A Blue View

Nonviolence: Have The Palestinians Finally Found An Effective Way Forward?

This NY Times story made me very hopeful. I've long thought that a truly nonviolent movement would be the best way forward for the Palestinians: while the Israelis have a very powerful military force, the Palestinians have an overwhelming moral force that if harnessed to a truly nonviolent movement, would be unstoppable (and would be especially hard for Israel in particular to stop).

Senior Palestinian leaders — men who once commanded militias — are joining unarmed protest marches against Israeli policies and are being arrested. Goods produced in Israeli settlements have been burned in public demonstrations. The Palestinian prime minister has entered West Bank areas officially off limits to his authority, to plant trees and declare the land part of a future state.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said he planted trees in the West Bank last month “to establish our presence on our land and keep our people on it.”

Something is stirring in the West Bank. With both diplomacy and armed struggle out of favor for having failed to end the Israeli occupation, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, joined by the business community, is trying to forge a third way: to rouse popular passions while avoiding violence. The idea, as Fatah struggles to revitalize its leadership, is to build a virtual state and body politic through acts of popular resistance.

“It is all about self-empowerment,” said Hasan Abu-Libdeh, the Palestinian economy minister, referring to a campaign to end the purchase of settlers’ goods and the employment of Palestinians by settlers and their industries. “We want ordinary people to feel like stockholders in the process of building a state.”

The new approach still remains small scale while American-led efforts to revive peace talks are stalled. But street interviews showed that people were aware and supportive of its potential to bring pressure on Israel but dubious about its ultimate effectiveness.

Billboards have sprung up as part of a campaign against buying settlers’ goods, featuring a pointed finger and the slogan “Your conscience, your choice.” The Palestinian Ministry of Communications has just banned the sale of Israeli cellphone cards because Israeli signals are relayed from towers inside settlements. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is spending more time out of his business suits and in neglected villages opening projects related to sewage, electricity and education and calling for “sumud,” or steadfastness.

“Steadfastness must be translated from a slogan to acts and facts on the ground,” he told a crowd late last month in a village called Izbet al-Tabib near the city of Qalqilya, an area where Israel’s separation barrier makes access to land extremely difficult for farmers. Before planting trees, Mr. Fayyad told about 1,000 people gathered to hear him, “This is our real project, to establish our presence on our land and keep our people on it.”

Nonviolence has never caught on here, and Israel’s military says the new approach is hardly nonviolent. But the current set of campaigns is trying to incorporate peaceful pressure in limited ways. Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, just visited Bilin, a Palestinian village with a weekly protest march. Next week, Martin Luther King III is scheduled to speak here at a conference on nonviolence.

On Palm Sunday, the Israeli police arrested 15 Palestinians in Bethlehem who were protesting the difficulty of getting to Jerusalem because of a security closing. Abbas Zaki, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, was arrested, prompting demonstrations the next day. Some Palestinians are also rejecting V.I.P. cards handed out by Israelis allowing them to pass quickly through checkpoints.

Palestinian political analysts say it is too early to assess the prospects of the nonviolent approach. Generally, they say, given the division between Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority here, nothing is likely to change without a political shakeup and unified leadership. Still, they say, popular resistance, combined with institution-building and international appeals, is gaining notice among Palestinians.

“Fatah is living through a crisis of vision,” said Mahdi Abdul Hadi, chairman of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem. “How can they combine being a liberation movement with being a governing party? This is one way. The idea is to awaken national pride and fulfill the people’s anxiety and passion. Of course, Hamas and armed resistance still remain a real option for many.”

Khalil Shikaki, who runs the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, said: “The society is split. The public believes that Israel responds to suffering, not to nonviolent resistance. But there is also not much interest in violence now. Our surveys show support for armed resistance at 47 percent in March. In essence, the public feels trapped between failed diplomacy and failed armed struggle.”

Israeli military authorities have not decided how to react.

"Obama’s Nuclear Strategy Intended as a Message"

An analysis from the NY Times:

At the heart of President Obama’s new nuclear strategy lies a central gamble: that an aging, oversize, increasingly outmoded nuclear arsenal can be turned to the new purpose of adding leverage to the faltering effort to force Iran and North Korea to rethink the value of their nuclear programs.

The 50-page “Nuclear Posture Review” released on Tuesday acknowledged outright that “the massive nuclear arsenal we inherited from the cold-war era” is “poorly suited to address the challenges posed by suicidal terrorist and unfriendly regimes seeking nuclear weapons.”

Nonetheless, the new strategy aims to use the arsenal to do just that, despite considerable skepticism that any new doctrine or set of White House announcements is likely to change the calculus for North Korea or Iran.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy makes just about every nonnuclear state immune from any threat of nuclear retaliation by the United States. But it carves out an exception for Iran and North Korea, labeled “outliers” rather than the Bush-era moniker of “rogue states.” The wording was chosen, Mr. Obama’s senior advisers said, to suggest they have a path back to international respectability — and to de-targeting by the United States.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates made the choice explicit. “There is a message for Iran and North Korea here,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Nonnuclear states that abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would not be threatened with nuclear retaliation by the United States — even if they conducted conventional, biological or cyber attacks. But, he added, “if you’re not going to play by the rules, if you’re going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you.”

A number of analysts argued that by publicly painting a target on Iran and North Korea the administration could, perhaps unwittingly, bolster hard-liners in those countries, who have made the case that nuclear weapons are the only way to ensure their safety against American plotting.

The opposite critique came from two senior Republican Party national security experts — Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, both of Arizona — who contended that the pressure was not direct enough.

“We believe that preventing nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation should begin by directly confronting the two leading proliferators and supporters of terrorism, Iran and North Korea,” they wrote. “The Obama administration’s policies, thus far, have failed to do that, and this failure has sent exactly the wrong message to other would be proliferators and supporters of terrorism.”

To Mr. Obama and his aides, the “outlier” approach is all part of a broader strategy of adding to the pressure on both countries. Over the past year, they have aided the interception of North Korea’s shipping. They have sought to develop new sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and to undermine its nuclear program with a program of covert action.

Robert S. Litwak, vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that Mr. Obama had expanded an effort begun by President George W. Bush to globalize the effort to contain the nuclear aims of both nations.

Imagine If Germany Announced That April Was Going To Be Nazi Month ... That's What Va Just Did

This is mind boggling to me and shows the Right's true motivations. From the Wash Post:

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, reviving a controversy that had been dormant for eight years, has declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, a move that angered civil rights leaders Tuesday but that political observers said would strengthen his position with his conservative base.

The two previous Democratic governors had refused to issue the mostly symbolic proclamation honoring the soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War. McDonnell (R) revived a practice started by Republican governor George Allen in 1997. McDonnell left out anti-slavery language that Allen's successor, James S. Gilmore III (R), had included in his proclamation.

McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."

The proclamation was condemned by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and the NAACP. Former governor L. Douglas Wilder called it "mind-boggling to say the least" that McDonnell did not reference slavery or Virginia's struggle with civil rights in his proclamation. Though a Democrat, Wilder has been supportive of McDonnell and boosted his election efforts when he declined to endorse the Republican's opponent, R. Creigh Deeds.

"Confederate history is full of many things that unfortunately are not put forth in a proclamation of this kind nor are they things that anyone wants to celebrate," he said. "It's one thing to sound a cause of rallying a base. But it's quite another to distort history."

The seven-paragraph declaration calls for Virginians to "understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War."

McDonnell had quietly made the proclamation Friday by placing it on his Web site, but it did not attract attention in the state capital until Tuesday. April also honors child abuse prevention, organ donations, financial literacy and crime victims.

After a fall campaign spent focusing almost exclusively on jobs and the economy, McDonnell had been seen in recent weeks as largely ceding conservative ground to the state's activist attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II. The proclamation could change that view among Republicans who believe appropriate respect for the state's Confederate past has been erased by an over-allegiance to political correctness, observers said.

"It helps him with his base," said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University. "These are people who support state's rights and oppose federal intrusion."

Said Patrick M. McSweeney, a former state GOP chairman: "I applaud McDonnell for doing it. I think it takes a certain amount of courage."

The Virginia NAACP and the state's Legislative Black Caucus called the proclamation an insult to a large segment of the state's population, particularly because it never acknowledges slavery.

"Governor McDonnell's proclamation was offensive and offered a disturbing revision of the Civil War and the brutal era that followed," said Del. Kenneth Cooper Alexander (D-Norfolk), chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus. "Virginia has worked hard to move beyond the very things for which Governor McDonnell seems nostalgic."...

Obama Revamps, And Limits, U.S. Nuclear Doctrine

NY Times:

President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”

The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.

Prevention Gets BIG Boost In New Health Law

NY Times:

Amid all the rancor leading up to passage of the new health care law, Congress with little fanfare approved a set of wide-ranging public initiatives to prevent disease and encourage healthy behavior.

The initiatives provide a big dose of prevention in an effort to counter the powerful forces that encourage people to engage in sedentary lifestyles, to smoke and to eat fatty, high-calorie foods.

The emphasis on disease prevention comes nine months after President Obama signed a law that gave sweeping authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products. It reflects a sea change in federal health programs and policy, said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee.

Republicans supported many of the health promotion initiatives and objected to a few, but had much bigger concerns about the overall law. The proposals largely escaped public notice as lawmakers fought over abortion, taxes and a government-run “public option.”

Under the law, chain restaurants will have to provide nutrition information on their menus. Employers must provide “reasonable break time” for nursing mothers.

Health insurance companies will soon have to cover all recommended screenings, preventive care and vaccines, without charging co-payments or deductibles.

Medicare beneficiaries will get free annual physicals. Medicaid will cover drugs and counseling to help pregnant women stop smoking. And a new federal trust fund will pay for more bicycle paths, playgrounds, sidewalks and hiking trails.

Those are some of the provisions Congress tucked into the legislation in an effort to reduce the huge toll of preventable diseases — regardless of whether the initiatives also save money for the government, as some lawmakers expect.

John R. Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, said the new law would unquestionably save lives by increasing the number of people screened for colon cancer and breast cancer.

“When people have insurance,” Dr. Seffrin said, “they are much more likely to receive screenings and treatment. And they are more likely to seek screenings when they do not have to pay co-payments or deductibles.” As a result of such screenings, he added, cancers are more likely to be detected at an early stage, when they are treatable.

Under the law, insurers must provide coverage for all services recommended by an independent panel of experts, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, and cannot impose “any cost-sharing requirements.”

In addition, each Medicare beneficiary will be entitled to an “annual wellness visit,” in which a doctor can assess the patient’s condition, check for signs of Alzheimer’s disease and draw up a “personalized prevention plan” with a screening schedule for the next five or 10 years.

"Now it's the Republicans who risk being seen as dwelling obsessively on health care"

Charlie Cook:

We are entering a new phase in the 2010 campaign: The center of attention over the spring and summer will be independent voters and party primaries, especially those on the Republican side.

President Obama and congressional Democrats have been so focused on issues other than job creation that many voters have come to think that they are not doing enough to turn the economy around. Independents, who tended to vote like Democrats in 2006 and 2008, have begun behaving more and more like Republicans, surveys show. But some Democratic pollsters say they were starting to see independents' movement toward the GOP beginning to slow even before the health care overhaul was enacted. A new Democracy Corps memo by Stan Greenberg and James Carville observed that in a national survey of likely voters, "independent voters who did not approve of Democratic governance over the past year seemed to be reassessing their feelings" toward the GOP. The memo stressed that "this pullback is very specific to the Republicans and does not represent any gain for Democrats."

