GOP weapon against health reform

In political combat, there are few more potent weapons than a single word or a catchy phrase that can be used to target a proposal and drive it into the ground.

For Republicans, “rationing” could be that poison-tipped arrow for the Democratic-led health care bill, much as “amnesty” was the club with which conservatives beat President Bush’s attempt at immigration reform into a bloody pulp in 2007.

“Governments ration care to control costs, and we’ve got stories from other countries where disabled children wait up to two years for wheelchairs. We’ve got a story that we found: a 76-year-old retiree pulled out their own teeth,” said Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee.

“Government rationing is a scary proposition,” he said.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, echoed this point during a conference call Wednesday, warning that the government could get into the business of rationing health care, deciding how much Americans can get or can spend on it and denying people health care that exceeds some rationed amount.

“The rationing problem is very real in all this and I think that as the American people learn more and more about the proposals as we are now being allowed more time for them to engage on this issue, they are very, very much concerned,” he said.

But Democrats say the insurance companies are already rationing care and that the reforms they want would cover all those who are being denied coverage under the current system, as well as keep down costs through an intensive focus on which medical procedures and products deliver care most effectively.

Republicans say that under a government-run system, which they argue will result from the proposed option to buy insurance from the government, cost will come to be the dominant factor that defines “efficient care,” and thus Americans will be denied care with no recourse.

House Democrats plan to introduce their health care overhaul measure Monday and consider amendments later in the week. On Sunday’s talk shows, there was disagreement on whether Congress will finish work on the bill before adjourning for the August recess.

Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, said on CNN that meeting the deadline was “highly unlikely” because the Senate Finance Committee had not completed a draft. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate Republican whip, said flatly there was “no chance.”

Sotomayor vows ‘fidelity to the law’

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor responded to her critics publicly for the first time Monday, saying her judicial philosophy is “fidelity to the law” and saying her “career as an advocated ended” when she became a judge in 1992.

From her nomination by President Barack Obama in late May through today’s hearing, the task of defending Judge Sotomayor has largely fallen on Democratic senators and the White House.

The Capitol Hill hearing was interrupted several times by protesters, including a man who shouted shortly before the proceedings began: “What about the rights of the unborn?” About an hour later, U.S. Capitol Police removed a second protester, a younger man with his hair in a ponytail who shouted: “Abortion is murder, abortion is murder, abortion is murder.”

The proceedings were interrupted two more times after the lunch recess. “You’re wrong Sotomayor, you’re wrong about abortion,” a protester said before exiting the Hart Senate Office Building room. A fourth protester shouted an indiscernible phrase shortly before Judge Sotomayor testified.

Judge Sotomayor’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday afternoon marked the first time she directly responded to critiques that she let gender and ethnicity influence her decisions.

“In the past month, many Senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. It is simple: fidelity to the law,” Judge Sotomayor said. “The task of a judge is not to make the law — it is to apply the law. And it is clear, I believe, that my record in two courts reflects my rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms; interpreting statutes according to their terms and Congresss intent; and hewing faithfully to precedents established by the Supreme Court and my Circuit Court.”

• Text of Sotomayor’s opening statement

The testimony marks the first time Judge Sotomayor has publicly addressed her critics since being nominated to the court by Mr. Obama. For the last month much of the debate has been limited to Judge Sotomayor’s speeches and bits of privae conversations senators talked about.

Republican senators, who are outnumbered 7-12 on the committee, focused much of their opening statements on Judge Sotomayor’s remarks that a “wise Latina woman” would make better judgments than a “white male” saying they could not vote for a nominee who could not be impartial on the bench.

“If I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over. That’s true of most people here. And you need to understand that, and I look forward to talking with you about that comment,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, told Judge Sotomayor.

Still, Mr. Graham said he was resigned to the political reality of the Democrat caucus controlling 60 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

“Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to be confirmed,” he said.

Democrat and Republican lawmakers largely staked out the same positions on Judge Sotomayor they had developed in the month and a half since her nominations as the confirmation hearing continued Monday afternoon.

Judge Sotomayor also responded to critics who said her work for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund revealed her prejudices.

“My career as an advocate ended — and my career as a judge began — when I was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York,” she said.

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Bill Clinton inducted by black fraternity Phi Beta Sigma

A historically black fraternity founded at Howard University has voted to induct former President Bill Clinton as an honorary member.

Phi Beta Sigma President Paul Griffin Jr. said Friday that Mr. Clinton is the first U.S. president to be inducted into a historically black fraternity.

