Monday
Jun212010

Justifying war as way to protect — or exploit — a nation's resources

Seattle Times

Reading this week's New York Times headline — "U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan" — many probably wondered how this information was being presented as "news" in 2010. After all, humanity has long been aware of the country's vast natural resources. As Mother Jones magazine's James Ridgeway said after recalling past public accounts of the ore deposits, "This 'discovery' in fact is ancient history tracing back to the times of Marco Polo."

The intrigue in The Times dispatch, then, is not Afghanistan's "huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals" that the paper quotes Pentagon officials gushing about — it is the gushing itself. Indeed, the real question is: What would prompt the government to portray well-known geology as some sort of blockbuster revelation?

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder proffers a convincing answer. Noting the military's coordinated quotes in The Times piece, he writes that the Pentagon is probably trying to bolster Americans' support for the flagging Afghanistan campaign by "publicizing or re-publicizing valid but already public information about the region's potential wealth."

This assertion, mind you, is not coming from some antiwar ideologue in a "No War for Oil!" T-shirt. On the contrary, Ambinder is a quintessential buttoned-down establishmentarian far more interested in covering political process than in pushing a pet cause — which means his charge (later echoed by other Washington journalists) is a particularly powerful one. And if he's correct, we may be witnessing the final spasm of a radical shift.

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Monday
Jun212010

Pakistan Dismisses US Interference in its Gas Deal With Iran

Hamsayeh.net

June 21, 2010 - In a clear sign of meddling and in an effort to thwart the Southeast Asian country’s progress, US special envoy to Pakistan warned Islamabad against its multi-billion dollar gas deal with Iran. 

Richard Halbrook cautioned Pakistan against implementing a $7.5 billion Peace Pipeline project, which would transport huge quantities of Iranian gas to Pakistan thus boosting the regions economy by a great margin. Halbrook’s comments run against Pakistani national interest and sovereignty showing American dispersion with any consequential projects that may change the balance of power in the region. 

The United States secretly draws major contracts with India while it keeps the Pakistani side constantly involved in civil, ethnic, terrorism and economic crisis for long periods. Also US aerial strikes on Pakistani civilians under the pretext of combating terrorism have made Pakistani public turn against US presence in their country.

On Sunday The US special envoy told reporters, ‘Pakistan should be wary of opting for gas deal with Iran, we warn Pakistan to wait for upcoming U.S. law against Iran.’ He added, ‘New sanctions on Iran can impact Pakistan and the US understands that Pakistan faces major energy crisis, but we warn Pakistan not to make progress on the project unless the US decision is formulated.’

Pakistani officials have dismissed US meddling by saying no amount of sanctions could hinder the gas deal with its historic, energy rich neighbor Iran. The proposed Peace Pipeline project would transfer more than 21 million cubic meters of natural gas to Pakistan via a 1000 km pipeline.

Monday
Jun212010

UK special envoy to Afghanistan who called for talks with Taliban quits

Guardian

Britain's special envoy to Afghanistan, known for his scepticism about the western war effort and his support for peace talks with the Taliban, has stepped down just a month before a critical international conference in Kabul.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has taken "extended leave", a spokesman for the British high commission in Islamabad said today. He has been replaced on a temporary basis by Karen Pierce, the Foreign Office director for South Asia and Afghanistan.

News of his sudden departure comes as the Ministry of Defence confirmed the 300th British fatality in Afghanistan, a widely anticipated yet grim milestone in the nine-year war.

The dead soldier – a Royal Marine from 40 Commando – has not been named. He had been gravely injured in an explosion while on patrol in in Helmand's Sangin district on June 12.

Cowper-Coles, who also had Pakistan in his remit as special envoy, clashed in recent months with senior Nato and US officials over his insistence that the military-driven counter-insurgency effort was headed for failure, and that talks with the Taliban should be prioritised.

The position is being "reviewed" by the new foreign secretary, William Hague, an official said.

The change comes at a sensitive time. With the bloody summer fighting underway in Helmand, President Hamid Karzai appears to be losing faith in the Nato-led war as foreign troops numbers reach their highest level.

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Sunday
Jun202010

Son kills father who translated for U.S. in Iraq

USA Today

A man shot and killed his own father as he slept in his bed Friday for refusing to quit his job as an Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. military, police said, a rare deadly attack on a close family member over allegations of collaborating with the enemy.

The attack happened on a particularly bloody day in Iraq, with at least 27 people killed nationwide in bombings and ambushes largely targeting the houses of government officials, Iraqi security forces and those seen as allied with them.

