July 2009
The Nation -- The compromises on health care reform now being entertained by at least some aides to President Obama and key Democrats in the House and Senate are so flawed that more than 50 House progressives now say they will oppose them.
A deal between House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Henry Waxman and several members of the conservative "Blue Dog" caucus has been portrayed as "progress" toward reform by some top Democrats and much of the media. But without the votes of the 57 progressives who have signed a letter condemning the compromise, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is unlikely to be able to cobble together enough support to gain approval of the plan in House where Republicans continue to act as the party of "no."
The progressives are not joining the obstructionists.
Rather, they argue, the compromise between Waxman and the Blue Dogs is itself an obstruction to real reform.
The progressives say "the agreement is not a step forward toward a good health care bill, but a large step backwards." That's because it would, according to their savvy analysis, "reduce subsidies to low-and middle-income families, requiring them to pay a larger portion of their income for insurance premiums, and would impose an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for what were to have been Federal costs."
"In short," declares the letter that was circulated by Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Lynn Woolsey, D-California, and Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, and a number of CPC members and allies, "this agreement will result in the public, both as insurance purchasers and as taxpayers, paying ever higher rates to insurance companies."
The full letter, which has been sent to Pelosi, Waxman, Ways and Means Committee chair Charles Rangel, D-New York, and House Committee on Education and Labor chair George Miller, D-California, reads:
Dear Madam Speaker, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Rangel, and Chairman Miller:
We write to voice our opposition to the negotiated health care reform agreement under consideration in the Energy and Commerce Committee.
We regard the agreement reached by Chairman Waxman and several Blue Dog members of the Committee as fundamentally unacceptable. This agreement is not a step forward toward a good health care bill, but a large step backwards. Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates - not negotiated rates - is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal of"keeping insurance companies honest," and their rates down.
To offset the increased costs incurred by adopting the provisions advocated by the Blue Dog members of the Committee, the agreement would reduce subsidies to low-and middle-income families, requiring them to pay a larger portion of their income for insurance premiums, and would impose an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for what were to have been Federal costs.
In short, this agreement will result in the public, both as insurance purchasers and as taxpayers, paying ever higher rates to insurance companies.
We simply cannot vote for such a proposal.
The signers of the letter are Woolsey, Grijalva and:
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Jerry Nadler
Phil Hare
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Keith Ellison
Earl Blumenauer
Mel Watts
Donna Edwards
John Olver
Dennis Kucinich
Laura Richardson
Maxine Waters
John Conyers
Judy Chu
Maurice Hinchey
Hank Johnson
Diane Watson
Jackie Spier
Bill Pascrell
Lloyd Doggett
Marcy Kaptur
Mazie Hirono
Bob Filner
Linda Sanchez
Marcia Fudge
Barbara Lee
Andre Carson
Sheila Jackson Lee
Michael Honda
Jim McDermott
William Lacy Clay
Jim McGovern
Yvette Clarke
Eric Massa
Chellie Pingree
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Elijah Cummings
Bennie Thompson
Gwen Moore
Donald Payne
Fortney "Pete" Stark
Ed Towns
Corrine Brown
Alcee Hastings
Nydia Valezquez
Luis Gutierrez
Grace Napolitano
Albio Sires
John Tierney
Mike Capuano
Chaka Fattah
Jose Serrano
SamFarr
Bill Delahunt
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Progressive Democrats of America, which has worked closely with CPC members, is pledging to organize during the congressional recess to get more Democratic members of the House and Senate to go on record against compromises that thwart reform.
This is essential work because, if the Blue Dogs and supposedly moderate (but, in fact, corporatist) New Democrats carry the day, Americans really could end up paying more money for less care.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp launched the first test of its Legacy Loans Program to help banks rid their balance sheets of toxic assets so they can raise new capital and increase lending, the agency said on Friday.
The FDIC, which insures the deposits of U.S. banks and acts as the receiver for failed institutions, declined to say what company's toxic assets were involved in the test.
In the test transaction, a receivership will transfer a portfolio of residential mortgage loans to a limited liability company in exchange for an ownership interest in that entity, the agency said in a statement.
FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray declined to comment on the size of the asset pool but said investors, who must sign a confidentiality agreement, have until September to submit bids. He did not specify a cut-off date.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) are the advisers to the FDIC on the program, Gray said.
Accredited investors will be offered an equity interest in the limited liability company under two options.
