate the cartoonist, Lars Vilks.

Paulin-Ramirez's arrest is one of four developments in the past week that have involved Americans in alleged terror plots abroad.

Al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn appeared in a video, Sharif Mobley of New Jersey tried to escape his detainment in Yemen, and Colleen LaRose, who allegedly went by the name "Jihad Jane" to recruit others online to kill Vilks, was named in a federal terror indictment.

Smoking as she sat on her living room couch in Leadville, Christine Mott said she hadn't eaten in days. The 59-year-old described her daughter as a troubled single mother who had the "mentality of an abused woman" and who, in trying to escape her loneliness, may have spiraled into the depths of Islamic extremism.

Mott told The Associated Press that she learned of her daughter's arrest in the case from the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Denver FBI officials said Saturday they couldn't confirm that the FBI had contacted Mott about the case.

Paulin-Ramirez told her family after she left in September that she went to Ireland with her 6-year-old son and married an Algerian whom she met online, Mott said.

Before abruptly leaving Colorado, Paulin-Ramirez had been a straight-A nursing student and had worked at a clinic in Edwards, about 40 miles west of Leadville, her mother said. She moved to Leadville from Denver six years ago. Phone calls to the clinic in Edwards went unanswered Saturday.

Mott said her daughter told her family during Easter last year that she converted to Islam, and renamed her son. Mott said her daughter was teaching him to hate Christians as she grew more distant from her family.

When she discussed jihad with her stepfather, George Mott, who has been a Muslim for more than 40 years, she told him "she'd strap a bomb for the cause," Christine Mott said.

She said she believes her daughter was lonely and "got sucked in" and brainwashed by other people.

"To go blow somebody up?" said Paulin-Ramirez's mother, who is not Muslim. "That's never been Islam."

Growing up, Paulin-Ramirez was "the kid in the class everyone picked on and made fun of," Mott said. She was married three times before she left for Ireland, and her first husband used to beat her, she said.

Her second husband, the 6-year-old's father, was an illegal immigrant from Mexico and was deported years ago, Mott said.

Paulin-Ramirez liked going on fishing and camping trips but grew distant before her departure, Mott said. She spent much of her time on the computer, she said.

"I'd yell at her, 'Get off the damn computer, do something with your son," Mott said.

The FBI seized the desktop computer in late September but didn't tell the family what they found, George Mott said.

George Mott said the family had not been in touch with Paulin-Ramirez since news of her release and did not know where she might be or if her son was with her.

"That baby is my heart, he is my reason to breathe," Christine Mott said crying, later recalling her weekly phone conversations with her grandson. Her last phone call with him was Monday.

"When we talk," she recalled, "We give each other hugs and kisses on the phone," she said, putting her arms across her chest.

During a recent phone call, Christine Mott said, her grandson told her that "all Christians will burn in hellfire."

But during another phone call, her grandson was excited to hear about a new kitten at the Motts' home in Leadville.

"When I told him about that he said name the kitten my name, Christian," Christine Mott said. "He knows who he is. I don't care how many times they call him this Muslim name, he knows his name is Christian."

Among the people Paulin-Ramirez had also communicated with online was a man from Pakistan who told her he wanted to come to the U.S. to learn how to fly, the Motts said.

"She lost her mind," Christine Mott said. "I told her, 'That should be a red flag right there.'"

Christine Mott said Ramirez began calling her 6-year-old son "Walid," or "Wahid."

Paulin-Ramirez grew up in Blue Springs, Mo., and few people in Leadville appeared to know her. The mayor of Leadville, Bud Elliott, said Saturday that he knew the Motts casually but wasn't well acquainted with Pailin-Ramirez.

"She's a lady that appears to have had a very sad and troubled life," Elliott said.]]> Buzz up!89 votes Send
Associated Press Writer Ivan Moreno, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 9 mins ago
LEADVILLE, Colo. – Before her daughter disappeared last fall, Christine Mott recalls that the 31-year-old who had been held in connection with an alleged assassination plot announced she had converted to Islam and told her family they'd go to hell if they didn't follow in her steps.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez also began talking about Jihad with her Muslim stepfather and spent most of her time online as she withdrew from her family, Mott said.

"We were enemies," Christine Mott said. "We couldn't even speak to each other."

Last year, on Sept. 11, Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville, Colo., an old silver mining town west of Denver that was Colorado's second-largest city during its heyday. She took her 6-year-old son with her, her mother said.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that Paulin-Ramirez had been detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had offended many Muslims.

Irish police said later Saturday that they had released without charge an American woman, who they didn't identify, and three others arrested in Ireland over an alleged plot to assassinate the cartoonist, Lars Vilks.

Paulin-Ramirez's arrest is one of four developments in the past week that have involved Americans in alleged terror plots abroad.

Al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn appeared in a video, Sharif Mobley of New Jersey tried to escape his detainment in Yemen, and Colleen LaRose, who allegedly went by the name "Jihad Jane" to recruit others online to kill Vilks, was named in a federal terror indictment.

Smoking as she sat on her living room couch in Leadville, Christine Mott said she hadn't eaten in days. The 59-year-old described her daughter as a troubled single mother who had the "mentality of an abused woman" and who, in trying to escape her loneliness, may have spiraled into the depths of Islamic extremism.

Mott told The Associated Press that she learned of her daughter's arrest in the case from the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Denver FBI officials said Saturday they couldn't confirm that the FBI had contacted Mott about the case.

Paulin-Ramirez told her family after she left in September that she went to Ireland with her 6-year-old son and married an Algerian whom she met online, Mott said.

Before abruptly leaving Colorado, Paulin-Ramirez had been a straight-A nursing student and had worked at a clinic in Edwards, about 40 miles west of Leadville, her mother said. She moved to Leadville from Denver six years ago. Phone calls to the clinic in Edwards went unanswered Saturday.

Mott said her daughter told her family during Easter last year that she converted to Islam, and renamed her son. Mott said her daughter was teaching him to hate Christians as she grew more distant from her family.

When she discussed jihad with her stepfather, George Mott, who has been a Muslim for more than 40 years, she told him "she'd strap a bomb for the cause," Christine Mott said.

She said she believes her daughter was lonely and "got sucked in" and brainwashed by other people.

"To go blow somebody up?" said Paulin-Ramirez's mother, who is not Muslim. "That's never been Islam."

Growing up, Paulin-Ramirez was "the kid in the class everyone picked on and made fun of," Mott said. She was married three times before she left for Ireland, and her first husband used to beat her, she said.

Her second husband, the 6-year-old's father, was an illegal immigrant from Mexico and was deported years ago, Mott said.

Paulin-Ramirez liked going on fishing and camping trips but grew distant before her departure, Mott said. She spent much of her time on the computer, she said.

"I'd yell at her, 'Get off the damn computer, do something with your son," Mott said.

The FBI seized the desktop computer in late September but didn't tell the family what they found, George Mott said.

George Mott said the family had not been in touch with Paulin-Ramirez since news of her release and did not know where she might be or if her son was with her.

"That baby is my heart, he is my reason to breathe," Christine Mott said crying, later recalling her weekly phone conversations with her grandson. Her last phone call with him was Monday.

"When we talk," she recalled, "We give each other hugs and kisses on the phone," she said, putting her arms across her chest.

During a recent phone call, Christine Mott said, her grandson told her that "all Christians will burn in hellfire."

But during another phone call, her grandson was excited to hear about a new kitten at the Motts' home in Leadville.

"When I told him about that he said name the kitten my name, Christian," Christine Mott said. "He knows who he is. I don't care how many times they call him this Muslim name, he knows his name is Christian."

Among the people Paulin-Ramirez had also communicated with online was a man from Pakistan who told her he wanted to come to the U.S. to learn how to fly, the Motts said.

"She lost her mind," Christine Mott said. "I told her, 'That should be a red flag right there.'"

Christine Mott said Ramirez began calling her 6-year-old son "Walid," or "Wahid."

Paulin-Ramirez grew up in Blue Springs, Mo., and few people in Leadville appeared to know her. The mayor of Leadville, Bud Elliott, said Saturday that he knew the Motts casually but wasn't well acquainted with Pailin-Ramirez.

"She's a lady that appears to have had a very sad and troubled life," Elliott said.]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7371 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:23:54 -0600 wotan http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7371
Moses turned towards the Red Sea and lifted his staff on high. The angels began to sing, the gentle sea breeze turned into a raging gale, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted. Moses lowered his arms and, with a smug grin on his face, turned back to face Jesus.

Jesus scoffed. "Moses, my boy," said the Messiah, "I have still got it." And with a flourish of his robes, Jesus stepped onto the waters of the Red Sea and began to stride across without so much as a ripple.

But to Moses' amazement, halfway across the water, Jesus suddenly began to sink. He splashed into the water and began to choke and flounder as the waves tossed him around. Moses grumbled at Jesus' sillyness and parted the water once more. Moses helped Jesus back to shore, as the Saviour hacked up salt water.

When they had finally reached shore, Moses slapped a consoling hand on Jesus' shoulder and said, "Don't worry about it, Lord. Last time you tried it, you didn't have holes in your feet."]]>
Moses turned towards the Red Sea and lifted his staff on high. The angels began to sing, the gentle sea breeze turned into a raging gale, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted. Moses lowered his arms and, with a smug grin on his face, turned back to face Jesus.

Jesus scoffed. "Moses, my boy," said the Messiah, "I have still got it." And with a flourish of his robes, Jesus stepped onto the waters of the Red Sea and began to stride across without so much as a ripple.

But to Moses' amazement, halfway across the water, Jesus suddenly began to sink. He splashed into the water and began to choke and flounder as the waves tossed him around. Moses grumbled at Jesus' sillyness and parted the water once more. Moses helped Jesus back to shore, as the Saviour hacked up salt water.

