NewsTrust - Politics - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Should We Laugh? Cry? Both?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Nov. 23 (News Analysis) - The ritual is becoming familiar. Health care reform passes a major political hurdle. And progressives don?t know whether to laugh or cry. Last time, the occasion was a vote in the House of Representatives. Health care reform passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats had extracted a major concession on abortion rights. This time, it was a vote in the Senate--not on whether to pass a bill, but whether to begin debating one. This measure, too, passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats and one notorious independent made clear they were prepared to shut things down later if legislation includes a public insurance option. It?s no fun to watch this unfold. And yet this is the exactly the sort of drama you should expect for the next few weeks, as the Senate deliberations play out. The bill Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week is not everything it could be--not by a long shot. And progressives will try their ...

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Extremes back climate experts' warnings

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

theaustralian.com.au - By Jared Owens, Lanai Vasek - Nov. 23 (News) - IT was a weekend of extremes. Melbourne copped a month's worth of rain in just 17 hours, NSW grappled with "catastrophic" bushfire conditions and record November temperatures -- and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong linked the unpredictable weather patterns to the effects of global warming.

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Road to Copenhagen Part: US Climate Legislation & Lobbyists

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy - By Jeff Smith - Nov. 22 (News Analysis) - Called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the Waxman-Markey bill was fought hard by the energy industry. According to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, “More than 460 new businesses and interest groups jumped into lobbying Congress on global warming in the weeks before the House neared its historic vote on climate change legislation.” You can see from the chart above that there was a spike in the amount of lobbying just prior to the bill’s passing.

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Is It Time for Malpractice Reform?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Joanne Kenen - Nov. 20 (News Analysis) - Year after year, Republicans try to pass legislation that would limit medical malpractice awards. Fix the tort system, they argue, and we fix rising health-care costs. And year after year, Democrats resist placing arbitrary caps on awards to people who may have suffered from an egregious medical error. The fight plays out like a predictable old Western -- good guys versus bad guys. Depending on your politics, the villain is either the greedy doctor or the greedy trial lawyer.

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Fed Beaten: Bill To Audit Federal Reserve Passes Key Hurdle

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By The Huffington Post News Team - Nov. 20 (News Report) - In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an...

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Army Suicides Hit Record and Will Likely Continue to Rise

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Yana Kunichoff - Nov. 19 (News Report) - Suicides among veterans and soldiers have reached a record high this year and are set to continue rising, Pentagon officials said.

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Legislation to Limit Use of State Secrets Privilege an Uphill Battle

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By William Fisher - Nov. 19 (Special Report) - The problems President Obama will likely face in this area may stem from his pledges - both during the campaign and currently - that he would make open government and transparency the hallmarks of his administration. But, in court cases, his lawyers have followed paths identical to those used by George W. Bush's Justice Department. This approach to secrecy, manifested in his use of the state secrets doctrine, has triggered widespread disappointment among the progressive wing of his supporters. These supporters are pushing hard for passage of legislation winding its way through Congress that would impose stricter limits on use of the privilege.

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Economists Opposing Fed Audit Have Undisclosed Fed Ties

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim - Nov. 18 (Investigative Report) - As the debate over an audit of the Federal Reserve intensifies in the House, one camp is trotting out eight academics that it calls a "political cross section of prominent economists." A review of their backgrounds shows they are anything but.

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Docudrama

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Nov. 18 (Special Report) - Sometime in August, McKinsey & Company created a PowerPoint document called “Health Care Reform and Implications for Key Stakeholders: What this Could Mean for Client X.” Over the course of 44 slides full of charts and graphs, the firm examines the potential impact of reform on insurers, doctors, hospitals, and the drug industry. McKinsey tells Client X that the presentation’s purpose is to “help inform your understanding of the broader healthcare system impact and what this might mean for your key customers and Client X going forward.” After a source supplied me with the document--which is marked “confidential”--I contacted McKinsey. A spokesperson told me that “Client X” is not a particular company. Instead, he explained, the document is a broad overview of how McKinsey expects health care reform to play out. (It also appears to be a presentation that McKinsey consultants could adapt based on a client’s particular situation.)

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GOP Blocks Freeze On Credit Card Interest Rate Hikes

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim - Nov. 18 (News) - Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic effort Wednesday to immediately freeze increases in credit card interest rates, fees and finance charges. Shortly after Democrats passed credit card reform legislation in May, the card companies began jacking up rates in advance of its implementation. Major parts of the act won't take effect until February and August of 2010. Earlier this month, to combat the rate hikes, the House passed legislation to move the effective date up to December 1st. The Senate moves much more slowly

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Tell Congress to Go To Hell With their Current Health Reform

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Phoenix - By Rob Kall - Nov. 17 (News Analysis) - For OpEdNews: Rob Kall - Writer "I know some of my words are not nice-- crude, vulgar-- but if you're not thinking something like them, you don't get it. And if you have been thinking them, but don't want to say them, send your legislator my article."

