<img src=http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/44236/thumbs/s-BACHMANN-large.jpg align=right>Michelle Marston, an aide to Republican lawmaker Michelle Bachman, wanted to leave quietly.

But her decision to “jump ship” while her boss engaged in perhaps her boldest media moment yet has some on Capitol Hill scratching their heads.

Including a conservative lawmaker in Bachmann’s own party.

“When your captain’s crazy, it’s time to find a new ship,” an anonymous conservative Republican House member told <i>Politico</i> Wednesday.

Marston had tried to warn the reporter off, to no avail.

“I’m just not talking about it, and frankly I don’t think there’s a story here,” Marston wrote in an email. “Now, the thousands of people calling our office to tell us [they’re] coming to Capitol Hill tomorrow — that’s a story.”

Today, conservative activists are planning to storm the Capitol to tell members of Congress that they don’t want “government” to take away their healthcare, part of a scare tactic engineered by Bachmann’s aides. The Minnesota Republican has garnered national attention for her sometimes outrageous quips — including one in which she said conservatives should <a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/01/bachmann-we-should-slit-o_n_273809.html>slit their wrists</a> to defeat Democrats’ healthcare plans. Marston appears to have soured on Bachmann over time. In a statement last year, she said of her boss: “She looks like the type of person who you would invite in to have a cup of coffee at your table. There are a lot of people who are good, smart, well-meaning, well-intentioned members of Congress, but they speak to the people like they are members of Congress. Rep. Bachmann talks to people like they are people.” But this fall, when she said President Barack Obama held “anti-American views,” her tune changed. “You either love Michele Bachmann or you don’t love Michele Bachmann at all,” Marston told a reporter. When your captain’s crazy, it’s time to find a new ship.

Google searchers made corpus delicti the number on prhase in Google search on Thursday morning. Here’s the definition:

Wikipedia: “Corpus delicti (plural: corpora delicti) (Latin: “body of crime“) is a term from Western jurisprudence which refers to the principle that it must be proven that a crime has occurred before a person can be convicted of committing the crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it can be proven that property has been stolen. Likewise, in order for a person to be tried for arson it must be proven that a criminal act resulted in the burning of a property. Black’s Law Dictionary (6th ed.) defines “corpus delicti” as: “the fact of a crime having been actually committed.”

“In the Anglo-American legal system, the concept has its outgrowth in several principles. Many jurisdictions hold as a legal rule that a defendant’s out-of-court confession, alone, is not sufficient evidence to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 497 n.14, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)(citing to corpus delicti rule and stating: “For the history and development of the corroboration requirement, see 7 Wigmore, Evidence [3d ed. 1940], §§ 2070-2071; Note, Proof of the Corpus Delicti Aliunde the Defendant’s Confession, 103 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 638-649 [1955]. For the present scope and application of the rule, see 2 Underhill, Criminal Evidence [5th ed. 1956], §§ 402-403. For a comprehensive collection of cases, see Annot., 45 A. L. R.2d 1316 [1956].”) A corollary to this rule is that an accused cannot be convicted solely upon the testimony of an accomplice. Some jurisdictions also hold that without first showing independent corroboration that a crime happened, the prosecution may not introduce evidence of the defendant’s statement.

President Barack Obama highlighted Saturday the need to create a new federal agency to champion consumer rights against predatory lenders and enforce rules governing credit firms.

“We can now say that we have stopped our economic freefall. But we also know that stopping the bleeding isn’t nearly enough,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

“To protect our economy and people from another market meltdown, our government needs to fundamentally reform the rules governing financial firms and markets to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” the US leader said.

There need to be “clear rules, clearly enforced,” Obama added, saying his proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency could do just that.

Recalling the trip to New York this week to address Wall Street bosses, Obama said he warned executives that “a return to normalcy can’t breed complacency.”

The United States “cannot allow the thirst for reckless schemes that produce quick profits and fat executive bonuses to override the security of our entire financial system,” he said.

A year after Lehman Brothers failed, Obama called on Monday for Congress to act this year on regulatory reforms he hailed as the most sweeping bid to tame industry over-exuberance since the Great Depression.

Obama also made clear ahead of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh that he would press global powers to do more to rein in financial industry abuses.

“We know we still have a lot to do,” he said Saturday.

Washington needs to continue working with world leaders to strengthen financial regulations to ensure “we never again find ourselves in the precarious situation we found ourselves in just one year ago,” Obama said.

This video was published to YouTube on Sept. 19, 2009.

With AFP.

Irving Kristol, the political writer and publisher called the “godfather” of neo-conservatism, has died. He was 89.

