Last week, Felton wrote a blog post for the The Huffington Post in which he advocated an immediate phased withdraw of US troops from Afghanistan and a refocusing of our mission there on Pakistan and anti-terrorism efforts. As part of the rational for this shift in U.S. foreign policy Felton noted, "Without a popularly supported government, it is extremely unlikely that the Karzai government ever will be able to exercise a level of control over the county that many failed governments before it were unable to exercise."

With an international climate conference set to begin in December in Copenhagen, Senators Boxer and Kerry recently introduced climate change legislation aimed at reducing America's greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020. The bill, dubbed "The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act," uses a cap-and-trade system to achieve this goal, similar to the bill that passed in the House earlier this year. Though Senate leaders have all but said the bill won't be debated until next year, Copenhagen has given the issue a greater sense of urgency.

In a speech to the UN on Tuesday, President Obama discussed the framework for a global solution to climate change. He spoke of America's energy accomplishments under his administration: Investments in green energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, new fuel standards for vehicles, and House passage of a cap-and-trade bill. But still, the heavy lifting lies ahead.

Yesterday, Senator Max Baucus announced his intent to implement the first round of modifications to his compromise health care legislation in order to
address concerns of affordability made by Senate Democrats, and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. The move, which plans to reallocate $28 billion within the bill, aims to create larger subsidizes for low income individuals and lower the penalties for those who do not purchase health care coverage.

So the President of the United States calls a joint session of Congress to deliver a speech on health care. He then issues every member of Congress a call to action, and in the midst of it, an ignorant Congressman from South Carolina (falsely) yells out that the President is lying when talking about illegal immigrants in the bill. That Congressman goes off to raise an obscene amount of money in his re-election bid, and Nancy Pelosi initiates a successful official rebuke from the other members of the House.

-- The Affordability Issue
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR200909...

-- CA Unemployment Hits 12.2%
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/real_estate/archives/2009/09/califo...

-- Paul Krugman on the Baucus Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

-- Angelides Wall Street Commission
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215579?from=rss

-- President Obama's New Missile Shield Strategy

I don't think Max Baucus gets it. That is honestly and truly the only conclusion that I can come to at this point. There seems to be a disconnect between him (as well as his moderate Senate Colleagues), and the people of the United States who need this reform to work because, quite frankly, their lives depend on it. That is the issue that I take with the Baucus' bill that was proposed yesterday. It seems to downplay the urgency of this situation, and believes that if we implement a piecemeal system of reform it will somehow fix a systemic problem that has plagued us for decades.

Yesterday, the 2009 numbers on health care costs were released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust (a nonprofit and nonpartisan health policy research foundation). In light of this, we felt it would be useful to look more in depth at some of these numbers, and how they underscore the urgency of our current health care debate.

-- In 2009, employer-sponsored family health insurance increased by 5% to $13, 375 despite the slowing rate of inflation.

-- Over the past decade, the annual cost of family coverage has increased by 131%

Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, announced yesterday that his compromise health care bill will be released Wednesday. The bill, the result of ongoing negotiations between the Senate's "gang of six"(3 Democrats and 3 Republicans on the Finance Committee) is expected to cost $880 billion over the next 10 years and be representative of the most moderate proposal going through Congress currently.

California already has a mandate that energy companies produce 20% of their electricity from renewable resources by 2010. That date is going to come and go with little fan fair because, quite frankly, they're not going to hit the target. In fact, the big 3 energy companies (Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison), only have a combined 11.9% of their energy coming from alternative sources. That's a big hill to climb in one year.