Hameed al-Daraji, 50, worked as a contractor and translator for the U.S. military for seven years since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

He was shot in the chest about 3 a.m. while sleeping in his house in Samarra, a former insurgent stronghold 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Baghdad, police Lt. Emad Muhsin said.

Authorities arrested the son and his cousin, saying the young men apparently were trying to prove their loyalty after rejoining the insurgency. Police were also looking for another son who allegedly took part in the attack.

Citing confessions, police said the son whom they arrested, Abdul-Halim Hameed, 30, was a former member of al-Qaeda in Iraq who quit the terror network in mid-2007 under pressure from U.S.-Iraqi security operations that have led to a sharp drop in violence in the area.

Col. Hazim Ali, a senior security official in Samarra, said Hameed, his 19-year-old cousin and 24-year-old brother remained committed to extremist causes.

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Sunday
Jun202010

Govt Activity Categorized As Classified To Hide Criminality

JUAN GONZALEZ: We begin today’s show looking at the Obama administration’s recent crackdown on whistleblowers and leakers of classified information. Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. Earlier this month it was revealed the website might be in possession of hundreds of thousands of classified State Department cables, as well as video of massacres committed last year by US forces in Afghanistan. Wikileaks made international headlines in April when it released a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians, killing twelve people, including two employees of the Reuters news agency.

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Saturday
Jun192010

Cost of Seizing Fannie and Freddie Surges for Taxpayers

NY Times

 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.

Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay. In a good week, he sells 20 homes and Fannie sends another 20 listings his way.

“We’re all working for the government now,” said Mr. Bridwell on a recent sun-baked morning, steering a Hummer through subdivisions laid out like circuit boards on the desert floor.

For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that is likely to cost taxpayers the most money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion, and it grows with every foreclosure of a three-bedroom home with a two-car garage one hour from Phoenix. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the final bill could reach $389 billion.

Fannie and Freddie increased American home ownership over the last half-century by persuading investors to provide money for mortgage loans. The sales pitch amounted to a money-back guarantee: If borrowers defaulted, the companies promised to repay the investors.

Rather than actually making loans, the two companies — Fannie older and larger, Freddie created to provide competition — bought loans from banks and other originators, providing money for more lending and helping to hold down interest rates.

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Saturday
Jun192010

Afghanistan violence is soaring, U.N. says

LA Times

Afghanistan has become a far more dangerous place for Western troops and Afghan civilians alike, with an increase in suicide attacks, roadside bombings and political assassinations in the first four months of 2010, the United Nations said in a report released Saturday.

The gloomy assessment comes on the heels of congressional testimony last week by senior U.S. military officials who acknowledged that efforts to stabilize Afghanistan's volatile south are proving more complex and time-consuming than anticipated.

With the U.S. troop numbers in the country approaching the 100,000 mark, the Western military toll has been rising sharply in recent weeks as the summer "fighting season" unfolds. More than 1,000 U.S. service members have died in the nearly 9-year-old conflict. 

"There has been a great deal of 'kinetic activity''" as Western and Afghan forces confront insurgents in the south, Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, told reporters in the capital Saturday. That is the term the military uses to describe battlefield clashes.

The U.N. report, submitted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Security Council and released by the world body's mission in Afghanistan, reported a near-doubling in attacks involving so-called improvised explosive devices.

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Saturday
Jun192010

77 million poisoned by arsenic in drinking water

BBC

Up to 77 million people in Bangladesh have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from drinking water in recent decades, according to a Lancet study.

The research assessed nearly 12,000 people in a district of the capital Dhaka for over a period of 10 years.

More than 20% of deaths among those assessed were caused by the naturally occurring poisonous element, it found.

The World Health Organization said the exposure was "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history".

It began after hand-pumped wells were installed in the 1970s to tap groundwater.

Scientists say even small amounts of arsenic over a long period can cause cancer of the bladder, kidney, lung or skin.

Bangladesh was chosen for the study because nearly 90% of the population uses groundwater as its primary source of fresh water.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10358063.stm

Saturday
Jun192010

Gulf residents outraged by BP CEO's yacht outing

Just when it seemed Gulf residents couldn't get any more outraged about the massive oil spill fouling their coastline, word came Saturday that BP's CEO was taking time off to attend a glitzy yacht race in England.

Tony Hayward's latest public relations gaffe didn't sit well with people in the U.S. who have seen their livelihoods ruined by the massive two-month oil spill.

