Monday, October 21, 2013

NBC News clips


First Thoughts: Admitting there's a problem
Healthcare web-site malfunctions

*** Admitting there’s a problem: In this political and media age, we move from one crisis to another. Less than two months ago, it was Syria. Earlier this month, it was the government shutdown. And now it’s the technical issues associated with the Obamacare website. Today, President Obama himself is publicly admitting that they have a problem. In remarks on the health-care law from the White House at 11:25 am ET, the president will acknowledge the problems with the website and will discuss the efforts to fix it, per NBC’s Kristen Welker. He also will note the other ways uninsured Americans can apply for health-care coverage on the exchanges -- through call centers or paper application. But here’s why this problem is potentially more than just a glitch: The law doesn’t work if not enough people, especially healthy young adults, are signing up for coverage. The extra challenge for the White House is that they touted to reporters (both publicly and privately) how the website would work and that it would work as well as Apple, and now many of these same reporters feel burned or even lied to. And, of course, none of this should have been a surprise for Team Obama. It knew that Republicans were ready to pounce on any deficiency, real or imagined. Well, these problems are real.

*** But still not knowing exactly what the problem is: The only question is how long it takes to fix the problem. Two weeks? Not a major long-term problem. Two months, that’s a political five-alarm fire. And this HHS blog post, which says it’s making improvements to the website, might suggest this isn’t a two-week fix. “Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov.” To us, that means while they’ve admitted they have a problem, they STILL don’t know what that problem is. We can picture how in the world of government bureaucracy and in this climate of fear of ever taking the blame personally, that these deficiencies could have been kept from the White House and even senior leaders at HHS. But that shouldn’t be the excuse. Somebody either failed to tell the truth to someone up the chain of command, or the White House and HHS knowingly misled reporters about the viability of this web site. The president earned some political capital after the shutdown but instead of using it for immigration or getting a better budget agreement, he may have to use it on health care.

I'm waiting for them to fix the computer system. I don't know what its problems are. It will be a black eye for Obama, though, if it isn't corrected soon. It would be a pity if the program falls flat over a technical issue and not a political argument. When it is fixed, there will still be the difficulties that poor people will have paying for health insurance. Of course, if they don't pay insurance premiums they have to pay hospital and doctors' bills. The government will give the poorest a stipend, I understand, and increase the coverage of Medicaid. My recent attempt to get my insurance premiums paid by Medicaid failed because I have too much money. The real problem is probably that I have some money in a savings account. I have to wait until I have no extra resources to draw on to get Medicaid. About the poor having to pay for insurance premiums, though, if you compare it to car insurance, I'm sure there would be very few insured motorists if that weren't mandated by law.





Hillary Clinton returns to campaign trail, stumping for someone else -- for now

FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- Officially, the concert hall billed it as a Terry McAuliffe campaign event. But the northern Virginia crowd came to see Hillary Clinton, potential 2016 presidential candidate, and they greeted her like the headliner.
"The leader who has joined us here today--" was as far as McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, got before the crowd leapt to its feet, almost everyone holding cell phones aloft, trying to snap a picture.
"HILL-A-RY! HILL-A-RY!" they chanted, before McAuliffe even said her name. (The chant had surfaced briefly earlier, when a Democratic operative standing in the back jokingly grumbled, "Let's get on message here, people: TER-RY, TER-RY.") 

She gave her fans a nearly 20-minute speech that wasn't just an endorsement of her old friend. It was an outline of a standard campaign speech that set her up against the policies of a Republican Party that's largely taking the blame for a 16-day government shutdown and near default.  
"In Washington, unfortunately, we've seen examples of the wrong kind of leadership. When politicians choose scorched earth over common ground, they operate in what I call the evidence-free zone," she said, prompting cheers from the crowd of over 600 in the State Theatre here. "With ideology trumping everything else, we've seen that families in Virginia and across the country have felt the consequences." 