It's not hard to see how Republicans could stall their progress toward winning back independents. Among GOP challengers in competitive primaries, pledges to repeal the new health care law are ubiquitous. After all, in this climate, could a Republican who refuses to take that stand hope to attract a GOP base that feels under siege? But as Republican primary fields tack far to the right, how will independent voters, who have grown impatient with Democrats' handling of the economy, react? The fact that the health care bill lost popularity as time ticked away last fall suggested that voters were not only skeptical about an overhaul but also upset that Democrats were spending so much time on it. And now, all of a sudden, it's the "repeal and replace" Republicans who risk being seen as the ones dwelling obsessively on health care.

To win races this fall, Republican hopefuls don't need to convince independents that Democrats are drunk on power or brazenly thwarting the will of the people. They only need to convince them that shared power and "checks and balances" are good things -- that Democrats have gotten some of what they wanted but that fresh GOP voices could hold the president's party accountable. In 2006, Democrats reversed their fortunes in part by learning to keep their message simple. That's something the GOP could profit from doing this time around.

Even if independents do pull back somewhat from Republicans, Democrats' problems won't disappear. Independents are just part of the equation. The GOP base is incredibly fired up. The Democratic base isn't as demoralized as it would have been if health care reform hadn't been enacted, but a stroke of Obama's bill-signing pen can't eliminate the yawning gap in partisan enthusiasm that is creating so many GOP pickup opportunities. For the time being, the health care bill's enactment is much more likely to slow Republicans' momentum than to reverse it. Will that change of pace be enough to enable House Democrats to hold on to their majority? Spring and summer will yield important clues.

Right Fears Their Paranoia Will Lead To Undercounting By Census

Wall St Journal:

Some Republicans are worried that an anti-government surge among conservatives will lead to lower participation in the U.S. census, which they fear could reduce the number of Republican seats in Congress and state legislatures.

The census, which is currently being collated and is gathered every ten years, dictates the distribution of federal funding, how many House members each state gets and how congressional and legislative districts are drawn within states.

Conservative activists this year have argued it is unconstitutional for the census to ask anything beyond the number of people in a household. This year's census form also seeks information on race, gender and age, among other things, and filling it out is required by law. The census has asked similar questions for decades.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.), who is admired by many tea-party activists and ultra-conservatives, has said she will refuse to provide information about anything except the number of people in her household.

Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas), a former presidential candidate with a small but ardent following, was the only lawmaker to vote against a recent congressional resolution urging participation in the census.

Respondents must answer all questions on the census at the risk of a fine of as much as $100, according to the Census 2010 Web site. If forms are sent in incomplete, census workers are sent out to those homes to collect the missing data.

"The census should be nothing more than a headcount," Mr. Paul wrote this month in his weekly column. "It was never intended to serve as a vehicle for gathering personal information on citizens."

In a counter move, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.), the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees the census, posted a message last week on Redstate.com, a popular conservative Web site, pleading with conservatives to fill out their forms.

The unstated concern: An under-representation of conservatives could mean fewer Republicans in Congress and state legislatures for the next 10 years.

"It's your constitutional duty to respond to this," Mr. McHenry said in an interview. "It's often difficult for conservatives to separate overall government intervention from a question as simple as the census."

In previous years it was mostly Democrats who complained about the census, warning that minorities and the poor may be undercounted because they are often hard to reach and distrust government. These groups often vote Democratic.

The Census Bureau is fighting a perception the census goes beyond what the nation's founders intended, noting that the Constitution authorizes lawmakers to conduct the census "in such manner as they shall by law direct."

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln Faces Primary Challenge

Wash Post:

Sharp words and millions of dollars in television advertising are turning a Democratic primary challenge to two-term Sen. Blanche Lincoln into an outsize duel over the party's direction in the heartland.

Backed by national labor unions and Democratic activists, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is attacking Lincoln from the left as an uncertain senator who too often tilts right on major issues, including Wall Street, health care and the environment.

Halter contends that the seat is as good as lost to resurgent Republicans if the centrist Lincoln wins the May 18 primary. He said after leaping into the race last month, "My sense is that people want somebody to fight for them."

Lincoln counters that Halter, who returned to Arkansas to run for office after 20 years in government and business, misunderstands the Arkansas electorate. Touting moderation as a virtue, she calls herself "the rope in the tug of war." ...

Halter's challenge, which came as little surprise to the Arkansas political establishment, quickly became a national story. Liberal Democrats, frustrated with President Obama and Congress, cheered the chance to make Lincoln pay for her opposition to a government-run health insurance option and the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to organize.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow drew appreciative laughter during a recent talk at the Clinton School of Public Service when she said of Lincoln, "It's one thing to be a conservative Democrat. It's another thing to act like you don't want to be a Democrat at all."

Emily's List abandoned Lincoln, as did labor unions. She was pummeled with millions of dollars in television advertisements last year during the health-care debate. A radio advertisement from Halter declares, "She didn't stand up to the special interests. She worked for them."

"Our members have been watching Blanche's votes. They've decided enough is enough. We're not throwing our money down the well and getting nothing back from it," said Alan Hughes, president of the Arkansas AFL-CIO, referring to earlier support for Lincoln. "The final straw," he said, was her decision to join Republicans in opposing the nomination of labor lawyer Craig Becker to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board.

The duel is playing out on ideological grounds, yet the contest would not have happened if Halter were not hungering for a bigger political stage.

Sunday Afternoon Relaxation

The History of the Internet:

An amusing, and surprisingly accurate, 1969 view of what the Internet would be like:

The Chart That May Make All The Difference In The World Come November

This chart from Steve Benen shows the monthly job losses since the start of the Great Recession with an interesting twist: red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns reflect job totals under the Obama administration.

"What’s clear is that Obama largely remains a fixed point even while the rest of us keep wildly revising our judgments"

Frank Rich:

What a difference winning makes — especially in America. Whatever did (or didn’t) get into Obama’s Wheaties, this much is certain: No one is talking about the clout of Scott Brown or Rahm Emanuel any more.

But has the man really changed — or is it just us? Fifteen months after arriving at the White House, Obama remains by far the most popular national politician in the country, even with a sub-50 percent approval rating. And yet he’s also the most enigmatic. While he is in our face more than any other figure in the world, we still aren’t entirely sure what to make of him.

Depending on where you stand — or the given day — he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley. He is either a socialist redistributing wealth to the undeserving poor or a tool of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs elite. He is a terrorist-coddling, A.C.L.U.-tilting lawyer or a closet Cheneyite upholding the worst excesses of the Bush administration’s end run on the Constitution. He is a lightweight celebrity who’s clueless without a teleprompter or a Machiavellian mastermind who has ingeniously forged his Hawaiian birth certificate, covered up his ties to Islamic radicals and bamboozled the entire mainstream press. He is the reincarnation of J.F.K., L.B.J., F.D.R., Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Adlai Stevenson or Nelson Mandela. (Funny how few people compared George W. Bush to anyone but Hitler and his parents.)

No wonder that eight major new Obama books are arriving in the coming months, as Howard Kurtz reported in The Washington Post last week. And that’s just counting those by real authors, like Bob Woodward and Jonathan Alter, not the countless anti-Obama diatribes. There’s a bottomless market for these volumes not just because their protagonist remains popular but also because we keep hoping that the Obama puzzle might be cracked once and for all, like the Da Vinci Code.

The first of these books, out this week, is full of intriguing clues. Titled “The Bridge” and written by David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, it portrays Obama as fairly steady in his blend of liberal and centrist views, however much they (like everyone else’s) may have evolved over decades ...

If Obama’s belief system was fairly consistent, his public persona was not. Remnick returns repeatedly to the notion that Obama is a “shape-shifter,” with a remarkable ability to come across differently to disparate constituencies. Some of that reflects his agility at shifting rhetorical gears when, say, speaking to a living-room gathering on Chicago’s Near North Side or at a black church — a talent not unknown to some white politicians, starting with Bill Clinton. But much of this has less to do with Obama’s performance style than with how various audiences respond to his complex, hard-to-pigeonhole poly-racial-cultural-geographical identity. As far back as 2004 — when Obama was still in the Illinois Senate — a writer at The Chicago Tribune, Don Terry, framed what remains the prevailing Obama takeaway to this day. “He’s a Rorschach test,” Terry wrote. “What you see is what you want to see.”

Last week, after I wrote about the role race plays in some of the apocalyptic right-wing hysteria about the health care bill, a friend who is a prominent liberal Obama supporter sent me an e-mail flipping my point. He theorized that race also plays a role in “the often angry and intemperate talk” he has been hearing from “left-liberal friends for the past many months about what a failure and a disappointment” the president has been. In his view, “Obama never said anything, while running, to give anyone the idea” that he was other than a “deliberate, compromise-seeking bipartisan moderate.” My friend wondered if white liberals who voted for Obama expected a “sweeping Republicans-be-damned kind of agenda” in part — and he emphasized “in part!” — because “they expect a black guy to be intemperate, impetuous, impatient” rather than “measured, deliberate, patient.”

Today's No Comment Cartoons

 

Ignore The Pundits & Believe The Money: Dems Outpace GOP In Fundraising

Wash Post:

The Republican Party's strategy since early last year of lock-step opposition to the Obama administration's major legislative initiatives has proved to be less bankable than some party leaders may have anticipated.

With eight months to go before congressional elections, House and Senate Democratic candidates exceed in virtually every important campaign fundraising category. Democratic House lawmakers appear likely to reverse their seven-cycle record of being outspent by House Republicans, according to recent finance reports.

Democrats in both chambers are enjoying the traditional advantages of majority-party status -- and then some. They lead in donations by political action committees, by committees affiliated with the national political parties or with House and Senate leaders, and in individual contributions to incumbent lawmakers. In some instances, their lead exceeds what the Republicans had when that party controlled both chambers in the 2005-06 midterm election cycle.

To no surprise, analysts differ by party on the causes and significance of the disparity. Some Republicans say a donations surge may still come in the campaign's final months, particularly as the party courts new, small donors outside Washington. They also complain that donations to party stalwarts have been affected by internal squabbles with rebellious tea partiers, which they hope will end soon.

Republicans also say the party must remain unified in opposition to President Obama if it wants to energize the most reliable donors, volunteers and voters. "If we look like winners, money will follow," said Steven H. Gordon, an adviser to Senate Republican leaders who in the past has raised $70 million for GOP congressional candidates.

But recent controversy over lavish and questionable expenditures by the Republican National Committee -- including chartered airplanes and a young Republicans' night out at a bondage-themed nightclub in Hollywood -- appears likely to complicate efforts by the Republicans to overcome their deficit. Some traditional party supporters, such as Family Council President Tony Perkins, have recently urged followers to respond by withholding donations from the national party.

Democrats say their higher tallies so far are just the beginning, because campaign cash usually follows political momentum and Obama's health-care triumph may have ended a political slide.

"There's been a real kickup of wind in Democratic party sails," said Jonathan Mantz, a former finance director for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. "Success will breed success, and the energy will bring new resources" to congressional candidates.

The Republicans' unified opposition to Obama's agenda kicked off with a failed attempt early last year to defeat his economic stimulus legislation, and reemerged during a failed effort last June to block a House Democratic climate change bill. It played out again during the failed attempt to stop Obama's health-care legislation.

But the party's defiance shows no sign yet of enabling its lawmakers to overcome the traditional financial disadvantage of a minority party, a status that routinely leads to smaller campaign contributions.

For example, the 165 incumbent House Republicans seeking reelection last year on average raised $587,570 over 12 months, while the 245 incumbent Democrats seeking reelection raised an average of $662,793, according to data from the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonprofit group affiliated with George Washington University.

At the end of 2005, when Republicans controlled the House, the tallies were almost precisely opposite. Of course, the Democrats went on to gain 31 seats in the 2006 election and regain control of the chamber for the first time in 12 years, so fundraising tallies midway through a cycle do not necessarily predict outcomes.

