Thursday, March 5, 2015

BloggeRhythms

Most days, these commentary’s end with the latest news regarding Bill Clinton's wife. Today, however, with her presidential aspirations coming apart at the seams, she rates the top of the column.
 
Ravi Somaiya, writes in nytimes.com, “The Associated Press said Wednesday that it was considering legal action over unfulfilled Freedom of Information Act requests for government documents covering Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
 
“In its requests, the AP asked for her full schedules and calendars and for details on the State Department’s decision to grant a special position to a longtime Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, among other documents. The oldest request, the news organization said, was made in March 2010.”
 
AP’s general counsel, Karen Kaiser, said, “We believe it’s critically important that government officials and agencies be held accountable to the voters. In this instance, we’ve exhausted our administrative remedies in pursuit of important documents and are considering legal action.”
 
At the same time, according to Carol D. Leonnig in washingtonpost.com, “A House investigative committee issued subpoenas late Wednesday afternoon to the State Department, seeking a deeper look into former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nearly exclusive use of personal e-mails to do her official business during her tenure, the committee confirmed Wednesday.
 
“The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which first discovered Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail based on a home server in its inquiry into a fatal 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, is asking for all e-mails related to the attack from all Clintonemail.com accounts and any other staff members’ personal accounts.”
 
While some on the Democrat side believe that these highly damaging revelations are purposefully being leaked by the Clintons in order to deal with them now and get them out of the way, others, particularly the far left, see an opportunity to strongly promote an alternative candidate, such as Elizabeth Warren.
 
There are also rumbles of AlGore dusting off his resume and entering the race, while it wouldn’t surprise this writer at all if Chucky Schumer came out of Bill’s wife’s shadow should she evaporate, candidate-wise.   
 
On another issue, one of the arguments made while defending Obamacare before the Supreme Court yesterday was that no alternative existed for those who’d lose coverage, should the law be overturned. And, therefore, for that reason alone, no changes should be made.
 
Nonetheless, as usual, that premise proved to be incorrect, because according to Sharon Begley at Reuters.com, “Last weekend, leaders of the National Physicians Alliance, which supports the Affordable Care Act and works to improve access to medical care, met in Washington to discuss how to work with community organizations to arrange healthcare for people who might become uninsured.”
 
The comments came from, Dr. Jeff Huebner, who chairs the group's policy committee and added, “The ideas include finding organizations that make referrals to free clinics, encouraging patients to check if they qualify for Medicaid or other state programs, and if they can't get insurance then find a regular source of care that accepts payment on a sliding scale based on ability to pay.”
 
While Dr. Huebner and “other physicians are also scheduling Obamacare patients for preventive screenings, completing lab work, and writing prescription refills,” the doctor also said, “I would advise patients in this boat to schedule a visit with their primary care provider as soon as they can" to set up "transition plans." 
 
In summation so far then, between the president and his purported successor, yesterday didn’t go too well. But adding insult to injury, if little things truly do mean a lot, the last item may portend other disappointments in the offing.  
 
Laurie Hanna for Mailonline at dailymail.co.uk, writes that, “The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize has controversially demoted its chairman for the first time in the 114-year history of the award. Thorbjoern Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister of the Labour Party, has chaired the five-member panel since 2009 but was ousted after his right-wing opponents won a majority on the prestigious panel.
 
“Mr Jagland had attracted criticism after overseeing a number of controversial of awards, including ones made to Barack Obama in 2009 - less than a year after the U.S. president took office - to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010 and to the European Union in 2012.” 
 
What’s most interesting though is that, “No serving chair has ever been ousted since the awards were first made in 1901, even with shifting political majorities.”
 
So, one has to wonder if, perhaps, Bibi Netanyahu has been placing calls to the Peace Prize Committee, suggesting that they reconsider the award they granted in 2009 and also require a monetary refund based on contradicting information regarding the recipient.
 
That's it for today folks.
 
Adios

No comments:

Post a Comment