"Man, that ain't right. None of us can even go out fishing, and he's at the yacht races," said Bobby Pitre, 33, who runs a tattoo shop in Larose, La. "I wish we could get a day off from the oil, too."

As social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook lit up with anger, BP spokespeople rushed to defend Hayward, who has drawn withering criticism as the public face of his company's halting efforts to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Robert Wine, a BP spokesman at the company's Houston headquarters, said it's the first break Hayward has had since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and setting off the undersea gusher.

"He's spending a few hours with his family at a weekend," Wine said Saturday. "I'm sure that everyone would understand that."

Not Mike Strohmeyer, who owns the Lighthouse Lodge in Venice, on Louisiana's southern tip, who said Hayward was "just numb."

Click to read more...

Saturday
Jun192010

BP Relied on Cheaper Wells 

WSJ

In recent years, oil giant BP PLC used a well design that has been called "risky" by Congressional investigators in more than one out of three of its deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, significantly more often than most peers, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows.

The design was used on the well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, killing 11 workers and causing America's worst offshore oil spill. The only other major well design, which is more expensive, includes more safeguards against a natural-gas blowout of the kind that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon.

A Journal analysis of records provided by the U.S. Minerals Management Service shows that BP used the less costly design—called "long string"—on 35% of its deepwater wells since July 2003, the earliest date the well-design data were available. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority partner of BP's in the destroyed well, used it on 42% of its deepwater Gulf wells, though it says it doesn't do so in wells of the type drilled by BP.

Both companies used the design much more often, on average, than other major Gulf drillers. Out of 218 deepwater wells in the Gulf drilled since July 2003, 26% used the long-string design. It derives its name from its use of a single, long "string" of pipe from the sea floor to the bottom of the well.

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Saturday
Jun192010

Part-owner of Gulf well calls BP 'reckless'

USA Today

Anadarko, a part owner in BP's blown-out well, slammed the company on Friday for "reckless decisions and actions" that led to its explosion, several media outlets report.

"The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions," Anadarko Chairman and CEO Jim Hackett said in a statement.

BP, the well's operator, said in a statement it "strongly disagreed" with Anadarko's allegations.

"These allegations will neither distract the company's focus on stopping the leak nor alter our commitment to restore the Gulf coast," BP CEO Tony Hayward said in the statement. "Other parties besides BP may be responsible for costs and liabilities arising from the oil spill, and we expect those parties to live up to their obligations."

Since Anadarko owns 25% of the well, it could potentially be liable for some damages, the New York Times reports. BP owns 65% and Mitsui owns 10% of the well.

"BP is responsible to its co-owners for damages caused by its gross negligence or willful misconduct," Anadarko said in the statement.

Saturday
Jun192010

War zone corruption allegations up sharply 

USA Today

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government, which is pressing Iraqi and Afghan leaders to get tough on internal corruption, is doing the same in its ranks.

Cases of suspected fraud and other wrongdoing by U.S. troops and contractors overseeing reconstruction and relief projects in Iraq and Afghanistan are up dramatically.

James Burch, the Defense Department's deputy inspector general for investigations, says his agency is investigating 223 cases — 18% more than a year ago.

Investigators have charged an Army officer with pocketing cash meant to pay Iraqi civilian militiamen, contractors offering an Army officer $1 million for the inside track on a road project in Afghanistan, and three contractors for an alleged conspiracy to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fuel from a U.S. base in Baghdad.

Army Maj. John Cockerham was sentenced in December to 17½ years in prison for accepting $9 million in bribes for contracts to sell water and other supplies to the U.S. military.

In Afghanistan, where U.S. spending on reconstruction will soon surpass the $50 billion spent in Iraq, the U.S. government is bolstering its investigative presence. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has a staff of 15 and plans to expand to 32 by October. By September 2011, the agency plans to have 49 full-time employees, says Raymond DiNunzio, an assistant inspector general.

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Saturday
Jun192010

Illuminati: The Gulf Gusher & the NWO Agenda

It's clear where they're heading: forced evacuation to FEMA camps of millions of Gulf residents. In this way the NWO will be grabbing an opportunity to unleash martial law on a grand scale in the Southeastern USA, so that we'll all get used to it, like we got used to airport security and torture. As the NWO project has progressed, it has been very difficult to anticipate accurately how things are going to unfold.

