Showing posts with label POLITICO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label POLITICO. Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2012
The devastating images in the Gaza Strip
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PHOTOS,
POLITICO,
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Hamas has sent an application to the International Court of Justice demanding the Prime Minister of Israel to court, accused of war crimes.
The pain of losing loved ones of Palestinian women. Photo: EPA
Speaking at a press conference on November 17, the Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu, said: "We have sent a petition to the International Court of Justice, which has the name of Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli prime minister to appear in court accused of war crimes. "Nunu also said, the building of the Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was completely destroyed after the air strike by Israeli aircraft.
Meanwhile, panic spread in the Gaza Strip, which is under the blizzard bombardment of the Israeli Air Force and Navy. Residents rush to dredge for food and fuel, medicines and other medical supplies. All the schools are closed, all the way to provide humanitarian goods are blocked.
Since November 14, Israel conducted military "Pillar defense" to kill Palestinian militants and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, at least 29 people were killed and about 200 others injured .
Since November 14th, Israel has conducted more than 800 air strikes in the Gaza Strip, turning homes into rubble. Photo: AFP
Head of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is not exceptions .... Photo: DPA
....few minutes before, this building has been just the place where met the Prime Minister Egypt Hisham Kandil. Photo: REUTERS
Looking through the hole of the building based Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip. Photo: REUTERS
In response, Hamas launched 600 rockets into Israeli territory. In the photo is a Hamas rockets exploded in the town of Kiryat Malakhi, in which three Israeli citizens were killed. Photo: AP
and the people here have to get into the sewers to take refuge. Photo: AP.
And yet, Israel ordered general mobilization reserve to 75,000 troops, preparing for an attack on the Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP
Israel army armored vehicles carrying troops against the Gaza Strip, ready to proceed a war on the ground. Photo: AFP
Demonstrations in Italy against the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip. photo AFP
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Obamacare Will Become Reality: What Does it Mean for You?
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FINANCE,
POLITICO,
VIDEOS,
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Despite uncertainty surrounding the fiscal cliff and whether or not President Obama can make "compromise" a theme of his second term, one thing is for certain: Obamacare is going to take effect. The lion's share of the law is to be implemented on January 1, 2014. The major tenets that will impact the insured include the individual mandate and the pre-existing conditions clause that will not allow insurers to refuse coverage to anyone, even if they are in poor health.
What does this all mean for the broader health care industry (XLV)? To answer that, Breakout welcomed Les Funtleyder, President of Investment Advisory at Poliwogg. He admits that "the next 13 months are gonna be a flurry of activity" as States, insurers and the insured prepare for the law to be fully enacted. Still, he's not sure January 1, 2014 is a hard-and-fast date, citing a recent delay in the deadline for states to tell Washington whether they want in on the federal plan or if they plan to handle it on the state level. Funtleyder admits "the fighting is far from over but there are very limited avenues for Congress, particularly the House, to make changes. They can delay, but I don't think they can delay infinitely."
Whether or not the date is January 1 or July 12, Funtleyder says change is coming and the industry is getting ready. With more patients due to flood the system, he believes hospitals and insurers alike will undoubtedly increase their marketing to attract new customers.
And once the law actually goes into effect it's the pre-existing conditions provision that has the potential to do a lot of damage to the consumer, according to Funtleyder. He says it is "likely insurance companies will raise premiums on everybody, given the mandate, to deal with the number of pre-existing conditions that come into the fold." And that is one of the many key criticisms of the plan: little to no direct cost control. As it stands, the bill has only one such feature, namely the so-called "death panels" which put bureaucrats in charge of certain health care decisions.
Funtleyder says that particular feature is widely disliked on both sides of the political aisle, making it a reasonable assumption that the "death panels" could be repealed. If that happens, he argues there will be no mechanism at all to control costs.
Do you think Obamacare will save you money, or are you saving up for a higher insurance bill?
Yahoo! Finace
President Obama shouldn't back down on taxes
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POLITICO
It is said after every election that the victors should put politics aside and work for the good of the country. If President Obama believed this pious nonsense, he would put his second term in jeopardy. Asking politicians to ignore politics is like insisting that professional hockey players switch to basketball. In a system with national elections every two years -- and in which the two parties are in relatively close balance -- politics never disappears.
President Barack Obama speaks during an election night party Nov. 7 in Chicago after his defeat of Republican challenger Mitt Romney. (Photo by Matt Rourke, The Associated Press)
Fortunately, the president knows foolishness when he sees it. He has been toughened by four years of unremitting Republican opposition and has behind him both a large Electoral College victory and an advantage of about 3 million popular votes. The word "mandate" is overused -- just ask George W. Bush. But Obama was absolutely clear during the campaign about his insistence that taxes on better-off Americans need to rise as part of any deal on the budget deficit and "fiscal cliff."
And so did Obama gracefully but firmly challenge Republicans on Friday to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class immediately and then begin negotiations on how to raise taxes on the well-to-do. He was asking them to give up their leverage because he knows they don't have much leverage to begin with. Meet the newly empowered Obama.
The voters clearly heard what Obama was saying during the campaign. According to the media exit poll, only 35 percent of voters said taxes should not be increased. Fully 47 percent of all voters supported raising taxes on Americans earning $250,000 or more, including 66 percent of Obama's voters. An additional 13 percent, of all voters and Obama's, said taxes should go up for everyone.
"Obama was absolutely clear during the campaign about his insistence that taxes on better-off Americans need to rise..."
If Republican leaders in Congress want to pretend that Obama's re-election means absolutely nothing, the president seems willing to let all the Bush tax cuts expire. This is the only way to deal with recalcitrance, reflected in the fact that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell didn't even let the president make his case on Friday before issuing a flat statement rejecting any tax increases. Obama can only hope that he can break more reasonable Senate Republicans away from their hard-line leadership.
House Speaker John Boehner has tried to sound more reasonable, and Obama took him at his word. Graciousness comes easily when you are operating from a position of strength.
Still, even in his conciliatory mode, Boehner made clear that preserving low tax rates for the rich remains the GOP's single highest priority. The speaker said he might support new revenue, but only through some vague "tax reform." But that's what Mitt Romney offered during the campaign. Boehner is saying he will make a deal with the victorious candidate only on the basis of the program of the defeated candidate. Here's hoping this is just a bargaining position.
By emphasizing Obama's victory as a demographic and organizational triumph, conservatives have been laying the groundwork for renewing their sotto voce campaign suggesting that Obama is somehow "illegitimate" or not "one of us."
Yet the exit poll found that those who rallied to Obama represent a broad coalition of all of us. Yes, he won African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans overwhelmingly. But the exit poll also shows that 32 percent of Obama's voters were white women and 24 percent of them were white men, while 23 percent were African-American men and women, and 14 percent were Latinos. This is a genuinely diverse alliance.
Obama's victory was also plainly a triumph for the center-left: 46 percent of Obama's voters called themselves moderates, 42 percent called themselves liberals, and 12 percent said they were conservatives. Judging by its attitudes toward unfairness in the economy, this is far more a populist coalition than an establishment center. Obama's voters are invested in growth, raising incomes and reducing unemployment, not austerity and budget balancing.
And this may have been the most important aspect of Obama's first post-election policy statement. He did not lead with balancing the budget. "Our top priority," he said right at the start, "has to be jobs and growth," and then listed his proposals to expand opportunities.
Obama seems to understand that the interests of the coalition that elected him overlap with the national interest. That's why he needn't fear the politics of the moment. For the first time in a long time, the politics are working in Obama's favor.
This article was written by E.J. Dionne. He writes for The Washington Post. His email address is ejdionne@washpost.com.
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