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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (15010)	7/8/2009 3:20:37 PM
From: TideGlider	1 Recommendation Respond to of 103300

Damn! Now that is powerful! The G-8 can cap temperatures. Well than, we have no problem. What tempertures are the high and low caps? I hope they won't freeze us. Thanks for the great news. Now Al Gore is out of a job! You no longer have to post temperatures. G-8 agrees to cap on climate temperatures

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (15010)	7/8/2009 3:22:50 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

sweet, do we get to pick our temps?? lets cap summer time temp here in DC to 72. Can they low cap also ? lets low cap DC winter temps to......72

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (15010)	7/8/2009 4:03:01 PM
From: puborectalis	1 Recommendation Respond to of 103300

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration announced a deal with three hospital groups on Wednesday that will save $155 billion in healthcare spending over 10 years, mainly by lowering charges for health services to the poor and elderly. Vice President Joe Biden said associations representing thousands of U.S. hospitals had agreed to contribute $155 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings for the next decade. Biden offered few details on how the savings would be achieved, saying only that they would come about as a result of delivery system reforms and trimming the annual inflationary adjustment to hospital reimbursement payments from the two government health programs. The administration is pursuing such agreements with key sectors in healthcare to help fund an overall reform of the system, which is estimated to cost upward of one trillion dollars to put in place. "Folks, reform is coming," Biden said as he announced the agreement with the hospital groups. "It is on track. It is coming. We have tried for decades and decades to fix the broken system and we have never in my entire career in public life been this close." "Our hospitals are cracking under the weight of providing quality healthcare for Americans who lack insurance," he added. "The status quo is simply unacceptable. Rising costs are crushing us." The three groups participating in the deal were the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the American Hospital Association and the Hospital Corporation of America.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (15010)	7/8/2009 4:48:01 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	2 Recommendations Respond to of 103300

G-8 agrees to cap on climate temperatures Well, that's all right then. So much simpler than fussing about with carbon emissions. I wonder why they didn't think of it before. ... And we laugh at the Byzantine scholars who argued how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (15010)	7/8/2009 4:56:17 PM
From: longnshort	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

Ken now we need to work on lowing the boiling point of water and repealing the Law of Gravity. Can you call Obama for me about this

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (15010)	7/8/2009 6:29:28 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 103300

Blagojevich Aide Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 8, 2009 Filed at 2:54 p.m. ET CHICAGO (AP) -- A former chief of staff to ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking part in a scheme to sell or trade President Barack Obama's Senate seat and vowed to testify at the ex-governor's corruption trial. John Harris, 47, admitted in his signed plea agreement that he repeatedly talked with Blagojevich about how the then-governor could turn his power to name a successor to Obama to his own financial advantage -- such as trading it for a high-paying job. Harris's defense attorney, Terry Ekl, said he expects Blagojevich to go to trial on racketeering conspiracy charges and that his client would take the witness stand to outline what he knows about corruption in the administration. ''I have never met a person who is going to be a better witness than John Harris is going to be,'' Ekl told reporters after his client pleaded guilty. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, Randall Samborn, had no comment. Harris pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel to a single count of wire fraud for a November 2008 phone conversation about appointing Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to the seat being vacated by Obama's election as president. In his plea agreement, Harris outlined a scheme under which Blagojevich would get a job as head of a union-sponsored organization, Change to Win, in exchange for giving Jarrett the Senate seat. Officials of the Service Employees International Union were to broker the scheme had it gone forward. It did not. Jarrett, now a White House adviser, was not mentioned by name in the plea agreement but has been identified in the past as the Senate Candidate B who was to get the seat under the plan. Jarrett eventually took her name out of contention for the seat and has been accused of no wrongdoing in the case. SEIU officials have also not been accused of any wrongdoing. After Blagojevich believed that Jarrett was no longer a candidate, he discussed two other possible candidates for the Senate seat, the plea agreement said. In one case, he allegedly told Harris that he wanted to receive the candidate's entire campaign fund in exchange for the Senate appointment. In the other, there was discussion through intermediaries that the candidate would raise $1.5 million in campaign funds for Blagojevich in order to get the seat. While Harris pleaded guilty to breaking the law, the plea agreement said that the chief of staff repeatedly warned the governor against doing so. ''Defendant told Blagojevich that the appointment could either reward an ally or make a new ally but that Blagojevich could not trade the Senate seat for himself,'' the plea agreement said. In addition to the Change to Win job, Blagojevich also expressed interest in getting an ambassadorship for himself or being named secretary of health and human services in the Obama administration in exchange for the Senate seat, according to the plea agreement. According to the document, Harris agreed under orders from Blagojevich to carry the message to Chicago Tribune executives that they could expect no state help in selling the Chicago Cubs unless they fired editorial writers who were calling for the governor's impeachment. But Harris never delivered the threat, according to the document. In exchange for his cooperation in the investigation and testimony at Blagojevich's trial, prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than 35 months in federal prison. But Ekl is free to argue for a lesser term.