The IPAB Could Be "the most important" Cost Control Mechanism In Health Reform

And Obama insisted, over lobbyist & Congressional opposition, it be there. Wall St Journal:

Last year, Congress rejected a bill that would have required an up-or-down vote on recommendations to reduce the budget deficit from a commission composed primarily of members of Congress. This year, Congress acquiesced to President Barack Obama's insistence that it create a presidentially appointed Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to craft ways to slow Medicare spending that will take effect automatically unless Congress votes to reject them.

Did something big just happen that will nudge Washington toward fiscal sanity? Or is this a smoke screen, one that allows backers of the health bill to argue today that it was fully paid-for and gut the provision tomorrow?

We won't know for a decade. "We'll get earlier feedback on the Apple iPad's performance than the IPAB," quips Peter Orszag, the White House budget director.

There is a chance—a chance—this will grow into a mechanism that overcomes congressional inability to say "no" to Americans who collectively demand more in benefits than they're willing to pay in taxes. It is hardly democratic. It substitutes technocrats' judgment for decisions by elected representatives. But, as Maya McGuiness, head of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, puts it: "Outsourcing some of the harder policy decisions is the best chance we have."

The law instructs the 14-member board to devise money-saving changes to Medicare when per-capita spending is projected to climb faster than one percentage point above the overall economy's growth rate. Congress can block the changes, but that requires a majority vote or, if the president vetoes, two-thirds. There are lots of strings: The law says the board can't ration care, increase revenue or restrict eligibility for benefits (though it can change the amount and way Medicare pays for care.) Hospitals get a pass for the first several years.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the board will save around $15.5 billion over 10 years, on top other changes to Medicare specified in the law—more if run by the right people and if Congress lets it take the heat, less if run by the wrong people or if Congress resists.

But it is a big change: A Medicare panel Congress created in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act can only make suggestions; this one has more teeth. "If I had gone to the Aspen Institute or the Brookings [Institution] board, and said you're going to get an entitlement commission with authority to control health-care costs, they'd be breaking out the champagne and high-fiving themselves," says Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff. "That's what's been done at the president's insistence over the opposition of providers and defenders of congressional prerogatives."

When House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) told Mr. Obama that House Democrats were uneasy about surrendering their power over the purse, White House aides say the president responded: "There'll be no health bill if I don't have the ability to control costs."

Mr. Orszag injudiciously told the Washington Post's Ezra Klein that the provision represents "the largest yielding of sovereignty from the Congress since the creation of the Federal Reserve." (Don't tell the Supreme Court.) If the board realizes its potential to push Medicare toward paying for better quality care, as opposed to paying for more care, "it could well turn out to be perhaps the most important component of the new legislation," he says. (Mr. Orszag sometimes sounds like a man growing weary of the high-pressure budget director's job who would love to chair the new board.)

Yelps from doctors and drug companies suggest the IPAB may bite.

MA & RI Compete For Nation's First Wind Farm

NY Times:

As New Englanders await a decision in Massachusetts on a bitterly contested proposal to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm, the State of Rhode Island is forging ahead with its own project in the hope of outpacing — and upstaging — its neighbor.

Crucial to its strategy is dispelling worries that economics will trump the environment, or the broader public good.

Instead of having a private developer dominate the research on potential sites, as Massachusetts has, Rhode Island embarked on a three-year scientific study, to be completed in August, of all waters within 30 miles of its coast. It has spent more than $8 million on research into bird migration patterns, wildlife habitats, fish distribution, fishermen’s needs and areas that might be of cultural importance to Indian tribes.

Its goal has been to head off the hurdles that have been in the way of the Massachusetts project, which has pitted coastal Indian tribes, business interest and homeowners against the developer, Cape Wind, and proponents of alternative energy. Frustrated by the failure of the two sides to broker an agreement, the Obama administration’s interior secretary, Ken Salazar, has promised to determine the fate of the project on his own this month. (On Friday a federal historic panel sent Mr. Salazar its recommendation that the government reject the Cape Wind Project.)

“We took the opposite approach of what Cape Wind did,” said Grover Fugate, the chief administrator of the Rhode Island project and the director of the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council.

Still, independent of the scientific study, Rhode Island has proposed two potential offshore sites — a $200 million eight-turbine project off Block Island, and a far bigger $1.5 billion farm in the eastern Rhode Island Sound — and has selected a preferred developer, Deepwater Wind.

In February, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri went so far as to suggest that the Block Island site was “on target to become the nation’s first offshore wind farm.”

Massachusetts counters that it is much further ahead. “We’ve been through all the state permits and we’re awaiting the final permits,” Ian Bowles, the state’s secretary of energy and environment, said in a recent interview.

Rhode Island has not secured permits, but it has trumpeted what Cape Wind so far lacks: a “power purchase” agreement with a utility company to buy what a farm generates. Yet on Wednesday, the state’s utility commission rejected that pact, which involved the proposed farm off Block Island, as too costly.

So for now, Cape Wind is poised to be first, said Matt Kaplan, a wind analyst at Emerging Energy Research, a firm that tracks emerging energy markets.

“If Cape Wind makes it through the permitting process, that is a major feat that no other offshore wind project has achieved in the U.S.,” he said. “However, power purchase agreements have been hard to secure.”

Officials consider a viable project as a source of energy and jobs, but the wind wars are also driven by state pride. “There is a rivalry to be the first state to have an offshore wind project in the nation,” Mr. Kaplan said. “And there is some embarrassment on the part of Massachusetts, having taken so long with Cape Wind.”

Weekly Radio Address: Holiday Greetings

WhiteHouse.gov:

In this week of Easter, Passover, and faithful celebration, the President offers a holiday greeting and calls on people of all faiths and nonbelievers to remember our shared spirit of humanity. 

"It is official: Barack Obama is the nation’s first black president."

NY Times:

It is official: Barack Obama is the nation’s first black president.

A White House spokesman confirmed that Mr. Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, checked African-American on the 2010 census questionnaire.

The president, who was born in Hawaii and raised there and in Indonesia, had more than a dozen options in responding to Question 9, about race. He chose “Black, African Am., or Negro.” (The anachronistic “Negro” was retained on the 2010 form because the Census Bureau believes that some older blacks still refer to themselves that way.)

Mr. Obama could have checked white, checked both black and white, or checked the last category on the form, “some other race,” which he would then have been asked to identify in writing.

The Right's Specious Claim That ‘ObamaCare’ Is Destroying Wealth

Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton economics professor:

A coalition of 300 large American corporations is lobbying Congress to rescind a tax provision in the recently passed health reform bill. This provision forces companies to book sizable write-offs in the current quarter.

In its lead editorial of March 27-28, The Wall Street Journal decried the provision as “The ObamaCare Writedowns,” writing that

ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of corporate losses. This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning.

What might have prompted the Obama administration and its allies in Congress to embark on this alleged “wholesale destruction of wealth?” Is it, in fact, a wholesale destruction of wealth?

To understand this issue, it may be well to illustrate it with a familiar analogy: a household expenditure that is deductible from taxable income under current law. For example, consider interest payments on mortgage loans made by homeowners who itemize their tax deductions.

Suppose that last year a homeowner made all his monthly payments on the second year of a 20-year, fixed-rate mortgage loan, which had an A.P.R. (“Annual Percentage Rate”) of 5 percent per year.

Using a standard amortization table for such a mortgage, we find that a homeowner with this mortgage could deduct $14,338 in mortgage-interest payments for 2009 from his taxes.

Now suppose that for some reason, the government had decided to grant homeowners a 30 percent subsidy on that interest expenditure. Consequently, this homeowner gets a check for $4,301 from the government.

What amount should that homeowner then be allowed to deduct from taxable income for 2009 – the gross interest payment of $14,338, or the net interest payment $10,037?

If the former, the homeowner in effect could tax-deduct an expenditure that was actually made for him by the government. Would that be reasonable? Many people would say no.

The answer to this question bears directly on the current brouhaha over the “ObamaCare Writedowns.”

In previous decades, many American companies offered their workers retiree-health plans that promised to cover sundry medical expenses not covered by Medicare, prescription drugs prominently among them. Economists are convinced that, at the time they were made, these promises were substitutes for the cash take-home pay of workers.

Under a  Financial Accounting Standards Board statement (FASB ASC 715), business firms since 1993 have had to estimate, at the end of any fiscal year, the total projected cost of all future retiree health benefits promised to employees already on board or already retired at that time. Companies must then add that total to the liabilities on their balance sheets.

To maintain the famous accounting identity

NET WORTH = ASSETS – LIABILITIES

firms also recorded a corresponding reduction in the firm’s reported net worth. That reduction in the firm’s book net worth, however, is not a destruction of wealth. It merely makes visible the net worth that management has already given away to workers in the form of promised future retiree health care ...

Enter now the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which since 2006 has provided Medicare beneficiaries with substantial federal subsidies for prescription drugs.

Marriage Equality & The Census

Poll: Slightly More Americans Blame The Dems Than The Right's Rhetoric For Post Health Vote Violence

An appalling finding by Gallup:

Americans hold all sides of the healthcare reform battle responsible for the rash of threatening e-mails, phone calls, and vandalism that erupted last week after the healthcare bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Roughly half (49%) say controversial political maneuvers by Democratic leaders to secure the votes they needed were a major reason. Nearly as many blame harsh criticism of the bill by both conservative media commentators and Republican leaders.

Overall, a majority of Americans surveyed in the March 26-28 USA Today/Gallup poll believe each factor was at least a minor explanation for these extreme public reactions to the bill's passage.

Republicans mainly blame the actions of Democratic leaders while, in equal measure, Democrats mainly blame the rhetoric of conservative commentators and Republican leaders. Political independents are somewhat more likely to attribute responsibility to Democratic leaders' actions than to Republican leaders' words.

A striking Gallup finding in the immediate aftermath of the healthcare vote was that by 41% to 29%, Republicans were more likely to say they were "angry" about the outcome than Democrats were to say they were "enthusiastic."

One reason for Republicans' anger may be revealed in a new question asking whether Americans believe the methods Democratic leaders used to secure passage of the bill represented "an abuse of power" or "an appropriate use" of the majority party's power in Congress. Nearly 9 in 10 Republicans see it as abuse of power, whereas a smaller majority of Democrats (70%) call it an appropriate use of power. The majority of independents agree with most Republicans on this question.

Obama Jokes About The GOP's & Media's Reaction To Health Reform Passage

Definitely worth watching both because it's amusing and because it again makes clear that Obama operates on a longer time frame than his opponents and the media:

A Peek At What's To Come Nationally As MA Rejects Health Insurer Rate Hikes

As Obamacare, particularly the exchanges, are modeled on Romneycare, this Boston Globe report on the Commonwealth's push back against medical cost increases has import for everyone:

Making good on Governor Deval Patrick’s promise to reject health insurance rate increases deemed excessive, the state Division of Insurance yesterday denied 235 of 274 increases proposed by insurers for plans covering individuals and small businesses.

The rulings, following a review process set in motion by emergency regulations Patrick filed in February, mark the first time the state has used its authority to turn down health premium increases. The action immediately sent ripples through the state health care industry.

Insurers said it would usher in an era of price controls, and vowed to appeal to the state or through the courts — a process that could drag on for months.

“We share the concern about rising health costs, but we don’t think government price controls will solve the problem,’’ said Jay McQuaide, vice president at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurer.

But small businesses applauded the rejection of higher premiums, saying they can’t continue to endure rapidly escalating insurance bills, especially after the long economic downturn.

“Costs will double in four years if it keeps going on the same trend,’’ said Dennis Franson, whose two-person investment firm in Woburn was facing an 18 percent rate increase. “That’s unsustainable.’’

Insurance Commissioner Joseph G. Murphy found that most of the base rates proposed by state health plans were “unreasonable relative to the benefits provided,’’ according to a statement issued by the agency.