When they had finally reached shore, Moses slapped a consoling hand on Jesus' shoulder and said, "Don't worry about it, Lord. Last time you tried it, you didn't have holes in your feet."]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7370 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:48:09 -0600 Peter http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7370 ShareThis

Buzz up!By Bob Shallit
bshallit@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010 - 9:58 am
It was every businessperson's nightmare.

Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff's on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was ... 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35.

Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical.

"It's hilarious," he says, "that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think (the IRS) may have a problem with priorities."

Now he's trying to figure out how penalties and interest could climb so high on such a small debt. He says he's never been told he owes any taxes or that he's ever incurred any late-payment penalties in the four years he's owned Harv's.

In fact, he provided us with an Oct. 22, 2009, letter from the IRS that states Harv's "has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due."

IRS spokesman Jesse Weller isn't commenting "due to privacy and disclosure laws."

Zeff says he's as offended as much as anything else by what he considers rude behavior by the IRS guys. While at Harv's, he sniffs, "they didn't even get a car wash."]]> ShareThis

Buzz up!By Bob Shallit
bshallit@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010 - 9:58 am
It was every businessperson's nightmare.

Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff's on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was ... 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35.

Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical.

"It's hilarious," he says, "that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think (the IRS) may have a problem with priorities."

Now he's trying to figure out how penalties and interest could climb so high on such a small debt. He says he's never been told he owes any taxes or that he's ever incurred any late-payment penalties in the four years he's owned Harv's.

In fact, he provided us with an Oct. 22, 2009, letter from the IRS that states Harv's "has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due."

IRS spokesman Jesse Weller isn't commenting "due to privacy and disclosure laws."

Zeff says he's as offended as much as anything else by what he considers rude behavior by the IRS guys. While at Harv's, he sniffs, "they didn't even get a car wash."]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7369 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:41:48 -0600 Peter http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7369 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...g-pan.html]]> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...g-pan.html]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7368 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:12:36 -0600 angelking http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7368 http://biggovernment.com/centralillinois...ank-story/



AK]]> http://biggovernment.com/centralillinois...ank-story/



AK]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7367 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:32:16 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7367 By Jeffrey Goldberg

Hillary Clinton has apparently chewed-out Bibi Netanyahu for allowing his rogue coalition partner, the Shas Party, to subvert Joe Biden's trip to Israel, and more importantly, for creating conditions on the ground that subvert the moderate Palestinian government in Ramallah, and subvert any hopes for negotiations, direct or indirect. Hillary has picked a smart fight, which is to say, a fight that is not about Iran, a subject on which Israelis are unified, but a fight about East Jerusalem housing growth, a subject on which the majority of Israelis are ambivalent, or worse.

It has been a truism that no Israeli prime minister can survive long in the job after having angered America; Bibi had been proving this truism wrong, because Israelis are more frightened of Iran's nuclear program than they are of alienating the Obama Administration. But the majority of Israelis see settlements as a possible impediment to peace (to the degree that they even believe peace is possible), and they certainly don't see a settlement freeze as an existential threat to their country. So Hillary has picked the right fight, and the Obama Administration has picked the right person to pick the fight: A former senator from New York who is married to one of Israel's favorite ex-presidents. I might be over-optimistic here, but maybe this scolding will help Bibi focus on what's important: Keeping Israel in America's good graces so that the two countries can together figure out a way to neutralize the Iranian threat.
This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international...ton/37443/

Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.


Jeffrey Goldberg - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa. He also writes the magazine's advice column.]]> By Jeffrey Goldberg

Hillary Clinton has apparently chewed-out Bibi Netanyahu for allowing his rogue coalition partner, the Shas Party, to subvert Joe Biden's trip to Israel, and more importantly, for creating conditions on the ground that subvert the moderate Palestinian government in Ramallah, and subvert any hopes for negotiations, direct or indirect. Hillary has picked a smart fight, which is to say, a fight that is not about Iran, a subject on which Israelis are unified, but a fight about East Jerusalem housing growth, a subject on which the majority of Israelis are ambivalent, or worse.

It has been a truism that no Israeli prime minister can survive long in the job after having angered America; Bibi had been proving this truism wrong, because Israelis are more frightened of Iran's nuclear program than they are of alienating the Obama Administration. But the majority of Israelis see settlements as a possible impediment to peace (to the degree that they even believe peace is possible), and they certainly don't see a settlement freeze as an existential threat to their country. So Hillary has picked the right fight, and the Obama Administration has picked the right person to pick the fight: A former senator from New York who is married to one of Israel's favorite ex-presidents. I might be over-optimistic here, but maybe this scolding will help Bibi focus on what's important: Keeping Israel in America's good graces so that the two countries can together figure out a way to neutralize the Iranian threat.
This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international...ton/37443/

Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.


Jeffrey Goldberg - Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa. He also writes the magazine's advice column.]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7366 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:04:08 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7366 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677//vp/...9#35845729

First Posted: 03-12-10 10:04 PM | Updated: 03-13-10 04:55 AM

Christian author and social justice advocate Rev. Jim Wallis appeared on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Friday evening to talk about Glenn Beck's recent attack on churches and religious leaders who preach social justice.

Last week, Beck, a Mormon, told his fans to scour their churches for any mention of social justice or economic justice. He said that both terms are "code words" that were used by Nazis and Communists and that if a church preached either, one should "run as fast as you can!"

Wallis told "Countdown" guest host Lawrence O'Donnell that not only are Beck's claims false, they're at odds with the teachings of Jesus. Contrary to Beck's claims that social justice is a perversion of the gospel, Wallis told O'Donnell that helping the poor is at the heart of the gospel.

Wallis: "The God of the Bible is the God of justice. Though the poor are in the center of God's concern... Poverty breaks the heart of God. And it breaks the heart of the church. So, this is about Christians who may disagree on politics. Republicans, Democrats, it doesn't matter. Left or right. We have different views on the role of government. Doesn't matter, But justice is integral to the gospel. And across the spectrum, Christians are saying Glenn Beck got it wrong."

Wallis told O'Donnell that Mormon leaders have called him to apologize for Beck's comments. He hopes that Beck will call him to apologize and talk about social justice

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12...97715.html]]> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677//vp/...9#35845729

First Posted: 03-12-10 10:04 PM | Updated: 03-13-10 04:55 AM

Christian author and social justice advocate Rev. Jim Wallis appeared on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Friday evening to talk about Glenn Beck's recent attack on churches and religious leaders who preach social justice.

Last week, Beck, a Mormon, told his fans to scour their churches for any mention of social justice or economic justice. He said that both terms are "code words" that were used by Nazis and Communists and that if a church preached either, one should "run as fast as you can!"

Wallis told "Countdown" guest host Lawrence O'Donnell that not only are Beck's claims false, they're at odds with the teachings of Jesus. Contrary to Beck's claims that social justice is a perversion of the gospel, Wallis told O'Donnell that helping the poor is at the heart of the gospel.

Wallis: "The God of the Bible is the God of justice. Though the poor are in the center of God's concern... Poverty breaks the heart of God. And it breaks the heart of the church. So, this is about Christians who may disagree on politics. Republicans, Democrats, it doesn't matter. Left or right. We have different views on the role of government. Doesn't matter, But justice is integral to the gospel. And across the spectrum, Christians are saying Glenn Beck got it wrong."

Wallis told O'Donnell that Mormon leaders have called him to apologize for Beck's comments. He hopes that Beck will call him to apologize and talk about social justice

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12...97715.html]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7365 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:54:36 -0600 REDNECK http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7365 http://www.redstate.com/e_pluribus_unum/...hter-rule/]]> http://www.redstate.com/e_pluribus_unum/...hter-rule/]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7364 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:13:54 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7364 http://ncronline.org)



Pro-life group urges Congress to pass Senate health care bill
By Thomas C. Fox

Created Mar 12, 2010
Twenty-five pro-life Catholic theologians and Evangelical leaders yesterday sent letters to members of Congress urging them not to let misleading information about abortion provisions in the Senate health care bill block passage of sorely-needed reform.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the Senate health bill upholds abortion funding restrictions and supports pregnant women.

The letter included a page by page analysis of the Senate bill as it pertains to abortion.

The group asked members of Congress “to make an informed decision about this legislation based on careful deliberation guided by facts.”

“We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women,” the letter states.

The complete text of the letter follows:

Dear Member of Congress,

As Christians committed to a consistent ethic of life, and deeply concerned with the health and well-being of all people, we want to see health care reform enacted. Our nation has a rare and historic opportunity to expand coverage to tens of millions of people, make coverage more affordable for all families, and crack down on many of the most harmful practices of the health insurance industry.

We are writing because of our concern about the lack of clear and accurate information regarding abortion provisions in the health care reform bill passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009.

Reforming our health care system is necessarily complex, and the provisions related to abortion, or any other issue, require careful examination of the facts as they exist in the legislative language. We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women.

Following is a comprehensive factual listing of all provisions related to abortion and positive supports for pregnant women in HR 3590, along with specific page references.

