UK CITIZENS QUIT EU VIA HISTORIC REFERENDUM VOTE 51%-48.1% (BREXIT)

#Brexit

UK CITIZENS QUIT EUROPEAN UNION VIA HISTORIC REFERENDUM VOTE:

COMMONERS vs ELITE - ONLY LONDON REMAINS.

"GOD SAVE THE QUEEN" UK ANTHEM MAY CHANGE.

GLOBAL MARKETS PLUNGE AFTER BREXIT VOTE.

DAVID CAMERON TO DELIVER SPEECH AFTER THE MARKETS OPEN.

 Sources:  BBC News, Bloomberg News, Young Turks,
The Guardian, Telegraph,  YouTube 

LEAVE EU:

Vote share

51.9%

VOTES17,410,742VOTES

REMAIN IN EU:

Vote share

48.1%

VOTES

16,141,241

VOTE

***** BREXIT: UK votes to leave EU in historic referendum

The UK has voted to leave the European Union after 43 years in a historic referendum.

Leave won by 52% to 48% with England and Wales voting strongly for Brexit, while London, Scotland and Northern Ireland backed staying in the EU.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage hailed it as the UK's "independence day" but the Remain camp called it a "catastrophe". 

The pound fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985 as the markets reacted to the results.

The referendum turnout was 71.8% - with more than 30 million people voting - the highest turnout at a UK election since 1992.

Wales and the majority of England outside London voted in large numbers for Brexit.

Labour's Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the Bank of England may have to intervene to shore up the pound, which lost 3% within moments of the first result showing a strong result for Leave in Sunderland and fell as much as 6.5% against the euro.

'Independence day'

UKIP leader Nigel Farage - who has campaigned for the past 20 years for Britain to leave the EU - told cheering supporters "this will be a victory for ordinary people, for decent people".

Mr Farage - who predicted a Remain win at the start of the night after polls suggested that would happen - said Thursday 23 June would "go down in history as our independence day".

He called on Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum but campaigned passionately for a Remain vote, to quit "immediately".

A Labour source said: "If we vote to leave, Cameron should seriously consider his position."

But pro-Leave Conservatives including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have signed a letter to Mr Cameron urging him to stay on whatever the result.

Labour former Europe Minister Keith Vaz told the BBC the British people had voted with their "emotions" and rejected the advice of experts who had warned about the economic impact of leaving the EU.

He said the EU should call an emergency summit to deal with the aftermath of the vote, which he described as "catastrophic for our country, for the rest of Europe and for the rest of the world".

Germany's foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier described the referendum result as as "a sad day for Europe and Great Britain".

But Leave supporting Tory MP Liam Fox said voters had shown great "courage" by deciding to "change the course of history" for the UK and, he hoped, the rest of Europe.

And he called for a "period of calm, a period of reflection, to let it all sink in and to work through what the actual technicalities are," insisting that Mr Cameron must stay on as PM.

Exit process

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that the EU vote "makes clear that the people of Scotland see their future as part of the European Union" after all 32 local authority areas returned majorities for Remain.

London has voted to stay in the EU by around 60% to 40%. 

However, no other region of England has voted in favour of remaining. 

The referendum has underlined the social and cultural gap between London and provincial England. 

Remain's defeat seems to have been primarily the product of the decisions made by voters living north of the M4. 

Throughout the Midlands and the North of England the level of support for Remain was well below what was required for it to win at least 50% of the vote across the UK as a whole. 

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Britain would be the first country to leave the EU since its formation - but a leave vote will not immediately mean Britain ceases to be a member of the 28-nation bloc.

That process could take a minimum of two years, with Leave campaigners suggesting during the referendum campaign that it should not be completed until 2020 - the date of the next scheduled general election.

The prime minister will have to decide when to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would give the UK two years to negotiate its withdrawal.

Once Article 50 has been triggered a country can not rejoin without the consent of all member states.

Mr Cameron has previously said he would trigger Article 50 as soon as possible after a leave vote but Boris Johnson and Michael Gove who led the campaign to get Britain out of the EU have said he should not rush into it.

But they also said they want to make immediate changes before the UK actually leaves the EU, such as curbing the power of EU judges and limiting the free movement of workers, potentially in breach the UK's treaty obligations. 

The government will also have to negotiate its future trading relationship with the EU and fix trade deals with non-EU countries. 

In Whitehall and Westminster, there will now begin the massive task of unstitching the UK from more than 40 years of EU law, deciding which directives and regulations to keep, amend or ditch.

The Leave campaign argued during a bitter four-month referendum campaign that the only way Britain could "take back control" of its own affairs would be to leave the EU.