The rates were to have taken effect yesterday for thousands of businesses and individuals in the so-called small group market. That group, created by the state’s 2006 universal health care law, combines businesses employing up to 50 people with sole proprietors and self-employed people who previously bought insurance on their own or were uninsured.

Insurers proposed base rate increases averaging 8 percent to 32 percent for hundreds of separate products, offering different mixes of benefit designs, copays, and deductibles. On top of overall base rates, insurers often add extra costs for each business, adjusting for such things as geography, industry, and the size and age of a workforce. That can drive rates up significantly.

For now, premium rates established last year remain in effect. Because insurers send out bills four to six weeks in advance of the date policies take effect, companies or individuals that already made the new, higher payments will receive a refund or a credit from insurers ...

The Insurance Division, in letters to carriers, outlined reasons for the rate rejections. Among them were rate proposals that are significantly above the medical consumer price index — a consumer health care spending measure estimated at 4.8 percent — and proposals that failed to explain how insurers set different reimbursement rates.

Several proposals, including those from for-profit, out-of-state insurers such as Aetna, ConnectiCare, and United HealthCare, were approved after the companies worked with Insurance Division staffers on ways to reduce costs. Some of those approved called for increases above 4.8 percent, but insurers offered data justifying the increases, according to the state.

Insurers whose rates were rejected — most of which posted operating losses for 2009 due to job cuts at companies they sell plans to — received yesterday’s decision with anger.

“We’re very disappointed,’’ said McQuaide at Blue Cross-Blue Shield. “The rates we filed reflect expected medical costs of members buying our products. And we were surprised the disapprovals had no actuarial opinions, suggesting this was an arbitrary decision.’’

Lora Pellegrini, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, said her group was weighing all administrative and legal options with its members, which include nonprofits such as Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Health Plan, and Fallon Community Health Plan.

“If we’re not going to be allowed to have our prices cover our costs, that will be a problem for the whole industry,’’ she said.

But Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which represents 3,100 retailers and restaurants, said the rejections were justified.

“It’s welcome news on Main Street,’’ Hurst said. “They’re not hiring, and they’re seeing double-digit health premium increases every year. The real message is that a line in the sand has been drawn. And big health care in the state has got to get out of its alternative universe.’’

Insurers have up to 15 days to request appeal hearings at the Insurance Division, Murphy said in an interview. Such public hearings would be complex, lasting from a few days to a week. They would examine rate increases proposed for various products, and hearing officers would have 30 days to make their rulings. If the appeals are rebuffed, insurers can go to Superior Court.

Carriers also have the option of filing new rate requests with more modest increases, which would require a 30-day review.

As of now, however, the old rates remain in effect, and insurers must honor the plans they sold.

Several health care industry officials said that as a result of the state’s stance, insurers will probably take a tougher position with hospitals and other health care providers when current contracts expire, in an effort to limit reimbursements.

In Attempt To Move Climate Change Legislation Forward, Obama Splits The Difference

From the Wash Post, "President Obama's decision to approve new oil and gas drilling off America's coasts for the first time in decades reflects a high-stakes calculation by the White House: Splitting the difference on the most contentious energy issues could help secure a bipartisan climate deal this year."

President Obama's decision, announced Wednesday, to approve new oil and gas drilling off U.S. coasts for the first time in decades reflects a high-stakes calculation by the White House: Splitting the difference on the most contentious energy issues could help secure a bipartisan climate deal this year.

In what could represent the biggest expansion of offshore energy exploration in half a century, Obama announced that he will open the door to drilling off Virginia's coast, in other parts of the mid- and south Atlantic, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and in waters off Alaska. At the same time, he declared off-limits the waters off the West Coast and in Alaska's Bristol Bay, canceled four scheduled lease sales in Alaska and called for more study before allowing new lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

What Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called "a new direction" in energy policy amounted to an offshore political gerrymander in which the administration barred drilling near states where it remains unpopular -- California and New Jersey -- and allowed it in places where it has significant support, such as Virginia and parts of Alaska and the Southeast.

Some conservative critics questioned whether the policy will have any real impact on energy production, while liberals decried the risks to the environment. But the White House's key audience -- undecided senators who will determine whether a climate bill succeeds on Capitol Hill this year -- suggested that the move had helped revive the legislation's prospects.

A string of senators, including Alaska's Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R), Louisiana's Mary Landrieu (D), New Hampshire's Judd Gregg (R), and Virginia Democrats Mark Warner and James Webb, praised the strategy. They have urged the administration to use a climate bill to help boost domestic energy production, through expansion of oil and gas drilling and nuclear power, and Begich and Gregg said Wednesday's announcement made them more optimistic about a deal on the bill than they have been in months.

Noting that Obama has also offered recent support for more nuclear production, Gregg said such moves show that the administration is "genuinely trying to approach the energy production issue in a multifaceted way and a realistic way, rather than listening to people on their left."

Landrieu concurred, saying that Obama is "sending as clear a signal as possible that he is willing to compromise in a way that will bring forth a great energy and climate bill, and he wants Republicans to be a part of it."

But coastal lawmakers such as Democratic Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland joined environmentalists in blasting the change as unnecessary, and said it could jeopardize fisheries and tourist attractions.

Bigots Trying To Make Marriage Equality An Issue In Ca GOP Senate Primary

And I hope they succeed since that'll ensure a social conservative will become the GOP's candidate in the general election ... which will diminsh their chances of winning the election that matters. From the Wash Post:

The Republican contest to determine who will challenge California Sen. Barbara Boxer in the fall has focused so far on the bread-and-butter issues of the day - jobs, the economy and federal spending.

That's changing as the June primary draws closer. A national group opposed to gay marriage is trying to shift the focus to that lightning rod issue in the coming weeks, putting pressure on the candidate seen as the most moderate of the three GOP challengers.

Former congressman Tom Campbell, a supporter of gay marriage, finds himself under attack and his previous front-runner status reduced to a statistical tie with former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in one poll. Another poll taken about the same time showed Campbell clinging to a narrow lead.

The National Organization for Marriage is spending $300,000 on television ads that liken Campbell to Boxer on taxes and gay marriage, calling them two peas in the same liberal pod.

Republicans who have been hard-liners on gay marriage and abortion typically perform well in GOP primaries in California but falter in general elections, when the voter base is far broader and more centrist. Republicans account for less than a third of the electorate.

A business professor who holds a doctorate in economics, Campbell is the kind of middle-of-the-road Republican who would be likely to give Boxer a tough challenge as she seeks a fourth term in the Senate. But his opposition to Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that enshrined a ban on gay marriage in the California Constitution, has made him a target of the social conservatives who dominate the ranks of the state GOP.

A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that 67 percent of Republicans disagree with Campbell on the issue. The same poll found that for the first time more Californians support gay marriage than oppose it.

New Dem Theme For November: "On health-care reform, on student loans and (soon) on financial regulations, Democrats fought off the moneyed interests in defense of the little guy"

Dana Millbank:

... it was a chance for the president, just back from the political dead, to test some themes for this fall's midterm campaigns.

"This day affirms our ability to overcome the challenges of our politics and meet the challenges of our time," Obama, in triumphant mode, told the NoVa audience. "When I took office, one of the questions we needed to answer was whether it was still possible to make government responsive to the needs of everyday people . . . or whether the special interests and their lobbyists would continue to hold sway." Obama, on the basis of "two major victories in one week," felt confident enough to claim success.

The president's celebration may be premature. A USA Today/Gallup poll out Tuesday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans think the health-care law costs too much and expands the government's role too much. Although other polls have shown a jump in Obama's popularity, Gallup found that Obama's disapproval rating climbed to 50 percent for the first time.

But there is no doubt that the conventional wisdom in the capital has done a 180 in recent days. Had Obama failed on health-care reform, the end of his presidency would have been proclaimed. Instead, he has been restored as ruler of all he surveys, and he's acting as such.

Over the weekend, he dashed off to Afghanistan for an unscheduled visit; on his return, he lectured Hamid Karzai, suggesting on the "Today" show that the Afghan president heed "the fierce urgency of now" -- a Martin Luther King Jr. phrase adopted by Obama's presidential campaign. At home, Obama has taken on an increasingly confident tone, telling those who would repeal the health-care law to "go for it," the way George W. Bush said of Iraqi insurgents: "Bring 'em on."

Obama's approval rating at NoVa on Tuesday was undoubtedly higher than it was in the Gallup poll. In the front row was his new ally Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), a far-left congressman who was posing for pictures with admirers. About two dozen lawmakers, including Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), filled the first two rows. The students, nearly equaled in number by congressional staffers and interest group activists, gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a thunderous ovation when she took the stage. The crowd even applauded the man who came out to make sure the teleprompter was working ...

The president spared few words for the health-care component of the bill, devoting more than 10 times as much to an add-on provision: the student loan change that is supposed to save billions by cutting out banks as the middlemen.

Obama portrayed the change as the culmination of an epic struggle, "for almost two decades" and against an "army" of lobbyists. "I didn't stand with the banks and the financial industries in this fight," he said, auditioning the populist message that he and Democrats hope to take to voters in November. "Neither did any of the members of Congress who are here today. We stood with you."

What emerged on Tuesday was a single, coherent theme: on health-care reform, on student loans and (soon) on financial regulations, Democrats fought off the moneyed interests in defense of the little guy.

"From the moment I was sworn into office, I've spoken about the urgent need for us to lay a new foundation for our economy and for our future," Obama said. Now, "we can rightly say the foundation on which America's future will be built is stronger than it was one year ago."

GOP Leaders Beginning To Lose Their Nerve (aka, come to their senses) About Health Repeal

Pity the poor GOP stuck between a rock and a hard place, both of their own making. From the Wash Post:

Top Republicans are increasingly worried that GOP candidates this fall might be burned by a fire that's roaring through the conservative base: demand for the repeal of President Barack Obama's new health care law.

It's fine to criticize the health law and the way Democrats pushed it through Congress without a single GOP vote, these party leaders say. But focusing on its outright repeal carries two big risks.

Repeal is politically and legally unlikely, and grass-roots activists may feel disillusioned by a failed crusade. More important, say strategists from both parties, a fiercely repeal-the-bill stance might prove far less popular in a general election than in a conservative-dominated GOP primary, especially in states such as Illinois and California.

Democrats are counting on that scenario. They say more Americans will learn of the new law's benefits over time and anger over its messy legislative pedigree will fade. For months, Democrats have eagerly catalogued Republican congressional candidates who pledge to repeal the health care law, vowing to make them pay in November.

Republican leaders are stepping cautiously, wary of angering staunchly conservative voters bent on repealing the new law. In recent public comments, they have quietly played down the notion of repealing the law while emphasizing claims that it will hurt jobs, the economy and the deficit ...

On Tuesday, Cornyn issued a 1,280-word campaign memo that mentioned "repeal" only once. It did not advocate repeal but noted that in a recent poll, "46 percent of respondents support a full repeal" of the health law.

Three weeks ago, Cornyn told reporters he thought GOP Senate candidates would and should run on a platform of repealing the legislation.

Cornyn and others increasingly are focused on several corporations' claims that a provision of the new law that cancels a tax benefit will hurt profits and hiring. This approach places a greater premium on pivoting to the economy instead of dwelling on the legalistic process of trying to repeal the complex law.

"The health care debate provides a natural segue into talking about the economy and jobs," said Nicklaus Simpson, spokesman for the Senate Republican Conference, a policy group ...

Obama said last week he would relish a Republican bid to repeal the new law.

"My attitude is, go for it," Obama said in Iowa on Friday. "If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest."

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an interview that his team began months ago pressing Republican candidates to state whether they support repeal of the health care legislation. Most of them have, and Democrats predict such support will prove unpopular this fall.