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Newsweek Taps Bush Aide For Obama Reporting

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Ari Melber - Nov. 17 (News Analysis) - A recent article in Newsweek states that Democrats could have won a "very significant number of Republican votes in Congress" for the stimulus -- had there only been a "meaningful tax-cut component." Political journalism is often imaginative, but this verges on delusion. After all, Obama labored to delusion.

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Missing the Gain But Joining the Pain

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Sam Kornell - Nov. 15 (News Analysis) - Since the industrial revolution, profits from the exploitation of fossil energy — coal, oil and natural gas — have not been equally distributed. America, Europe and Japan got rich off of oil and coal; now China, India and much of the rest of the developing world are attempting to do the same thing. If they succeed, climate scientists say, it will mean environmental catastrophe. This progression has created a situation in which any solution to climate change is, to a greater or lesser extent, going to be unfair — a fact many negotiators openly acknowledge. The Danish environmental minister hosting the Copenhagen conference, Connie Hedegaard, has reportedly been "extraordinarily blunt" in insisting that China, India and the rest of the developing world shoulder a large share of the climate load.

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Reducing Greenhouse Gases May Not Be Enough To Slow Climate Change

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceDaily - Nov. 14 (News Report) - Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone is publishing a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions.

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I’d Like the Same Plan Better If It Was Bill Clinton’s

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Tom Jacobs - Nov. 13 (Special Report) - Even among the most extreme opponents of President Obama's push for health care reform — those who equate his proposals to Nazi death camps or Soviet gulags — there's little overtly expressed racism. Aside from the occasional slip by Republican officials in South Carolina,...But implicit racism — prejudice unacknowledged in public and, in many cases, hidden from conscious awareness — is a factor in opposition to Obama's health policies

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Liberals cry ‘unfair’ after Fox orders unbalanced YouTube purge

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Raw Story - By Daniel Tencer - Nov. 13 (News) - The channel provided clips from all news networks, but often focused on Fox's controversial commentators.

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Obama China Trip: Human Rights Activists Face Detention, Warnings

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Peter Ford - Nov. 13 (News) - While President Obama meets Chinese leaders and converses with handpicked groups of youths on his visit to China next week, another group of citizens expect to be staring at the walls of their apartments.

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Endless Obstacles Delay Veteran Benefits

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Aaron Glantz - Nov. 12 (Special Report) - The Department of Veterans Affairs routinely delays disability claims by wounded soldiers for months and years, often shunting them into homelessness. But there’s a simple way for the government to get disabled veterans the help they deserve. It can trust them.

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Media, Money and Sun Myung Moon

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Nov. 12 (News Analysis) - “Moon looked on the media as almost the nervous system for a global empire. Moon was the brain, and the media are to be, or were to be, the communications vehicle for his body politic surrounding the globe.”

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On What Planet Does Barney Frank Spend Most of His Time?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Pruning Shears - By Dan Fejes - Nov. 12 (News Analysis) - The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee has cultivated a pugnacious persona, but on financial reform he may be fighting for the wrong side.

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Anti-Statism In America

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By John B. Judis - Nov. 11 (News Analysis) - Liberals and progressives have fared poorly in the face of this staunch anti-statist tradition, but there have still been periods when they have broken through and enacted major reforms--during Woodrow Wilson’s first term, Franklin Roosevelt’s first term, Lyndon Johnson’s first two years, and Richard Nixon’s first term. They succeeded for different reasons at different times, but several conditions recur.

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The Price of Health Reform: Abortion Rights?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Rachel Morris - Nov. 10 (News Report) - Will health care reform come at the cost of abortion rights? The Democrats? historic health care bill squeaked through the House on Saturday only after pro-life forces scored a major victory. Despite months of wrangling over the public option and the price tag, in the end the legislation's fate turned on an eleventh-hour push by conservative Democrats to broaden the bill's existing limits on government funding of abortion, in the form of an amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). Here?s what happened and what it means:

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NEW YORK POST LAWSUIT: Shocking Allegations Made By Fired Employee

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Sam Stein - Nov. 10 (News) - The New York Post editor fired after speaking out against a cartoon depicting the author of the president's stimulus package as a dead chimpanzee has sued the paper. And as part of her complaint, Sandra Guzman levels some remarkable, embarrassing, and

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Energy Lobbyists Seek Support From Veterans

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jenna Staul - Nov. 10 (News Report) - Environmentalists on both sides of the fight for climate change legislation are hoping to enlist veterans groups as a powerful lobbying tool.

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Protesters Return To Lieberman's Office, Five Arrested

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By The Huffington Post News Team - Nov. 10 (News Report) - Five demonstrators were arrested after spreading fake dollar bills throughout the building showing Lieberman's face and the words "Insurance Money Kills Democracy."

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