Abortion-Related Provisions Included in the Senate-Approved Health Care Reform Bill “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (HR 3590 EAS/PP)

· Prohibits the Secretary of HHS from requiring the coverage of any abortion services as part of the essential health benefits for any qualified health plan offered in a state insurance Exchange (pg. 2070);

· Allows the insurance company to decide whether or not to include coverage of abortion services, including the Hyde abortion exceptions, in a qualified health insurance plan offered in a state insurance Exchange (pg. 2070);

· Prohibits insurance companies from using federal funds, including federal tax credits and cost-sharing assistance, to pay for abortion services except for those services allowable under the Hyde amendment (pg. 2071);

· Requires an insurance company that chooses to offer a plan in a State Exchange with abortion coverage, beyond the Hyde abortion exceptions, to collect a separate second premium payment from each enrollee for the cost of the abortion coverage (pgs. 2071-2072 & 2074-2075);

· Requires the insurance company to deposit all separate payments into a separate account that consists solely of abortion premium payments and that it is used exclusively to pay for such services (pgs. 2072-2074);

· Requires the state health insurance commissioners to ensure that insurance companies comply with these requirements in accordance with guidance and accounting standards set by the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accountability Office (pg. 2075);

· Requires insurance companies that offer general abortion coverage as part of a qualified health plan to provide a notice of coverage in the summary of benefits and coverage explanation (pg. 2076);

· Allows states to pass a law prohibiting the inclusion of abortion coverage in plans offered in a state health insurance Exchange (pg. 2069);

· Requires the director of the Office of Public Management to ensure that there is at least one private, multi-state qualified health plan offered in each state insurance Exchange that does not provide coverage of abortion services beyond the Hyde exceptions (pgs. 2087-2088);

· Prohibits insurance companies offering qualified health plans from discriminating against any individual health care provider or health care facility because of its unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions (pg. 2076);

· Prohibits the preemption of state laws regarding abortion (pg. 2077);

· Maintains current Federal laws relative to conscience protection; willingness or refusal to provide abortion; and discrimination on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion (pg. 2077);

· Establishes and provides $250 million for programs to support vulnerable pregnant women (pgs. 2170-2173); and

· Increases the adoption tax credit and makes it refundable so that lower income families can access the tax credit (pgs 2400-2407).

We are now at a critical moment in the history of our country. More than 30 million Americans may finally gain access to a health care system that is affordable -- providing families, children and seniors with fundamental care that is essential to human dignity. We respectfully ask that you make an informed decision about this legislation based on careful deliberation guided by facts.

Sincerely,

Morna Murray
President
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

Ron Sider
President
Evangelicals for Social Action

Rev. Jim Wallis
President and CEO
Sojourners

Stephen F. Schneck
Director, Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies
The Catholic University of America

Joel Hunter
Senior Pastor
Northland Church

Dr. David P. Gushee
Chair
New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good

David O’Brien
Professor of Faith and Culture
University of Dayton

Francis Xavier Doyle
Former Associate General Secretary
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Jean Stokan
Director
Institute Justice Team
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas

Lisa Cahill
Professor of Theology
Boston College

Bryan N. Massingale, S.T.D.
President, Catholic Theological Society of America
Associate Professor of Theology
Marquette University

David DeCosse
Director of Campus Ethics Programs
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Santa Clara University

Nicholas P. Cafardi
Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law
Duquesne University School of Law

Dennis M. Doyle
Religious Studies
University of Dayton

Terrence W. Tilley
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. Professor of Catholic Theology
Chair, Theology Department
Fordham University

Richard Gaillardetz
Murray/Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies
University of Toledo

Vincent J. Miller
Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of Dayton

Alex Mikulich
Research Fellow
Jesuit Social Research Institute
Loyola University

Sandra A. Yocum, Ph.D.
Chair of Religious Studies
University of Dayton

Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale
Senior Pastor
Ray of Hope Christian Church, Decatur, GA

Dr. Barbara Williams Skinner
President
Skinner Leadership Institute

Cheryl Bridges Johns
Professor of Christian Formation & Discipleship
Pentecostal Theological Seminary

Brian McLaren
Author, Speaker and Founding Pastor
Cedar Ridge Community Church

Glen Stassen
Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics
Fuller Theological Seminary

Lisa Sharon Harper
Executive Director, NY Faith & Justice
Author, Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican...or Democrat

By NCR Staff
NCR Today
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Pro-life group urges Congress to pass Senate health care bill
By Thomas C. Fox

Created Mar 12, 2010
Twenty-five pro-life Catholic theologians and Evangelical leaders yesterday sent letters to members of Congress urging them not to let misleading information about abortion provisions in the Senate health care bill block passage of sorely-needed reform.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the Senate health bill upholds abortion funding restrictions and supports pregnant women.

The letter included a page by page analysis of the Senate bill as it pertains to abortion.

The group asked members of Congress “to make an informed decision about this legislation based on careful deliberation guided by facts.”

“We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women,” the letter states.

The complete text of the letter follows:

Dear Member of Congress,

As Christians committed to a consistent ethic of life, and deeply concerned with the health and well-being of all people, we want to see health care reform enacted. Our nation has a rare and historic opportunity to expand coverage to tens of millions of people, make coverage more affordable for all families, and crack down on many of the most harmful practices of the health insurance industry.

We are writing because of our concern about the lack of clear and accurate information regarding abortion provisions in the health care reform bill passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009.

Reforming our health care system is necessarily complex, and the provisions related to abortion, or any other issue, require careful examination of the facts as they exist in the legislative language. We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women.

Following is a comprehensive factual listing of all provisions related to abortion and positive supports for pregnant women in HR 3590, along with specific page references.

Abortion-Related Provisions Included in the Senate-Approved Health Care Reform Bill “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (HR 3590 EAS/PP)

· Prohibits the Secretary of HHS from requiring the coverage of any abortion services as part of the essential health benefits for any qualified health plan offered in a state insurance Exchange (pg. 2070);

· Allows the insurance company to decide whether or not to include coverage of abortion services, including the Hyde abortion exceptions, in a qualified health insurance plan offered in a state insurance Exchange (pg. 2070);

· Prohibits insurance companies from using federal funds, including federal tax credits and cost-sharing assistance, to pay for abortion services except for those services allowable under the Hyde amendment (pg. 2071);

· Requires an insurance company that chooses to offer a plan in a State Exchange with abortion coverage, beyond the Hyde abortion exceptions, to collect a separate second premium payment from each enrollee for the cost of the abortion coverage (pgs. 2071-2072 & 2074-2075);

· Requires the insurance company to deposit all separate payments into a separate account that consists solely of abortion premium payments and that it is used exclusively to pay for such services (pgs. 2072-2074);

· Requires the state health insurance commissioners to ensure that insurance companies comply with these requirements in accordance with guidance and accounting standards set by the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accountability Office (pg. 2075);

· Requires insurance companies that offer general abortion coverage as part of a qualified health plan to provide a notice of coverage in the summary of benefits and coverage explanation (pg. 2076);

· Allows states to pass a law prohibiting the inclusion of abortion coverage in plans offered in a state health insurance Exchange (pg. 2069);

· Requires the director of the Office of Public Management to ensure that there is at least one private, multi-state qualified health plan offered in each state insurance Exchange that does not provide coverage of abortion services beyond the Hyde exceptions (pgs. 2087-2088);

· Prohibits insurance companies offering qualified health plans from discriminating against any individual health care provider or health care facility because of its unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions (pg. 2076);

· Prohibits the preemption of state laws regarding abortion (pg. 2077);

· Maintains current Federal laws relative to conscience protection; willingness or refusal to provide abortion; and discrimination on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion (pg. 2077);

· Establishes and provides $250 million for programs to support vulnerable pregnant women (pgs. 2170-2173); and

· Increases the adoption tax credit and makes it refundable so that lower income families can access the tax credit (pgs 2400-2407).

We are now at a critical moment in the history of our country. More than 30 million Americans may finally gain access to a health care system that is affordable -- providing families, children and seniors with fundamental care that is essential to human dignity. We respectfully ask that you make an informed decision about this legislation based on careful deliberation guided by facts.

Sincerely,

Morna Murray
President
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

Ron Sider
President
Evangelicals for Social Action

Rev. Jim Wallis
President and CEO
Sojourners

Stephen F. Schneck
Director, Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies
The Catholic University of America

Joel Hunter
Senior Pastor
Northland Church

Dr. David P. Gushee
Chair
New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good

David O’Brien
Professor of Faith and Culture
University of Dayton

Francis Xavier Doyle
Former Associate General Secretary
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Jean Stokan
Director
Institute Justice Team
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas

Lisa Cahill
Professor of Theology
Boston College

Bryan N. Massingale, S.T.D.
President, Catholic Theological Society of America
Associate Professor of Theology
Marquette University

David DeCosse
Director of Campus Ethics Programs
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Santa Clara University

Nicholas P. Cafardi
Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law
Duquesne University School of Law

Dennis M. Doyle
Religious Studies
University of Dayton

Terrence W. Tilley
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. Professor of Catholic Theology
Chair, Theology Department
Fordham University

Richard Gaillardetz
Murray/Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies
University of Toledo

Vincent J. Miller
Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of Dayton

Alex Mikulich
Research Fellow
Jesuit Social Research Institute
Loyola University

Sandra A. Yocum, Ph.D.
Chair of Religious Studies
University of Dayton

Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale
Senior Pastor
Ray of Hope Christian Church, Decatur, GA

Dr. Barbara Williams Skinner
President
Skinner Leadership Institute

Cheryl Bridges Johns
Professor of Christian Formation & Discipleship
Pentecostal Theological Seminary

Brian McLaren
Author, Speaker and Founding Pastor
Cedar Ridge Community Church

Glen Stassen
Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics
Fuller Theological Seminary

Lisa Sharon Harper
Executive Director, NY Faith & Justice
Author, Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican...or Democrat

By NCR Staff
NCR Today
Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company
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Send comments about this Web site to: webkeeper@ncronline.org PRIVACY POLICY ADVERTISING POLICY

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Source URL: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/pro...-care-bill]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7363 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:52:08 -0600 angelking http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7363

WASHINGTON (AP) - Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.

"An entire year has gone to waste," Brown said in the weekly GOP radio and Internet address. "Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn't gotten the message.

"Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway."

Brown himself can claim responsibility for the Democrats' failure to pass health overhaul legislation to date. They were on the verge of doing so before Brown claimed the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in a special election upset in January, depriving Democrats of their filibuster-proof supermajority and throwing the health care effort into limbo.