9/11, for example, caught us completely off guard, and who could have predicted how rapidly the entire Constitution could be dismantled, along with international law, and have it all accepted by most Americans?  Some things happen faster than we expect. With Iran, on the other hand, it seemed attack was imminent many times in the past few years, and yet it still hasn't occurred. Some things happen slower.

And then they throw things at us like the swine flu non-pandemic, and we still don't know what it was about. It certainly had nothing to do with public health, and pharmaceutical profits just doesn't seem like a strong enough motive for such a vigorous global campaign of disinformation. Perhaps it was all just to keep us off balance and confused, as we tried to find some rational scheme behind the fiasco. Or perhaps it was to test our various social defenses against vaccine warfare.

There is a lot of documentation about the New World Order, from the elites themselves, and other kinds of evidence. There are a few outcomes that are definitely included in the plans, even if we don't know the timing. These include world government (in essence if not in name), centralized control of currencies, drastic depopulation, and a major nuclear war.

We need to recognize that this is no longer something in the future, something that might happen or might not happen. We are now in the midst of the switchover process. The toxic-bubble- collapse- bailout project was a clear sign that the switchover process has now been launched.

Click to read more...

Saturday
Jun192010

Obama officials still approving flawed Gulf drilling plans

McClatchy

WASHINGTON — Despite President Barack Obama's promises of better safeguards for offshore drilling, federal regulators continue to approve plans for oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico with minimal or no environmental analysis.

The Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service has signed off on at least five new offshore drilling projects since June 2, when the agency's acting director announced tougher safety regulations for drilling in the Gulf, a McClatchy review of public records has discovered.

Three of the projects were approved with waivers exempting them from detailed studies of their environmental impact — the same waiver the MMS granted to BP for the ill-fated well that's been fouling the Gulf with crude for two months.

In a May 14 speech in the Rose Garden, Obama said he was "closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews."

Environmental groups, however, say the loophole is as wide as ever and that the administration is allowing oil companies to proceed with drilling plans that may be just as flawed as BP's, which concluded that a major spill was "unlikely" and that the company was equipped to manage even the worst-case blowout.



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/18/96185/federal-approval-still-flowing.html#ixzz0rJ4RIJcX
Saturday
Jun192010

Corporate welfare and California's budget deficit

LA Times

I believe we can all agree on the root cause of the state's $20-billion budget gap.

It's welfare: all those millions of taxpayer dollars going to recipients who line up for their government handouts instead of competing in the marketplace on a level playing field like the rest of us, who don't pay their fair share of taxes and who get protected by a politically powerful lobby.

Yes, I'm talking about the business community.

For all the hand-wringing by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about how there's almost nothing left to cut in the state budget except services to children, the aged and the destitute, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year on handouts to business. That's despite the lack of evidence that some of these programs keep employers in the state, lure employers from out of state or are cost-effective in any general way.

The governor is asking the Legislature to take such draconian steps as eliminating CalWORKS, the state's principal family welfare program (serving 1.1 million children), and downsizing child care and mental health programs.

Meanwhile, corporate welfare programs such as tax breaks for some of our largest companies and "incentives" for our largest industries are to survive. To his credit, Schwarzenegger has proposed delaying some new corporate tax breaks.

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Friday
Jun182010

Review may force U.S. to ease ban on transferring detainees to Yemen

Washington Post

The Obama administration is considering partially lifting its suspension of all transfers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, officials said, following a federal court ruling that found "overwhelming" evidence to support a Yemeni's claim that he has been unlawfully detained by the United States for more than eight years.

The case of Mohammed Odaini has become so pressing that senior administration officials, including the secretaries of defense and state, or their deputies, will discuss it next week. A White House official stressed that any decision "should not be viewed as a reflection of a broader policy for other Yemeni detainees."

"What isn't being considered is lifting, in a blanket fashion, the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because deliberations are ongoing.

The administration, though, may come under further pressure to quickly release Yemenis besides Odaini. As many as 20 more Yemenis could be ordered released by the courts for lack of evidence to justify their continued detention, a second administration official estimated.

The official said the government may have to periodically carve out an exception to its ban.

"There is a group of Yemenis who are going to win their habeas cases," the official said. "Some of them will not be as clear as this case, but some will be, and that poses a real dilemma."

Click to read more...

Friday
Jun182010

U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy

By ALAN GREENSPAN | WSJ

An urgency to rein in budget deficits seems to be gaining some traction among American lawmakers. If so, it is none too soon. Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading.

Despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months—to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion—inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued. This is regrettable, because it is fostering a sense of complacency that can have dire consequences.