"I've been out of politics for a few years now, and I've had a chance to think a lot about what makes our country so great, and what kind of leadership is required to keep it great," she said.
"Yours!" yelled someone in the front row, prompting her to pause and flash a smile. 
But this event doesn't mean that she'll be back out on the campaign trail regularly from here on out. It's clear that this was a favor for a friend. She didn't lift a finger for New Jersey Democratic Senate candidate Cory Booker, and she hasn't campaigned for Barbara Buono, the Democratic state senator who's challenging New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
She and husband, former President Bill Clinton, are more active behind the scenes; her public appearance for McAuliffe was bracketed by two private fundraisers, and more are planned. And Bill Clinton will likely do a public appearance for McAuliffe before the Nov. 5 election, though it hasn't yet been formally scheduled.
On Saturday, Clinton focused her speech on issues dear to women and families, appropriate given that the event was a "Women for Terry" rally aimed at getting women to go to the polls in the Virginia governor's race. McAuliffe has opened a wide lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli, the state's attorney general, and his primary advantage is among women. He leads Cuccinelli by 20 points among women, according to a recent NBC4/NBC News/Marist poll. 

"I spent four years traveling across the globe, a great honor and privilege to represent all of you," she said, "and I have learned even more about what it takes to make good decisions, what it takes to bring people together, to build the kind of future that we all want for our children and grandchildren." 
But Saturday's rally didn't do much to further reveal her intentions -- she's already said she's considering a presidential run.
Her only opaque reference, yet another line that prompted cheers: "I've been in a lot of elections," she said.

It looks like we are in for a long and enthusiastic presidential campaign. I wonder what other Democrats will run against her. I'm assuming she will run. It's most likely her last chance, in that she is getting older now. I would have voted for her last time, but I was more interested in seeing our first African-American president, and I thought she would have another chance. I'm glad we elected Obama, because he is a thoughtful and low-key leader. He's very likeable.



­ Supreme Court Will Hear Case On Executions And Mental Disability – NPR
­ The standard by which a person is judged to be mentally competent enough to face execution for a crime will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed today to hear a Florida case revolving around that issue.
The capital punishment case, Hall, Freddie L. v. Fla., centers on the standard for judging mental disability and how state officials arrive at that judgment. The case will be argued in Washington early in 2014.
"In the new case, attorneys for Freddie Lee Hall contended that Florida courts have adopted a 'bright line' rule that a person is not mentally retarded unless their IQ falls below 70," reports SCOTUSblog. "The state Supreme Court found that Hall had an IQ of 71. In an earlier stage of Hall's case, before the Supreme Court had decided the Atkins case, he had been found to be mentally retarded, the petition said."
Last December, Florida's Supreme Court affirmed Hall's death sentence in a ruling that included its earlier finding that, "While there is no doubt that [Hall] has serious mental difficulties, is probably somewhat retarded, and certainly has learning difficulties and a speech impediment, the Court finds that [Hall] was competent at the resentencing hearings."
Hall was condemned to die for the 1978 murder of Karol Hurst, who was 21 and pregnant when she was abducted after visiting a grocery store. He was tried separately from an accomplice, who was sentenced to life in prison. The pair were also blamed for killing a sheriff's deputy.
This past summer, Florida executed John Errol Ferguson, whose request for an appeals hearing at the U.S. high court on the grounds that he was was denied.
A Christian Science Monitor story about Ferguson's case sums up some of the questions revolving around capital punishment and mental competence:
"Because the death penalty is a form of state-authorized retribution for crime, it is essential that the condemned prisoner appreciate the significance of the punishment, legal experts say. Without that appreciation, the process would lack any retributive purpose and amount to a government killing without an accepted justification. That would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment, according to legal experts."
In 2002, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that bans the execution of people deemed to be mentally retarded.
The court agreed to hear Hall's case Monday morning, in issuing its Order List. In that list, the court said it will hear a case on penalties for bank fraud. It also requested additional information about a separate case involving the U.S. government's authority to punish foreign banks for not turning over data that is protected by secrecy laws.


Maybe part of the problem is that the state makes the decision as to what degree of mental disability is considered to be “retardation.” There are probably national objective standards about that. Does NIH do anything with mental disabilities? Of course the problem is the death penalty. His accomplice only got life in prison. I would be happier without a death penalty. Insane people are put in prison or executed, also. The court definition of what constitutes insanity isn't a medical definition. To me the case that is called “temporary insanity,” in which a man finds his wife in coitus with another man and kills him – or both of them – because his rage renders him deranged is not insanity at all. It is an uncontrolled temper. I hope they don't execute this man Hall.