"We believe the issue of repeal is one that puts the Republicans in a pretty sticky place," Menendez said. "You never want to wage a campaign telling voters you want to take something away from them."

The Fight To Shape U.S. Health Care Enters New "Blunt It" Phase

The Wall St Journal reports the fight is, far from being over, just beginning:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is planning a broad effort to blunt the health overhaul by trying to shape its regulatory language and spending heavily to unseat vulnerable Democrats who voted for it.

The campaign is the latest example of the escalating tensions between proponents of the health overhaul and big businesses, which have become more specific in their criticisms of the new law ...

In a letter to board members Monday, chamber president and chief executive Thomas J. Donohue said the business lobby will seek changes to regulations to "minimize the potentially harmful impacts of this bill on our members and the country." If regulators "exceed legislative mandates or try for end-runs around the lawful rule-making process," he wrote, the chamber "will take legal action."

Mr. Donohue also said the group planned to spend $50 million this summer and fall to ensure that voters in pivotal House and Senate races know where lawmakers stand on health and other big issues. The chamber spent $36.4 million in the 2008 election.

At the heart of the effort will be a team of chamber staff that will "participate in the years-long process of writing the thousands of pages of federal regulations that will implement the many provisions of this legislation," Mr. Donohue wrote.

While the chamber can't actually write those provisions, it can lobby for certain language and technical corrections.

Other major lobbies are readying similar efforts. Although the legislation contains more than 2,000 pages of provisions, many details are left to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to define, and will require more specific regulatory language.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's main lobbying group, has formed a task force to coordinate its implementation efforts and plans to give its input as officials draw up the regulations.

The American Medical Association, which represents doctors, hopes to shape provisions including a new panel to impose Medicare payment cuts, as well as increased research comparing the effectiveness of medical treatments, according to a spokeswoman for the group.

Major groups that supported the bill also plan to spend heavily on the 2010 elections. The AFL-CIO labor organization plans to surpass the $53 million it spent during the 2008 elections in this year's fall races.

Meanwhile, Families USA, a liberal advocacy group, has teamed with insurers to launch an educational campaign that will help people sign up for insurance at places like doctors' offices and pharmacies.

Obama Signs Student Loan Overhaul Law

NY Times:

President Obama signed legislation on Tuesday to expand college access for millions of young Americans by revamping the federal student loan program in what he called “one of the most significant investments in higher education since the G.I. Bill.”

Mr. Obama went to a community college where the wife of his vice president teaches to draw attention to the student loan overhaul attached to the final piece of health care legislation that passed last week. In signing the bill, Mr. Obama put the final touches on his health care program but used the occasion to highlight the education provisions.

“That’s two major victories in one week,” he told students and guests at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College, where Jill Biden teaches English. While he praised the health care overhaul, the president said, “what’s gotten overlooked amid all the hoopla, all the drama of last week, is what’s happened with education.”

The new law will eliminate fees paid to private banks to act as intermediaries in providing loans to college students and use much of the nearly $68 billion in savings over 11 years to expand Pell grants and make it easier for students to repay outstanding loans after graduating. The law also invests $2 billion in community colleges over the next four years to provide education and career training programs to workers eligible for trade adjustment aid after dislocation in their industries.

The law will increase Pell grants along with inflation in the next few years, which should raise the maximum grant to $5,975 from $5,550 by 2017, according to the White House, and it will also provide 820,000 more grants by 2020.

Students who borrow money starting in July 2014 will be allowed to cap repayments at 10 percent of income above a basic living allowance, instead of 15 percent. Moreover, if they keep up payments, their balances will be forgiven after 20 years instead of 25 years — or after 10 years if they are in public service, like teaching, nursing or serving in the military.

Mr. Obama portrayed the overhaul of the student loan program as a triumph over an “army of lobbyists,” singling out Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, which he said spent $3 million on lobbying to stop the changes. “For almost two decades, we’ve been trying to fix a sweetheart deal in federal law that essentially gave billions of dollars to banks,” he said. The money, he said, “was spent padding student lenders’ pockets.”

Insurers Cave & Agree To Cover Kid's Pre-Existing Conditions

Instructive what a little spine can do, no? From the NY Times:

Under pressure from the White House, health insurance companies said Tuesday that they would comply with rules to be issued soon by the Obama administration requiring them to cover children with pre-existing medical problems.

“Health plans recognize the significant hardship that a family faces when they are unable to obtain coverage for a child with a pre-existing condition,” said Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group. Accordingly, she said, “we await and will fully comply with” the rules.

Ms. Ignagni made the commitment in a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, who had said she feared that some insurers might exploit a possible ambiguity in the new health care law to deny coverage to some sick children.

The White House immediately claimed victory.

In a Twitter message, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, scored the tug of war as “Kids 1, insurance 0.”

Major provisions of the law take effect in 2014. Some, including a ban on “pre-existing condition exclusions” for children under 19, take effect in September. The law does not explicitly say that insurers must sell insurance to families with such children this year, but Democratic Congressional leaders and White House officials said that was their intent.

To eliminate any ambiguity, Ms. Sebelius said, she will issue rules defining the scope of the new law.

Under these rules, Ms. Sebelius said, “children with pre-existing conditions may not be denied access to their parents’ health insurance plan,” and “insurance companies will no longer be allowed to insure a child but exclude treatments for that child’s pre-existing condition.”

In response to a question, Nick Papas, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the rules would require insurers to offer coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, including those who have never had health insurance.

Ms. Sebelius said she was pleased that “insurance companies plan to do the right thing.”

It was not immediately clear whether the rules would allow insurers to charge higher premiums to families with children with pre-existing conditions. Administration officials said they would be monitoring any rate increases.

Some Democrats in Congress want Mr. Obama to take a tough line. If insurers could raise premiums without limits, they would, in effect, be denying coverage, Democrats say.

Obama To Open Vast Off-Shore Tracts To Oil Drilling

NY Times:

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.

The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters — supporting nuclear power, for example — the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback. And it is no sure thing that it will win support for a climate bill from undecided senators close to the oil industry, like Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, or Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.

The Senate is expected to take up a climate bill in the next few weeks — the last chance to enact such legislation before midterm election concerns take over. Mr. Obama and his allies in the Senate have already made significant concessions on coal and nuclear power to try to win votes from Republicans and moderate Democrats. The new plan now grants one of the biggest items on the oil industry’s wish list — access to vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling.

Maybe You Can't Patent DNA After All

Patenting a diagnostic test I understand. Patenting the gene that is being tested for, seems contrary to patent law (where's the "invention"?).  Now, at least one District Court judge agrees with me. From the NY Times:

On Monday, Mr. Sweet, a United States district judge in Manhattan, ruled that parts of patents held by Myriad Genetics covering two breast cancer genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, were invalid.

Myriad analyzes those genes in an expensive test that predicts whether a woman is at a high risk of getting breast or ovarian cancer. The plaintiffs in the case, which included various medical groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, said the patents on DNA were illegal and impeded access to the testing.

The decision invalidating the gene patents stunned many lawyers who follow such issues.

“It’s really quite a dramatic holding that would have the effect of invalidating many, many patents on which the biotechnology industry has invested considerable money,” said Rebecca S. Eisenberg, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has written widely on gene patents.

The Genomics Law Report, an Internet journal, called the decision “radical and astonishing in its sweep.” It headlined its article, “Pigs Fly.”

Although patents are not granted on things found in nature, the DNA being patented had long been considered a chemical that was isolated from, and different from, what was found in nature. But Judge Sweet ruled that the distinguishing feature of DNA is its information content, its conveyance of the genetic code. And in that regard, he wrote, the isolated DNA “is not markedly different from native DNA as it exists in nature.”

The immediate impact will be limited in part because the decision, made in a district court, does not apply to gene patents other than the ones it considered, and its value as precedent for other courts is limited.

Moreover, Myriad said Tuesday that it would appeal, and several lawyers said they expected the ruling to be overturned. Professor Eisenberg said “there isn’t a whole lot of doctrinal support” for considering DNA as information rather than as a chemical.

Even before an appeal is decided, the landscape could change in a way that would render the Myriad case moot. A ruling is expected soon from the Supreme Court in the so-called Bilski case. That case does not directly concern gene patents — it is about a fight over a method of hedging risk in commodities trading — but it gives the Supreme Court a chance to set new standards on what is patentable.

“We are still waiting, holding our breath for the Bilski case,” said Kari Stefansson, head of research at DeCode Genetics, which sells disease risk tests similar to those sold by Myriad.

If Judge Sweet’s decision were upheld on appeal, the impact could be more far-reaching. The biggest impact would be on companies like Myriad and Athena Diagnostics that offer diagnostic tests based on genes.

Some biotechnology investors and executives say that lack of patent protection for DNA could diminish investment and remove incentives to develop tests. That could slow the move toward so-called personalized medicine, in which genetic tests are used to determine which drugs are best for which patients.

James P. Evans, a professor of genetics at the University of North Carolina, said that would not necessarily be the case. There is thriving competition in areas like testing for mutations that cause cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease, even though no company has exclusivity.

“It’s quite demonstrable that in the diagnostic area, one does not need gene patents in order to see robust development of these tests,” he said.

"Obama Steps Up Confrontation"

Wall St Journal:

President Barack Obama, after a year of fitfully searching for compromise, is taking a more aggressive tack with his Republican adversaries, hoping to energize Democratic voters and possibly muscle in some Republican support in Congress.

On Thursday, the president challenged Republicans who planned to campaign on repealing his health-care bill with, "Go for it." Two days later, he made 15 senior appointments without Senate consent, including a union lawyer whose nomination had been blocked by a filibuster.

At a bill-signing event Tuesday, he is set to laud passage of higher-education legislation that was approved despite Republican objections through a parliamentary maneuver that neutralized the party's filibuster threat.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama will be in Maine, home state of two moderate Republican senators who opposed his health-care plan, to promote the health law.

Even his surprise trip to Afghanistan on Sunday mobilized the perks of the presidency to marshal public opinion, as pictures were beamed home of Mr. Obama mobbed by U.S. troops.

A senior Democratic official said the push was a textbook case of taking advantage of political momentum as the campaign season begins. Republicans are "on the defensive," the official said, "and as long as they're not cooperating, we ought to keep them there."

Republicans say Mr. Obama's overtures to them have been for show, whether it was his January meeting with House Republicans in Baltimore or last month's televised, bipartisan health-care summit.

The partisanship "may be more visible, and he may be more resolute about it, but as far as most of us are concerned, this is business as usual," said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, a member of the Republican leadership. But Mr. Alexander said the recent moves are broader ...

Recently, Mr. Obama has been swinging particularly hard. He followed up his "go for it" taunt Thursday with the recess appointment of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, adopting a tactic that presidents of both parties have used in recent decades to skirt the normal confirmation process. Mr. Becker's confirmation had been blocked in the Senate by a filibuster in February.

Mitt Romney Hypocritically Touts His Health Plan While Dissing Obama's Nearly Identical Plan

Boston Globe:

Mitt Romney offered an enthusiastic defense last night of the comprehensive health care law he helped create four years ago in Massachusetts, even as he pointed to crucial distinctions between it and a similar national program enacted last week by Democrats.

"Overall, ours is a model that works,’’ Romney said in response to a question after a speech at Iowa State University. “We solved our problem at the state level. Like it or not, it was a state solution. Why is it that President Obama is stepping in and saying ‘one size fits all’ ’’?

Obama’s signing of a federal health care law has put Romney — a possible 2012 presidential candidate — again on the defensive over the most significant achievement in his brief career in public office. The former governor, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate again for president in 2012, had labeled Obama’s bill “unhealthy for America’’ and has called for its repeal, even as conservative critics say it was modeled on Romney’s policy.

