The New York Times reported Thursday that “the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war [in Afghanistan] is being won. Those ‘metrics’ of success, demanded by Congress and eagerly awaited by the military, are seen as crucial if the president is to convince Capitol Hill and…

RUSSELL MOKHIBER Founder of Single Payer Action, Mokhiber said today: “Obamacare will cost $1 trillion over ten years and not cover 37 million Americans. By contrast, a single-payer system cuts out the private health insurance corporations and thus saves $4 trillion in administrative costs and waste over ten years. Those savings would be used to…

[Kenya]: GERALD LEMELLE Lemelle is the executive director of Africa Action. He said: “Kenya’s role as a manufacturing and financial hub for East Africa makes it an appealing partner for Western investments. The country’s geographic location, bordering on Somalia, a collapsed state, also appeals to U.S. security interests. However, the unhelpful and contradictory U.S. diplomatic…

DAVID SCHEINER, MD, SIDNEY WOLFE, MD, via Barbara Holzer MARGARET FLOWERS, MD At a news conference at the National Press Club today, David Scheiner, who was Obama’s personal physician for 22 years, said he would not support a proposal currently working its way through Congress: “If we don’t go the route of single payer, we’re…

Thursday is the anniversary of Medicare’s enactment. JOHN GEYMAN Geyman is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington. He is past president of Physicians for a National Health Program and author of the book Shredding the Social Contract: The Privatization of Medicare. He said today: “Medicare on its 44th birthday is remarkably…

DAVID SCHEINER, MD, SIDNEY WOLFE, MD, via Barbara Holzer MARGARET FLOWERS, MD Available for a limited number of interviews, Scheiner was President Obama’s doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House. Today Dr. Scheiner is publicly opposing Obama’s health plan and is calling for a single-payer system. See: http://i2.democracynow.org/2009/7/22/president_obamas_longtime_physician_opposes_white. Wolfe is acting president of…

SUYAPA G. PORTILLO VILLEDA Suyapa G. Portillo Villeda is a research fellow at Pomona College and is originally from Honduras. She said today: “With the elected president Zelaya in Nicaragua and saying he will enter Honduras shortly, thousands are gathering at the border and there is a very tense standoff between them and the military.”…

On Friday, the federal minimum wage is set to rise to $7.25 an hour, from $6.55. HOLLY SKLAR Co-author of the report “Raise the Minimum Wage to $10 in 2010” and the book Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work For All Of Us, Sklar said today: “The minimum wage is stuck in the…

President Obama met this afternoon with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. JAMES PAUL Paul is executive director of Global Policy Forum and has written extensively on Iraq. He said today: “For all the talk of ‘U.S. withdrawal’ from Iraq, the reality on the ground is starkly different. U.S. troops still patrol the cities, in flagrant…

STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER Woolhandler is a primary care physician at Cambridge Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who has studied and written about the Massachusetts healthcare plan. She said today: “As Washington politicians climb on-board a Massachusetts-style health reform, Massachusetts healthcare sinks. “Congress seems poised to include an individual mandate in health reform, copying…