Leave dismissed warnings from economists and international bodies about the economic impact of Brexit as "scaremongering" by a self-serving elite.

Wisconsin Recall Election Battle Snapshot Of 2012 Elections: Class Warfare! (BRUTAL Race Ahead!)

Wisconsin'S Recall Elections Are A Snapshot Of What We'll Face In 2012. The GOP & Tea Party Are NOT Playing! They're Currently Out Organizing Us & Out Spending Democrats, Liberals, Progressives & Independents. If We Don't Unite, Organize, Mobilize & Outspend Them We Can Just Say Good-Bye To Diversity, Good-Bye To Equal Rights, Good-Bye To Opportunities For Everyone & Hello To Rich Vs. Poor With No Middle Class In Between! Don't Stay Home! VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!!




Republicans take 4 of 6 in recall elections, hold Senate

Democrats won two state Senate seats in Tuesday's historic recall elections, but failed to capture a third seat that would have given them control of the chamber.

By keeping a majority in the Senate, Republicans retained their monopoly on state government because they also hold the Assembly and governor's office. Tuesday's elections narrowed their majority - at least for now - from 19-14 to a razor-thin 17-16.

Republicans may be able to gain back some of the losses next week, when two Democrats face recall elections.

Democrats had hoped to block the Republican agenda by taking control of the Senate in the recall elections, but the GOP should be able to continue to advance its agenda.

"I think it's a huge victory for us," said John Hogan, director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate. "Voters gave us a mandate last fall. . . . They backed us up again (Tuesday). Voters told us loud and clear, 'Stay the course. Things are working.'"

But Democrats claimed victory for the two seats they captured from Republicans.

"We went on their turf and we won on Republican turf," said Mike Tate, chairman of the state Democratic Party. "We will not stop, we will not rest . . . until we recall (Gov.) Scott Walker."

Republican Sens. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) and Randy Hopper (R-Empire) were both defeated by their Democratic challengers, Rep. Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) and Democrat Jessica King of Oshkosh.

"I look forward to going to Madison to stand up for the working families, seniors and students of Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Blackwolf, Waupun and all across the 18th district," King said in a statement. "Their voices will be once again heard."

Three other Republicans held onto their seats, despite aggressive campaigns put up by their Democratic foes and outside groups backed by unions. Surviving the recalls were Republican Sens. Alberta Darling of River Hills, Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls, Luther Olsen of Ripon and Rob Cowles of Allouez.

Darling was declared the winner over Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) late Tuesday.

Democrats called for the recalls after Walker launched his plan to eliminate most collective bargaining for public workers, and Tuesday's races were seen as a preview of a plan to force a recall of Walker next year.

Tuesday's recalls were launched in March, during the turmoil in Madison over Walker's plan, ultimately successful, to curtail collective bargaining by most public employees. Democrats tried to recall Republicans for that vote, while Republicans tried to recall Democrats for leaving the state for three weeks to block a vote on the issue.

Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) was the first to face a recall election, and he easily survived the challenge last month.

Attention now turns to next week's recall elections, against Democratic Sens. Jim Holperin of Conover and Bob Wirch of Pleasant Prairie.

"It's encouraging to see, even though a couple Republicans lost their seats, the recall process holds as a check for those who disrespect their office and not simply do their job and take a vote," said a statement from Holperin's challenger, Kim Simac. "Next week we will recall a senator who was actually derelict in his duty by failing to represent his district when he fled to Illinois."

Turnout levels in Tuesday's elections were substantial, approaching those of last fall's governor's race - a striking testimony to the extreme passions, money and attention these contests have attracted this summer.

In one contest, for the 10th district seat won Tuesday by GOP incumbent Harsdorf, the total vote exceeded that of the race for governor last fall.

Voters were mobilized by massive get-out-the-vote efforts on both sides, and by expensive television and radio advertising campaigns that flooded the airwaves in all six districts. At least five of the elections broke the $3 million spending record, set in 2000, for money spent by all parties in a Senate race.

Expensive campaigns
So far more than $35 million has been spent on the recall races, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks political money. The spending on the nine races dwarfs the $19.3 million spent in last year's 115 legislative races, and approaches the $37.4 million spent in the race for governor.

The flow of money came as unions saw the recall elections as the best way to halt Walker's agenda and to send a message to other states considering changing their collective bargaining laws. Political observers are watching Wisconsin to see what the results say about the mood of the electorate leading up to next year's elections for president and Congress.

Unions played a huge role for Democrats by spending vast sums of money on advertising, and supplying manpower in all the Senate districts. Conservative groups have parried with their own influx of cash.