Yesterday, Romney proudly acknowledged that his bill included a set of new insurance regulations that “President Obama always likes to talk about in his health care plan — the good stuff.’’ Romney trumpeted the achievement of near-universal coverage in Massachusetts, while declining to acknowledge that the mechanism he used to achieve that goal — a requirement that individuals buy private insurance — is the same as the much-criticized mandate of Obama’s plan.

The accounting of “some similarities’’ and “some differences’’ between the two systems was a more delicate comparison than Romney has offered recently, when he wholly rejected the idea that the two had anything significant in common.

“People often compare his plan to the Massachusetts plan,’’ Romney said in an interview last month. “They’re as different as night and day. There are some words that sound the same, but our plan is based on states solving our issues; his is based on a one-size-fits-all plan.’’

In the last week, many health care policy specialists, Democrats celebrating the bill’s passage, and Republicans condemning it have come to another conclusion. The difference between the two systems, they say, is slim.

“Basically, it’s the same thing,’’ said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney and Obama administrations on their health insurance programs. A national health overhaul would not have happened if Mitt Romney had not made “the decision in 2005 to go for it. He is in many ways the intellectual father of national health reform.’’

After Congress last week passed the national plan, considered the most expansive social legislation to become law in nearly a half-century, Romney wrote it was an “unconscionable abuse of power’’ that “will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt.’’ Romney’s political action committee, a leading supporter of Republican candidates nationwide, has begun a campaign to support those who voted no as part of what it calls a “Prescription to Repeal.’’

"Sebelius to insurers: Make my day"

Ezra Klein:

The health-care story of the day is that insurers think they've found a way to get around getting around Congress's intent to ban preexisting condition discrimination for children. Details here. This afternoon, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter (pdf) to Karen Ignagni, head of the insurers trade association, saying, essentially, are you sure you want to try this?

In the letter, Sebelius says that she will issue regulations clarifying that the law says children cannot be denied access to their parents' plan and that the plan cannot exclude coverage for their preexisting conditions. "I urge you to share this information with your members," Sebelius says, "and to help ensure they cease any attempt to deny coverage to some of the youngest and most vulnerable Americans."

The politics -- and policy -- of this fight will be interesting. For the Republicans, this is a good issue in that it makes the bill look shoddily written. "If they can’t get these two things right," Sen. Mitch McConnell asked in his weekly radio address, "how can we expect them to properly manage the rest of it?"

Oddly, this is also a good issue for the Democrats. Why? Well, it lets them pick a fight with insurers who are trying to deny health-care coverage to sick little kids. Ignagni might as well kick an endangered puppy-panda hybrid in the face. On national television. While rooting for Duke to win the NCAA tournament.

The losers here are actually the insurers. As far as I can tell, their reading of the law is legitimate. And they have a lot to lose from a fight with the administration. It's not obvious that Sebelius actually can change this with a stroke of her pen, but there are plenty of other things she can do with a stroke of her pen that will make the insurance industry's life very, very difficult. And since this policy actually isn't a very big deal -- fairly few kids are uninsured because their preexisting conditions are keeping them off their parents' plan -- I'd guess that the administration and the insurers reach some sort of accord on this.

Ezra was right. The insurers quickly caved.

Special Corporate Interests Bemoan The Loss Of Their Lobbyist Given Tax Breaks

Poor, poor corporate giants. The favored megacorps are decrying the loss of a special tax break that they get on top of a subsidy and is available only to them, according to the NY Times:

An association representing 300 large corporations urged President Obama and Congress on Monday to repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that prompted AT&T, Caterpillar and other companies to announce substantial charges for the current quarter.

The association, the American Benefits Council, said the provision — which reduces the tax deductions for companies with drug coverage for their retired employees — would deal a significant blow to corporate profits and would discourage companies from hiring more workers.

AT&T announced last week that it was taking a $1 billion charge because of the provision. Deere & Company announced a $150 million charge, Caterpillar a $100 million charge, and 3M a $90 million charge.

Many companies said they were taking these charges now, before the current quarter ended, to comply with accounting rules. But some corporate critics asserted that the companies’ rapid response to the health legislation was aimed at pressing the administration to repeal the provision.

James A. Klein, the president of the American Benefits Council, called the provision “a serious mistake that is having negative and unintended consequences.”

White House officials defended the provision, saying it was a deliberate effort to eliminate what they said was an unusually generous tax loophole.

They said the overall health care overhaul would save businesses more than $150 billion over the next decade by reducing health care inflation.

“We’re confident that the benefits are going to accrue and strengthen business’s bottom line,” said Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House Health Reform Office.

When Congress and President George W. Bush enacted a prescription drug plan for seniors in 2003, the legislation encouraged companies to continue providing prescription coverage to retirees, instead of shifting retirees to Medicare Part D, by having the government give those companies large subsidies for each retiree — and also allowing them to deduct those subsidies from their income taxes.

Under the health care overhaul, the federal government will continue providing those subsidies — amounting to 28 percent of a drug plan’s costs — but companies will lose the tax break.

In a telephone news conference on Monday, Mr. Klein cited a study by Towers Watson, a consulting firm, saying the loss of the deduction would cost companies $14 billion in future years.

“Particularly in this economic environment, it makes no sense to impose this type of a hit on companies’ financial statements,” Mr. Klein said. The provision takes effect in 2013, but accounting rules require companies to take immediate charges equal to the current value of any known hit to future profits.

Defending the provision, White House officials said it was rare for companies to obtain a tax-free federal subsidy and be able to deduct it as well.

These officials added that the health care legislation contained a $5 billion subsidy for companies that maintain health plans to early retirees.

Voyeurgate

NY Times:

The Republican National Committee on Monday opened an investigation into why party money, which donors contributed to help win seats in the midterm elections, was used to pay a $2,000 tab at a risqué Hollywood club in late January.

The outing at Voyeur in West Hollywood, which features topless dancers and acts involving bondage, appeared on the Republicans’ monthly disclosure report to the Federal Election Commission, along with tens of thousands of dollars for private airplanes, limousines and luxury hotels.

“It was obviously improper — for more than one reason,” said Doug Heye, a party spokesman, who confirmed that officials had opened an inquiry into the club expenditure. “It was not a sanctioned R.N.C. activity. It was improper because of the venue.”

A Republican National Committee staff member, who was not identified, was dismissed for his role in the incident, Mr. Heye said Monday evening. He added that “accounting and reimbursement processes are being revised” to prevent similar episodes from occurring.

As Republicans try to win control of the House and Senate in this midterm election year, several party officials and contributors have privately raised concerns about the financial disparities with Democrats. The Republican Congressional re-election committees have fallen behind their Democratic rivals, a fund-raising gap that party leaders had hoped would be narrowed by the Republican National Committee.

Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., a Republican consultant and donor, submitted a reimbursement request for $1,946.25 from his club visit on Jan. 31. He listed the amount as a meal expense at the club, whose interior was inspired by an orgy scene in the movie “Eyes Wide Shut.” When the expenditure came to light on Monday, after it was reported by The Daily Caller, a conservative online publication, party officials said Mr. Brown would repay the money.

Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, has battled criticism for his spending habits. He has drawn consternation from party officials for delivering paid speeches across the country ...  Mr. Heye said Mr. Steele was aboard a flight from the party’s winter meeting at the time of the nightclub outing and was not involved. An interview request with Mr. Steele on Monday was declined ...

The February filings to the Federal Election Commission show that the Republican committee spent $17,500 on travel by private jet, in addition to about $15,000 on limousines. The report also listed several hotel charges ranging in the thousands of dollars, including the W Hotel in Washington ($15,000), the Beverly Hills Hotel ($9,000) and the Four Seasons in Philadelphia ($7,000).

Mr. Heye said the expenses were simply the cost of doing business and raising money. He said that Mr. Steele’s travel was “overwhelmingly on commercial airlines — that is the standard mode.” But he added, “There are times when there is a route that doesn’t exist.”

When Mr. Steele took over the committee last year, it had $22 million in cash on hand. This month, records show, that amount is $9.46 million.

In a radio interview earlier this year, Mr. Steele brushed aside criticism of the party’s spending, as well as assertions that some contributors had stopped donating or lowered their contributions.

Mr. Steele told KTRS radio in St. Louis: “I am in this chair. If they want it, take it from me. Until then, shut up, step back and get in the game and help us win.”

A New York Times review of the Democratic National Committee spending in the month of February found that the party spent about $11,000 on car services and limousines, with the largest expense being $9,800 for a private car service in Dallas. Other expenditures included a $32,000 bill at the Capital Skyline Hotel in Washington, for what party officials said was a weeklong staff retreat, and $256,000 on catering and equipment rental at the Washington Hilton for the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee.

The Democratic National Committee seized on the Republican financial report on Monday. A spokesman for the party, Brad Woodhouse, said: “If limos, chartered aircraft and sex clubs are where they think their donors’ money should be spent, who are we to judge?”

Uninsured Americans Are "predominantly independent". Could Dems Enjoy Electoral Benefits For Years To Come?

According to Gallup, "Americans who lack health insurance are predominantly independent in their political orientation. Given this, the health care reform effort could enable the Democrats to tap into this population for greater support in coming elections":

Uninsured Americans -- those who stand to benefit the most from health care reform -- are less Democratic and more independent than one might assume. Nearly half of the uninsured, compared with roughly a third of Americans with private insurance or Medicare, are politically independent.

Given this finding from Gallup Daily tracking in March, passing healthcare legislation did not merely cater to the Democrats' base, but could potentially expand it among the uninsured themselves, who may now have more reason to support Democrats. Gallup polling immediately after the healthcare vote found 58% of uninsured Americans, compared with 45% of insured Americans, favoring the bill.

The net effect among all independents won't necessarily be positive, however, as nearly 80% of that group currently has health insurance, and independents are almost evenly split on whether passage of the healthcare bill was a good thing or a bad thing.

Although the uninsured are clearly younger, on average, than the insured, age alone does not account for the tendency of the uninsured to be politically independent. At every age level, those without health insurance are more likely to be independent and less likely to be Republican than their insured counterparts.

"Tea-Party Candidates Face Hard Reality of Campaigns"

Wall St Journal:

Jason Meade of New Franklin, Ohio, is among hundreds of political hopefuls looking to ride the "tea party" wave to Washington this year. Like most, he's finding it a tough go.

Mr. Meade is running in the Republican primary in Ohio's 13th Congressional District against five candidates while juggling a 50-hour workweek at a plastics plant. His headquarters "is in the second-floor living room in the corner where the computer is," he says. His campaign has $3,000 to its name.

Mr. Meade's experience goes to the heart of a debate roiling the nascent movement: Should it back fervent long shots who hew to its antigovernment views, or should it rally around more traditional candidates, even if they don't perfectly reflect the movement's distaste for incumbents, taxes and spending?

The question is being asked as homegrown candidates confront brute realities of politics: reluctant donors, limited party support, inexperienced staffers and the uphill fight against incumbents

Grassroots support remains vigorous, as evidenced by the thousands of tea-party activists who gathered Saturday in Searchlight, Nev., to protest the health-care law and urge the ouster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Yet despite thronging primary races across the U.S., true tea-party candidates have stumbled at the polls. In the March 2 Texas primary, 18 incumbent Republican House members faced multiple challengers, including a flock of tea-party faithful. The incumbents won handily, with only one garnering below 60% of the vote.

Nor has a surge in Republican candidates translated into higher contributions. On average, Republican primary challengers have raised 37% less than Democratic counterparts, Federal Election Commission records show. Republican candidates for Congress have raised $294 million through 2009, nearly $30 million less than the Democrats, even though twice as many Republicans are running.