(AP) Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, talks with Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., on Capitol Hill in...
Full Image


It has been gradually revived, and Democrats are now pushing for final passage before Easter under complex Senate rules that would allow them to sidestep a Republican filibuster. Republicans in the House and Senate are unanimously opposed to the sweeping legislation, which would extend coverage to some 30 million uninsured Americans with a new mandate for nearly everyone to carry insurance.

The House minority leader, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in an interview for broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that if House Democrats had the votes to pass the health care bill they would have acted by now.

"They tried to do this in June and July of last year, if they had the votes then, it would be law. They tried to pass it in September, October, November, December, January, February, guess what? They don't have the votes," Boehner said.

Brown, as a state senator in Massachusetts, voted in favor of the universal-coverage law in that state. The bill he supported in Massachusetts has a number of features in common with the Democrats' legislation, including a mandate for nearly everyone to be covered.

But he campaigned on a promise to be the Republicans' crucial 41st vote against Obama's health plan, and said Saturday that his victory amounted to a message from voters that Washington should "get its priorities right."

"We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt," Brown said.]]>

WASHINGTON (AP) - Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.

"An entire year has gone to waste," Brown said in the weekly GOP radio and Internet address. "Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn't gotten the message.

"Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway."

Brown himself can claim responsibility for the Democrats' failure to pass health overhaul legislation to date. They were on the verge of doing so before Brown claimed the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in a special election upset in January, depriving Democrats of their filibuster-proof supermajority and throwing the health care effort into limbo.


(AP) Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, talks with Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., on Capitol Hill in...
Full Image


It has been gradually revived, and Democrats are now pushing for final passage before Easter under complex Senate rules that would allow them to sidestep a Republican filibuster. Republicans in the House and Senate are unanimously opposed to the sweeping legislation, which would extend coverage to some 30 million uninsured Americans with a new mandate for nearly everyone to carry insurance.

The House minority leader, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in an interview for broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that if House Democrats had the votes to pass the health care bill they would have acted by now.

"They tried to do this in June and July of last year, if they had the votes then, it would be law. They tried to pass it in September, October, November, December, January, February, guess what? They don't have the votes," Boehner said.

Brown, as a state senator in Massachusetts, voted in favor of the universal-coverage law in that state. The bill he supported in Massachusetts has a number of features in common with the Democrats' legislation, including a mandate for nearly everyone to be covered.

But he campaigned on a promise to be the Republicans' crucial 41st vote against Obama's health plan, and said Saturday that his victory amounted to a message from voters that Washington should "get its priorities right."

"We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt," Brown said.]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7362 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:36:03 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7362

Embargoed for release until:
January 22, 2010

For further information contact:
Rakesh Singh, (650) 854-9400, RSingh@kff.org
Chris Lee (202) 347-5270, CLee@kff.org



Americans Are Divided About Health Reform Proposals Overall, But the Public, Including Critics, Becomes More Supportive When Told About Key Provisions


MENLO PARK, CA –A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that Americans are divided over congressional health reform proposals, but also that large shares of people, including skeptics, become more supportive after being told about many of the major provisions in the bills.

The January Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, conducted before the Massachusetts Senate vote, finds opinion is divided when it comes to the hotly debated legislation, with 42 percent supporting the proposals in the Congress, 41 percent opposing them and 16 percent withholding judgment. However, a different and more positive picture emerged when we examined the public’s awareness of, and reactions to, major provisions included in the bills. Majorities reported feeling more favorable toward the proposed legislation after learning about many of the key elements, with the notable exceptions of the individual mandate and the overall price tag.

For example, after hearing that tax credits would be available to small businesses that want to offer coverage to their employees, 73 percent said it made them more supportive of the legislation. Sixty-seven percent said they were more supportive when they heard that the legislation included health insurance exchanges, and 63 percent felt that way after being told that people could no longer be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Sixty percent were more supportive after hearing that the legislation would help close the Medicare “doughnut hole” so that seniors would no longer face a period of having to pay the full cost of their medicines. Of the 27 elements of the legislation tested in the poll, 17 moved a majority to feel more positively about the bills and two moved a majority to be more negative.

In some cases elements of the legislation were popular enough to prompt a majority of skeptics to soften their opposition, including the tax credits for small businesses (62% of current opponents said it made them more supportive), the fact that most people’s existing insurance arrangements would not change (59%), and the stipulation that no federal money would go to abortion (55%).

A smaller number of provisions cut the other way. When told that nearly all Americans would be required to have health coverage, for instance, 62 percent of people said it made them less likely to support the legislation and 51 percent said they were less likely to support the reform package after learning it will cost at least $871 billion over 10 years.

“It’s one thing to talk about the public’s perception of health care reform legislation, which right now is in some ways negative, but it’s another to tell people what’s actually in the bill and when you do that people are more positive,” said Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman.

The poll finds that even after a year of substantial media coverage of the health reform debate, many Americans remain unfamiliar with key elements of the major bills passed by the House and Senate. About half are aware that tax credits would be available to small businesses, one of the most popular provisions. And 44 percent recognize that the legislation would help close the Medicare “doughnut hole.”

Awareness can matter. Among the least known elements of the bills, those with the biggest potential to change minds include the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has said health reform would reduce the deficit (only 15% expect the legislation to reduce the deficit, but 56% said hearing that makes them more supportive) and that the legislation would stop insurers from charging women more than men (37% are aware that the legislation would do this, but 50% said this provision makes them more supportive). There were no lesser known provisions that would push a majority of supporters away from the bill.

Independents Occupy The Middle Ground In the Debate

Americans’ views of health reform generally track with their politics: Most Democrats (64%) support the proposals on Capitol Hill, while an even larger majority of Republicans (76%) oppose them. The middle ground is left to independents, with 41 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed– even as a narrow majority (52%) backs the general idea that it is more important than ever to take on health reform now.

As with the public overall, independents say the elements most likely to push them in the direction of supporting the legislation include the tax credits for small businesses (74%); the insurance exchanges (69%); and the stability in coverage for most people with employer-sponsored plans (66%). Similarly, they are turned off by the individual mandate (67% say this makes them less supportive) and the overall cost of health reform (57%).

Independents do differ in some ways from those with declared partisan leanings. They are much more likely than Republicans to say that they feel more supportive of the legislation because it would provide coverage for the uninsured (61% of independents compared to 22% of GOP members). And they are more concerned than Democrats about the bills’ multi-billion dollar price tag; 57 percent of independents say the cost makes them feel less supportive, compared to 34 percent of Democrats.

Many Seniors Are Unaware of Effort To Close The Medicare “Doughnut Hole”

The new survey finds that America’s seniors, a politically important group, lean against the proposed legislation, with 48 percent opposed, 37 percent in favor and 15 percent offering no opinion. However the survey finds that, somewhat surprisingly, seniors were less likely than younger Americans to be aware that the legislation includes provisions to close the “doughnut hole.” Thirty-seven percent of seniors were aware of such provisions, compared to 53 percent of those under age 40. Six in 10 seniors say that if the legislation did work to close the doughnut hole they would feel more supportive of it, a level of support identical to that found among younger Americans.

There is a generational split, however, on proposals that would limit future increases in some Medicare provider payments. Younger Americans favor such measures by almost a 2-to-1 margin while the opposite is true of seniors.

Methodology

The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted January 7 through January 12, 2010, among a nationally representative random sample of 2,002 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (1,350) and cell phone (652, including 255 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The questions about specific elements of health reform legislation were asked of random quarter-samples of respondents, and for these questions the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5 percentage points. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error is higher.


The full question wording, results, charts and a brief on the poll can be viewed online.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible information and analysis on health issues.



To learn the details:
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/kaiserpolls012210nr.cfm]]>

Embargoed for release until:
January 22, 2010

For further information contact:
Rakesh Singh, (650) 854-9400, RSingh@kff.org
Chris Lee (202) 347-5270, CLee@kff.org



Americans Are Divided About Health Reform Proposals Overall, But the Public, Including Critics, Becomes More Supportive When Told About Key Provisions


MENLO PARK, CA –A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that Americans are divided over congressional health reform proposals, but also that large shares of people, including skeptics, become more supportive after being told about many of the major provisions in the bills.

The January Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, conducted before the Massachusetts Senate vote, finds opinion is divided when it comes to the hotly debated legislation, with 42 percent supporting the proposals in the Congress, 41 percent opposing them and 16 percent withholding judgment. However, a different and more positive picture emerged when we examined the public’s awareness of, and reactions to, major provisions included in the bills. Majorities reported feeling more favorable toward the proposed legislation after learning about many of the key elements, with the notable exceptions of the individual mandate and the overall price tag.

For example, after hearing that tax credits would be available to small businesses that want to offer coverage to their employees, 73 percent said it made them more supportive of the legislation. Sixty-seven percent said they were more supportive when they heard that the legislation included health insurance exchanges, and 63 percent felt that way after being told that people could no longer be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Sixty percent were more supportive after hearing that the legislation would help close the Medicare “doughnut hole” so that seniors would no longer face a period of having to pay the full cost of their medicines. Of the 27 elements of the legislation tested in the poll, 17 moved a majority to feel more positively about the bills and two moved a majority to be more negative.

In some cases elements of the legislation were popular enough to prompt a majority of skeptics to soften their opposition, including the tax credits for small businesses (62% of current opponents said it made them more supportive), the fact that most people’s existing insurance arrangements would not change (59%), and the stipulation that no federal money would go to abortion (55%).

A smaller number of provisions cut the other way. When told that nearly all Americans would be required to have health coverage, for instance, 62 percent of people said it made them less likely to support the legislation and 51 percent said they were less likely to support the reform package after learning it will cost at least $871 billion over 10 years.