But the Democrats' argument in the recalls morphed over time from concerns over collective bargaining to objections to a number of GOP initiatives - most notably cuts to education and tax breaks for the wealthy - and the complaint that the changes were pushed through without enough public discussion.

Republicans countered that argument by insisting that voters - who just last November flipped both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office from blue to red - had sent them to Madison to balance the budget and get control of state spending. "Elections have consequences," was the often-repeated slogan.

The wave of recall elections is unparalleled in the nation's history. Before this year, there had been just four recall elections of Wisconsin lawmakers. Two incumbents were recalled, while two survived the efforts. One of those who won his recall election was Holperin, who was in the Assembly in 1990 when a recall effort was launched because of his stance on Indian fishing rights.

Democrats cried foul over returns that came in late from Waukesha County in the Darling-Pasch matchup. Tate, the party official, alleged Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus was "sitting on ballots" and "tampering with the results." Later, though, he said he would not pursue questions of irregularities.

Nickolaus enraged Democrats in April when she discovered votes from Brookfield that helped Supreme Court Justice David Prosser win re-election.

Here's how the races played out:

32nd District: From the beginning of the state Senate recalls that have preoccupied Wisconsin politics for the past five months, Kapanke, 63, had been identified as the Republican most likely to be thrown out of office, and he was Tuesday.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) said Shilling's victory was a rebuke to Republicans.

"The people of the 32nd Senate District sent Gov. Walker and his legislative Republicans rubber-stamps a clear message today: they've had enough of the GOP's extreme agenda that favors wealthy special interests and large out-of-state corporations at the expense of Wisconsin's working, middle class families," read a statement Barca issued.

Kapanke's district has been trending increasingly Democratic, including a win by President Barack Obama with 61% of the vote in 2008. .

18th District: Hopper had been considered, with Kapanke, the other most vulnerable of the six Republicans to being defeated.

Voters in his public-employee-heavy district quickly gathered 22,500 signatures to force the recall.

His opponent, lawyer King, had lost by just 163 votes when they faced off for the open seat in 2008. On top of that, Hopper has had to deal with questions about an ugly divorce, where he lives and a state job for his 26-year-old girlfriend.

But Hopper, 45, a radio station owner, said his two years in office had proved that he and Walker have Wisconsin on the right track to fiscal health, and he was confident about his chances.

"It will be close," he said in recent weeks, "but I've always said, 'more important to do my job than keep my job.' "

That turned out to be true. With just three precincts still out, and those in King's home county of Winnebago, she was up by more than 1,100 votes, and the Associated Press called the race for her.

King, 36, a former Oshkosh alderman and deputy mayor, had predicted that the momentum of dissatisfied workers would put her in office.

14th District: Olsen's district came to be considered the Democrats' best chance to pick up a third Republican seat to give them control of the Senate. But Olsen, 60, held on to squeak by his opponent, Rep. Fred Clark (D-Baraboo).

Clark, 52, was the first Democrat Olsen's ever faced in the 16 ½ years he's been in office - an indication of how Republican his district has been over the years.

Still, spending in the race was second only to that in Darling's 8th District, according to the Democracy Campaign, which estimated last week that $5.5 million was spent in total, both by candidates and outside parties.

The largely rural central Wisconsin district stretches from Wisconsin Dells to Waupaca County. It is traditionally considered GOP turf, with Olsen's home of Ripon laying claim as the birthplace of the Republican Party.

Clark's Assembly district is in the southwestern corner of Olsen's Senate district, and until 2008 had been in Republican hands.

Clark and Olsen often told voters during the campaign that they like each other, turning the race into one that pitted a nice guy against a nice guy. In more than a dozen interviews with voters in Portage and Ripon, few were critical of the candidates personally. The voters had clear views on where the two stood and said they planned to vote even though the election was occurring at the height of summer.

8th District: In by far the most expensive recall race, Darling, 67, was the victor in a tight race with Pasch. Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, had called this seat the "crown jewel" of the recalls, because Darling, as co-chairwoman of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, had helped push through Walker's budget initiatives.

Darling raised well over $1 million for the race, the all-time record for a state Senate candidate in Wisconsin, and the nonprofit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign last week estimated $7.9 million had been spent by both candidates, plus all outside groups - nearly triple the $3 million record for spending on a state Senate race.

Besides Darling's key legislative role, the campaign was made more expensive by the higher advertising rates in the Milwaukee television market. Pasch, 57, was first elected to the Legislature in 2008.