The first is an all-cash basis, which is how the FDIC has recently sold receivership assets, with an equity split of 20 percent to the investor and 80 percent to the FDIC. The other option is a sale with leverage, under which the equity split will be 50-50 between the investor and the FDIC.
The FDIC said it will be protected against losses by the limits on leverage amount, the mortgage loans collateralizing the guarantee, and the guarantee fee.
"The FDIC will analyze the results of this sale to see how the Legacy Loans Program can best further the removal of troubled assets from bank balance sheets, and in turn spur lending to further support the credit needs of the economy," the agency said.
Gray did not rule out additional sales depending on the success of the test.
If the test proves successful, open and operating institutions will be able to shed troubled loans if they follow certain loan-servicing requirements under either the Home Affordable Modification Program guidelines or FDIC's loan modification program.
The Legacy Loans Program is part of the government framework called the Public-Private Investment Program, which also includes a separate program under the Treasury Department to sop up troubled securities.
The Treasury unveiled PPIP last year with the goal of enticing private equity firms who were sitting on the sidelines awaiting rules on when and how they could participate.
(Reporting by John Poirier and Julie Vorman; editing by John Wallace)
Vinyl will never completely die. Despite being dethroned by cassette tapes, bludgeoned by CDs, and pummeled by MP3s, records are still out there and the people who love them are rabidly enthusiastic about the medium. Still, despite being the most public face of vinyl's livelihood, many DJs actually have divided feelings about its practicality. The allure of trading in a back-breaking crate of records for a palm-size hard drive loaded with digital audio is a convenience few DJs can resist.
While the Stanton T.90 has a dizzying array of features compared to most consumer turntables, it's only about average compared to many modern DJ turntables such as the Numark TTX and Vestax PDX-2300MK2 Pro. There's a mode selector switch for 33, 45, and 78RPMs, dual start/stop brakes, a reverse button, pitch control with selectable 8 percent and 12 percent ranges, and a key-lock mode for digitally modifying a song's speed independent of pitch. On the back you'll find a USB port for connecting to your computer, stereo RCA outputs with a switch for phono or line impedance, an S/PDIF digital coaxial output, and a power switch.
Folding bicycles typically cost more than non-folding bicycles of comparable quality, because they have more parts to allow folding. This results in a more complicated design, which is more complex to manufacture. There is also a smaller market for this type of bike. As an alternative to folding, some models achieve similar results by separating into two or more parts. These are sometimes grouped in the same category as folding bicycles but are also referred to as break-away, disassemblable, or separable bicycles.
Folding bikes generally come with a wider range of adjustments than conventional bikes for accommodating different riders, because the frames are usually only made in one size. Seatposts and handlebar stems on folders extend as much as four times higher than conventional bikes. For even greater range of adjustment, longer after-market posts and stems are available. While folding bicycles are usually smaller in overall size than conventional bicycles, the distances between center of bottom bracket, the top of the saddle and the handlebars, the primary factors in determining whether a bicycle fits its rider, are usually similar to that of conventional bikes. The wheelbase of many folding designs is also very similar to that of conventional, non-folding, bicycles. Some manufacturers are producing folding bikes designed around folding systems that allow them to utilize 26" wheels, for example the Montague Corporation which bases all its folding bicycles on the 26" wheel.
Speed dating is a formalized matchmaking process or dating system whose purpose is to encourage people to meet a large number of new people. Its origins are credited to Rabbi Yaacov Deyo of Aish HaTorah, originally as a way to help Jewish singles meet and marry. "SpeedDating", as a single word, is a registered trademark of Aish HaTorah. "Speed dating", as two separate words, is often used as a generic term for similar events.
Partners in a non-marital relationship are also sometimes described instead as a significant other, partner or life partner especially if the two partners are living together. At times, since "girlfriend" and "partner" mean different things to different people, the distinctions between the terms are subjective, and which term is used in a relationship will ultimately be determined by personal preference.
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina man was charged with having sex with a horse after the animal's owner caught the act on videotape, then staked out the stable and caught him at shotgun point, authorities said Wednesday.
But this wasn't the first time Rodell Vereen has been charged with buggery. He pleaded guilty last year to having sex with the same horse after owner Barbara Kenley found him in the same stable and was sentenced to probation and placed on the state's sex offender list.