“It’s one thing to talk about the public’s perception of health care reform legislation, which right now is in some ways negative, but it’s another to tell people what’s actually in the bill and when you do that people are more positive,” said Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman.

The poll finds that even after a year of substantial media coverage of the health reform debate, many Americans remain unfamiliar with key elements of the major bills passed by the House and Senate. About half are aware that tax credits would be available to small businesses, one of the most popular provisions. And 44 percent recognize that the legislation would help close the Medicare “doughnut hole.”

Awareness can matter. Among the least known elements of the bills, those with the biggest potential to change minds include the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has said health reform would reduce the deficit (only 15% expect the legislation to reduce the deficit, but 56% said hearing that makes them more supportive) and that the legislation would stop insurers from charging women more than men (37% are aware that the legislation would do this, but 50% said this provision makes them more supportive). There were no lesser known provisions that would push a majority of supporters away from the bill.

Independents Occupy The Middle Ground In the Debate

Americans’ views of health reform generally track with their politics: Most Democrats (64%) support the proposals on Capitol Hill, while an even larger majority of Republicans (76%) oppose them. The middle ground is left to independents, with 41 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed– even as a narrow majority (52%) backs the general idea that it is more important than ever to take on health reform now.

As with the public overall, independents say the elements most likely to push them in the direction of supporting the legislation include the tax credits for small businesses (74%); the insurance exchanges (69%); and the stability in coverage for most people with employer-sponsored plans (66%). Similarly, they are turned off by the individual mandate (67% say this makes them less supportive) and the overall cost of health reform (57%).

Independents do differ in some ways from those with declared partisan leanings. They are much more likely than Republicans to say that they feel more supportive of the legislation because it would provide coverage for the uninsured (61% of independents compared to 22% of GOP members). And they are more concerned than Democrats about the bills’ multi-billion dollar price tag; 57 percent of independents say the cost makes them feel less supportive, compared to 34 percent of Democrats.

Many Seniors Are Unaware of Effort To Close The Medicare “Doughnut Hole”

The new survey finds that America’s seniors, a politically important group, lean against the proposed legislation, with 48 percent opposed, 37 percent in favor and 15 percent offering no opinion. However the survey finds that, somewhat surprisingly, seniors were less likely than younger Americans to be aware that the legislation includes provisions to close the “doughnut hole.” Thirty-seven percent of seniors were aware of such provisions, compared to 53 percent of those under age 40. Six in 10 seniors say that if the legislation did work to close the doughnut hole they would feel more supportive of it, a level of support identical to that found among younger Americans.

There is a generational split, however, on proposals that would limit future increases in some Medicare provider payments. Younger Americans favor such measures by almost a 2-to-1 margin while the opposite is true of seniors.

Methodology

The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted January 7 through January 12, 2010, among a nationally representative random sample of 2,002 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (1,350) and cell phone (652, including 255 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The questions about specific elements of health reform legislation were asked of random quarter-samples of respondents, and for these questions the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5 percentage points. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error is higher.


The full question wording, results, charts and a brief on the poll can be viewed online.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible information and analysis on health issues.



To learn the details:
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/kaiserpolls012210nr.cfm]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7361 Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:00:10 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7361
AFP

Saturday, March 13, 2010



GDANSK, Poland (AFP) — Cuban dissident hunger striker Guillermo Farinas has asked Polish anti-communist icon Lech Walesa to lay a wreath on his grave when Cuba is free, the former Polish president told AFP.

The two spoke by telephone on Thursday, several hours before Farinas was hospitalised in critical condition after losing consciousness in his third week of fasting to win the release of 26 political prisoners who are in need of medical treatment.

"I was concerned, I tried to convince him to break off the hunger strike. I told him that in order to build a free Cuba they will need people like him alive," said Walesa, who led the Solidarity trade union that defied and ultimately defeated communist rule in Poland.

But Walesa said the 48-year-old cyberjournalist was adamant in continuing his hunger strike.

"He replied: 'if I die, I ask you to lay a wreath on my grave when Cuba is free'."

Farinas, who had steadfastly refused medical treatment, lost consciousness several hours later and was hospitalised in his home town of Santa Clara, around 175 miles east of Havana.

He has vowed to press ahead "to the end" with his protest fast, which he began February 24, the day after political prisoner Orlando Zapata died on the 85th day of his own hunger strike.]]>
AFP

Saturday, March 13, 2010



GDANSK, Poland (AFP) — Cuban dissident hunger striker Guillermo Farinas has asked Polish anti-communist icon Lech Walesa to lay a wreath on his grave when Cuba is free, the former Polish president told AFP.

The two spoke by telephone on Thursday, several hours before Farinas was hospitalised in critical condition after losing consciousness in his third week of fasting to win the release of 26 political prisoners who are in need of medical treatment.

"I was concerned, I tried to convince him to break off the hunger strike. I told him that in order to build a free Cuba they will need people like him alive," said Walesa, who led the Solidarity trade union that defied and ultimately defeated communist rule in Poland.

But Walesa said the 48-year-old cyberjournalist was adamant in continuing his hunger strike.

"He replied: 'if I die, I ask you to lay a wreath on my grave when Cuba is free'."

Farinas, who had steadfastly refused medical treatment, lost consciousness several hours later and was hospitalised in his home town of Santa Clara, around 175 miles east of Havana.

He has vowed to press ahead "to the end" with his protest fast, which he began February 24, the day after political prisoner Orlando Zapata died on the 85th day of his own hunger strike.]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7360 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:31:09 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7360
By Howell Raines
Sunday, March 14, 2010; B05



One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

Fox repeats this as gospel. But as a matter of historical context, usually in short supply on Fox News, this assertion ranks somewhere between debatable and untrue.

The American people and many of our great modern presidents have been demanding major reforms to the health-care system since the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. The elections of 1948, 1960, 1964, 2000 and 2008 confirm the point, with majorities voting for candidates supporting such change. Yet congressional Republicans have managed effective campaigns against health-care changes favored variously by Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Clinton. Now Fox News has given the party of Lincoln a free ride with its repetition of the unexamined claim that today's Republican leadership really does want to overhaul health care -- if only the effort could conform to Mitch McConnell's ideas on portability and tort reform.

It is true that, after 14 months of Fox's relentless pounding of President Obama's idea of sweeping reform, the latest Gallup poll shows opinion running 48 to 45 percent against the current legislation. Fox invariably stresses such recent dips in support for the legislation, disregarding the majorities in favor of various individual aspects of the reform effort. Along the way, the network has sold a falsified image of the professional standards that developed in American newsrooms and university journalism departments in the last half of the 20th century.

Whatever its shortcomings, journalism under those standards aspired to produce an honest account of social, economic and political events. It bore witness to a world of dynamic change, as opposed to the world of Foxian reality, whose actors are brought on camera to illustrate a preconceived universe as rigid as that of medieval morality. Now, it is precisely our long-held norms that cripple our ability to confront Fox's journalism of perpetual assault. I'm confident that many old-schoolers are too principled to appear on the network, choosing silence over being used; when Fox does trot out a house liberal as a punching bag, the result is a parody of reasoned news formats.

My great fear, however, is that some journalists of my generation who once prided themselves on blowing whistles and afflicting the comfortable have also been intimidated by Fox's financial power and expanding audience, as well as Ailes's proven willingness to dismantle the reputation of anyone who crosses him. (Remember his ridiculing of one early anchor, Paula Zahn, as inferior to a "dead raccoon" in ratings potential when she dared defect to CNN?) It's as if we have surrendered the sword of verifiable reportage and bought the idea that only "elites" are interested in information free of partisan poppycock.

Why has our profession, through its general silence -- or only spasmodic protest -- helped Fox legitimize a style of journalism that is dishonest in its intellectual process, untrustworthy in its conclusions and biased in its gestalt? The standard answer is economics, as represented by the collapse of print newspapers and of audience share at CBS, NBC and ABC. Some prominent print journalists are now cheering Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp. (which owns the Fox network) for his alleged commitment to print, as evidenced by his willingness to lose money on the New York Post and gamble the overall profitability of his company on the survival of the Wall Street Journal. This is like congratulating museums for preserving antique masterpieces while ignoring their predatory methods of collecting.

Why can't American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team? His importation of the loose rules of British tabloid journalism, including blatant political alliances, started our slide to quasi-news. His British papers famously promoted Margaret Thatcher's political career, with the expectation that she would open the nation's airwaves to Murdoch's cable channels. Ed Koch once told me he could not have been elected mayor of New York without the boosterism of the New York Post.

As for Fox's campaign against the Obama administration, perhaps the only traditional network star to put Ailes on the spot, at least a little, has been his friend, the venerable Barbara Walters, who was hosting This Week, ABC's Sunday morning talk show. More accurately, she allowed another guest, Arianna Huffington, to belabor Ailes recently about his biased coverage of Obama. Ailes countered that he should be judged as a producer of ratings rather than a journalist -- audience is his only yardstick. While true as far as it goes, this hair-splitting defense purports to absolve Ailes of responsibility for creating a news department whose raison d'etre is to dictate the outcome of our nation's political discourse.

For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party. And let no one be misled by occasional spurts of criticism of the GOP on Fox. In a bygone era of fact-based commentary typified, left to right, by my late colleagues Scotty Reston and Bill Safire, these deceptions would have been given their proper label: disinformation.

Under the pretense of correcting a Democratic bias in news reporting, Fox has accomplished something that seemed impossible before Ailes imported to the news studio the tricks he learned in Richard Nixon's campaign think tank: He and his video ferrets have intimidated center-right and center-left journalists into suppressing conclusions -- whether on health-care reform or other issues -- they once would have stated as demonstrably proven by their reporting. I try not to believe that this kid-gloves handling amounts to self-censorship, but it's hard to ignore the evidence. News Corp., with 64,000 employees worldwide, receives the tender treatment accorded a future employer.