­ These Cats Are Mules: Kitties Smuggle Goods Into Prisons
­ January:
"Cat Caught Smuggling Contraband Into Brazilian Prison." Gothamist
June:
"Cat Caught Smuggling Cell Phones Into Prison" (in Russia). The Moscow Times
Last week:
"Cannabis Cat On Drugs Run Collared At Moldova Jail." BBC News
So, we've got reports of:
— "Saws, drills, headset, memory card, cell phone, batteries and a phone charger" being" strapped to a cat in Brazil.
— "Two cell phones with batteries and chargers" being taped to a cat's back in Russia.
— And now, "bags of cannabis" concealed inside the "oversize decorative collar" worn by a cat in Moldova.
In each case, the felines were nabbed as they either climbed over or through fences. In Moldova, the cat had been "seen repeatedly entering and exiting a small hole in a prison fence," according to Gawker.
According to the reports, the cats aren't talking.


Cats must be pretty trainable to be successfully used in so many instances. I wonder how you tell the cat where to deliver the goods.



­ Turning A Page Inside A Rural One-Room Library
­ There's one state highway running through Myrtle, Mo. It's a sleepy town in the Ozarks, population about 300. There's no bank or restaurant here, but enormous oak and persimmon trees loom over a small stone building right next to the road. Half of it is a post office; the other half, a one-room public library.
Rachel Reynolds Luster took over this branch four months ago with the goal of creating a learning hub. She calls herself a curator, not just a librarian.
Her first task? Filtering out some of the favorites of the previous librarian.
"It's been interesting working this transition with her," Luster says. "She was quite upset that the cooking magazines were gone. But we recycled them all, and we kept some holiday cookie editions."
­ Luster scanned her shelves for the one book she felt every library must have: the Greek epic The Odyssey. "I looked, and we didn't have one — no library in our system had one," she says.
Connecting Rural Communities
While the Myrtle library receives taxpayer money, it only gets $200 a month for books and supplies. So Luster has used social media to garner donations from people around the state. She's already secured about 1,000 new books.
She's one of thousands of rural librarians trying to bring a sense of community, learning and connectedness to their isolated areas. The Institute of Museum and Library Services estimates that nearly half of America's public libraries are rural, and many of those are staffed by only one or two people.
"Often, the library is the only place in a small community that people can go to access technology, to fill out job applications, to continue their learning," says Tena Hanson of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries.
She says libraries in remote places are lifelines for rural communities, because the Internet doesn't always reach towns with rugged terrain.


This story stands in opposition to the one a few weeks ago about a Texas library that is getting rid of all its books and going strictly to computers and e-books. In my opinion it's much too early in our country's technological development to go totally away from good, durable huggable books! I, for one, don't intend to buy any more new technology unless I absolutely have to, and I think that the reading experience on an e-book is probably harder on the eyes than paper, and harder to turn back several chapters to reread something. I keep a list of characters and what page they were introduced on when I read mysteries, so when the author mentions the name again a hundred pages later I can go back and refresh my memory. Besides, you can't keep an e-book as a memento from your parents when they tell you that it was their first reader or spelling book. Books won't die a quiet death!