Editors at The Weekly Standard said Kristol died Friday in Washington.

He had been a radical in his youth but eventually rejected liberalism. He co-founded an important conservative journal, The Public Interest, and wrote several books, including “Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of An Idea.”

His son is the influential conservative William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard.

More details follow.

A group of US Senators unveiled legislation Thursday aiming to strip telecommunications firms that took part in a hugely controversial Bush-era spying program of immunity from lawsuits.

The bill aims to “fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens” without crippling the government’s ability to track suspected terrorists, the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The legislation would affect the way the US government can search Americans’ personal records, conduct wiretapping, and otherwise collect and use information on US citizens.

Among the provisions sure to grab attention, it revisits a secret program launched by former president George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks that collected sensitive information for years without a court order.

Lawmakers, including then-senator Barack Obama, voted last year to grant telecommunications firms that took part in the program immunity from lawsuits by Americans alleging illegal breaches of privacy rights.

Democratic Senator Russell Feingold, long a critic of government spy powers on Americans, was a chief author of the legislation presented Thursday.

The others included the number two Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, as wells as Democratic Senators Jon Tester, Tom Udall, Jeff Bingaman, Daniel Akaka, Ron Wyden, and Robert Menendez, as well as Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.

While the legislation is a stand-alone bill, supporters of key provisions could also strive to include them when the Congress reauthorizes key sections of a sweeping intelligence bill called the PATRIOT Act later this year.

US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said earlier this week that the panel would hold a hearing on the PATRIOT Act on September 23.

Key provisions due to expire December 31 include one that allows the government to wiretap a suspect who changes telephones, another that affects the collection of a suspect’s personal records.

Another measure governs the monitoring of a “lone wolf” with no known link to foreign governments or terrorist groups.

A media advisory detailing the bill follows.

####

SENATORS INTRODUCE PATRIOT ACT FIXES TO SAFEGUARD AMERICANS’ RIGHTS

JUSTICE Act, Introduced on Constitution Day 2009, Would Fix Long Standing Problems with the PATRIOT Act and Other Surveillance Laws

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have introduced legislation to fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens. The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, while preserving the powers of our government to fight terrorism.

The JUSTICE Act reforms include more effective checks on government searches of Americans’ personal records, the “sneak and peek” search provision of the PATRIOT Act, “John Doe” roving wiretaps and other overbroad authorities. The bill will also reform the FISA Amendments Act, passed last year, by repealing the retroactive immunity provision, preventing “bulk collection” of the contents of Americans’ international communications, and prohibiting “reverse targeting” of innocent Americans. And the bill enables better oversight of the use of National Security Letters (NSLs) after the Department of Justice Inspector General issued reports detailing the misuse and abuse of the NSLs. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, September 23rd, on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act.

“Every single member of Congress wants to give our law enforcement and intelligence officials the tools they need to keep Americans safe,” said Feingold. “But with the PATRIOT Act up for reauthorization, we should take this opportunity to fix the flaws in our surveillance laws once and for all. The JUSTICE Act permits the government to conduct necessary surveillance, but within a framework of accountability and oversight. It ensures both that our government has the tools to keep us safe, and that the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans will be protected. When he was in the Senate, President Obama was a strong ally on these issues, and I look forward to working with his administration to find common ground on commonsense reforms.”

“The Government must use every legal tool available to protect us from the threat of global terrorism. But when those tools override Americans’ fundamental rights and liberties, we run the very real risk of never getting them back,” Durbin said. “As we move toward reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, we’re proposing commonsense changes to better protect our most basic constitutional rights. Our bill strikes a careful balance between the law enforcement powers needed to combat terrorism and the legal protections required to safeguard American liberties.”

“Like a lot of Montanans, I have serious concerns about the PATRIOT Act and how it was implemented,” Tester said. “What this bill will do is add commonsense so we can fight terrorism without ignoring the Constitution and without invading the privacy and civil rights of law-abiding Americans.”

“In recent years, I believe our government has failed to protect the constitutional right to privacy for American citizens,” Tom Udall said. “The JUSTICE Act strikes the right balance between respecting the needs of our law enforcement to pursue suspected terrorists and upholding the rights of law-abiding citizens to live free from unnecessary government intrusion in their lives. I firmly believe we can keep our nation secure without infringing on the inherent rights of the American people. ”

“We must provide law enforcement with the tools they need to protect our country, and do so in a way that also safeguards Americans’ rights. This legislation addresses both of these important objectives by ensuring our security and upholding our cherished constitutional protections,” Bingaman said.