In defending Glenn Beck on ABC, Ailes described him as something like Fox's political id, rather than its whole personality. It is somehow fitting, then, that Sigmund Freud's great-grandson, Matthew Freud, might help put mainstream American journalism back in touch with its collective superego.

This year, Freud, a public relations executive in London and Murdoch's son-in-law, condemned Ailes in an interview with the New York Times, saying he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard" of proper journalistic standards. Meanwhile, Gabriel Sherman, writing in New York magazine, suggests that Freud and other Murdoch relatives think Ailes has outlived his usefulness -- despite the fact that Fox, with its $700 million annual profit, finances News Corp.'s ability to keep its troubled newspapers and their skeleton staffs on life support. I know some observers of journalistic economics who believe that such insider comments mean Rupert already has Roger on the skids.

It is true that any executive's tenure in the House of Murdoch is situational. But grieve not for Roger Ailes. His new contract signals that when the winds of televised demagoguery abate, he will waft down on a golden parachute. By News Corp. standards, he deserves it. After all, Ailes helped make Murdoch the most powerful media executive in the United States.

As for Fox News, lots of people who know better are keeping quiet about what to call it. Its news operation can, in fact, be called many things, but reporters of my generation, with memories and keyboards, dare not call it journalism.

Howell Raines is a former executive editor of the New York Times and the author of "The One That Got Away: A Memoir."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...v=hcmodule]]>
By Howell Raines
Sunday, March 14, 2010; B05



One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

Fox repeats this as gospel. But as a matter of historical context, usually in short supply on Fox News, this assertion ranks somewhere between debatable and untrue.

The American people and many of our great modern presidents have been demanding major reforms to the health-care system since the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. The elections of 1948, 1960, 1964, 2000 and 2008 confirm the point, with majorities voting for candidates supporting such change. Yet congressional Republicans have managed effective campaigns against health-care changes favored variously by Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Clinton. Now Fox News has given the party of Lincoln a free ride with its repetition of the unexamined claim that today's Republican leadership really does want to overhaul health care -- if only the effort could conform to Mitch McConnell's ideas on portability and tort reform.

It is true that, after 14 months of Fox's relentless pounding of President Obama's idea of sweeping reform, the latest Gallup poll shows opinion running 48 to 45 percent against the current legislation. Fox invariably stresses such recent dips in support for the legislation, disregarding the majorities in favor of various individual aspects of the reform effort. Along the way, the network has sold a falsified image of the professional standards that developed in American newsrooms and university journalism departments in the last half of the 20th century.

Whatever its shortcomings, journalism under those standards aspired to produce an honest account of social, economic and political events. It bore witness to a world of dynamic change, as opposed to the world of Foxian reality, whose actors are brought on camera to illustrate a preconceived universe as rigid as that of medieval morality. Now, it is precisely our long-held norms that cripple our ability to confront Fox's journalism of perpetual assault. I'm confident that many old-schoolers are too principled to appear on the network, choosing silence over being used; when Fox does trot out a house liberal as a punching bag, the result is a parody of reasoned news formats.

My great fear, however, is that some journalists of my generation who once prided themselves on blowing whistles and afflicting the comfortable have also been intimidated by Fox's financial power and expanding audience, as well as Ailes's proven willingness to dismantle the reputation of anyone who crosses him. (Remember his ridiculing of one early anchor, Paula Zahn, as inferior to a "dead raccoon" in ratings potential when she dared defect to CNN?) It's as if we have surrendered the sword of verifiable reportage and bought the idea that only "elites" are interested in information free of partisan poppycock.

Why has our profession, through its general silence -- or only spasmodic protest -- helped Fox legitimize a style of journalism that is dishonest in its intellectual process, untrustworthy in its conclusions and biased in its gestalt? The standard answer is economics, as represented by the collapse of print newspapers and of audience share at CBS, NBC and ABC. Some prominent print journalists are now cheering Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp. (which owns the Fox network) for his alleged commitment to print, as evidenced by his willingness to lose money on the New York Post and gamble the overall profitability of his company on the survival of the Wall Street Journal. This is like congratulating museums for preserving antique masterpieces while ignoring their predatory methods of collecting.

Why can't American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team? His importation of the loose rules of British tabloid journalism, including blatant political alliances, started our slide to quasi-news. His British papers famously promoted Margaret Thatcher's political career, with the expectation that she would open the nation's airwaves to Murdoch's cable channels. Ed Koch once told me he could not have been elected mayor of New York without the boosterism of the New York Post.

As for Fox's campaign against the Obama administration, perhaps the only traditional network star to put Ailes on the spot, at least a little, has been his friend, the venerable Barbara Walters, who was hosting This Week, ABC's Sunday morning talk show. More accurately, she allowed another guest, Arianna Huffington, to belabor Ailes recently about his biased coverage of Obama. Ailes countered that he should be judged as a producer of ratings rather than a journalist -- audience is his only yardstick. While true as far as it goes, this hair-splitting defense purports to absolve Ailes of responsibility for creating a news department whose raison d'etre is to dictate the outcome of our nation's political discourse.

For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party. And let no one be misled by occasional spurts of criticism of the GOP on Fox. In a bygone era of fact-based commentary typified, left to right, by my late colleagues Scotty Reston and Bill Safire, these deceptions would have been given their proper label: disinformation.

Under the pretense of correcting a Democratic bias in news reporting, Fox has accomplished something that seemed impossible before Ailes imported to the news studio the tricks he learned in Richard Nixon's campaign think tank: He and his video ferrets have intimidated center-right and center-left journalists into suppressing conclusions -- whether on health-care reform or other issues -- they once would have stated as demonstrably proven by their reporting. I try not to believe that this kid-gloves handling amounts to self-censorship, but it's hard to ignore the evidence. News Corp., with 64,000 employees worldwide, receives the tender treatment accorded a future employer.

In defending Glenn Beck on ABC, Ailes described him as something like Fox's political id, rather than its whole personality. It is somehow fitting, then, that Sigmund Freud's great-grandson, Matthew Freud, might help put mainstream American journalism back in touch with its collective superego.

This year, Freud, a public relations executive in London and Murdoch's son-in-law, condemned Ailes in an interview with the New York Times, saying he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard" of proper journalistic standards. Meanwhile, Gabriel Sherman, writing in New York magazine, suggests that Freud and other Murdoch relatives think Ailes has outlived his usefulness -- despite the fact that Fox, with its $700 million annual profit, finances News Corp.'s ability to keep its troubled newspapers and their skeleton staffs on life support. I know some observers of journalistic economics who believe that such insider comments mean Rupert already has Roger on the skids.

It is true that any executive's tenure in the House of Murdoch is situational. But grieve not for Roger Ailes. His new contract signals that when the winds of televised demagoguery abate, he will waft down on a golden parachute. By News Corp. standards, he deserves it. After all, Ailes helped make Murdoch the most powerful media executive in the United States.

As for Fox News, lots of people who know better are keeping quiet about what to call it. Its news operation can, in fact, be called many things, but reporters of my generation, with memories and keyboards, dare not call it journalism.

Howell Raines is a former executive editor of the New York Times and the author of "The One That Got Away: A Memoir."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...v=hcmodule]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7359 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:22:29 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7359 Of the 10 charities receiving part of Obama's $1.4 million Nobel Prize award, six directly support higher education for student groups that are traditionally underserved.


By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo Staff writer / March 12, 2010

President Obama is putting his prize money where his mouth is.


Rising college costs prompt student loan reform Obama administration: more civil rights enforcement in schools He has preached that by 2020, the United States should lead the world in the portion of citizens earning college degrees.

On Thursday, he donated his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize award to 10 charities, six of which directly support higher education for traditionally underserved groups.

Leaders of several of the groups say the gifts were a surprise and a tremendous boost in their work to help students stay on a path to a college degree.

Students and teachers cried with delight as soon as they heard news of the donation to College Summit, says J.B. Schramm, founder and CEO of the Washington-based group. It plans to divvy up the $125,000 gift among the 12 states where it has 170 partner high schools.

Teens at these schools are identified as peer leaders and then attend summer workshops that help them apply for college and financial aid. They're often the first in their family to consider college, and they learn how to share what they’ve gained with fellow high-schoolers.

“What our students heard is that the president is saying, you’re not just a vessel to get education poured into you; you can drive the change in your own community,” Mr. Schramm says.

The American Indian College Fund expects to use its $125,000 gift to fund scholarships for about 125 students attending tribal colleges. That’s a small portion of the 6,000 scholarships it usually gives each year, but the attention that comes with the presidential gift is likely to help the group raise extra money. Donations have been down about 10 to 20 percent.

American Indians “are almost always left out” of discussions about minorities in higher education, says Richard Williams, CEO of the Denver nonprofit. “That we were included this time is absolutely amazing.”

Thirty-three tribal colleges educate about 15 percent of all American Indians in college. “Indian people are beginning to take control of their own destiny ... and the tribal college movement is critical to empowering Indian people to do that,” Mr. Williams says.

Groups that focus on minority and low-income students’ success in higher education aren’t pausing to celebrate for too long: They urge continued attention to financial and other barriers.

“We applaud President Obama’s unprecedented personal commitment to the college-access agenda.... However, we hope [it] will be exemplified in his administration’s future policies toward proven federal education programs,” says Chandra Taylor Smith, director of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington. “The private sector and state governments, alone, cannot ensure that the nation achieves Obama’s goal of increasing college enrollment and regaining our competitive edge in the global economy.”

Next week, a summit will bring together representatives from colleges, the US Department of Education, and nonprofits, including some of the prize-money beneficiaries. They will gather at Pine Manor College in the Boston area to discuss ways to better “bridge the gap between underserved students and the college degree,” says Pine Manor President Gloria Nemerowicz.