Kenley said she noticed several weeks ago her 21-year-old horse Sugar was acting strange and getting infections again. She noticed things in the barn had been moved around dirt piled up and bales of hay stacked near the horse's stall at her Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach.
"Police kept telling me it couldn't be the same guy," Kenley said Wednesday. "I couldn't believe that there were two guys going around doing this to the same horse."
She spent several nights at the stables, which are about four miles from her home, but didn't find anything. So she installed surveillance cameras, and when she reviewed the footage from July 19, she couldn't believe she was seeing the same man doing the same thing to her horse.
Kenley didn't call police because she was certain the man would come back to the stable, and she wanted to make sure he was arrested. So she staked out the barn and caught Vereen inside Monday night, chasing him to his truck and holding him with her shotgun until police came.
"He said he wasn't there to do anything, and I said, 'I know you were. I have you on tape.' And then he said he was sorry if he hurt me," Kenley said.
Vereen, 50, was first charged with trespassing, but police added a buggery charge after watching the surveillance tape. He faces up to five years if convicted. Vereen was already on probation after pleading guilty to buggery last year and was sentenced to three years of probation, ordered to stay away from the Lazy B Stables and declared a sex offender. He remains in jail, awaiting a hearing Monday to determine if he violated his probation.
Officials said they did not know if he has an attorney.
Vereen has had mental problems for several years, but seemed to get better after getting court-ordered treatment last year, said his brother, the Rev. James Vereen, who lives just down the street from his brother and the stables.
"He's done all right when he was on the medicine. I don't know if he is still taking it," said James Vereen, who added his brother has kept to himself a lot in the last few months.
Horry County police don't often investigate animal sex allegations, spokesman Sgt. Robert Kegler said. In fact, he said the last person charged with buggery in the county was Rodell Vereen in late 2007.
Kenley said she caught him then too. She stopped by her stable on Thanksgiving Day and found a man asleep in the hay by her horse, who had been locked in her stall, a mound of dirt and a stool behind her.
She said she thought about shooting Vereen both times, but didn't want to go to prison.
"Everyone around here has horses," Kenley said. "And they all said the same thing. You should have shot him."
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – Soldiers in tanks and armored cars besieged the shelled compound of a radical Islamist sect and sporadic gunfire exploded as hundreds of innocents fled Wednesday, the third day of fighting in Nigeria's northern city of Maiduguri.
Relief official Apollus Jediel said about 1,000 people had abandoned their homes Wednesday, joining 3,000 displaced this week in four states caught up in the violence.
It is not known how many scores of people have been killed. Police say most of the dead are militants, from a group that wants to impose Taliban-style rule across this multi-religious country of 140 million. Dozens of people have been arrested.
Reporters on the ground say the trouble started with militants attacking a police station in Bauchi state Sunday. Then they attacked police in Kano, Yobe and Borno, of which Maiduguri is the capital.
But President Umaru Yar'Adua disputed that, saying troops struck first.
"I want to emphasize that this is not an inter-religious crisis and it is not the Taliban group that attacked the security agents first, no. It was as a result of a security information gathered on their intention ... to launch a major attack," the Nigerian leader told journalists before he left Tuesday night for a state visit to Brazil.
"The situation is under control," Yar'Adua said
But people around Maiduguri railway station area, a stronghold of the sect, said they were kept up all night by running gunbattles.
From dawn, people started streaming out, carrying bundles of belongings and cooking pots and braziers.
Sporadic bursts of gunfire erupted there Wednesday morning.
Also Wednesday morning, journalists saw several bodies of alleged militants sprawled outside the main police headquarters, where hundreds of people have sought safety. Others are camping at two military barracks.
The sect's compound has been cordoned off since Monday by police and soldiers reinforced Tuesday by elite troops under the command of Maj. Gen Saleh Maina.
On Tuesday, Maina launched a mortar attack on the sect's sprawling compound, which is believed to stretch for about four kilometers.
"The shelling of the strongholds of the religious sect, mosques and operational point must be precise and swift to prevent further loss of life and property in this state," Maina said.
Smoke billowed from the area after his forces attacked.
Authorities imposed curfews Tuesday night and security forces poured onto the streets.
The radical sect behind the latest violence is known by several different names, including Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings" and "Boko Haram," which means "Western education is sin."