“Every American understands that we have got to do every single thing we can to protect the American people from terrorist attacks. There is no debate about that. Some of us believe, however, that we can be successful in doing that while we uphold the rule of law, while we uphold the Constitution of this country, which has made us the envy of the world,” Sanders said.

Senator Akaka said: “The JUSTICE Act will allow intelligence agents to monitor terrorism suspects while putting checks in place to ensure that law-abiding Americans’ privacy and civil liberties are protected.”

“The JUSTICE Act rights some of the basic wrongs of the PATRIOT Act, which became a poster child for the Bush Administration’s lack of respect for Americans’ privacy rights,” said Wyden. “This bill is designed to keep every law-abiding American free from arbitrary government surveillance. At the same time, it gives law enforcement the agility needed to go after actual terrorists and spies who would do our country harm.”

Fact Sheet JUSTICE Act Of 2009

The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect the constitutional rights of Americans while ensuring the government has the powers it needs to fight terrorism and collect intelligence.

Title I – Reasonable Safeguards to Protect the Privacy of Americans’ Records

Sections 101-106 – National Security Letters

The bill rewrites the National Security Letter (NSL) statutes to ensure the FBI can obtain basic information without a court order, but also adds reasonable safeguards to ensure NSLs are only used to obtain records of people who have some connection to terrorism or espionage, and to provide meaningful, constitutionally sound judicial review of NSLs and associated gag orders.

Section 107 – Section 215 Orders

The bill would reauthorize the use of Section 215 business records orders under FISA, but with additional checks and balances to ensure these orders are only used to obtain records of people who have some connection to terrorism or espionage, and to provide meaningful, constitutionally sound judicial review of Section 215 orders and associated gag orders.

Title II – Reasonable Safeguards to Protect the Privacy of Americans’ Homes

Section 201 – “Sneak & Peek” Searches

The bill would retain the Patriot Act’s authorization of “sneak and peek” criminal searches but eliminate the overbroad catch-all provision that allows these secret searches in virtually any criminal case. It would shorten the presumptive time limits for notification, and create a statutory exclusionary rule.

Title III – Reasonable Safeguards to Protect the Privacy of Americans’ Communications

Section 301 – FISA Roving Wiretaps

The bill would reauthorize roving FISA wiretaps, but eliminate the possibility of “John Doe” roving wiretaps that identify neither the person nor the phone to be wiretapped. It would require agents to ascertain the presence of the target of a roving wiretap before beginning surveillance.

Section 302 – Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices

The bill would retain the Patriot Act’s expansion of the FISA and criminal pen/trap authorities to cover electronic communications, but would allow pen/traps to be used only to obtain information about people who have some connection to terrorism or espionage. It would impose additional procedural safeguards to serve as a check on these authorities.

Section 303 – Telecommunications Immunity

The bill would repeal the retroactive immunity provision in the FISA Amendments Act.

Section 304 – Bulk Collection

The bill retains the new warrantless authorities in the FISA Amendments Act but would prevent the government from using that law to conduct “bulk collection” of the contents of communications, including all communications between the United States and the rest of the world.

Section 305 – Reverse Targeting

The bill would ensure that the overseas warrantless collection authorities of the FISA Amendments Act are not used as a pretext to target Americans in the U.S.

Section 306 – Use of Unlawfully Obtained Information

The bill would limit the government’s use of information about Americans obtained under FISA Amendments Act procedures that the FISA Court later determines to be unlawful, while giving the court flexibility to allow such information to be used in appropriate cases.

Section 307 – Protections for International Communications of Americans

The bill would amend the FISA Amendments Act to create safeguards for communications not related to terrorism that the government knows have one end in the United States.

Section 308 – Computer Trespass

The bill would guard against abuse of a warrantless surveillance authority in the Patriot Act that allows computer owners who are subject to denial of service attacks or other episodes of hacking to give the government permission to monitor trespassers on their systems.

Title IV – Improvements to Further Congressional and Judicial Oversight

Section 401 – FISA Public Reporting

The bill would require limited additional public reporting on the use of FISA.

Section 402 – Use of FISA Evidence

The bill would apply the Classified Information Procedures Act to the use of FISA evidence in criminal cases, and allow the use of protective orders and other security measures in civil cases, to ensure that courts have discretion to allow litigants access to information where appropriate while still protecting sensitive information.

Section 403 – Nationwide Court Orders

The bill would permit a recipient of a nationwide court order to challenge it either in the district where it was issued or in the district where the recipient is located.

Title V – Improvements to Further Effective, Focused Investigations

Section 501 – Domestic Terrorism

The Patriot Act’s overbroad definition of domestic terrorism could cover acts of civil disobedience by political organizations. The bill would limit the qualifying offenses for domestic terrorism to those that constitute a federal crime of terrorism.