As part of Obama's donations, these six groups each received $125,000: College Summit, the American Indian College Fund, the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Posse Foundation, and the United Negro College Fund. The other beneficiaries: Africare ($100,000); the Central Asia Institute, which supports education, especially for girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan ($100,000); the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund ($200,000); and Fisher House, which houses families of veterans who are in hospitals ($250,000).

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/20...most-of-it]]> Of the 10 charities receiving part of Obama's $1.4 million Nobel Prize award, six directly support higher education for student groups that are traditionally underserved.


By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo Staff writer / March 12, 2010

President Obama is putting his prize money where his mouth is.


Rising college costs prompt student loan reform Obama administration: more civil rights enforcement in schools He has preached that by 2020, the United States should lead the world in the portion of citizens earning college degrees.

On Thursday, he donated his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize award to 10 charities, six of which directly support higher education for traditionally underserved groups.

Leaders of several of the groups say the gifts were a surprise and a tremendous boost in their work to help students stay on a path to a college degree.

Students and teachers cried with delight as soon as they heard news of the donation to College Summit, says J.B. Schramm, founder and CEO of the Washington-based group. It plans to divvy up the $125,000 gift among the 12 states where it has 170 partner high schools.

Teens at these schools are identified as peer leaders and then attend summer workshops that help them apply for college and financial aid. They're often the first in their family to consider college, and they learn how to share what they’ve gained with fellow high-schoolers.

“What our students heard is that the president is saying, you’re not just a vessel to get education poured into you; you can drive the change in your own community,” Mr. Schramm says.

The American Indian College Fund expects to use its $125,000 gift to fund scholarships for about 125 students attending tribal colleges. That’s a small portion of the 6,000 scholarships it usually gives each year, but the attention that comes with the presidential gift is likely to help the group raise extra money. Donations have been down about 10 to 20 percent.

American Indians “are almost always left out” of discussions about minorities in higher education, says Richard Williams, CEO of the Denver nonprofit. “That we were included this time is absolutely amazing.”

Thirty-three tribal colleges educate about 15 percent of all American Indians in college. “Indian people are beginning to take control of their own destiny ... and the tribal college movement is critical to empowering Indian people to do that,” Mr. Williams says.

Groups that focus on minority and low-income students’ success in higher education aren’t pausing to celebrate for too long: They urge continued attention to financial and other barriers.

“We applaud President Obama’s unprecedented personal commitment to the college-access agenda.... However, we hope [it] will be exemplified in his administration’s future policies toward proven federal education programs,” says Chandra Taylor Smith, director of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington. “The private sector and state governments, alone, cannot ensure that the nation achieves Obama’s goal of increasing college enrollment and regaining our competitive edge in the global economy.”

Next week, a summit will bring together representatives from colleges, the US Department of Education, and nonprofits, including some of the prize-money beneficiaries. They will gather at Pine Manor College in the Boston area to discuss ways to better “bridge the gap between underserved students and the college degree,” says Pine Manor President Gloria Nemerowicz.

As part of Obama's donations, these six groups each received $125,000: College Summit, the American Indian College Fund, the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Posse Foundation, and the United Negro College Fund. The other beneficiaries: Africare ($100,000); the Central Asia Institute, which supports education, especially for girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan ($100,000); the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund ($200,000); and Fisher House, which houses families of veterans who are in hospitals ($250,000).

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/20...most-of-it]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7358 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:14:53 -0600 Lillian http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7358 Op-Ed Columnist
Getting Obama Right
By DAVID BROOKS
Who is Barack Obama?

If you ask a conservative Republican, you are likely to hear that Obama is a skilled politician who campaigned as a centrist but is governing as a big-government liberal. He plays by ruthless, Chicago politics rules. He is arrogant toward foes, condescending toward allies and runs a partisan political machine.

If you ask a liberal Democrat, you are likely to hear that Obama is an inspiring but overly intellectual leader who has trouble making up his mind and fighting for his positions. He has not defined a clear mission. He has allowed the Republicans to dominate debate. He is too quick to compromise and too cerebral to push things through.

You’ll notice first that these two viewpoints are diametrically opposed. You’ll, observe, second, that they are entirely predictable. Political partisans always imagine the other side is ruthlessly effective and that the public would be with them if only their side had better messaging. And finally, you’ll notice that both views distort reality. They tell you more about the information cocoons that partisans live in these days than about Obama himself.

The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.

He has tried to find this balance in a town without an organized center — in a town in which liberals chair the main committees and small-government conservatives lead the opposition. He has tried to do it in a context maximally inhospitable to his aims.

But he has done it with tremendous tenacity. Readers of this column know that I’ve been critical on health care and other matters. Obama is four clicks to my left on most issues. He is inadequate on the greatest moral challenge of our day: the $9.7 trillion in new debt being created this decade. He has misread the country, imagining a hunger for federal activism that doesn’t exist. But he is still the most realistic and reasonable major player in Washington.

Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He’s just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That’s just not a fair reading of his agenda.

Take health care. He has pushed a program that expands coverage, creates exchanges and moderately tinkers with the status quo — too moderately to restrain costs. To call this an orthodox liberal plan is an absurdity. It more closely resembles the center-left deals cut by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, or Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. Obama has pushed this program with a tenacity unmatched in modern political history; with more tenacity than Bill Clinton pushed his health care plan or George W. Bush pushed Social Security reform.

Take education. Obama has taken on a Democratic constituency, the teachers’ unions, with a courage not seen since George W. Bush took on the anti-immigration forces in his own party. In a remarkable speech on March 1, he went straight at the guardians of the status quo by calling for the removal of failing teachers in failing schools. Obama has been the most determined education reformer in the modern presidency.

Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term. Obama conducted a long review of the Afghan policy and was genuinely moved by the evidence. He has emerged as a liberal hawk, pursuing victory in Iraq and adopting an Afghan surge that has already utterly transformed the momentum in that war. The Taliban is now in retreat and its leaders are being assassinated or captured at a steady rate.

Take finance. Obama and Tim Geithner are vilified on the left as craven to Wall Street and on the right as clueless bureaucrats who know nothing about how markets function. But they have tried with halting success to find a center-left set of restraints to provide some stability to market operations.

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinio...ks.html?hp]]> Op-Ed Columnist
Getting Obama Right
By DAVID BROOKS
Who is Barack Obama?

If you ask a conservative Republican, you are likely to hear that Obama is a skilled politician who campaigned as a centrist but is governing as a big-government liberal. He plays by ruthless, Chicago politics rules. He is arrogant toward foes, condescending toward allies and runs a partisan political machine.

If you ask a liberal Democrat, you are likely to hear that Obama is an inspiring but overly intellectual leader who has trouble making up his mind and fighting for his positions. He has not defined a clear mission. He has allowed the Republicans to dominate debate. He is too quick to compromise and too cerebral to push things through.

You’ll notice first that these two viewpoints are diametrically opposed. You’ll, observe, second, that they are entirely predictable. Political partisans always imagine the other side is ruthlessly effective and that the public would be with them if only their side had better messaging. And finally, you’ll notice that both views distort reality. They tell you more about the information cocoons that partisans live in these days than about Obama himself.

The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.

He has tried to find this balance in a town without an organized center — in a town in which liberals chair the main committees and small-government conservatives lead the opposition. He has tried to do it in a context maximally inhospitable to his aims.

But he has done it with tremendous tenacity. Readers of this column know that I’ve been critical on health care and other matters. Obama is four clicks to my left on most issues. He is inadequate on the greatest moral challenge of our day: the $9.7 trillion in new debt being created this decade. He has misread the country, imagining a hunger for federal activism that doesn’t exist. But he is still the most realistic and reasonable major player in Washington.

Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He’s just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That’s just not a fair reading of his agenda.

Take health care. He has pushed a program that expands coverage, creates exchanges and moderately tinkers with the status quo — too moderately to restrain costs. To call this an orthodox liberal plan is an absurdity. It more closely resembles the center-left deals cut by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, or Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. Obama has pushed this program with a tenacity unmatched in modern political history; with more tenacity than Bill Clinton pushed his health care plan or George W. Bush pushed Social Security reform.

Take education. Obama has taken on a Democratic constituency, the teachers’ unions, with a courage not seen since George W. Bush took on the anti-immigration forces in his own party. In a remarkable speech on March 1, he went straight at the guardians of the status quo by calling for the removal of failing teachers in failing schools. Obama has been the most determined education reformer in the modern presidency.

Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term. Obama conducted a long review of the Afghan policy and was genuinely moved by the evidence. He has emerged as a liberal hawk, pursuing victory in Iraq and adopting an Afghan surge that has already utterly transformed the momentum in that war. The Taliban is now in retreat and its leaders are being assassinated or captured at a steady rate.

Take finance. Obama and Tim Geithner are vilified on the left as craven to Wall Street and on the right as clueless bureaucrats who know nothing about how markets function. But they have tried with halting success to find a center-left set of restraints to provide some stability to market operations.

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinio...ks.html?hp]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7357 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:53:20 -0600 rainbow http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7357 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f26_1268401383
No crime committed, no charges laid.... but we will take your money...thank you very much.]]> http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f26_1268401383
No crime committed, no charges laid.... but we will take your money...thank you very much.]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7356 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:02:55 -0600 Steve_YYZ http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7356

Canada owns the podium at the White House

Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, March 12, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Almost two weeks after the Canadian men's hockey team beat the U.S.A. for gold at the Vancouver Olympics, Canada owned the podium again on Friday -- this time at the White House.

Robert Gibbs, the press secretary to President Barack Obama, made good on a bet by sporting a red and white Team Canada jersey at the start of his daily briefing with the White House press corps.