­ To Fix Climate Change, Scientists Turn To Hacking The Earth
­ In the summer of 2012, a small group of the Haida people, a native community in Canada, had a problem. The salmon they rely on were disappearing. So the Haida took matters into their own hands.
They partnered with an American businessman, drew up plans and then took a boat full of iron dust into the waters off their home island and put the dust in the ocean.
When they spread the iron dust, it created a big algae bloom. They hoped the algae would soak up carbon dioxide and bring back the fish.
The reaction to the experiment was immediate and negative, and described by some media as the "world's first rogue geoengineering project."
“ I can think of academics who agree on almost everything else in terms of science who are diametrically opposed on geoengineering.
- Matthew Watson, University of Bristol
While it scared a lot of people and angered a lot of scientists, this event could be a sign of what's to come. Because some very mainstream scientists are saying that the climate change situation is so bad that saving life as we know it might require something radical: like shooting chemicals into the stratosphere to protect earth from the sun. In essence, these scientists are talking about hacking the climate.
Geoengineering 101
In scientific circles, what the Haida did is called ocean fertilization. Jason McNamee, a spokesman for the group that carried out the experiment, says the goal was to protect the Haida people who live off the coast of Canada
"They get most of their protein straight out of the ocean," McNamee says. "What they have noticed over the last hundred or so years is that the fisheries have become less predictable and less abundant."
And while it's still unclear how successful the operation was scientifically, the legal and social backlash was immediately apparent. The Canadian government condemned the dump and has launched an investigation, seizing documents and data from the headquarters of the company.
"So this is the really knotty problem," says Matthew Watson, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol, "if that experiment had been solely about salmon, nobody would have batted an eyelid. But because it was really about geoengineering, people got very worried."
Watson is also the author of the Reluctant Geoengineer blog.
People get scared because a lot of these plans sound like mad scientist schemes. Ocean fertilization is just one of a wide array of climate-engineering techniques out there.
One technique is to suck the carbon dioxide out from the atmosphere and put it somewhere else.
"You might do that by planting lots of trees or setting up machines that draw down CO2 and store it somewhere, or generating ocean fertilization where you add iron to the ocean and that generates phytoplankton, which locks up carbon dioxide," Watson tells NPR's Arun Rath. "The whole point is that you're trying to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and put it somewhere else."
A second technique is to try and reflect sunlight away from the earth to keep the earth cooler. You can do that, Watson says, by painting roofs white, through making natural clouds a little brighter or through volcanic aerosols.
In fact, there is evidence of volcanic eruptions that have dramatically lowered the temperature on earth. Scientists want to replicate that. But the catch is that scientists haven't really tested either technique.
"For the most part we've got more questions than answers," Watson says. "It's a very emotive subject and a divisive subject. I can think of academics who agree on almost everything else in terms of science who are diametrically opposed on geoengineering."
Watson says that some people see it as a necessary evil to protect the environment and some see it as retention of the status quo; just trying to techno-fix our way out of what is already a technological problem.
If the schism in the science community weren't enough, Watson points out there are serious questions about the basic feasibility of actually using any of these techniques. What is already a divisive problem in the sciences is quickly becoming a governance nightmare.
"A better way to categorize the technologies might be by whether they have a local or global scale," he says. "In that case painting roofs white or planting trees might be done a on a local scale, whereas things like volcanic aerosols and ocean fertilization act on your atmosphere, my atmosphere [and] the people in Bangladesh's atmosphere. And they're much less controllable because they have a global effect."
According to Watson, most governments have been slow to take on the issue of the potential global effects of climate engineering.
The Climate Change Elephant In The Room
Ted Parson, an environmental law professor at UCLA, works on the tough question of how international bodies should regulate climate engineering. He says there is fairly active debate on whether any international law exists that covers climate engineering, but it's his view that there really isn't.
"There are a number of environmental treaties that are relevant to doing this, but they are all rather narrow in the constraints and obligations they impose," Parson tells Rath. "So none of them would have the effect of the United States or China or any other country from doing this."
Parson says the Convention on Biological Diversity has adopted a couple of decisions that expressed disapproval of geoengineering technologies, but they are very vague and nonbinding. He says the U.S. and many other nations who haven't dealt with geoengineering are in a situation where it's difficult to even talk about it because of the potential for intense political controversy.
"One unfortunate consequence of that is that early, small-scale research that could help us understand more about whether these things would work, what risks they would pose and how you would do them most effectively, isn't really getting done," he says. "And that's really quite a risky situation.
"Because if we find ourselves in a situation where climate change gets really bad, and we're desperately looking around for something to do to make it less bad, if we haven't done the research at that point all we'll have is a set of kind of untested, un-risk-assessed, undeveloped options that are kind of crude to throw up in a hurry," he says.
By now you're probably thinking what about the potential for harm? If scientists got their calculations wrong, it could be catastrophic for life on Earth. Or what if the technology got into the wrong hands? This is what Parson calls the "Dr. Evil" scenario, and fortunately he says it can't really work like that.
"Dr. Evil would have to have a great big airport and a supply chain and a bunch of airplanes going up all the time," he says. "There are probably only about 10 or 12 nation states that could actually sustain a program of changing the climate that wouldn't be trivial."


Personally, I would go with preserving the natural forests of the world and having farmers plant trees instead of some other crop. At least those things are harmless. If that takes too long, plant kudzu farms. Kudzu would take up carbon dioxide, too, and it can be used for several purposes. According to Wikipedia it is native to many parts of Asia. Its fiber can be used for baskets, it is used in Western medicines or to make cellulose ethanol, and it is edible by both people and livestock. We hate it so much because we don't put it to use.