2nd Senate District: Cowles easily defeated Nancy Nusbaum, the former De Pere mayor and Brown County executive. From the first, Cowles had been considered the GOP senator safest from being defeated. He was the final senator to have recall signatures filed against him, and a recent report by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign estimated just $750,000 was spent by all parties on both sides of the race - the smallest amount on any of nine Senate districts with recalls.

Nusbaum, 65, argued that Cowles had changed his political spots to fall into line with Walker's conservative agenda, switching from the moderate image Cowles, 61, had cultivated over 28 years in the Legislature. Cowles said he had not changed and was running on his record as a fiscal conservative who had worked in a bipartisan way on such issues as renewable energy and energy conservation.

10th District: Republican Harsdorf easily beat Democratic challenger Shelly Moore.

Early on, Harsdorf had been considered somewhat vulnerable, but lately she'd been seen as well ahead of Moore, who was making her first run for office.

During the campaign, Moore, 37, of River Falls accused Harsdorf, 55, of betraying working families, public employees, students and seniors. Moore is an English teacher at Ellsworth High School and a member of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's largest teachers union.





Wisconsin recall leaves both sides claiming victory

Democrats in Wisconsin failed to gain control of the state Senate in Tuesday's recall elections, but both Democrats and Republicans are claiming victory in the struggle, which cast Wisconsin as "ground zero in a national class war, partly over the fate of organized labor."

In the unprecedented recall elections against six Republican state senators, four Republican lawmakers won, leaving the GOP with a slim 17 to 16 majority. Two Democrats face recall elections next week, which could bolster the GOP's weakened control.

The recalls were spurred by vehement anger over Republican Gov. Scott Walker's ultimately-successful effort to curb public employees' union rights. The number of lawmakers facing recall elections in a matter of weeks was unprecedented, and national organizations brought millions of dollars and significant organizational support into the mix.

While the recalls were inspired over union rights, the elections morphed into a referendum against Walker's entire Republican agenda, encompassing issues like school vouchers and health care funding. Meanwhile, the recalls were seen as something of a test for the GOP agenda at the national level -- whether Republican leaders could withstand the blowback from taking on unions, particularly in a key battleground state.

"I think it's a huge victory for us," John Hogan, director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Voters gave us a mandate last fall... They backed us up again."

Similarly, Republican State Leadership Committee President Chris Jankowski called Tuesday's results a "tremendous victory" with larger implications.

"Tonight's results demonstrate that responsible budgeting measures and job creating policies can prevail over mountains of liberal special interest money from those fighting to maintain the unsustainable status quo," Jankowski said in a statement. "By beating back countless liberal special interest dollars and paid supporters, the strength of responsible Republican ideals is obvious and foreshadows continued Republican victories in 2011, 2012 and beyond."

While labor unions and liberal groups did contribute significantly to the recall effort, the Republican senators were also heavily backed by third party interest groups and the national parties.

Democrats and their backers argued that their impressive mobilization efforts showed that labor unions still have voter support, in spite of the GOP's best efforts to limit their influence. The mere fact that they were able to collect enough signatures quickly enough to put six Republicans up for recall suggests the union-backed liberal movement remains strong, they say.

"Beyond Wisconsin, if we can enjoy a similar 'loss rate' in Republican-held districts (picking up 33 percent of them), Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a huge majority in 2013," liberal pundit Markos Moulitsas wrote. "We had a message that resonated with large numbers of working people in overwhelmingly white working-class districts that shifted hard against Democrats in 2010. GOP overreach is winning them back for us."

Mike Tate, chairman of the state Democratic Party, told the Journal Sentinel, "We went on their turf and we won on Republican turf."

Republican Sens. Alberta Darling of River Hills, Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls, Rob Cowles of Allouez and Luther Olsen of Ripon all held onto their seats. Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Kapanke, while Democrat Jessica King defeated first-term incumbent Sen. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac.

While Democrats did make some gains in Republican-held districts, the New York Times' Nate Silver points out that these elections were in swing districts -- districts that voted for Walker in 2010 but for President Obama in 2008.

Furthermore, extrapolating national implications from Tuesday's elections could be a futile exercise, given the extraordinary and unique political circumstances in Wisconsin, where residents protested for weeks over union rights.

Union rights have been a point of contention in other states like Ohio this year, and some Republican governors, like Rick Scott of Florida and Rick Snyder of Michigan, have left some voters grumbling over their agenda.

While national Republican leaders say the outcome in Wisconsin validates the agendas Republican governors have pursued, Walker suggested Tuesday that he was willing to extend an olive branch to Democrats.