"The problem with the tea-party movement is it has inspired too many candidates," says Patrick Hughes, a candidate with tea-party backing who was trounced by Rep. Mark Kirk in the crowded Illinois Republican Senate primary. "The movement will fail if it can't coalesce behind candidates who can win."

Organizers hope public anger over President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul will help tea-party candidates who fiercely opposed the plan. Many are now promising to help repeal the law if they win, and are using the bill to try to drum up support from donors ...

"This is great news for us," says Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC has launched a Web site to highlight divisions in the GOP primaries.

"The most promising cost control in the ... Act is the one that takes much of the responsibility for controlling costs away from Congress and hands it off to an independent board of experts"

Ezra Klein:

It is a sad commentary on Congress that the most promising cost control in the Affordable Care Act is the one that takes much of the responsibility for controlling costs away from Congress and hands it off to an independent board of experts. That board -- officially known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board -- has made it through to the final bill, and in substantially stronger form than I, for one, expected. The House had always been more skeptical of the idea, but then the Senate bill became everybody's bill and the energy on changing it shifted to the big-ticket items such as affordability and surviving reconciliation. The result was that a strong version of IPAB slipped through almost unnoticed.

The IPAB is a 15-person, full-time board composed of health-care experts and stakeholders. Members need to be confirmed by the Senate and will serve six-year terms, with one possible reappointment. But the important thing isn't who serves. It's how they vote. Or, as the case may be, don't vote.

If Congress approves the board's recommendations and the president signs them, they go into effect. If Congress does not vote on the board's recommendations, they still go into effect. If Congress votes against the board's recommendations but the president vetoes and Congress can't find the two-thirds necessary to overturn the veto, the recommendations go into effect. It's only if Congress votes them down and the president agrees that the recommendations die. “I believe this commission is the largest yielding of sovereignty from the Congress since the creation of the Federal Reserve,” says Peter Orszag, who's been one of the idea's most enthusiastic supporters.

The board will propose packages of reforms that bring Medicare in line with certain spending targets. Those reforms won't increase cost sharing or taxes and they won't change eligibility or benefits. Instead, they're reforms of what Medicare pays for and how it pays for it. By 2018, the target growth rate is the average five-year increase in GDP plus one percentage point. So if GDP has been growing at 3 percent, the target is 4 percent. If Medicare's growth is faster than that, then the board is charged with saving the lesser of 1) the difference between the target growth rate and the real growth rate, or 2) 1.5 percentage points off the projected growth rate.

There are some weaknesses in the board. If Congress can find 60 votes, it can amend the board's recommendations without finding offsetting savings elsewhere. The board can't seriously change payment rates until 2018. And if Medicare is growing more slowly than the rest of the health-insurance market, then Congress can protect it from the board every other year (so it would have to save more money in, say, 2020, but not in 2021).

Nevertheless, this is the most powerful cost-cutting agency we've seen. For all those folks saying Congress can't stick to cuts, this is the closest thing to a solution that anyone's come up with. It gives Congress a way to let someone else take on the hard decisions that it doesn't have the expertise or political will to make. If Congress so chooses, it could let the IPAB do its work without ever bringing the recommendations up for a vote: They'd still go into effect, and no one would be on the record in either direction.

As a commentary on Congress, is all this a bit sad, and even weird? Yes. But it may also be necessary. And it will be interesting to see how it interacts with the private market: You could see the reforms that get seeded into Medicare being adopted by everyone else (which is common even now). And if Medicare does bring its costs far down while private insurance finds itself unable to make meaningful changes, pressure could increase for some sort of Medicare buy-in program along the lines of what Alan Grayson is proposing.

The bottom line is that IPAB creates a continuous system for controlling costs in Medicare and trying out new reforms and experiments. For all those disappointed by Congress's fecklessness when it came to cost controls in the Affordable Care Act, know that Congress actually agrees with you, and is trying to do something about it. Or at least let someone else do something about it.

Some Insurers Are Trying To Weasel Out Of Covering Children With Pre-Exsiting Conditions

NY Times:

Just days after President Obama signed the new health care law, insurance companies are already arguing that, at least for now, they do not have to provide one of the benefits that the president calls a centerpiece of the law: coverage for certain children with pre-existing conditions.

Mr. Obama, speaking at a health care rally in northern Virginia on March 19, said, “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.”

The authors of the law say they meant to ban all forms of discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes, birth defects, orthopedic problems, leukemia, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. The goal, they say, was to provide those youngsters with access to insurance and to a full range of benefits once they are in a health plan.

To insurance companies, the language of the law is not so clear.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

William G. Schiffbauer, a lawyer whose clients include employers and insurance companies, said: “The fine print differs from the larger political message. If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost.”

Congressional Democrats were furious when they learned that some insurers disagreed with their interpretation of the law.

“The concept that insurance companies would even seek to deny children coverage exemplifies why we fought for this reform,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Senate commerce committee, said: “The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous.”

The issue is one of many that federal officials are tackling as they prepare to carry out the law, with a huge stream of new rules, official guidance and brochures to educate the public. Their decisions will have major practical implications.

Insurers say they often limit coverage of pre-existing conditions under policies sold in the individual insurance market. Thus, for example, an insurer might cover a family of four, including a child with a heart defect, but exclude treatment of that condition from the policy.

The new law says that health plans and insurers offering individual or group coverage “may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion with respect to such plan or coverage” for children under 19, starting in “plan years” that begin on or after Sept. 23, 2010.

But, insurers say, until 2014, the law does not require them to write insurance at all for the child or the family. In the language of insurance, the law does not include a “guaranteed issue” requirement before then.

Consumer advocates worry that instead of refusing to cover treatment for a specific pre-existing condition, an insurer might simply deny coverage for the child or the family.

“If you have a sick kid, the individual insurance market will continue to be a scary place,” said Karen L. Pollitz, a research professor at the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University.

Experts at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners share that concern.

“I would like to see the kids covered,” said Sandy Praeger, the insurance commissioner of Kansas. “But without guaranteed issue of insurance, I am not sure companies will be required to take children under 19.”

A White House spokesman said the administration planned to issue regulations setting forth its view that “the term ‘pre-existing’ applies to both a child’s access to a plan and his or her benefits once he or she is in a plan.” But lawyers said the rules could be challenged in court if they went beyond the law or were inconsistent with it.

Poll: "Health-care overhaul leaves Democrats in stable condition"

Wash Post:

After steering the landmark health-care reform bill through Congress, the Democratic Party's leaders have emerged mostly unscathed, according to a new Washington Post poll (Health Reform Is Major Shift; Divide Remains Deep; Majority Of Dems Now 'Strongly Support' It), but they have not received a notable boost in approval ratings.

Shifts among core constituencies suggest that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) may have reaped some benefit from the legislation's passage, but the public's take on the Democratic Party has not budged, and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) appears to be losing popularity. None of the central players in passing health-care reform appears to be winning favor with the bill's opponents.

Views on Pelosi tilt negative but are closely divided, with 42 percent approving of the way she is handling her job as speaker, and 46 percent disapproving, in line with her ratings in a January Post-ABC News poll. Although her overall rating is stable, the survey finds the speaker gained in strong support among Democrats, liberals and those who support the reform package.

In a follow-up interview, poll respondent John Murtha, 52, of Orlando said: "I think she did good. I think she does what her job is, and that's to pull together her people, and get it passed. That would've been a hard job if she wasn't a good, effective speaker."

There has been no such bump for the Democrats' leader in the Senate. Reid's overall approval rating has ticked downward, from 35 percent in January to 29 percent now, and among Democrats, it has dipped from 57 percent to 45 percent. With Reid facing a stiff challenge in his reelection bid, approval in the Western states -- his home region -- has dropped to 23 percent. Not all of this decline corresponds with an increase in disapproval, however, as one-quarter of people express no opinion about the majority leader, up from 18 percent in January.

The poll shows that approval of Obama's handling of health-care reform climbed five percentage points, to 48 percent, after the bill's passage, boosted by a 10-point increase among those who support the changes. Overall, strong approval of Obama on the issue rose nine percentage points, to 33 percent, with strong disapproval remaining higher, at 43 percent.

The share of Americans who say Obama has brought needed change to Washington edged up in the poll, to 54 percent from 50 percent at the beginning of the year. The increase comes largely among Democrats and those who voted for Obama in 2008, perhaps signaling a retrenchment among his core supporters.

Barbara Cornell, 58, a poll respondent from Yukon, Okla., said she thinks Obama has followed through on his campaign promise of change. "He's stepped up, finally, and made a move," she said. "I feel like the Democrats are doing something very proactive, and it reinforces my view of that and unfortunately reinforces my negative view of Republicans and how they are really being stubborn."

The passage of the health-care legislation may be a pivotal point for those backers: Nine in 10 who support the reform package say Obama has brought needed change, up from 78 percent in January. Opponents of the bill see it differently, with nearly eight in 10 saying the president has failed to deliver change to Washington, and six in 10 among that group saying he is unwilling to listen to different points of view.

More broadly, Obama has not made gains outside of his core supporters in overall approval rating or on several central attributes. About two-thirds consider him a strong leader, and 56 percent say he "understands the problems of people like you," both about the same as in January. A broad majority (68 percent) say he is willing to listen to different points of view, though that has dropped more than 20 percentage points since the 100-day mark of his presidency.

Sunday Afternoon Relaxation

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

"Obama: A Giant-Killer, Feeling His Oats"

NY Times (for more on how Obama's new stance on Israel, see The Israeli Left Blames Netanyahu & Wants American Pressure To Force Change. And for more evidence of his new tougher stance with the GOP, see this.):

Is this it, then? He hath slain the health-care Goliath. Does that mean, a year and a half into the job, that President Obama has acquired the political savvy and tactical confidence to take on other juggernauts?

Amidst all the euphoria at the White House last week, that question hovered; and not just in Washington. More than a dozen foreign leaders called to congratulate Mr. Obama on his historic achievement. Editorial pages around the world lauded Mr. Obama — a British magazine swooned that he could perhaps “out achieve” even Franklin Roosevelt. A Financial Times cartoon depicted Mr. Obama as Superman.

But, at the risk of killing the White House buzz, remember President Bush’s Mission Accomplished appearance on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln? Political fortunes can turn quickly, especially since, in Mr. Obama’s case, he still has another two and a half years to go in his first term — plenty of time for other things to go wrong that could stain his presidency.

The trick now for Mr. Obama, presidential scholars say, will be to turn the lessons he has learned in the health care fight to the other big, intractable issues that loom, from climate change to unemployment, to Iran, and even to the ultimate behemoth that has bedeviled American presidents since 1967: Middle East peace.

We’ll come back to that in a second.

Mr. Obama could retire into the history books, many presidential scholars say, on the health care achievement alone. But there is a swagger emanating from the White House that suggests he may now have acquired a liking for the benefits of sticking his neck out to lead.

Just days after the health vote, Mr. Obama completed a landmark arms control accord with Russia that had eluded negotiators for months. The Start agreement took far more time to reach than Mr. Obama had expected, exceeding the deadline by four months. But in the end, Russia backed down on the last contentious point. That was after Mr. Obama refused to yield to Russian demands on missile defense, even though he risked missing another looming deadline, the nuclear security summit he will host in April.

“Had Obama lost the health care vote, he would have been politically damaged,” said David Rothkopf, a Clinton administration official now who writes on foreign policy. “And that would have had an effect on everything else. But the major transformational consequence of winning isn’t a political boost, but the fact that he is now learning on the job. The message is that he is starting to come of age as a leader.”

How Mr. Obama applies the lessons of health care to other issues will be a big part of determining his success, many presidential historians say. Tenacity isn’t necessarily enough; there has to be patience and a willingness, at some point, to draw a line in the sand.