I have heard that we may already be at a “tipping point” at which it is impossible to stop Global Warming. If all these scientists are talking about drastic solutions, maybe it's time we tried something, but I wonder if there is anything that would work. It's possible that switching to nuclear power plants would really help.

Getting the US population to do anything in a comprehensive way is probably impossible. Many people deny that humans have caused Global Warming. For some reason, most of those people are Republicans. They do, after all, still back big industry against “the environment.” As a result, we can't even limit industrial emissions. Getting average people to carpool it to work only happens a small percentage of the time. If co-workers have to commute a long way or on a horribly crowded beltway, they may find it more convenient to carpool, but to do it to achieve a societal goal probably won't happen. We are too self-centered as a population to do that.

What does Wikipedia say about carbon dioxide emissions? See below.
As part of the carbon cycle, plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use light energy to photosynthesize carbohydrate from carbon dioxide and water, with oxygen produced as a waste product.[2] However, photosynthesis cannot occur in darkness and at night some carbon dioxide is produced by plants during respiration.[3] Carbon dioxide is produced by combustion of coal or hydrocarbons, the fermentation of sugars in beer and winemaking and by respiration of all living organisms. It is exhaled in the breath of humans and land animals. It is emitted from volcanoes, hot springs, geysers and other places where the earth's crust is thin and is freed from carbonate rocks by dissolution. CO2 is also found in lakes, at depth under the sea and commingled with oil and gas deposits.[4]
The environmental effects of carbon dioxide are of significant interest. Carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas, absorbing heat radiation from Earth's surface which otherwise would have left the atmosphere.

From “BraveNewClimate.com”, the top 10 ways to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.
Make climate-conscious political decisions
Climate change should be a totally non-partisan issue since it affects all people and all countries. If climate change is not perceived by both sides of politics as a ‘core issue’, it will inevitably be marginalised by apparently more immediate concerns.
Eat less red meat
Traditional red meat comes from ruminant livestock such as cattle and sheep. These animals produce large amounts of methane, which is a greenhouse gas that packs 72 times the punch of CO2 over a 20 year period. Other types of meat, such as chicken, pork or kangaroo, produce far less emissions
Purchase “green electricity“.
renewable sources such as solar, wind and wave power and ‘hot rocks’. Even without climate change, there are limits to available oil, natural gas and coal. ‘Green power’ is electricity that comes from these technologies
Most energy suppliers now offer this service and will purchase energy from green sources that is equivalent to what you use.
Make your home and household energy efficient
By being sensible about your use household energy use, and making sure your house is well insulated, you can make a huge dent in your CO2 emissions.
Buy energy and water efficient appliances
Look at their energy and water usage. The more energy efficient they are, the more they’ll save you in the long run, and the lower their CO2 impact will be.
Walk, cycle or take public transport
Save fossil fuel.
Recycle, re-use and avoid useless purchases
Large amounts of energy and water go into producing endless amounts of ‘stuff’, much of which we don’t really need or end up using.
Telecommute and teleconference
Saves fossil fuel.
Buy local produce
Food miles are now firmly part of the new carbon lingo. This is a way of expressing how far an item of food has travelled before it reaches your dinner table, and therefore how much CO2 has been emitted during freighting.
Offset what you can’t save
This is done by purchasing ‘carbon credits’ from accredited companies which offer this service, who will then invest those dollars in (for instance) renewable energy projects or planting trees.



­ UPDATE: N.J. Gov. Christie Won't Fight Gay-Marriage Ruling
­ "Gov. Chris Christie announced today that he was dropping the fight against same-sex marriage in New Jersey by withdrawing his appeal of a major case that was being heard by the state Supreme Court," The Star-Ledger writes.
Christie's office has released a copy if its court filing, in which it officially withdraws its appeal.
So it would seem that same-sex marriages, which began early Monday in the state thanks to a court ruling issued Friday, will continue.
Colin Reed, a spokesman for the Republican governor, tells the Star-Ledger that "although the governor strongly disagrees with the court substituting its judgment for the constitutional process of the elected branches or a vote of the people, the court has now spoken clearly as to their view of the New Jersey Constitution and, therefore, same-sex marriage is the law. The governor will do his constitutional duty and ensure his administration enforces the law as dictated by the New Jersey Supreme Court."
­ There was at least one demonstrator at Newark's city hall. The Associated Press says "there was a brief disruption from a protester who cried out, 'This is unlawful in the eyes of God and Jesus Christ.' "
According to the Star-Ledger, police removed the man. Then there was applause when Booker resumed the ceremony by saying: "not hearing any substantive and worthy objections ..."


