The Obama administration has raised the stakes in the health care debate, releasing a blueprint that seeks to bridge the gap between measures passed by the Senate and House of Representatives last year. If enacted, the president’s sweeping compromise plan would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago. Among other things, the White House said it would expand Medicare prescription drug coverage, increase federal subsidies to help people buy insurance and give the federal government new authority to block excessive rate hikes by health insurance companies.
President Obama is bringing together parties from all sides today in hopes of finding a middle ground and pushing through some overhaul of health care.
Watch full coverage of the White House health care summit today beginning at 10 a.m. ET
was first posted on February 25, 2010 at 10:08 pm.
US President Barack Obama will convene a meeting of his Afghan war cabinet today to assess the first major offensive of his troop surge strategy against the Taliban.
The meeting in the secure White House Situation Room also comes after the reported capture by US and Pakistan spies of the Taliban’s top military commander, in what was apparently a huge blow to the Afghan insurgency. Obama will meet top officials including Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command. War commander General Stanley McChrystal and US ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry were due to take part in the meeting by video conference, the White House said. US and other media reported on Tuesday that Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was arrested in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi several days ago. The White House refused to confirm the arrest, which would mark a watershed in the US campaign against the Taliban. US, NATO and Afghan troops meanwhile pressed on with a major assault against the Taliban bastion of Marjah in southern Afghanistan, key to Washington’s new strategy for turning around the troubled war.
was first posted on February 17, 2010 at 12:30 pm.
US President Barack Obama will convene a meeting of his Afghan war cabinet today to assess the first major offensive of his troop surge strategy against the Taliban.
The meeting in the secure White House Situation Room also comes after the reported capture by US and Pakistan spies of the Taliban’s top military commander, in what was apparently a huge blow to the Afghan insurgency. Obama will meet top officials including Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command. War commander General Stanley McChrystal and US ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry were due to take part in the meeting by video conference, the White House said. US and other media reported on Tuesday that Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was arrested in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi several days ago. The White House refused to confirm the arrest, which would mark a watershed in the US campaign against the Taliban. US, NATO and Afghan troops meanwhile pressed on with a major assault against the Taliban bastion of Marjah in southern Afghanistan, key to Washington’s new strategy for turning around the troubled war.
was first posted on February 17, 2010 at 12:37 pm.
Michelle Obama’s Wax Statue Unveiled at Madame Tussauds, US First Lady Michelle Obama was immortalised in wax at Madame Tussauds in New York. The statue of Michelle Obama wears the stunning white gown, designed by Jason Wu, she wore on inauguration night in 2009.
Children from an elementary school in Harlem were among the first to see the statue after it was unveiled. “It’s great. I haven’t seen nothing like it before. It looks like the real person because when you touch it, it looks, it feels like a person,” said student Elizanel Martinez. “They look kinda realistic. It kind of feels like the eyes follow you, and Michelle Obama’s dress is kind of sparkly,” added student Allan Quezada.
Mrs. Obama’s wax figure will stand beside her husband, Barack Obama, in a replica of the White House’s Oval Office. Mrs. Obama is the third First Lady to be honored with a wax figure inside Madame Tussauds. Jacqueline Kennedy and Hillary Clinton also have likenesses inside the museum.
Massachusetts Election, According to Politico “The health care backdrop has given the White House a strong incentive to strike a defiant posture, at least rhetorically, in response to what would be an undeniable embarrassment for the president and his party.” But “[w]hatever words Obama chooses, however, will have trouble masking the substantive reality: A Massachusetts embarrassment would strongly increase the pressure Obama was already facing to retreat or slow down the ‘big bang’ agenda he laid out a year ago”.
“Democrat Martha Coakley’s struggle to stave off a potentially devastating defeat in Tuesday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts marks a critical turning point in the year-long debate about health-care reform.” A win by Scott Brown “would give Republicans 41 votes in the Senate and further embolden them to challenge the core of President Obama’s agenda.”
“Even before the polls opened, White House officials sought to blunt the narrative that the race was a referendum on the president’s health-care initiative, in part by arguing that Massachusetts already has universal coverage.” But Republicans “scoffed at the assertion” that health reform wasn’t a force behind Coakley’s struggles in the polls (Balz and Cillizza.
Topics:
Massachusetts’ Senate Election Could Shape Health Reform’s Endgame
: “Democrat Martha Coakley’s struggle to stave off a potentially devastating defeat in Tuesday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts marks a critical turning point in the year-long debate about health-care reform.” A win by Scott Brown “would give Republicans 41 votes in the Senate and further embolden them to challenge the core of President Obama’s agenda.”
“Even before the polls opened, White House officials sought to blunt the narrative that the race was a referendum on the president’s health-care initiative, in part by arguing that Massachusetts already has universal coverage.” But Republicans “scoffed at the assertion” that health reform wasn’t a force behind Coakley’s struggles in the polls (Balz and Cillizza, 1/19).
reports that the “down-to-the-wire campaign has shaken some Democrats’ belief that most Americans will see the proposed health delivery changes as worthwhile.” Dems are also concerned that even if the health bill survives, “the Massachusetts experience may erode congressional support for other priorities of President Barack Obama, such as energy and climate-change bills… (but Democrats are) saying there will be time to explain to voters the benefits of the proposed health care package. The public will forget the parliamentary tactics that were used to pass it, no matter how ugly, these Democrats say” (Babington, 1/19).