The roots of the apparent debt market calm are clear enough. The financial crisis, triggered by the unexpected default of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, created a collapse in global demand that engendered a high degree of deflationary slack in our economy. The very large contraction of private financing demand freed private saving to finance the explosion of federal debt. Although our financial institutions have recovered perceptibly and returned to a degree of solvency, banks, pending a significant increase in capital, remain reluctant to lend.

Beneath the calm, there are market signals that do not bode well for the future. For generations there had been a large buffer between the borrowing capacity of the U.S. government and the level of its debt to the public. But in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, that gap began to narrow rapidly. Federal debt to the public rose to 59% of GDP by mid-June 2010 from 38% in September 2008. How much borrowing leeway at current interest rates remains for U.S. Treasury financing is highly uncertain.

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Friday
Jun182010

Treasury to Gain Expanded Powers in U.S. Financial Overhaul 

Bloomberg

The U.S. Treasury Department under Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is coming out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression with expanded powers to guard against future threats to financial stability.

Geithner, who has managed taxpayer bailouts of companies from Citigroup Inc. to General Motors Co., would lead a council to monitor large financial firms under legislation House and Senate negotiators aim to complete by July 4. Lawmakers confirmed the council’s basic functions yesterday and may approve final language next week. Geithner would also get a research unit that could demand data from banks and regulators and a new national insurance office.

The Treasury-led council’s role includes identifying companies that might be shut down because they pose a risk to the financial system. That authority, even if well-intentioned, could be used for political ends, said Phillip Swagel, a former Treasury economist who’s now a professor at Georgetown University in Washington.

“It’s such an open-ended grant of power,” said Swagel, who worked for Republican Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. “Do we really want to give that to every future administration?”

Tom Quaadman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, said the legislation will give Treasury “enormous new powers.”

The Treasury would also be required to approve any emergency lending by the Federal Reserve. The Fed used its emergency powers during the crisis to rescue American International Group Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos.

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Friday
Jun182010

Deepwater Horizon is spewing radioactive oil? 

This is going to blow the roof off of the scope of this disaster. This is why people are getting sick. This is why they are using Corexit in such quantities, this is why there aren't many ships out there. The radioactivity is beyond safe levels.

Lets first start with Eugene Island 330.

The mystery of Eugene Island.

Eugene island is a submerged geological feature like an underwater mountain 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The landscape is littered with deep fissures and faults which gush large amounts of oil and gas. A platform named Eugene Island 330 was producing 15,000 barrels of oil in the early 1970's. By the late 80's, the flow has reduced to 4,000 barrels a day. Then suddenly a mysterious thing happened. Production at Eugene Island 330 suddenly jumped back to 13,000 barrels a day. The reserve was refilled just like that. It is estimated the reserves went from 60 million barrels to 400 million barrels in a few days time. Something very strange is happening under the Gulf of Mexico.

What happened at Eugene Island supports the growing theory that oil is renewable from deep Earth processes. But don't let the general population know this. This helps explain why the Middle East oil fields seem to be inexhaustable.

Scientists noticed oils chemical composition did not change as fossil records had changed.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Jun182010

Senate fails to spare doctors from Medicare cuts

WASHINGTON – After a week of partisan wrangling, the Senate on Friday passed legislation to spare doctors a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments looming for months. But the last-ditch effort came too late.

Moments after the Senate acted, Medicare announced it would begin processing claims it has already received for June at the lower rate. The reason: the House cannot act on the fix until next week.

That means doctors, nurse practitioners, physical therapists and other providers who bill under Medicare's physician fee schedule will have to resubmit their claims if they want to be made whole, with added paperwork costs both for the providers and for taxpayers.

"Congress is playing Russian roulette with seniors' health care," Dr. Cecil B. Wilson, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. "This is no way to run a major health coverage program."

AARP, the seniors' lobby, called the cut "unprecedented" and "dangerous" even if it's only temporary. Nancy LeaMond, the group's executive vice president, warned it would undermine confidence in the stability of the giant health care program for 46 million elderly and disabled people.

"This cut creates a dangerous atmosphere for seniors and their doctors, and will contribute to more doctors making the decision already made by some physicians to stop taking Medicare patients," she said.

The billings affected by the cut cover the early part of this month. An earlier congressional reprieve expired May 31. Medicare had been holding off on processing claims in the hopes lawmakers would act, but the agency said it can no longer do that without hurting doctors' cash flow.

Click to read more...