Obama backs giving states leeway on health care

President Obama's willingness to let states design their own health care systems while meeting key federal goals as early as 2014 represents a challenge to Republican governors and lawmakers opposed to the federal law. Obama's endorsement of legislation Monday that would give states such freedom three years earlier than the 2010 law allows was panned by Republicans more interested in repealing the entire law or getting the U.S. Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. On the other hand, the president's move was applauded by lawmakers in Vermont who want to go even further than the federal law, which is designed to cover 32 million more...

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Arab youth want democracy, not theocracy

Hosni Mubarak's resignation resurrected a tsunami wave of articles and commentaries on whether Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood would now come to power. And yet, few have asked why the primary leaders of grassroots revolt in Egypt and across the Arab world curiously have not been Islamic organizations. Authoritarian rulers in the Arab world, like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, have long justified their repressive governments by warning the United States and Europe that the alternative to their governments was "chaos" and an Islamist takeover. The new generation of Arab youth and their supporters,...

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Lawmakers criticize Obama’s response to Egypt crisis

Republican and Democratic lawmakers criticized the Obama administration‘s response to the political crisis in Egypt during a congressional hearing on Wednesday. Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat, accused the administration of “snatching failure from the jaws of success.” “The Obama administration now appears to be wavering on whether America really backs the demands of the Egyptian people, or just wants a return to stability with a facade of change,” Mr. Ackerman said. In a teleconference with reporters on Wednesday, senior Obama administration officials defended their response, saying it is not for the U.S. to “dictate outcomes” in...

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