TipsFocus.com

Senate Democrats voted to move into a representative debate on overhauling the nation’s health care system on Saturday. Key centrists made it clear Sunday that the party is still a long way from convey its promise to provide near-universal health insurance coverage and contain medical costs.

In the face of the prospect of Republican filibusters at every aspect, Democratic leaders can only keep on moving the process if they could deliver the same kind of total unity they obtained in Saturday’s vote to begin debate: Every Democratic senator, plus two independents who caucus with them, supported the key procedural motion.

But several of those senators said they if no major changes are made ,they will not be prepared to support the bill on Sunday. (continue reading…)

This afternoon, President Bush welcomed the president-elect Barack Obama and his wife for Obama’s first trip at the White House. Just a week ago, the two men viewed each other as the personification of political evil. Today, they were new best friends.

Topics included “the need to get the economy back on track,” Gibbs said, and “what’s going on in the auto industry.” The discussion of the auto industry wasn’t limited to any one of the nation’s three largest car makers, he said. “It was a discussion about the broad health of the industry, and they also spoke about the housing industry and foreclosures.”

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino described the sessions as “good, constructive, relaxed and friendly,” while Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said the two men engaged in “a broad discussion about the importance of working together throughout the transition of government in light of the nation’s many critical economic and security challenges.”

They wouldn’t go any further. “Since it was a private meeting,” Perino said, “the White House will decline to comment on specifics,” except to say that Bush “pledged a smooth transition to the next administration.”

Bush allowed Obama to enter the historic office first as they prepared for a private talk about the challenges of leading a nation freighted in this hand-over of power by a crippling economic downturn and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The country’s troubles fall to Obama when he takes office Jan. 20.

At the end of their highly symbolic visit, Bush walked Obama to a waiting black limousine for the trip to the airport and the return flight by jet charter to his transition headquarters in Chicago. His team is working there to put together the next Cabinet and to fill the hundreds of jobs that come open in a change of administrations.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama called former first lady Nancy Reagan on Friday to apologize for making a quip that she held seances in the White House.

Nancy Reagan, wife of 40th President Ronald Reagan, was derided in 1988 when his former chief of staff Donald Regan revealed in a book that the first lady had consulted an astrologer to determine the president’s schedule.

Obama apologized to Reagan “for the careless and offhanded remark,” Obama transition team spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said. “President-elect Barack Obama called Nancy Reagan today to apologize for the careless and off-handed remark he made during today’s press conference,” said Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.

“The President-elect expressed his admiration and affection for Mrs. Reagan that so many Americans share and they had a warm conversation,” Cutter said in a statement. “they had a warm conversation.”

President-elect Barack Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha Obama are expecting their new dog that Obama promised them.

His victory conference had it all, President-elect Barack Obama announced that the children had “earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”

So far, the family has been mum on what type of pooch will get to call 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. home. During his campaign, Obama mentioned that Malia, 10, had decided she wanted a “goldendoodle,” a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle.

The American Kennel Club jumped into the action, running a poll asking what type of dog the Obamas should get. More than 42,000 people voted, with poodles getting the nod.

“The poodle is one of the most versatile and popular dogs,” said Daisy Okas, spokeswoman for the AKC. “They are great pets. They are intelligent, easy to train, really loving, obedient and just all-around great dogs.” (continue reading…)

President-elect Barack Obama has promised broad changes to U.S. health care, pledging to bring health insurance to millions of Americans and to spend $50 billion to take American health records electronic, and he will struggle to find the money to do it.

Polls show more than 80 percent of Americans want health care reform. But even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, Obama, who won a solid victory in Tuesday’s U.S. election and takes power in January, has hard work ahead of him, health experts agree.

If jobs are the next thing to go in the current economic crisis, as many economists are predicting, the number of American’s without health insurance will quickly increase beyond projections.

The statistics bear this out:

45 million Americans have no health insurance.
25 million more have health plans but are considered underinsured because their policies offer only minimal coverage, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
42% of U.S. adults under age 65 are uninsured or underinsured, up from 33% in 2003.
Total spending on health care represented around 16% of the gross domestic product in 2007, and the Congressional Budget Office says spending will rise to a quarter of gross domestic product by 2025.

Obama wants to create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals and small businesses buy private insurance.

He promised to require health care for all children, and expand Medicaid, the government-run health program for the poor, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP.

Obama has said he would pay for his plan by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts on people making more than $250,000 a year and keeping the estate tax at 2009 levels, but he has not been more specific. He has not provided a timetable for seeking his proposed reforms and has not said if he would present a comprehensive health care reform package or try for incremental change.

Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America. However, in a classical case of “buy on the rumor, sell on the news”, both the stock market and higher yielding currencies are giving back some of yesterday’s gains. Instead, investors are now looking beyond the short-term implications of the U.S. presidential election and the key question is whether the world economy will be able to grow in face of the most serious financial crisis since the 1930s.

John McCain claimed early victories in Kentucky and West Virginia, while Sen. Barack Obama took vermont.