The Next Big Democractic Push: Financial Reform

Noam Scheiber on the big next Democratic push Obama has planned and how it could play to their electoral advantage in November:

Pretty much no one who follows the regulatory reform issue can quite believe the sudden change. In the span of a few days, reform has evolved from one of those debates newspaper editorialists have among themselves to Washington’s NEXT BIG PUSH. Clearly much of this derives from the parties’ changing fortunes, as Democrats bask in the glory of their health care victory and Republicans suddenly lack self-esteem. Indeed, try to recall the last time a GOP senator lacerated his party for blowing a chance at bipartisanship, as Tennessee Senator Bob Corker did on reg reform this week, and you begin to understand how far we’ve come.

The key shift is arguably the one that’s taken place at the White House. Prior to late last week, it wasn’t entirely clear whether the White House actually wanted a bill this year, or whether it simply wanted to bloody Republicans over their opposition to reform. But, as health care began to look like a fait accompli, the White House seemed to subtly change its posture. One administration official says it wasn’t so much that the White House was ambivalent, as that it was massively preoccupied with health care--and that it wasn’t sure until recently that a solid bill was achievable. “We didn’t want to do the thing … where you cut a deal here and there with every special interest available,” says the official. Whatever the case, the shift was as palpable as it was significant: Another official was impressed that the president delivered a radio address about reforming Wall Street last Saturday, the day before the most historic health care vote in 45 years.

... on Wednesday, Obama told Dodd and his House counterpart, Barney Frank, that he could more or less live with either version, according to an official knowledgeable about the meeting. (Though he stressed that he’d like to combine the toughest elements of both, as with an exemption from derivatives regulation for non-financial companies, which is stricter in Dodd’s bill.) Mostly, he just encouraged them to press ahead, emphasizing the win-win dynamic at work. If Republicans dig in, the president argued, that’s a fight he’d welcome. (Administration officials have seen polling suggesting the public will assume Republicans are carrying Wall Street’s water, regardless of their arguments.) And if Republicans want to join in the effort to rein in Wall Street—well, no one at the White House would turn down a big, bipartisan victory. 

The Health Legislation "is an incremental bill with a comprehensive vision tucked inside ... the work of realizing that vision starts now. "

Ezra Klein:

As someone who has spent the past year tangled in the minutia of excise taxes and curve bending and subsidy levels, it is good to finally say this: With the passage of the reconciliation fixes, the health-care reform debate is finally over. But if you're thrilled to hear that, then I also have some bad news: Health-care reform itself is just beginning.

This bill marks an evolution, not a revolution, for our health-care system. Whether it proves the cornerstone of a better, fairer, more affordable system or simply another expansion of the federal welfare state has as much to do with what happens when the law is implemented as with what's written in the legislation.

The system will not change in a year. Even by 2014, when it is broadly implemented, life will not change for most people. This is not single-payer (though you wouldn't know it listening to the GOP) or the ambitious Wyden-Bennett reforms. Come 2019, about 10 percent of Americans will have a different insurance arrangement than they would have had without the bill. Most of us won't notice any difference.

But right around then, the system could go one of two ways. The key is the regulated insurance exchanges. They are where the bill's most transformative reforms happen: Risk-adjustment payments so insurers aren't penalized for having sicker customers, regulations so they can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, and transparency requirements so individuals can see the full cost of insurance plans and compare them based on quality and satisfaction measures.

The GOP's Failed Strategy (cartoon)

Seeds Of Historic Victory Planted 11 Months Ago In Obscure Budget Rules

It's good to have a smart President & team that thinks ahead. NY Times:

Just a few months into his first term in 1993, President Bill Clinton went to Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the protector of Senate rules, to ask permission to use a fast-track budget process known as reconciliation to enact a bold health care overhaul.

The president did not get the senator’s consent, and he did not get a health care law, either.

Members of the Obama administration who were veterans of the Clinton health care collapse were not about to make that mistake twice.

“The No. 1 lesson from 1993,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and a former Clinton aide, “was to make sure you could use reconciliation for health care and education.”

Last April, Mr. Emanuel and Peter R. Orszag, the administration’s budget guru, went to Capitol Hill to press Senate Democrats to make sure the budget then being written would provide the ability to approve a health care bill with the simple Senate majority that reconciliation requires.

Democrats, led by Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, were skeptical, uncertain that the budget reconciliation process could even be employed that way. Hoping the theory would never be tested, Democrats inserted the procedural fail-safe in the budget document, allowing special protection for legislation covering health and education as long as it cut the deficit.

After a series of wild political twists and turns, that procedural emergency exit turned out to be essential to enacting the health care legislation after all.

“It worked out,” a beaming Mr. Conrad said on Thursday, minutes after the Senate disposed of the budget reconciliation bill and concluded its acrimonious health care debate.

But it did not work out as anyone had foreseen.

Early in the game, Democrats were talking about using the budget process to move the entire health care overhaul only if they could not corral the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster.

It was mainly a last-ditch contingency, one fraught with political difficulties. The mere mention of reconciliation drew howls of protests from Republicans who, though they relied on it to advance tax cuts in the past, said Democrats were preparing to abuse the process.

The Senate fight was of little import to the House, where the power of the majority negated the need for such a procedural shortcut. “It’s really an issue more for the United States Senate,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at the time.

As they studied the emerging health policy, Mr. Conrad and others became increasingly dubious that such a complex change could be considered under the tight reconciliation rules.

Democrats never reached that point. With the arrival of Senator Al Franken from Minnesota in July, they attained 60 votes in the Senate. One month later, conservative opposition to health care changes raged at summer town-hall-style meetings. Democrats concluded that they were unlikely to win any Republican support for their preferred health care approach.

Over four messy months of deal-cutting and hand-holding, Senate Democrats pulled together their 60 votes and passed the legislation on Christmas Eve without resorting to reconciliation. It appeared the special authority would not be needed.

Then, before the House and Senate could work out differences in their individual health bills, the political ground shook: Scott Brown was elected the new Republican senator from Massachusetts, and Democrats lost their 60th vote. Now what?

Poll: Health Reform Is Major Shift; Divide Remains Deep; Majority Of Dems Now 'Strongly Support' It

Wash Post (Poll data):

Americans overwhelmingly see the new health-care law as a major shift in the direction of the country, but they remain as deeply divided today over the changes as they were throughout the long congressional debate, according to a Washington Post poll.

In the days since President Obama signed the farthest-reaching piece of social welfare legislation in four decades, overall public opinion has changed little, with continuing broad public skepticism about the effects of the new law and more than a quarter of Americans seeing neither side as making a good-faith effort to cooperate on the issue.

Overall, 46 percent of those polled said they support the changes in the new law; 50 percent oppose them. That is virtually identical to the pre-vote split on the proposals and similar to the divide that has existed since last summer, when the country became sharply polarized over the president's most ambitious domestic initiative.

The health-care debate galvanized the country to a remarkable extent. About a quarter of all adults say they tried to contact their elected representatives in Congress about health care in recent months, including nearly half of those who say they are "angry" about the changes. In general, opponents of the measure were more than twice as likely as supporters to say they had made the effort.

But there are signs that Democrats have started to rally, with the party's base firming up after intense internal battles over a public insurance option and provisions covering abortion funding. Fifty-six percent of Democrats now "strongly support" the recently enacted health-care changes; last month, 41 percent were solidly behind the proposals. Eight in 10 Democrats now approve of the way Obama is handling health care, the most since last summer.

Obama's overall approval rating is at 53 percent in the poll, about the same as it has been in Post-ABC polls in the past several months; 43 percent disapprove.

Obama has renewed his effort to sell the legislation to the public ahead of the November midterm elections, with more rallies planned this week. His success could be crucial to Democratic fortunes in this fall's midterm elections, with about six in 10 saying the congressional votes on health care will be a factor in their choice at the ballot box.

At this point, Democrats hold a razor-slim edge (47 to 43 percent) on the "generic ballot," the question about which party's candidate people support in their local districts. Independents, who swung solidly for Democratic candidates in 2006 and 2008, now divide 42 percent for the GOP candidate and 39 percent for the Democrat.

Democratic officials have long argued that once the debate ended and health-care legislation was enacted, the public would begin to see the changes in a far-more-favorable light. The new poll suggests that the president and his party still face significant obstacles in this new phase of the debate.

Passions remain strongest among the plan's detractors, as 26 percent of all adults said they are angry about the changes enacted by Congress, up from 18 percent in August. That includes 54 percent of all Republicans. Fewer Americans, 15 percent, said they are enthusiastic about the new measure, including 40 percent of liberal Democrats.

Among opponents, there is near-universal support (86 percent) for efforts to cancel the changes either through a new vote in Congress or through the courts. Since passage, Republican leaders have called for repeal of the new law and replacement with more modest changes ...

Democratic Governors At Odds With Republican Attorneys General

NY Times:

Reflecting the bitter partisan divide over health care, governors in at least six states are at war with attorneys general from the other political party about whether to join litigation challenging the new federal health insurance mandate.

In four states — Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington — Democratic governors are criticizing Republican attorneys general for joining the lawsuit over their objections. On Friday, those governors wrote to the federal attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., to offer their assistance in defending the new law against the litigation filed by their own states.

In Georgia and Mississippi, meanwhile, Republican governors are chafing at the reluctance of Democratic attorneys general to join the lawsuit on their behalf. They are exploring ways to circumvent their states’ top legal officers and join the case anyway.

The disputes carry a heavy overlay of election-year politics. Not only are Democrats and Republicans supporting the positions of their national parties, but three of the attorneys general are running to succeed the governors they are battling, and a fourth is considering a race in 2012. Each faces a primary that requires appealing to the party base.

A New Tradition At The White House: A Seder

 

NY Times:

One evening in April 2008, three low-level staff members from the Obama presidential campaign — a baggage handler, a videographer and an advance man — gathered in the windowless basement of a Pennsylvania hotel for an improvised Passover Seder.

Susan Sher, who is now Michelle Obama's chief of staff, at the White House Seder last year.

The day had been long, the hour was late, and the young men had not been home in months. So they had cadged some matzo and Manischewitz wine, hoping to create some semblance of the holiday.

Suddenly they heard a familiar voice. “Hey, is this the Seder?” Barack Obama asked, entering the room.

So begins the story of the Obama Seder, now one of the newest, most intimate and least likely of White House traditions. When Passover begins at sunset on Monday evening, Mr. Obama and about 20 others will gather for a ritual that neither the rabbinic sages nor the founding fathers would recognize.

In the Old Family Dining Room, under sparkling chandeliers and portraits of former first ladies, the mostly Jewish and African-American guests will recite prayers and retell the biblical story of slavery and liberation, ending with the traditional declaration “Next year in Jerusalem.” (Never mind the current chill in the administration’s relationship with Israel.)

Top aides like David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett will attend, but so will assistants like 24-year-old Herbie Ziskend. White House chefs will prepare Jewish participants’ family recipes, even rendering chicken fat — better known as schmaltz — for just the right matzo ball flavor.

If last year is any guide, Malia and Sasha Obama will take on the duties of Jewish children, asking four questions about the night’s purpose — along with a few of their own — and scrambling to find matzo hidden in the gleaming antique furniture.

That event was the first presidential Seder, and also probably “the first time in history that gefilte fish had been placed on White House dishware,” said Eric Lesser, the former baggage handler, who organizes each year’s ritual.

As in many Jewish households, the Obama Seder seems to take on new meaning each year, depending on what is happening in the world and in participants’ lives (for this group, the former is often the same as the latter).

The first one took place at the bleakest point of the campaign, the long prelude to the Pennsylvania primary, which was dominated by a furor over Mr. Obama’s former pastor. “We were in the desert, so to speak,” remembered Arun Chaudhary, then and now Mr. Obama’s videographer, who grew up attending Seders with his half-Jewish, half-Indian family.