"Earlier this evening I reached out to the leadership of both the Republicans and Democrats in the Assembly and State Senate," Walker said in a statement. "I shared with them that I believe we can work together to grow jobs and improve our state. In the days ahead I look forward to working with legislators of all parties to grow jobs for Wisconsin and move our state forward."

Walker could very well have his own fate in mind, since Democrats intend to hold a recall election against him next year.


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Sources: AP, ABC News, CBS News, MSNBC, Reuters, Wisconsin Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel, Youtube, Google Maps

Andrew Cuomo For U.S. President In 2016? Could Be!!

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Andrew Cuomo 2016 speculation heating up


The 2016 Democratic presidential race just began!

With his successful push to pass a gay marriage law, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo overnight became a national contender, putting down a major marker among the liberal party base that dominates the primaries.

“Most politicians, including most Democrats, have been afraid of this issue. Andrew is the first national figure ever to embrace it so enthusiastically,” said Richard Socarides, the president of Equality Matters and a former Clinton White House adviser. “Clearly, this establishes him as the most important progressive leader of our party, setting him up very well for 2016.”

Come 2016, “Cuomo is the only one who will be able to say ‘I delivered for you’ before everyone else realized it was politically popular, and that will be an invaluable asset,” Socarides said, adding, “it also has the benefit of being true.”

Same-sex marriage opponents also framed New York’s arrival as the sixth state to legalize gay marriage in terms of perceived national ambitions for the governor who pushed the GOP-controlled state Senate to make it happen.

“The Republican Party has torn up its contract with the voters who trusted them in order to facilitate Andrew Cuomo’s bid to be president,” said National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown, in a statement Friday night attacking the vote.

The son of former three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo, Andrew’s story represents a remarkable political comeback, rising from a humiliating 2002 primary defeat in the New York governor’s race and a tough divorce from Kerry Kennedy to become a popular governor. Now, he’ll be surrounded by the presidential buzz that invariably attaches to big state governors.

Cuomo supporters already have fanned the flames privately of his prospects on the national stage: Rumors of his White House ambitions started circulating in New York even before he was elected last year by one of the largest margins in state history — some of them date to the days when he was managing his father’s own multiple flirtations with a national run.

With an accomplished first year in office and a family name that remains golden for older Democratic primary voters, he’ll now likely receive an endless list of invitations for speeches and Jefferson-Jackson dinners across the country. The burst of media attention that’s already helped turn the drama over the gay marriage vote into a national story will only burnish his profile.

“This is one of those funny things where the perception of the profile-in-courage moment actually exceeds the real political risk involved,” said Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. “He’s absolutely at the exact right spot on the arc of history.”

Neera Tanden, the chief operating officer at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said Cuomo’s role in the passage of the marriage law will be a valuable asset.

“Voters tend to reward candidates with points for courage for seeming like they are ahead of public opinion on core issues,” she said, drawing a parallel to how ahead of the Democratic curve then-candidate Barack Obama was in the 2008 race on the Iraq war.

“Think how important it was to Barack Obama that he was against the Iraq War before public opinion moved to his position. Andrew could get that benefit in any future race,” she added.

Of the early potential Democratic contenders, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley says he supports gay marriage but stopped short of making a major push for the legislation earlier in the year, while Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is opposed. Hillary Clinton, if she runs, would still have her commitment to civil unions but not gay marriage from the 2008 race hanging over her — and at least until the end of next year, when she’s said she’ll be done at the State Department, she won’t be able to make any new comments on the issue.

“It gives him an authenticity and a strength with progressives that will provide a real base — not just gays, but progressives in general. Other people can say they’re for same sex marriage, he got it done,” said Democratic political consultant Bob Shrum. “I think it will always now be a hallmark of his political persona.”

Cuomo’s push on gay marriage wasn’t in a vacuum — it came at the end of a tough legislative session when New York progressives were forced to swallow major budget cuts, tough on unions rhetoric and a refusal to even consider renewing the state’s expired millionaire’s tax.

That’s part of the persona he’s crafting too, as Cuomo sets himself up as a governor who’s pushed the party to the left on social issues and toward the center-right on economic issues. It’s a message with both primary and general election appeal, though being so far out-front on gay marriage could be a problem in a November national election.

“He’s created a profile that I think would make him a very effective candidate,” Shrum said. “He’s right on the social issues, and he will be even more right by 2016 than he is now in terms of Democratic primary voters, and in terms of the country, frankly. He’s created a profile of economic stewardship in a very difficult period that is very strong, he’s managed to deal with unions without getting into the kind of destructive confrontations that people like Scott Walker have.”

