sances.info

In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of “a nuclear free world.” He railed against discussions of “first- versus second-strike capabilities” that “suit the military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets,” and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.

President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.

Also yesterday, msnbc.com and a reporting group based at American University published an article examining connections between several health-industry firms and Nancy-Ann DeParle, head of the White House Office of Health Reform. The Investigative Reporting Workshop concluded that DeParle served on the board of several companies "that faced scores of federal investigations, whistleblower lawsuits and other regulatory actions."

“What we are watching,” Mr. Balkin said, “is a liberal, centrist, Democratic version of the construction of these same governing practices.”

President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a "terrible precedent," but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States government was holding off on formally branding it a coup, which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Central American country.

Half of the poll respondents said closing the prison would have no effect on protecting the nation from terror threats, but 3 in 10 said they thought it would make the United States less safe. Many of the detainees being held at the prison have not been charged, and nearly 7 in 10 people surveyed said they would support charging them or releasing them back to the country of their capture. Just 24 percent said the detainees should continue to be held without charge for as long as the government deems necessary.

Without an effective public option, the Obama health care reform will be simply a national version of the health care reform in Massachusetts: a system that is a lot better than nothing but has done little to address the fundamental problem of a fragmented system, and as a result has done little to control rising health care costs.

The word "freedom" is heard in the Arab world, often as sarcasm. In Iraq, the refrain goes: "This is the freedom Bush brought?" The word "justice," a pillar of faith, is uttered much more often, framing attitudes from the Palestinian territories to Iraq. For those who feel they are without it, it becomes even more pronounced.

Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, is leaning toward creating a widely available Medicare-style public insurance option. But Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, strongly favors a bipartisan solution - and Republicans consider Kennedy's public plan an intolerable threat to the private insurance industry.

"For the first time in American history, he wants to tax your health benefits," Obama said in September. "Apparently, Senator McCain doesn't think it's enough that your health premiums have doubled. He thinks you should have to pay taxes on them, too."