Governor Christie may be a viable opponent for Hillary Clinton if he runs for President. He is a thinking Republican, and not bound up with dogmas the way so many on the right are. He is “on the right” the way Obama is “on the left” – neither is very far from center. If I have to have a Republican president, I wouldn't mind if it were Christie. I've been watching him, and I've been impressed. He seems to be an honest and intelligent man.



Was a shutdown the right approach? GOP still at odds
"I am confident that the party of Ronald Reagan will come back strong. We'll get a positive agenda. We'll get an agenda that unites the party, and we can move forward. I am absolutely confident of that," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on CNN's "State of the Union
There are a number of issues to overcome first.
The divisions are particularly exemplified with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who helped precipitate the shutdown strategy with a 21-hour floor speech he delivered against the health care law in September. His fellow Republicans remain highly critical of the strategy as an impossible feat.
"The tactic of defunding the government, unless [Mr. Obama] repealed his signature issue, was as poorly designed as Obamacare care itself, almost," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on CBS' "Face the Nation." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for his part, pledged that there would not be another government shutdown because he didn't view it as good conservative policy.
"I don't think a two-week paid vacation for federal employees is conservative policy. A number of us were saying back in July that this strategy could not and would not work, and of course it didn't," McConnell said.
Cruz, on the other hand, sees his fellow lawmakers as responsible for the strategy's failure and the ensuing deal that yielded little for the GOP. "I think it was unfortunate that you saw multiple members of the Senate Republicans going on television attacking House conservatives, attacking the effort to defund Obamacare, saying it cannot win, it's a fools errand, we will lose, this must fail. That is a recipe for losing the fight, and it's a shame," he said on ABC's "This Week." He added later that he's not looking for "99 new friends" in the Senate, so he doesn't much care what his colleagues think.
Despite the GOP's precipitous drop in the polls, Cruz wouldn't rule out another shutdown to stop the Affordable Care Act from being implemented.
Others see the persistent and narrow focus on the ACA is insufficient for the problems facing the country.
"I think focusing on Obamacare takes you away from the larger picture," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We have $128 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities and the total net worth of our country is $94 trillion and we have another $17 trillion worth of debt."
He added later in the show that the fight over Obamacare "took us off message," and said responsibility for that lay with "outside interest groups and a few individuals within our party that took advantage of that situation."
"Tactically it was a mistake to focus on something that couldn't be achieved," said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on ABC's "This Week."
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va., both said on "Face the Nation" that a broad budget deal could include infrastructure spending, tax and entitlement reform, and a partial or full replacement of mandatory spending cuts that are part of the Budget Control Act.
"I believe that the single biggest thing we could do for our economy, single biggest job creator would be to put together a bigger bargain that includes revenues, that includes entitlement reforms," Warner said. "We all know at the end of the day, Republicans are going to have to give on revenues, Democrats are going to have to give on entitlement reform."
"If the president would give cover to Democrats to enact [Consumer Price Index] changes that he's already embraced, then people like me would agree to bring in revenue," Graham said. "Not by raising taxes, by flattening out the tax code and bring in some repatriated corporate earnings at a lower rate." That money could be applied to infrastructure, and to replace parts or all of the sequester cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act, he added.
But moments earlier on "Face the Nation," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said his "bottom line" in negotiations is to ensure that Democrats don't break the required spending caps.


I wanted to see what they would say about the “strategy” of shutting down the government. According to McConnell, it was discussed as far back as July as their plan. McConnell said it “couldn't work,” and McCain said it was “a fool's errand,” but nobody said it is unethical or an abuse of power. The damage done is too great to justify its use. McConnell did “pledge” that there would not be another government shutdown, because it isn't “good conservative policy.” I want to see them make it against the rules as a tactic either in the House or the Senate. We don't elect representatives to run our country into the ground.


Well, I started out this morning not finding enough interesting news to put in the blog, but by the time I went to NPR and CBS as well, I got plenty. Hope you enjoyed it.