initiative

This is something me and a lot of the opposing factors to the latest HCR bill saw coming the other night when Democrats caved to Lieberman:

Nelson's key points:

1. Asked if he would vote for cloture even if his initiative to restrict abortion were adopted, Nelson flatly said "no."
2. Nelson not only said a vote before Christmas was not feasible, he joked about it taking until next Christmas.
3. Nelson said unless the bill's Medicaid expansion provisions were made optional he would oppose cloture.
4. Nelson said the bill's revenue provisions were unacceptable because the economy was bad.
5. Nelson said because the subsidies which provide the bill's coverage expansion couldn't be paid for without additional revenue, they needed to be "scaled-back"
6. Nelson also that unless cost control were addressed first, coverage couldn't be expanded.

So if the Medicaid expansion becomes optional then what about mandates? If Ohio decides to drop out and leave our current Medicaid requirement at 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), does that means someone at 101% of the FPL will now have to fork over for insurance? And if the answer to that is yes, then how much out of pocket will they pay for it with Nelson’s desires to scale back subsidies?

Honestly I can’t blame Nelson for this move one bit. He saw Lieberman get exactly what he wanted, so why not go for what he wants. It’s the same thing any of us would do, and the result of a weak Democratic leadership who has set a precedent to cave to these types of demands. So don’t go blaming Nelson for this – blame the Democrats, including the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Wow Bush must be a liberal! He is going to the G8 to promote awareness on global warming. Well that is what the wingnuts are saying, but check out this story from today:

The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.

A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago.

Bush is the most dangerous person when it comes to the well being of our planet. Luckily the House Science Committee will be holding a hearing about this on Thursday.

A new poll by Survey USA
shows that most people believe that Libby was told to lie during his testimony.
The question and results are as follows:

Based on what you know now, which of the following statements about
Lewis "Scooter" Libby do you think is true?

Lied because he was told to	34%
Lied on own initiative	29%
Misled accidentally	13%
Did not lie	12%
Not sure	12%

(this poll was conducted on 11/04/2005 by a sampling of 1200 adults
and has a margin of +/- 2.9%)

Poll

link

At first glance, you get the impression that people are believing that
someone ordered Libby to lie. This impression is of course the correct one, but
there is something else in this poll that really stands out. 63% of the
respondents feel that he did actually lie. That should put the administration
less at ease considering a majority now feel he did actually lie intentionally.

His lawyer is planning a "lack of memory" defense. The argument is going to
be that he talks to so many people in a day how could he possibly remember who
he said what to. By the results of this survey, only 13% would believe that
defense.