Four states have closed polling stations so far, Indiana, NorthCarolina, Ohio and Virginia, were too close to call based on initial returns, the networks said.

As expected, Obama captured Vermont and McCain won Kentucky as polls closed in about a half-dozen U.S. states, television networks projected.

In Virginia, Senator Obama could become the first one to win the state Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, and finally occupy the White House.

Last week, at least four independent polls showed that in Virginia, Obama row over the Republican Senator John McCain. The last time the Democratic candidate win the U.S. election in Virginia was in 1964.

Obama’s campaign said that Obama’s supporters in Virginia are new voters, most of them are university students. Compared with previous elections, these students hope to further their political and economic issues.

At 7:36 a.m. this morning, Barack Obama has cast a vote for himself with his two young daughters at his home city of Chicago.

“The journey ends, but voting with my daughters, that was a big deal,” Obama told reporters later.

Afterward, Obama traveled to Indiana for final campaign stop to encourage voters in the Republican-leaning state to support the Democratic candidate from next door. A reporter asked as he was boarding the plane if he was feeling sentimental, and Obama responded: “I’m sure I will tonight. That’s when the polls close.”

More than 29 million people in 30 states have already voted, according to partial state and county data provided to The Associated Press, and that number was projected to rise to 44 million out of 137 million total votes nationally, according to estimates by Edison Media Research and George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald.

That would be an early vote of 32 percent of this year’s electorate, up from 22 percent in 2004 and 15 percent in 2000.

About a third of the American electorate was expected to vote before Election Day, largely to avoid long lines at the polls. (continue reading…)

BBC NEWS:

In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, he won 15 votes to his Republican rival John McCain’s six, becoming the first Democrat to win there since 1968.

The town’s 21 registered voters came out in cold weather to carry on the tradition of casting the nation’s first votes just after midnight.

When the results were announced, the ballot room at Balsams hotel was resounding with thunderous applause.

“I’m not going to say I wasn’t surprised,” said Obama supporter Tanner Nelson Tillotson, whose name was drawn from a bowl to make him Dixville Notch’s first voter.

With only a few days until the vote, Barack Obama has pulled to an eight point lead over John McCain in a tally of “traditional” likely voters in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll.

The same polling model Tuesday showed McCain within 2 points, his most encouraging news in the poll for a month. The poll now shows Obama leading 51 percent to 43 percent.

The poll would show initial reaction to Obama’s infomercial. The poll’s expanded model showed Obama moving into a nine point lead, 52 percent to 43 percent, among registered voters who told pollsters they intended to vote.

The traditional model considers registered voters who both say they intend to vote and have voted in the past as likely voters.

Now, this is a national poll, not a state by state one, and it’s a poll, and polls are what they are.

But if this is a good reflection of American voters right now, it’s not good news for a McCain camp, which is verging on being out of cash to spend on this campaign. That’s especially true as the Obama camp has seemingly limitless campaign cash.

As always, margin of error on these things is +/- 3 on the traditional, +/-2 on expanded. And while this is the poll we’ve chosen to track for an apples to apples comparison throughout the campaign, it’s only a poll.

NYtimes:

Senator Ted Stevens “has broken his trust with the people” and should step down, his fellow Republican Senator John McCain said on Tuesday, a day after Mr. Stevens was convicted of violating federal ethics laws for failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and services he had received from friends.

Federal Officials have arrested two young men who plan to assassinate Senator Barack Obama during a “killing spree” of some 100 African-Americans, officials said Monday.

The two men planned to kill some 88 people and decapitate 14 African-Americans, before in a final act assassinating Obama, bidding to be the country’s first black president, court documents revealed Monday.

Federal officials said they regarded the scheme as “serious.” It does not appear to have moved to an advanced stage, according to court documents unsealed Monday, but officials said the two men did acquire several rifles and cased a home and a gun store to rob as part of the plan.

The Obama campaign declined to comment on the case.

Does anybody knows that who is the Palin’s highest paid staffer? I think nobody would have guessed it. That’s Sarah Palin’s Make-up Artist. Her Make-up atrist earns in two weeks more than some in a year. How will the Republican Party deal with this new revelation? Wouldn’t they realize how the public might react to such a tidbit? I am flabbergasted that the Republican Party doesn’t sense these hot-button issues in advance.

A Huffington atricle report revealed that Sarah Palin’s makeup stylist cost $22,800. And that is just for the first two weeks of October. Apparently they paid her more than any other McCain staffer.

But not only the Huffington Post reports about this. The New York Times reveal that “Amy Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?”, was paid $22,800.”

Sarah Palin and John McCain explained that these designer clothes is going be donated, it does not answer why it was deemed appropriate to spend these sums in the first place. Surely, clothing for half the amount would have done the trick, too?

But, the question is, there is no solution to explain away the costs of a make-up artist. The Republican Party simply can’t donate any left-over Palin lipstick, or can they? Will this erupt in a new scandal around Sarah Palin?