: “Democratic leaders publicly espoused confidence that Coakley would eke out a victory, but behind the scenes were nearing full-out panic mode. Members were cutting checks to Coakley, Obama jetted to Massachusetts on Sunday to campaign, and House lawmakers like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told reporters that a Coakley loss would kill the health care bill” (Dennis, Newmyer and Pierce, 1/19).
reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “insisted that — whatever the outcome — the results today will in no way represent a repudiation of the Obama administration, especially on the matter of health care reform. ‘Certainly the dynamics will change depending on what happens in Massachusetts,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t mean we won’t have a health care bill’” (Marinucci and Garofoli, 1/19).
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is heading to Haiti to inspect earthquake damage and confer with Haitian and other officials on how to speed humanitarian aid to thousands of sufferers and further shape the recovery effort.
Hillary Clinton will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Haiti since Tuesday’s devastating earthquake, which the Red Cross estimates killed 45,000 to 50,000 people.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, the White House’s designated coordinator of the U.S. relief effort, told reporters at the State Department on Friday that the main focus of U.S. efforts was still on recovering trapped survivors. Shah was to accompany Clinton to Haiti.
Bomb Blast kills Iranian Professor, A bomb blast has killed a university professor in the Iranian capital today. Massoud Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed on Tuesday in the north of the capital when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle went off. “The explosion took place near the professor’s home in northern Tehran. Police and security officials have launched an investigation. Mohammadi was a physics professor who might have had links to Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
Protesters gathered outside the White House to mark the eighth anniversary of the opening of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Some of the protesters came dressed as hooded prisoners and filed single line in front of the White House gate before making their way to a news conference held a few blocks away at the National Press Club. The protesters aimed their frustration at President Obama, whom they say has reneged on his campaign promise to close the facility.
HONOLULU : Barack Obama Blames Al Qaeda Affiliate for Airliner Attack, US President Barack Obama on Saturday for the first time accused an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen of arming and training a young Nigerian man for a thwarted suicide mission to blow up a US airliner.
Obama, in his weekly radio and video address posted on the White House website, promised to hold the group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to account for the attack, declaring the United States was at war with a “far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” “We know that he travelled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies,” Obama said, referring to the suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
“It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula-trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America.”
Previously, US officials have not said publicly that the Northwest attack was the work of al Qaeda, though had noted there was a “linkage” with the terror group.
Michaele Salahi Wikipedia, Tareq and Michaele Salahi were the couple who gate-crashed the November 24, 2009 White House state dinner in honor of visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Do the couple deserve Wikipedia entries? There is an ongoing debate right now whether the two articles be merged as both were notable for the same incident. They are mentioned in notable media together, and the content of their entries are more or less the same.
Here is one comment: Don’t Merge. If the context of their lives were solely the gate-crashing incident then yes, they should be merged, but in the context of his notorious family legal disputes, his polo career, and the fact that he won’t be a “housewife” on the Bravo show they should be kept separate.
was first posted on November 28, 2009 at 10:11 am.
The Obama administration has raised the stakes in the health care debate, releasing a blueprint that seeks to bridge the gap between measures passed by the Senate and House of Representatives last year. If enacted, the president’s sweeping compromise plan would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago. Among other things, the White House said it would expand Medicare prescription drug coverage, increase federal subsidies to help people buy insurance and give the federal government new authority to block excessive rate hikes by health insurance companies.
US President Barack Obama will convene a meeting of his Afghan war cabinet today to assess the first major offensive of his troop surge strategy against the Taliban.
US President Barack Obama will convene a meeting of his Afghan war cabinet today to assess the first major offensive of his troop surge strategy against the Taliban.
Michelle Obama’s Wax Statue Unveiled at Madame Tussauds, US First Lady Michelle Obama was immortalised in wax at Madame Tussauds in New York. The statue of Michelle Obama wears the stunning white gown, designed by Jason Wu, she wore on inauguration night in 2009.
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is heading to Haiti to inspect earthquake damage and confer with Haitian and other officials on how to speed humanitarian aid to thousands of sufferers and further shape the recovery effort.
Bomb Blast kills Iranian Professor, A bomb blast has killed a university professor in the Iranian capital today. Massoud Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed on Tuesday in the north of the capital when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle went off. “The explosion took place near the professor’s home in northern Tehran. Police and security officials have launched an investigation. Mohammadi was a physics professor who might have had links to Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
Protesters gathered outside the White House to mark the eighth anniversary of the opening of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
HONOLULU : Barack Obama Blames Al Qaeda Affiliate for Airliner Attack, US President Barack Obama on Saturday for the first time accused an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen of arming and training a young Nigerian man for a thwarted suicide mission to blow up a US airliner.