The fraternity voted Tuesday for Mr. Clinton’s induction at its 95th Anniversary Conclave in New Orleans.

Stevie Wonder, Al Roker, the Rev. Al Sharpton and jazz musician Ramsey Lewis are also honorary members of Phi Beta Sigma.

The fraternity was founded in 1914.

Demjanjuk charged over WWII killings

MUNICH (AP) — German prosecutors formally charged John Demjanjuk on Monday with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp during World War II.

The charges against the 89-year-old retired auto worker, who was deported from the U.S. in May, were filed at a Munich state court, prosecutors in the city said in a brief statement.

Doctors cleared the way for formal charges earlier this month, determining that Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN’-yuk) was fit to stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day.

The court must now decide whether to accept the charges — usually a formality — and set a date for the trial. Court spokeswoman Margarete Noetzel said the trial was unlikely to start before the autumn.

Demjanjuk lawyer Guenther Maull had no immediate comment on the charges, saying he had not yet seen them.

Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Germany.

Prosecutors accuse Demjanjuk of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.

Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, says he was a Red Army soldier who spent the war as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.

But Nazi-era documents obtained by U.S. justice authorities and shared with German prosecutors include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the Sobibor death camp and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, also in Nazi-occupied Poland. U.S. and German experts have declared the ID genuine.

Demjanjuk gained U.S. citizenship in 1958. The U.S. Justice Department moved to revoke the citizenship in 1977, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard, and it was revoked in 1981.

Demjanjuk was tried in Israel over accusations that he was the notorious “Ivan the Terrible” at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity but the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

That decision came after Israel won access to Soviet archives, which had depositions given after the war by 37 Treblinka guards and forced laborers who said “Ivan” was a different Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko.

Demjanjuk’s U.S. citizenship was restored in 1998. However, a U.S. judge revoked it again in 2002 based on fresh Justice Department evidence showing he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps from immigration officials.

A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. Munich prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him in March.

They accused him in that warrant of being an accessory to murder in 29,000 cases. However, that number was reduced in the charges because, of the people transported to Sobibor, “many did not survive the journey,” said Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors.

Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, welcomed the filing of formal charges.

“This is obviously an important step forward,” Zuroff said by telephone from Jerusalem. “We hope that the trial itself will be expedited so that justice will be achieved and he can be given the appropriate punishment.”

“The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator,” Zuroff said.

Obama vows to keep health care promises

President Obama said Monday he stands by his pledge not to raise taxes on families making $250,000 or less and lashed out at “Washington thinking” and negative chatter questioning the fate of his health care plan while he was traveling abroad.

“During the campaign, I promised health care reform that would control costs, expand coverage and ensure choice, and I promised that Americans making $250,000 a year or less would not pay more in taxes. These are promises that we’re keeping as reform moves forward,” Mr. Obama said in the Rose Garden ceremony before naming Alabama family physician Dr. Regina Benjamin as his choice for surgeon general.

The White House had been dodging questions on whether Mr. Obama would be able to keep the $250,000 tax pledge from the campaign trail and still pay for the sweeping, expensive health care plan he’s seeking.

The remarks came as Democratic lawmakers were to reveal a new plan to pay for health care — taxing those earning more than $350,000 per year by an additional 1 percent and imposing a higher rate on people earning $500,000 to $1 million.

Mr. Obama challenged those in Washington he said are “scared” to change the health care status quo: “You know, the muscles in this town to bring about big changes are a little atrophied, but we’re whipping folks back into shape.”

Thumping his finger hard on the podium for emphasis, Mr. Obama warned “naysayers” who oppose his health care plan: “Don’t bet against us.” He also said the country is “closer than we have ever been” on passing health reform, even as House and Senate leaders have said they won’t meet his August deadline for drafting bills that could be ready for vote shortly after the August recess.

“So I just want to put everybody on notice, because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone. We are going to get this done. Inaction is not an option,” he said.

The message was the same he’s been pushing all summer, but Mr. Obama struck a stern tone that has been mostly absent since he took office.

“If we step back from this challenge right now, we will leave our children a legacy of debt, a future of crushing costs that bankrupt our families, our businesses and, because we will have done nothing to bring down the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, will crush our government,” he said.

Big 3’s heaviest debt load now falls on Ford Motor Company

GM ready for market rivalry

Ford Motor Co. has benefited for months from the woes of its bailed-out Detroit brother General Motors Corp., but GM’s emergence from bankruptcy – freed from its heaviest debts – now puts debt-laden Ford at a disadvantage.