In the meantime, Cuomo’s potentially painting the national Democrats into a corner for 2012 — already, his action on gay marriage is putting pressure on Barack Obama, and he’s sketching out his vision of how Democrats can cut budgets and refuse tax increases, too.

Richard Brodsky, a liberal former New York assemblyman who’s watched Cuomo for years, sees a distinct political calculus at work.

“It’s a new kind of beast — a ‘progr-actionary’ or a ‘con-iberal,’ where you take the two prongs of the progressive agenda, the focus on the economic health of the middle class and the poor, and the liberation of people who’ve been historically oppressed, and you dump one in its entirety and you seize the other in a very high-profile move,” Brodsky said.

Joe Trippi, the former Howard Dean and John Edwards adviser, said it’s not too early to start the 2016 clock — and, pointing to Michael Dukakis in 1988, noted there’s a precedent for an ethnic Northeast governor appealing to Democrats far away from home.

“I understand 2016’s a long way off, and who knows where things will be then, but certainly, he has to be somebody that the party looks to for leadership once you get past Obama’s reelection,” Trippi said. “He’s putting his stamp on what kind of party he thinks the Democrats should be.”


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Politico, Google Maps

New York's Historic Gay Marriage Vote Divides Nation Politically: Decision 2012

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Because New York State, Home Of New York City (GREATEST City In The World) Recently Voted To Legalize Gay Marriage, Now The Entire World Will Be Watching To See How This Historic Decision Affects Our Nation Politically.

On The Other Hand By Signing Such Landmark Legislation Into Law Could Actually Make Governor Andrew Cuomo An International Political STAR!






Number of Americans in same-sex marriage states more than doubles


The number of Americans living in states covered by same-sex marriage laws has more than doubled after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.

Cuomo signed the measure after it passed a Republican-controlled Senate on Friday night, raising questions as to whether the move reflects new momentum in the gay rights movement.

Cuomo said the law will grant same-sex couples equal rights to marry "as well as hundreds of rights, benefits and protections that are currently limited to married couples of the opposite sex."

A few of those are the right of inheritance, employer health benefits and a host of state tax benefits.

That will not include Social Security benefits through a spouse, because that is a federal benefit.

The controversial law passed by a narrow 33-to-29 vote -- a first for a GOP-led state Senate -- making New York the sixth state in the union to legalize same-sex marriage.

But the decision also drew a sharp rebuke from opponents, who spent millions to try to defeat the measure.

"We worry that both marriage and the family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilization," the state's Catholic bishops said in a joint statement released late Friday. It was signed by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and seven other bishops.

Opponents of the marriage equality law have vowed to take political action against any Republican who voted for the bill.

New York, which gave birth to the gay rights movement in the 1960s, will become the sixth state to allow same-sex marriages. Currently, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire and the District of Columbia grant same-sex marriage licenses.

New York state's population is 19,378,102, according to the 2010 U.S Census.

The population of the other five states plus Washington equals 15,671,450: Massachusetts has 6,547,629 residents,

Connecticut has 3,574,097, Iowa has 3,007,856, New Hampshire has 1,316,470, Vermont has 625,741 and Washington has 599,657.

The Senate vote came after days of delays that included last-minute negotiations, passing by a slim margin with the support of four Republicans.



Cuomo credited four Republican senators who joined the majority of the state's Senate Democrats for the passage of the bill -- which is to take effect in 30 days -- saying they were "people of courage."

"I think it was politically more dangerous for a Republican," Cuomo told reporters late Friday. "The conservative party was threatening them with consequences ... and they did it anyway."

A vote on the measure, which the Assembly passed June 15, had been stalled in the Senate. But it turned a corner late Friday, according to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, after lawmakers agreed on an amendment to protect religious groups from litigation that had been pushed by Republicans.

The Assembly passed a new version of the bill that included the amendment about religious institutions.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who courted Republicans to approve the bill, called the vote a "historic triumph for equality and freedom."

"In recent weeks, I have had many conversations with our state senators. I emphasized that not only is marriage equality consistent with bedrock American principles, but it is also consistent with bedrock Republican Party principles of liberty and freedom -- and the Republicans who stood up today for those principles will long be remembered for their courage, foresight, and wisdom.

In fact, 10 or 20 or 30 years from now, I believe they will look back at this vote as one of their finest, proudest moments," Bloomberg said in a statement released shortly after the vote.


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Sources: AP, CNN, MSNBC, NY Magazine, NY Times, Politico, Yahoo News, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama Makes History! Signs Historic Health Care Bill! GOP Absent

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama Signs Landmark Health Care Bill Into Law


President Barack Obama capped a yearlong political drama Tuesday, signing into law a landmark health care reform bill that had been seen as impossible just two months ago.