Some Nigerian officials have referred to the militants as Taliban, although the group has no known affiliation with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Riots, religious conflicts, sectarian violence and communal fights over land and water explode periodically in northern Nigeria. According to reports commissioned over the years, they often are orchestrated by politicians and religious leaders.
Analysts say the recent trouble has brewed for months, as police began raiding militant hideouts and finding explosives and arms.
While Nigerian officials profess secularism, and religious and ethnic intermarriage is common, religion is a sensitive, often political, issue.
Muslim and Christian leaders have condemned the latest violence.
Religious leaders saw to it that the minarets of the national mosque and the tower of the main cathedral in Abuja, the capital, were the same height to promote unity amid sectarian violence unleashed at the end of military rule most by Muslim northerners in uniform in 1999.
Shariah Islamic law was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule. More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since then.
"Those who were excited about the possibility of Sharia have been disappointed. Corruption ... did not stop when it came in," said Junaid Mohammed, a former member of Nigeria's parliament. "People have been disappointed by the system and are looking for ways to vent their anger."
Violence was a common way of expressing political frustration in Nigeria, Mohammed added, pointing to the ongoing kidnappings and bombings in the Niger Delta, a southern region roiled by a struggle over oil money.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern at the reports of sectarian violence and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.
"I call upon the leadership of the government of Nigeria, law enforcement and security agencies, as well as the religious and community leaders to work together to address the underlying causes of the frequent religious clashes in Nigeria, so that a resolution could be found through dialogue, tolerance and also understanding," he told a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.
After eight years of rule by an elected southern Christian, all the main political parties nominated northern, Muslim candidates for the 2007 presidential race. Some said that was a necessity in this former British colony roughly split between a Christian-dominated south and a Muslim north where Arabs had ancient footholds.
Yar'Adua, who comes from an aristocratic Muslim family in the north, won the election. But he has struggled to overcome questions of legitimacy after thugs openly purchased votes, stole or stuffed ballot boxes, and intimidated voters. About 200 people died in election-related violence.
Yar'Adua also is challenged by a long-standing kidney ailment. His detractors say his health, charges he won power through fraud and his cautious personal style have made for an ineffective administration.
Nigeria should be wealthy, with its copious oil reserves, but corruption and inefficiency have left most people impoverished. Despite promises of reform, Yar'Adua's government, like its predecessors, has failed to deliver even basic services like piped water and electricity.
The current unrest is expected to die down, as flare-ups have in the past.
Nnamdi K. Obasi, a Nigerian analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the militants don't have the weapons or numbers to have much impact beyond the north. But the trouble will return unless deeper issues are addressed.
"You're talking about improving governance as a whole," Obasi said. "Reducing corruption. Year after year, you don't see progress on these issues, and this is one of the biggest problems of Nigeria."
___
Associated Press writers Donna Bryson and Anita Powell in Johannesburg, Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) –
Ty Pennington is used to a challenge. But the energetic host of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" got more than he bargained for when he tried to mobilize a whole community of polite, unhurried Britons.
The American makeover king, whose TV show takes regular homes and transforms them into personal castles, spent a week in the sleepy English seaside town of Portreath to revamp a neglected park and inject new life into the divided community.
But lacking his usual team of home designers, plumbers and carpenters, Pennington said he found the biggest challenge of "Ty's Great British Adventure," which airs on ABC this coming Sunday, August 2, was the British themselves.
"The British are so polite, they are afraid of ruffling each other's feathers. They had to take the time to discuss it properly. That was one of the biggest challenges -- to get everyone to agree on what we were going to do and then convincing them they could do it," Pennington said.
Pennington's get up and go attitude, together with his one week schedule to transform the muddy land into a playground and soccer field, was not an instant hit in the southwest England town, despite having been invited there by fans of the American TV show.
"The British were more like, 'you are very charming but let's sit down and have a cup of tea.' I love them for that...their blood pressure must be fantastic because they don't let anything stress them out.
"I don't think they had ever been in that sort of rush," he said.
But after set-backs -- including the unreliable British weather -- Pennington encouraged the entire community of kids, seniors, local officials, moms and small businessmen, to pull together and get the park completed after two years of stalled efforts.
"It was like a new start for them. People started talking again instead of staying in their homes. Everyone got involved, they got reconnected," Pennington said.
The TV host said he would love to do more work outside the United States, but he has his hands full with "Extreme Makeover" and his decorating and remodeling books and magazines.
