By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

Dec. 17, 2009 – As the Senate sits in deadlock, Republican resort to procedural slowdowns and one loan Democrat bask in the fame of being the holdout – I would like to ask one question; What’s wrong with having access to affordable health care?  

It’s become clear the cost of insurance is increasing at an alarming rate, people who have insurance are paying more and people without it can’t afford to buy it.  It seems unfair and misleading to demonize “government run insurance programs.”  There are several underway right now that work very well for millions of Americans.  

 The federal government runs Medicare, partners with states on running Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, the Veterans Administration and States Children’s Health Insurance Program.  By in-large folks like these health care programs.

Debate has stalled as Dems work on language to assure no federal dollars are used for abortion, to get Sen. Ben Nelson (D- Neb.) on board, the public option appears to be faltering in order to get Independent Joe Lieberman’s (Conn.) support and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) called for the clerk to read the 767 page amendment aloud which wasted two hours and 43 minutes reading the first 139 pages of the bill.

The Senate has been working on this for 17 days with sparks of moving forward met with disappointing obstacles and moving backwards.  Now the pressure is on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to rally the Democrats and deliver Presdent Obama a bill he can sign.  

That wold be a great Christmas present for the president.

 It would also be a plus if a couple of Republicans considered supporting the final bill and adding bipartisan support.   I’m sure some of the folks they represent could use access to affordable care too.   I bet the nearly 40 million Americans without health insurance are  Democrats and Republicans.

By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

Aug. 7. 2009 – The jobless numbers released today show fewer workers being laid off, the unemployment rate slowing and for the first time since April of 2008 a fall in the jobless rate.   All good signs unemployment numbers will not hit 10 percent and that the economy is headed toward recovery. 

The Labor Department said the government numbers show 43,000 fewer jobs lost in May and June than once reported and in July the unemployment rate was forecast to be higher than it actually was.  Those numbers coupled with the pace of job losses slowing delivered the decline in the unemployment rate from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent.    

 President Obama told reporters the economy is moving in the right direction. “This morning, we received additional signs that the worst may be behind us.  Though we lost 247,000 jobs in July, that was nearly 200,000 fewer jobs lost than in June, and far fewer than the nearly 700,000 jobs a month that we were losing at the beginning of the year,” he said.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said these numbers are a good sign. “Today’s job numbers give us a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel and hope that we are beginning to turn our troubled economy around for the first time in many months.”

Economic analysts predicted the worse of the economic downturn was ending and had indicated a slowdown in job loss would be one of the first indicators. 

“The drop in the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent and the ease of job losses by 196,000 make it clear that the new economic policies implemented by President Obama and the Democratic-led Congress are working,” Cummings said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid quickly took to the House floor following the job numbers release to remind Americans that this economy was “inherited” from the previous administration and that Dems have been working to get it back on track.

“The President and Congress acted swiftly and passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has stopped the bleeding and avoided an economic catastrophe,” Reid said.  “This is welcome news and further proof that the economic recovery plan we enacted is producing positive results,” Reid declared.

The Republican National Committee disagrees and put out a statement saying ,“In the month of July alone 247,000 Americans lost their jobs, which means more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the president took office. “  They made no mention of the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration.

Do you have a job, are you looking for one or have you lost one in the last two months?

By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

May 21, 2009 – President Barack Obama will outline his plans to deal with closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba today with the hope of avoiding any set-backs to keeping his campaign promise of closing the detention facility.

On Wednesday the U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to strip the $80 million the president requested for funding the close of the controversial prison by early 2010.

The president is expected to outline his plan in a speech Thursday morning most likely directed at the recent actions by the Senate to withhold funding.

 White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, “He will go through some of the decisions we have to make regarding how to close down Guantanamo.”

One of the major stumbling blocks has been the uncertainty of where prisoners will be housed when the facility is shut down. Members of Congress have been openly critical of any suggestions that prisoners be moved inside the U.S. borders and housed in their backyards.   Gibbs said, “The president hasn’t decided where some of the detainees will be transferred.”

The Senate went so far as to remove the money from the $91.3 billion bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and also barred the administration from using any money to  bring detainees into the states through Sept. 30.

Obama is getting resistance from both sides of the aisle and warnings from the FBI that detainees could pose a threat if brought stateside.  

 “They [Congress] need and deserve a more detailed plan,” Gibb told reporters.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said he doesn’t support transferring suspected terrorists to prisons in the states and FBI director Robert Mueller agrees.  Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday that detainees could be a triple threat if they support terrorism, help finance attacks, or recruit and radicalize others in the prison system.

What do you think; should the facility be closed and detainees brought to prisons in the United States?