Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director & Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) announced some "big news" this afternoon. The President signed THE VETERANS HEALTH CARE BUDGET REFORM AND TRANSPARENCY ACT, permanently changing the funding process for VA healthcare.

Yesterday, four of the five members of the Nobel Committee responded to the largely U.S. controversy over the selection of President Obama as this year's recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. "The question we have to ask", said Thorbjoern Jagland, head of the Committee, "is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world, and who has done more than Barack Obama?"

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The President has said he needs us to "stand against the politics of fear and division", and "fight for the security and stability of quality, affordable health care for every American".   So it's time for everybody to jump in with the same kind of enthusiasm and tenacity that we had in November and get this legislation to President Obama's desk.

The Independent Community Bankers of America, an organization that represents the largest constituency of community banks in the nation, has come out in strong support of the Obama Administration's new regulatory fee structure.  The new structure places the greatest financial burden for oversight directly on the largest banks that require greater manpower due to size and complexity of financial transactions.

Tying health care costs and taxes to our behavior is usually met with resistance because people feel their particular vice is targeted while so many others aren't taxed at all.  These taxes do reduce these unhealthy behaviors though, cigarette smoking has been cut in half since the increase in taxes for instance.

Marwa El Sherbini is a 32 year old wife and mother of a 3 year old son, or was until she was savagely stabbed 32 times in a German court.  You might think, as I did when I first read the article last week, that such a savage response had to involve some kind of very personal or intimate quarrel.  The 28 year old attacker leapt across the defense table and plunged the knife 18 times before he was stopped by courtroom guards.  The young mother died before help could arrive.

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Abraham Verghese attended President Obama's recent health care town hall at the White House and shared his thoughts on The Atlantic blog.  He is known for several non-fiction books, including My Own Country, which was based on his experiences as a physician treating persons with HIV in Johnson City, Tennessee.  Dr. Verghese came to Johnson City from India in 1979 as part of a foreign medical graduate program and completed his residency there.  He returned from Boston in 1985 and was surprised to find the signs of the AIDS epidemic which had previously been considered an urban disease.  After several award winning books, his focus turned to medical humanities and the importance of bedside medicine.  He is currently a tenured professor at Stanford.

Being called "a draft of a draft" by Anthony Coley of Senator Kennedy's staff, a 170 page document has been circulating the hill today and generating quite a bit of interest.  The legislation will have to be merged with Senator Baucus' legislation which is expected to be accomplished by July.  A brief outline of the document follows, although it is important to remember this is nowhere near a completed package.