"I am a little warm," joked Mr. Gibbs, who lost a pair of friendly wagers with Dimitri Soudas, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman, on the Olympic hockey finals.

Mr. Gibbs initially pledged to wear a Canadian jersey to an off-camera briefing after picking the U.S. women's team to win gold, then went double or nothing with Mr. Soudas on the men's final -- and lost again.

The wager included a promise to wear Canada's colours for the first 15 minutes of the much-higher profile on-camera briefing.

Mr. Soudas shipped the jersey -- printed with Mr. Gibbs's name on the back -- to the White House last week.

At the briefing, the press secretary turned around so cameras could capture the number 39, the same number worn by Team USA goalie Ryan Miller. A few minutes into the briefing -- somewhat short of the promised 15 -- Mr. Gibbs pulled off the Canadian jersey to reveal a Team USA jersey underneath.

"Fifteen minutes!" protested one reporter.

"I thought we were doing this on the metric scale," replied Mr. Gibbs.

Mr. Gibbs has taken no end of ribbing from the White House press about when he would don the jersey, finally agreeing on Thursday to wear it on Friday -- at the very end of a two-week deadline agreed to by Mr. Soudas.

The Canadian press was no less eager to see Mr. Gibbs pay up. CTV News Washington correspondent Paul Workman wore a Team Canada jersey to the briefing, and another reporter wore a pair of the red maple leaf mittens that were ubiquitous in Vancouver.

Mr. Gibbs' bet with Mr. Soudas was essentially a side wager to a separate bet between Mr. Obama and Mr. Harper on the gold medal game's outcome.

Mr. Obama, who watched the overtime portion of the Canada-U.S. game at the White House, promised to buy Mr. Harper a case of 24 Molson Canadian beer.

Mr. Gibbs said the case of Molson from Obama was to be delivered to Mr. Harper on Friday by the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. The U.S. president was also sending a case of Yuengling beer, from America's oldest brewery in Pottsville, Penn.

"I'm sure Dimitri will take most of that home and consume it," Mr. Gibbs joked, adding that he was certain Mr. Harper's spokesman was "somewhere several hundred miles north laughing."

Responded Mr. Soudas: "Good friends can make a bet for beers, or to wear each other's jerseys. That said, it's always a smart idea to bet on Canada."

As for the future of the Canadian jersey, Mr. Gibbs has suggested he may give it to White House trip director Marvin Nicholson, a fan of Team Canada.

"Marvin is a big hockey fan, a big Canadian hockey fan, and I told him today that I greatly lament that I should have gotten Nicholson put on the back of this jersey and given it to him," Mr. Gibbs said at a briefing earlier this week. "He's pretty cool with just getting the jersey that says Mr. Gibbs on the back. So well - he's altogether happy about that."]]>

Canada owns the podium at the White House

Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, March 12, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Almost two weeks after the Canadian men's hockey team beat the U.S.A. for gold at the Vancouver Olympics, Canada owned the podium again on Friday -- this time at the White House.

Robert Gibbs, the press secretary to President Barack Obama, made good on a bet by sporting a red and white Team Canada jersey at the start of his daily briefing with the White House press corps.

"I am a little warm," joked Mr. Gibbs, who lost a pair of friendly wagers with Dimitri Soudas, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman, on the Olympic hockey finals.

Mr. Gibbs initially pledged to wear a Canadian jersey to an off-camera briefing after picking the U.S. women's team to win gold, then went double or nothing with Mr. Soudas on the men's final -- and lost again.

The wager included a promise to wear Canada's colours for the first 15 minutes of the much-higher profile on-camera briefing.

Mr. Soudas shipped the jersey -- printed with Mr. Gibbs's name on the back -- to the White House last week.

At the briefing, the press secretary turned around so cameras could capture the number 39, the same number worn by Team USA goalie Ryan Miller. A few minutes into the briefing -- somewhat short of the promised 15 -- Mr. Gibbs pulled off the Canadian jersey to reveal a Team USA jersey underneath.

"Fifteen minutes!" protested one reporter.

"I thought we were doing this on the metric scale," replied Mr. Gibbs.

Mr. Gibbs has taken no end of ribbing from the White House press about when he would don the jersey, finally agreeing on Thursday to wear it on Friday -- at the very end of a two-week deadline agreed to by Mr. Soudas.

The Canadian press was no less eager to see Mr. Gibbs pay up. CTV News Washington correspondent Paul Workman wore a Team Canada jersey to the briefing, and another reporter wore a pair of the red maple leaf mittens that were ubiquitous in Vancouver.

Mr. Gibbs' bet with Mr. Soudas was essentially a side wager to a separate bet between Mr. Obama and Mr. Harper on the gold medal game's outcome.

Mr. Obama, who watched the overtime portion of the Canada-U.S. game at the White House, promised to buy Mr. Harper a case of 24 Molson Canadian beer.

Mr. Gibbs said the case of Molson from Obama was to be delivered to Mr. Harper on Friday by the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. The U.S. president was also sending a case of Yuengling beer, from America's oldest brewery in Pottsville, Penn.

"I'm sure Dimitri will take most of that home and consume it," Mr. Gibbs joked, adding that he was certain Mr. Harper's spokesman was "somewhere several hundred miles north laughing."

Responded Mr. Soudas: "Good friends can make a bet for beers, or to wear each other's jerseys. That said, it's always a smart idea to bet on Canada."

As for the future of the Canadian jersey, Mr. Gibbs has suggested he may give it to White House trip director Marvin Nicholson, a fan of Team Canada.

"Marvin is a big hockey fan, a big Canadian hockey fan, and I told him today that I greatly lament that I should have gotten Nicholson put on the back of this jersey and given it to him," Mr. Gibbs said at a briefing earlier this week. "He's pretty cool with just getting the jersey that says Mr. Gibbs on the back. So well - he's altogether happy about that."]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7355 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:00:10 -0600 angelking http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7355

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AK]]>

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AK]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7354 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:27:33 -0600 therealcuba http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7354


THE STUBBORNNESS, INTRANSIGENCE, CRUELTY, INSENSITIVITY IN FRONT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FACED WITH THE PROBLEM OF IRISH PATRIOTS ON HUNGER STRIKES UNTIL THE DEATH, REMIND US OF TORQUEMADA AND THE BARBARITY OF THE INQUISITION IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE TYRANTS TREMBLE BEFORE MEN WHO ARE CAPABLE OF DYING FOR THEIR IDEAS, AFTER 60 DAYS OF HUNGER STRIKE!

NEXT TO THIS EXAMPLE, WHAT WERE THE THREE DAYS OF CHRIST ON THE CALVARY, FOR CENTURIES A SYMBOL OF HUMAN SACRIFICE?

IT IS TIME TO PUT AN END, THROUGH DENUNCIATION AND PRESSURE FROM THE WORLD COMMUNITY, TO THIS REPUGNANT ATROCITY.

FIDEL CASTRO - 08-18-1981

68 CONFERENCE OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION

TO ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF IRELAND

http://lealveritas.wordpress.com/2010/03...boomerang/]]>


THE STUBBORNNESS, INTRANSIGENCE, CRUELTY, INSENSITIVITY IN FRONT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FACED WITH THE PROBLEM OF IRISH PATRIOTS ON HUNGER STRIKES UNTIL THE DEATH, REMIND US OF TORQUEMADA AND THE BARBARITY OF THE INQUISITION IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE TYRANTS TREMBLE BEFORE MEN WHO ARE CAPABLE OF DYING FOR THEIR IDEAS, AFTER 60 DAYS OF HUNGER STRIKE!

NEXT TO THIS EXAMPLE, WHAT WERE THE THREE DAYS OF CHRIST ON THE CALVARY, FOR CENTURIES A SYMBOL OF HUMAN SACRIFICE?

IT IS TIME TO PUT AN END, THROUGH DENUNCIATION AND PRESSURE FROM THE WORLD COMMUNITY, TO THIS REPUGNANT ATROCITY.

FIDEL CASTRO - 08-18-1981

68 CONFERENCE OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION

TO ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF IRELAND

http://lealveritas.wordpress.com/2010/03...boomerang/]]> http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7353 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:19:39 -0600 Peter http://www.cubagreenscreen.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7353 Redacción Candonga

10 de marzo de 2010

Holguín, Cuba – http://www.PayoLibre.com –
The Measure taken by the State to increment the production of agriculture goods continue without positive results. The Disorganization
Of the actual Force or workers is only partial to the problem of a drought
in Certain areas in the last months, which has also caused a decreased in the raising of the Cattle heard needed to feed the people.


The Milk for kids older than 7 years old are being produced now almost exclusively by private small farms.


According to State reports there are 160,000 workers idle, which should be sent to do agriculture work, but the annalists say this is impossible due to the fact the State lacks the Instruments and Tools necessary to put these people to work, and because the ministry of Prisons occupy a lot of the Idle land.


Prisoners that are forced to work the fields are 3 times more productive than a salaried worker.What is More, they eat less and cause less expense to keep." WOW "]]> Redacción Candonga

10 de marzo de 2010

Holguín, Cuba – http://www.PayoLibre.com –
The Measure taken by the State to increment the production of agriculture goods continue without positive results. The Disorganization
Of the actual Force or workers is only partial to the problem of a drought
in Certain areas in the last months, which has also caused a decreased in the raising of the Cattle heard needed to feed the people.


The Milk for kids older than 7 years old are being produced now almost exclusively by private small farms.


According to State reports there are 160,000 workers idle, which should be sent to do agriculture work, but the annalists say this is impossible due to the fact the State lacks the Instruments and Tools necessary to put these people to work, and because the ministry of Prisons occupy a lot of the Idle land.


Prisoners that are forced to work the fields are 3 times more productive than a salaried worker.What is More, they eat less and cause less expense to keep." WOW "]]>