Washington Extra – New Year state of mind
New Year often means out with the old and in with the new.
On Capitol Hill, the new 112th Congress will start its 2-year run that will end after the 2012 presidential election. (For numerologists — that’s an awful lot of 2s).
Today was Nancy Pelosi’s last day as the first Madam Speaker. The most powerful woman in American politics and second in line to the presidency turns into House minority leader next. Her exit line: “No regrets.”
Tomorrow will be John Boehner’s first day as speaker when Republicans take control of the House and the new Tea Partiers get seated. We’ll be watching for tears of joy.
Before embarking on something new, Republicans have promised to rehash something old — namely President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
House Republicans will likely approve scrapping health care reform at a Jan. 12 vote, but a repeal was unlikely to succeed since Democrats still control the Senate and can block it.
President Obama has returned from Hawaii and it’s back to dealing with Congress and world leaders. He meets French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Jan. 10, will they go to Ben’s Chili Bowl for a half-smoke? (It’s the only smoke for Obama these days since he gave up cigarettes).
Ben’s Chili Bowl serves up half smoke to French leader
French President Nicolas Sarkozy may come from one of the world’s culinary capitals, but it seems whenever he comes to America more simple fare awaits him – hot dogs or sausages.
In 2007 when Sarkozy visited President George W. Bush at the family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, he was offered a lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs as the leaders tried to improve relations strained by the Iraq war.
Three years later he comes to Washington and where does he stop before going to the White House? Ben’s Chili Bowl.
The casual restaurant which serves hot dogs, sausages, and chili, has been around for more than 50 years and seen its share of history along the way. Customers have included Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Cosby, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.
Sarkozy apparently had one of Ben’s famous half-smokes – a pork and beef smoked sausage — for lunch, that’s about as American as you can get without the apple pie.
Obama couldn’t resist mentioning it at the start of a joint news conference at the White House later in the day.
“I have to point out that the French are properly famous for their cuisine, and so the fact that Nicolas went to Ben’s Chili Bowl for lunch … shows his discriminating palate,” Obama said.
Mia Farrow’s son working for Holbrooke on Pakistan
The sons of actors and presidents have been in the news a lot lately.
Take Mia Farrow’s 21-year-old son Ronan, who was all over the blogosphere today for his role as liaison between the office of star “Afpak” diplomat Richard Holbrooke and nongovernmental groups working in Pakistan.
Several NGO officials said they were taken aback when Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, introduced his protege at a meeting in Washington this week as a “special liaison” on Pakistan.
“It was a surprise but we don’t see this really as a big deal. He’s not the only point of contact for us,” said one NGO of Farrow’s appointment.
Ronan Farrow, whose father is famous director Woody Allen, has known Holbrooke for years apparently, and helped the veteran diplomat before.
What experience does the recent Yale Law School graduate bring to the job?
He has worked with the United Nations Children’s Fund and also helped his mother in her well-publicized advocacy work for Sudan’s Darfur region.
You missed another son. Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s son Zain was reported interning at the the office of Senator John Kerry, author of the Kerry-Lugar bill that parceled out $ 7.5 billion U.S tax-payer money to Pakistan.
getplaning. Relax. I don’t think anyone is criticizing Obama whether they support him or not.
If you take a moment and read what was written. Even those that do not support him are relieved he is actually a mere human and not the Messiah.
So, are you saying gay males are not normal? Unfortunately, your absolute comment will offend some people. But you radical liberals are only tolerant when it is convenient for you.
First Draft: French kiss
Can this be France? What happened to the days when cross-Atlantic gauntlets were thrown down and French fries turned into Freedom fries?
President Barack Obama was welcomed like a rock star in a land notorious for its air-sniffing disdain of almost everything American.
Although first lady Michelle Obama is almost overshadowing her husband in media coverage about their European jaunt, with many comparisons to Jackie Kennedy who wowed them all overseas.
Aside from atmospherics, some news was made. France agreed to take a Guantanamo Bay detainee and Obama warned that “appropriate steps” will be taken if North Korea goes ahead with a threatened missile test.
North Korea special envoy Stephen Bosworth speaks at the Foreign Press Center at 11 a.m.
Another dose of bad news for the U.S. economy which lost another 663,000 jobs in March, when the unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent, the highest since 1983.
Barack Obama has charmed everyone in a country where its President is getting all the heat from the trade unions day in and day out. As Nicolas Sarkozy’s popularity is hitting all time low, Barack Obama has become an idol of younger French all over France. Having been assertive and focused when it comes to communication, the greetings <> of Barack Obama was an irresistible gesture for the French audience wherever President Obama encountered ..
1. By default, every criticism needs to come with the alterative.
Under the broken system below,
(a) Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade, ((Some of CBO analysis : While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion–60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)).
Under the previous broken system, health costs will skyrocket, leading to more personal, corporate, and governmental bankruptcy.
(b) The insurers set up a monopoly via consolidation violating an anti-trust law.
(c) The biggest 10 healthcare providers are driven mostly to please Wall Street and must show growing profits every three months in their reports to wall Street or their stocks values go down. So healthcare prices climb at an unreasonable rate at the expense of everyone involved.
Can the reps show me the best possible breakthrough ? Just return to the failed Bush policy based on trickle-down economics ? :
“If the rich aren’t getting richer neither are the poor! The wealthy create companies and jobs; the more they have the more they can spend and that eventually filters down to the rest of us.”
If so, can you explain to me why the U.S. economy was on the brink of complete collapse just like Lehman Brothers in 2008 ?
And the reps claimed earlier : Are you listening to people ?
(a) The vast majority of the PEOPLE wanted the public option that the House passed and a majority of the Senate favored, but it couldn’t get past the Republican filibuster.
(b) The biggest concern about the economy is a job market, (according to CNN polling, voters said that unemployment is roughly twice as important as all other top issues combined.)
Can the reps also explain to me why they aren’t listening to people ?
Looks as if the reps are set to drag the U.S. economy into another failed Bush era via the ransom deal, repeal of ACA.
( Looks as if the reps are Glorifying the culture of corruption as the trickle-down economics )