The president said the law "will set into motion what a generation of Americans have fought for."

He said he was confident the Senate would make fixes to the legislation "swiftly."

The president praised those House members who had "taken their lumps" during the overhaul debate. Shouted one lawmaker in the audience to laughter, "Yes we did!"

He also hailed the new law, saying it helps lift a "decades-long drag" on the economy.

With Victoria Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in the audience, Obama took note of the long battle to bring the health overhaul measure to his desk. "He was confident we would do the right thing," the president said of the longtime lawmaker.

"We are not a nation that does what's easy ... we are a nation that faces its challeges and faces its responsibilities."

Now, Obama must sell the law's merits to a wary American public.

House and Senate Democrats who backed the bill, as well as ordinary Americans whose health care struggles have touched Obama , oined him for the ceremony at the White House. Afterward, they headed to the Interior Department for an even larger celebration.



The White House did everything possible to make sure Obama's health care victory lap carried the day with no competition. A planned announcement of the administration's new drug control policy by Vice President Joe Biden was called off, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to hold his regular daily briefing for reporters and all Obama's meetings were closed to coverage, including one with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The next act begins Thursday, when Obama visits Iowa City, Iowa, where he announced his health care plan as a presidential candidate in May 2007. There Obama plans to talk about how the new law will help lower health care costs for small businesses and families, selling the overhaul to Americans who are deeply divided over the plan.

Republicans united in opposition pledged to repeal Obama's redesign of the health care system, which they criticized as a costly government takeover affecting one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The Republicans lack the votes needed to repeal the measure, but the minority party plans to use the issue to try to regain control of Congress in the November elections.

Democrats argue that they have delivered on Obama's campaign pledge for change, revamping a system in which the spiraling costs have put health care and insurance out of the reach of many Americans.

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After a rancorous debate, the House voted 219-212 late Sunday to send the 10-year, $938 billion bill to Obama. Not one Republican voted for the bill. Some Democrats also voted against it.

The measure, which the Senate passed in December, eventually will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, reduce federal budget deficits and ban such insurance company practices as denying coverage to people with existing medical problems.

The bill will bring near-universal coverage to a wealthy country in which tens of millions of people are uninsured. The plan's various provisions will be phased in through 2014, and it is expected to expand coverage to about 95 percent of eligible Americans, compared with 83 percent today.

The measure represents the biggest expansion of the U.S. federal government's social safety net since the 1960s, when President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted the Medicare and Medicaid government-funded health care coverage programs for the elderly and poor.

A companion measure sought by House Democrats to make a series of changes to the main bill was approved 220-211. It goes to the Senate, where debate could begin as early as Tuesday. Majority Leader Harry Reid says he has the votes to pass it — though only under special budget rules requiring just 50 votes rather than the 60 usually needed to bypass the opposition's delaying tactics.

Republicans plan to offer scores of amendments to slow or change the companion measure, which Democrats hope to approve as written and send directly to Obama for his signature.

Even so, the health care debate will likely continue for months as both parties try to use it to motivate their backers to turn out in huge numbers in the November congressional elections.

Republican-leaning states are already lining up to sue the federal government over the constitutionality of the health care overhaul legislation. Officials in at least 10 of the 50 states have agreed to file a lawsuit challenging it on grounds it violates state sovereignty by mandating that all Americans have some form of health insurance. Experts say the effort will likely fail because the U.S. Constitution states that federal law supersedes state laws, but it will keep the issue alive until the November elections.

Obama's yearlong campaign to overhaul health care seemed at a dead end in January, when a Republican won a special election to fill the late Edward Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, enough votes to prevent the bill from coming to a final vote in the Senate.

But the Democrats regrouped and soon came up with a rescue plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure despite opposition to many of its provisions, then have both chambers pass a measure incorporating numerous changes.

Obama has pushed health care as his top priority since taking office in January 2009. Failure would have weakened him and endangered other issues on the president's ambitious domestic agenda, including immigration reform and climate change legislation.

So-called tea party activists, who believe that government spending and influence should be limited, are vowing to exact political revenge on those who passed it.

The government "has declared war on our way of life," activist Eric Odom from Nevada said Monday.

In Florida, about 85 tea party groups have about 100,000 members, according to Everett Wilkinson, a leader in the state's movement. A rally was planned in Boca Raton later Tuesday.

The movement's name is taken from the Boston Tea Party, a 1773 protest in which activists in the then-British colonies in America boarded ships and threw their cargo of English tea into Boston Harbor in a symbolic act of protest against taxes.