After five years and dozens of home renovations for deserving American families on TV, Pennington said he is still driven by the same goal.
"Putting a smile on peoples' faces. Seeing people come together and communities come together. If everyone thought like that it would be a better world. That's what I love." he said.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte
WASHINGTON -- Just about everyone in the country seems to be kicking around the lessons supposedly surrounding "the" confrontation of the first half year of Barack Obama's term.
No, we are not discussing Hillary Clinton up against North Korea's Kim Jong Il, a dumpy and ignorant little brute who had the nerve to describe her as a middle-aged housewife. Nor Joe Biden, visiting in the formerly Soviet Georgia and not hesitating to tell the Russians that they face a hopeless future.
To the contrary, as we all surely know by now, the news is in our very own Cambridge, Mass., at Harvard University, with one of our great professors, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and one of our finest police professionals, Sgt. James Crowley. The fact that, after more than a week, this curious and really accidental little saga of "race relations in our times" remains in the news, supposedly re-emphasizing the presence of those OLD lessons for us, should give us pause for reflection. But what exactly are those lessons that are dominating the discourse?
First, everyone knows that the "coppers" -- that's what we call our police in Chicago -- treat black people, particularly men, differently from white people. They "racially profile," which is essentially putting into practice an expectation that blacks are more likely to engage in crime and ill-thought-out behavior.
Second, black children are taught from birth not to taunt the police; it is a form of self-preservation, and so these children will most likely be acquiescent and passive in the face of authority.
Third, yes, everyone sees the reality that while many black American men and women have judiciously and studiously worked to get ahead, there is little evidence of really massive social change. Of course, America has an immensely talented black presidential couple, but they might merely go down in history as the man and woman who only tested the OLD rules!
Now there is only one problem with these supposedly timeless rules: They no longer apply in the least to today's America. In fact, I would argue that this event was simply sui generis -- singular, with little or no significance for our times. So allow me, please, to offer some new observations.
First, police in America today, while there are surely still "rogue cops" among them, are far more carefully trained in race relations than in those earlier years. The number of African-American police officers has jumped exponentially. In the Cambridge case, one should pause to remember, the cops were not jumping into some untested situation; there was a worried call from a neighbor, and there had been no fewer than 23 break-ins in the neighborhood in recent months. Hardly "Bull" Connor and the Old South!
Second, it is easy for outspoken intellectuals like Henry Gates to talk too much. They do it all the time. Most of his talk is flat-out brilliant. I watched his PBS series on advanced ancient African kingdoms, ones that I have myself sought out in, for instance, the Egypto-Cushite ruins of Meroe in the northern Sudan, and wondered, with some awe, why no one had dramatized these histories before?
I was myself stopped by not-very-pleasant police in Fairfax, Va., several years ago when, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, I made a wrong turn in the dark on an unlighted street. The cops suspected me of drinking -- I had indeed drunk one glass of red wine and two cups of black coffee -- and so they were palpably disappointed at having to let me go. (Was it because I was a white woman alone at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night?) But I didn't say a word.
Third and most wonderfully important, today our president and his first lady are not at all unrepresentative of America today. In a brilliant article last week in The New York Times, writer Helene Cooper delineates how these African-Americans are the "children of 1969 -- the year that America's most prestigious universities began aggressively recruiting blacks and Latinos to their nearly all-white campuses."
Thus, America -- very deliberately, and not without thought and not without pain -- integrated America from the top down, out of both personal morality and public utility.
Helene Cooper writes informedly of how this generation of African-Americans was not only a "diverse elite," but how they thus came to have, as human beings, a "double consciousness." But I think that is too limited an explanation for our world today, and today we ALL have multiple consciousnesses. That is the way being educated into an open society and world works.
So, what now? "Dialogue" over race? Good God, no! That would be only another excuse for more pointing and blaming and eternally remembering.
You see, Americans think that differences among people are unnatural -- when, in fact, they are abysmally and, for most peoples of the world, eternally natural. As a correspondent covering the world for many years, I have seen over and over again how every human society takes the slightest differences (sometimes length of hair or height) among people and makes them into causes for destruction and annihilation.
So, yes, let us use this experience -- not to quarrel further, but instead to understand that America's attempts to integrate its society, while certainly not perfect, are, given human nature, perfectly wondrous. Indeed, THAT is the "teachable moment."