GM used the bankruptcy process and its federal bailout to shed more than $40 billion of past debts and other obligations, and now can operate more nimbly and profitably in the most competitive auto sales market in a generation.

But Ford still faces the steep cost of servicing its $32 billion of debt – nearly twice as much as GM’s and three times as much as Chrysler Group LLC’s – since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy. Moreover, Ford was not able to use bankruptcy to shed other burdens, such as a bloated dealer network and idle manufacturing plants, as its rivals did.

The companies now must compete in a market that has shrunk by more than a third from sales levels that prevailed a year ago. But GM estimates that it can now make a profit with annual U.S. auto sales of about 10 million, down from 16 million in 2007, while Ford would need to have higher sales on average to foot its higher debt costs and make a profit.

“Ford got bupkis for its financial virtue” by going deeply into debt to avoid a government bailout, said Antony Currie, an analyst at Breakingviews.com. Ford’s strategy helped it for a while to gain market share over its rivals, attracting buyers who are repelled by the government’s involvement with the other Detroit automakers.

But in the post-bankruptcy world, Ford now is saddled with obligations GM and Chrysler no longer have to bear, he said.

Liz Cheney open to political run

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that running for political office is on her horizon.

“It’s something I very well may do,” said Elizabeth “Liz” Cheney, a lawyer and State Department appointee who has worked on two Republican presidential campaigns.

Ms. Cheney, 44, has emerged as one of the strongest defenders of the effectiveness and legality of Bush-Cheney policies on enhanced interrogation methods. More recently, she and her father have become two of the most outspoken critics of President Obama’s position on terrorism and other national security issues, which has led Republicans to consider her a strong candidate for national political office.

Ms. Cheney told The Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” that recent new reports that her father ordered the CIA to hide information from Congress and that a government probe could follow appears like political cover for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who have accused agency Director Leon Panetta of lying.

“It gets more and more appalling every day,” she said. “I think they’re very worried about Speaker Pelosi.”

Regina Benjamin, Obama’s Pick For Surgeon General

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama turned to the Deep South for the next surgeon general, choosing a rural Alabama family physician who made headlines with fierce determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Regina Benjamin is known along Alabama’s impoverished Gulf Coast as a country doctor who makes house calls and doesn’t turn away patients who can’t pay _ even as she’s had to find the money to rebuild a clinic repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes and once even fire.

“For all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what’s best about health care in America, doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients,” Obama said Monday in introducing his choice for a job known as America’s doctor.

He said Benjamin will bring insight as his administration struggles to revamp the health care system:

Saying she “has seen in a very personal way what is broken about our health care system,” Obama said Benjamin will bring important insight as his administration tries to revamp that system.

Benjamin called the job “a physician’s dream,” and pledged to be a voice for patients in need _ and to fight the preventable diseases that claim too many lives each year, including nearly her entire family.

Her father died with diabetes and high blood pressure, her only brother of HIV, her mother of lung cancer “because as a young girl, she wanted to smoke just like her twin brother could” _ an uncle now on oxygen as a result, she noted.

Portland’s gay mayor faces chances of recall

Portland’s gay mayor faces chances of recall

The Community to Recall Sam Adams from office have filed a petition in with the city to recall the mayor.

Some residents are upset with Adams since he admitted he had an affair with a teen boy, Beau Breedlove. Mayor Adams admits he had sex with Beau less than 3-weeks after the turned 18. Breedlove claims that he and the mayor made out when he was only 17.

The group has 90 days to collect 32,183 valid signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot.

The Attorney General has already cleared Adams saying he didn’t violate any laws.

Terrell Carter Outed by Ex Boyfriend

Madea Actor Terrell Carter Outed by Ex

Actor Terrell Carter, the star of a number of Tyler Perry’s stage productions in his famed Madea series, was outed over the weekend when his ex-boyfriend posted photos on the Internet of himself with Carter.

The actor, who starred in the stage productions of Class Reunion and Meet the Browns as well as the big-screen adaptation of Diary of a Mad Black Woman, had made a name for himself among female fans of Perry’s work.

The alleged ex-boyfriend, Alex Cortez, started posting the pictures on various websites last week before featuring them on his MySpace and Twitter accounts, writing: “Hell yeah i’m angry!…there are fucked up ppl out there no matter how nice they seem to be & it’s their fault, ppl they harm are bitter!”

Black gossip blogs have flocked to the photos. Gossip site MediaTakeOut.com has more than 450 comments, while gossip blogger Sandra Rose, who originally reported that Carter was gay earlier this year, wrote that “99% of the actors in Tyler’s movies are gay.”

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