Sources: MSNBC, Whitehouse.gov

Health Care Bill Passes 219-212 (Partisan), Obama Prepares To Sign Into Law

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House sends health care bill to Obama's desk



After well over a year of negotiations, setbacks, and political wrangling, the House has approved President Barack Obama’s top domestic policy initiative, sending a bill to massively overhaul the nation’s health insurance system to his desk to be signed and enacted into law.

The climactic chapter in a century-long quest for near universal coverage concludes with the House's 219-212 approval of a bill to extend coverage to 32 million Americans who lack it, ban insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade.

Republicans voted unanimously against the bill, which they say constitutes a government takeover of the health care system, financed by a trillion dollars in higher taxes and Medicare cuts combined.

"We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, health care for all Americans," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as the vote neared.

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"We have failed to listen to Americans," said Minority Leader John Boehner during a fiery speech on the Senate floor before the vote. "And we failed to reflect the will of our constituents."

Passage of the central health care bill, which has already been cleared by the Senate, sends it to Obama for his signature. That still leaves one more step, a companion package of changes still needing Senate approval. That package of changes is expected to be approved by the House late Sunday.

Senate Republicans believe that they may be able to derail passage of that corrections bill during the complex budget "reconciliation" procedure that the upper chamber will use following House passage.

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The Senate is expected to start work on the reconciliation process on Tuesday.

The measure cleared a critical early test vote, 224-206, a few hours after Obama and Democratic leaders struck a compromise with anti-abortion lawmakers whose votes had left the outcome in doubt. The president issued an executive order pledging that no federal funds would be used for elective abortion.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and a handful of fellow abortion opponents said they were satisfied and announced their support for the bill. A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed skepticism that the presidential order would satisfy the church's objections.

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A shouting band of protesters outside the Capitol dramatized their opposition, and one man stood up in the House visitor's gallery yelling, "Kill the bill" before he was ushered out — evidence of the passions the tumultuous yearlong debate over health care has stirred.

For the president, the events capped an 18-day stretch in which he traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of his signature domestic issue. According to some who met with him, he warned that the bill's demise could cripple his still-young presidency.

Far beyond the political ramifications — a concern the president repeatedly insisted he paid no mind — were the sweeping changes the bill holds in store for millions of individuals, the insurance companies that will come under tougher control and the health care providers, many of whom would face higher taxes.

For the first time, most Americans will be required to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Much of the money in the bill is devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums.

The measure will also usher in a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor. Coverage would be required for incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014.

The insurance industry, which spent millions on advertising trying to block the bill, would come under new federal regulation. They would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of Pre-Existing Conditions and from canceling policies when a policyholder becomes ill.

Parents would be able to keep children up to age 26 on their family insurance plans, three years longer than is now the case.

A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion would go into high gear.

After more than a year of political combat — certain to persist into the fall election campaign for control of Congress — Democrats piled superlative upon superlative across several hours of House debate.

Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York read a message President Franklin Roosevelt sent Congress in 1939 urging lawmakers to address the needs of those without health care, and said Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Richard Nixon had also sought to broaden insurance coverage.

Republicans attacked the bill without let-up, warning it would harm the economy while mandating a government takeover of the health care system.

"The American people know you can't reduce health care costs by spending $1 trillion or raising taxes by more than one-half trillion dollars. The American people know that you cannot cut Medicare by over one-half trillion dollars without hurting seniors," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich.

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"And, the American people know that you can't create an entirely new government entitlement program without exploding spending and the deficit."

Obama has said often that presidents of both parties have tried without success to achieve national health insurance, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt early in the 20th century.

The 44th president's quest to succeed where others have failed seemed at a dead end two months ago, when Republicans won a special election for a Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, the votes to prevent a final vote.

But the White House, Pelosi and Reid soon came up with a rescue plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure despite opposition to many of its provisions, then have both houses pass a fix-it measure incorporating numerous changes.

To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade, roughly half of it from a new Medicare payroll tax on individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples over $250,000. A new excise tax on high-cost insurance policies was significantly scaled back in deference to complaints from organized labor.

In addition, the bills cut more than $500 billion from planned payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and other providers that treat Medicare patients. An estimated $200 billion would reduce planned subsidies to insurance companies that offer a private alternative to traditional Medicare.

The insurance industry warned that seniors would face sharply higher premiums as a result, and the Congressional Budget Office said many would return to traditional Medicare as a result.

The subsidies are higher than those for seniors on traditional Medicare, a difference that critics complain is wasteful, but insurance industry officials argue goes into expanded benefits.


Sources: MSNBC, C-Span, The Hill