Section 502 – Material Support

The bill would amend the overly broad criminal definition of material support for terrorism by specifying that a person must know or intend the support provided will be used for terrorist activity.

With AFP.

Wednesday’s announcement that three congressional lawmakers were the subjects of separate House ethics probes encountered some unusual resistance. Not from a party leader, but from another House ethics panel, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

Both ethics panels “clashed publicly Wednesday over the investigation of a Republican lawmaker, exposing the often prickly relationship between the two oversight bodies,”
Jennifer Yachnin reports for Roll Call.

Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.) are the lawmakers that the Office of Congressional Ethics is pushing the ethics committee to probe.

However, “The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, commonly known as the ethics panel, said the quasi-independent board’s own inquiry had found no evidence that Graves had broken any rules,” Roll Call reports.

A statement released by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) stated, “The Committee identified materials in the Office of Congressional Ethics’ report and findings that may contain exculpatory evidence, which OCE never provided to Representative Graves.”

“The OCE countered those claims several hours later, stating that Graves was not exonerated and noting its inquiry showed ’substantial reason to believe that a substantive violation may have occurred,’” the Capitol Hill paper reports.

St. Louis Star notes that OCE “said the ‘exculpatory evidence’ was material Graves originally provided to the office, so he obviously had it.”

“Graves spokesman Jason Klindt said he would not comment on the dispute between the two panels,” the Star report continues. “The ethics committee will have 45 days to look into the issue.”

Roll Call notes, “Although the public disagreement is the first highly visible fight between the two bodies, government reform advocates and others familiar with the ethics process expressed little surprise about the incident, noting the ethics committee has bristled at essentially sharing its jurisdiction with another panel.”

A Politico report adds,

The OCE, which does not have subpoena power, can review allegations against lawmakers and staffers, after which it makes a referral to the ethics committee for final action.

But OCE and the ethics panel are still trying to work out the logistics of how the process will actually work, and this dispute is likely to strain the relationship between the two.

In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio heavyweight declared on his program Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated buses.

Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a bus, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”

A full transcript of Limbaugh’s comments on his radio show is available at MediaMatters.org.

Limbaugh’s comments came after a called complained to say that local law enforcement said the attack probably wasn’t racially motivated. The incident had been hyped by the conservative Drudge Report, which posted a video of the fracas.

“Police initially said the beating of the white student by two black students appeared to be racially motivated,” the Associated Press wrote. “But police on Tuesday backed away from that.”

That didn’t stop Limbaugh from making his comments Wednesday.

“In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” Limbaugh also said. “I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.”

“White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners,” Limbaugh also mocked. “I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones. No, look, let’s just follow Eric Holder’s advice and not be cowards about all this. Let’s have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They’re racists just like our students are. ACORN — hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN.”

Limbaugh also suggested that racism itself was acceptable.

“If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?” the talk show host asked. “I’m sorry — I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don’t choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don’t choose it. So shouldn’t it be acceptable, excuse — this is according to the way the left thinks about things.”

The second set of comments occur in the audio clip below.

After being hyped for a few days, the Finance Committee chairman’s bill to overhaul health care has finally been unveiled. And the intended reforms won’t come cheap, but the proposed legislation states that it won’t cost a trillion dollars, as earlier drafts suggested it would.

“Sen. Max Baucus on Wednesday released the much-awaited Senate version of an American health-system remake — a landmark $856 billion, 10-year measure that starts a rough ride through Congress without visible Republican backing,” the Associated Press reports.

The AP story notes that Baucus bill “would make major changes to the nation’s $2.5 trillion health care system, including requiring all individuals to purchase health care or pay a fine, and language prohibiting insurance company practices like charging more to people with more serious health problems.”

“This is a unique moment in history where we can finally reach an objective so many of us have sought for so long,” Baucus said. “The Finance Committee has carefully worked through the details of health care reform to ensure this package works for patients, for health care providers and for our economy.”

A New York Times blog notes, “The first surprise in the Baucus plan: a slimmed down price-tag of $856 billion over 10 years. Earlier versions of the health care legislation had come in costing $1 trillion or more. But stay tuned for a close look at the fine print; Congressional budget-scoring is often as much art as science.”

The Prescriptions blogger adds, “Another number to watch: 13 percent. That’s the share of family income that the Baucus plan envisions middle-class American families having to pay in health insurance premiums before co-payments, deductibles and other cost-sharing.”

The entire 223 page long plan, America’s Health Future Act of 2009, can be accessed in pdf format at this link.

WASHINGTON — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned President Barack Obama that he is “powerless” to halt the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and must rethink his policy on Israel, in his first message for three months.

The message, which accused “neo-conservatives” of maintaining a grip on the White House, was released on Sunday, two days after America marked the eighth anniversary of Al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Titled “Message to the American People,” the video — released by the As-Sahab media branch of Al-Qaeda — features a still image of bin Laden and an audio statement, said the IntelCenter US monitoring group.

Bin Laden said that among “some other injustices,” US support to Israel motivated Al-Qaeda to launch the September 11 attacks, IntelCenter reported.

He also said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were driven by the pro-Israeli lobby in the White House and by corporate interests — and not by concern about Islamic militants.

“If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,” he said.

“Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq — as Bush claimed — it (the White House) should have been liberated.”

Bin Laden harangued Obama for keeping appointees of Republican President George W. Bush such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General Robert Petraeus as head of US Central Command running the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Reasonable people knew that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised, but rather, will continue it to the highest point possible,” said the Al-Qaeda chief.

“The bitter truth is that the neo-conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you.”

Bin Laden urged Americans to pressure the White House to end the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and US support to Israel, rather than succumb to what he called “the ideological terrorism” exercised by neo-conservatives.

If the wars are not ended “all we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past,” bin Laden said.

If Americans want to end their confrontation with Al-Qaeda they must reconsider their attitude towards Israel, bin Laden said. “Put the file of your alliance with Israelis on the discussion table,” he stated.

“Ask yourselves to determine your position: is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?

“If you choose your security and cessation of war, and this is what the polls have shown, this requires you to work to punish those on your side who play with our security,” Bin Laden said.

“We are ready to respond to this choice on aforementioned sound and just bases.”

Bin Laden typically releases such a statement annually around September or October.

The last audiotape by the Al-Qaeda leader was released on June 3. In that missive he scorned Obama’s overture to the Islamic world and warned of decades of conflict ahead.

That audiotape aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel less than an hour after Obama landed in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s home country, at the start of a Middle East tour.

Bin Laden has a 50-million-dollar bounty on his head and has been in hiding for the past eight years.

Intelligence officials, military analysts and other experts have long believed he is hiding along the remote mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In March, an audio attributed to bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being “complicit” with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories.

The same month, he urged the overthrow of the Somali president.

US President Barack Obama urged legislators on Saturday to act without delay on his proposed health care reform, saying inaction would see more Americans losing health care coverage.

“We have had a long and important debate. But now is the time for action,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.

“Because every day we wait, more Americans will lose their health care, their businesses, and their homes — but also the dreams they’ve worked for and the peace of mind they deserve. They are why we have to succeed.”

He urged common Americans to put their country and their families before partisan interests.

“Give us your help. And we will finally get health insurance reform done this year,” he said.

The president wants Congress to approve his health care reform proposals by the end of the year in order to fulfill one of his key campaign promises — providing health care to the 47 million Americans, some 15 percent of the population, who now have no medical coverage at all.

Obama has been advocating for a government insurance option as a key element of his plan, but his proposals have been fiercely criticized by Republicans.

The president also hopes to cut in half runaway health care expenditures which, if unchecked, are forecast to gobble up one-fifth of US gross domestic product by 2013.

But he has met increasing resistance from both Republicans and even some among his own Democratic Party worried about the costs of such a reform.

Addressing a rare joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Obama demanded action now, arguing that the US health system had been reduced to “breaking point.”

In his radio address, he cited a new Treasury Department report that forecast that about half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next 10 years if no action is taken.

“If you’re under the age of 21 today, chances are more than half that you’ll find yourself uninsured at some point in that time,” he said.

The Treasury Department’s report, also released Saturday, has also found 41 percent American under 65 go without health coverage for a total of at least six months over a 10-year span, and 36 percent go without coverage for at least one year.

Those who lost coverage have been on average without health insurance for a total of 3.6 years, according to the survey.

Given the current economic crisis and the slow and uneven recovery, “we can reasonably predict that in the next 10 years, without a major reform, at least half of Americans will lose health insurance at some point” in the next 10 years, a Treasury official told reporters.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pointed out that every American who had lost a job and whose family had lost medical coverage knew the need for health care reform was real.

Every insured American who has seen health care costs go up while their income and savings have gone down knows that reform is necessary,” Geithner said in a statement.

“And as we emerge from the worst financial crisis in generations, it is undeniable that to bring down our long-term deficits, we must bring down the growth of long-term healthcare costs.”

This video was published to YouTube by the White House on Sept. 12, 2009.

With AFP.