The Hill:

Democrats in Congress are holding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel accountable for his part in the collapse of healthcare reform.

The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The share of the blame comes as cracks are beginning to show in Emanuel’s once-impregnable political armor. Last week he had to apologize after a report surfaced that he called liberal groups “retarded” in a private meeting.

While Emanuel has quelled that controversy by meeting with advocates for people with disabilities, on Capitol Hill he’s under fire for poor execution of the president’s healthcare agenda in the Senate.

“I think Rahm ran the play his boss called; once Obama called the play, Rahm did everything he could to pass it, scorched-earth and all that,” said a senior lawmaker, who added that Emanuel didn’t seek a broader base of Senate Republicans. “I think he did miscalculate the Senate. He did what he thought he had to do to win.”

Senate Democrats grilled White House advisers last week during a special Senate Democratic retreat, expressing frustration over the lack of a clear plan.

While Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) ripped chief political strategist David Axelrod, Senate Democrats say Emanuel, who was more closely involved in managing negotiations in Congress, also deserves scrutiny.

No Democrat is calling for Emanuel’s resignation, even privately, and they acknowledge his hard work and straightforward approach in a very tough job.

They also say there’s plenty of blame on healthcare to go around.

But centrists and liberal Democrats both take issue — albeit in different ways — with how he approached the Senate.

“I like Rahm; he’s always been a straight shooter with me,” said a Democratic centrist senator who was closely involved in the healthcare debate.

The lawmaker said Emanuel misjudged the Senate by focusing on only a few Republicans, citing Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins as too narrow a pool.

“In the Senate, you have to anchor in the middle and build out,” said the lawmaker.

“They just wanted to win,” the source said of Emanuel and other White House strategists. “Their plan was to keep all the Democrats together and work like hell to get Snowe and Collins. The Senate doesn’t work that way. You need a radius of 10 to 12 from the other side if you’re going to have a shot.”

But liberals take a different view. They argue Emanuel made a mistake by allowing Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to spend months negotiating with Republicans on his committee, such as Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa).

“I’m most critical of the fact that the Senate [Democratic] leadership and, I assume, the White House tried to get a deal with people like Grassley, which was impossible and wasted a huge amount of time,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal advocacy group.

One senior Democratic senator said Emanuel was initially reluctant to push healthcare reform so early in Obama’s first term, counseling instead for the president to focus on jobs and the economy

But the president decided healthcare had to pass when he had a strong political mandate and the party controlled large majorities in both chambers.

Obama was convinced overhauling the nation’s healthcare system would boost the struggling economy by curbing costs and reducing the long-term federal deficit, say Democratic sources.

An administration official, however, disputed the notion that Emanuel disagreed with the president’s timeline on healthcare.

Emanuel declined to be interviewed for this article.

Once Obama decided to make healthcare the top priority, Emanuel approached it with his signature hard-charging style. That did not sit well in the Senate, according to Democratic senators and House members.

A liberal House Democrat who served with Emanuel during his entire career in Congress said: “I don’t think the skills that are attributed to him — muscling things through — are well-suited to the Senate.

“The House is like an Australian-rules rugby match,” the lawmaker added. “The Senate is like a march at a men’s club in imperial Britain. They’re a bunch of barons over there.”

Emanuel constantly pressed Senate negotiators to stay on a timeline for passing healthcare reform. Centrist Democrats and Republicans alike complained about “arbitrary” deadlines.

Snowe complained about a rushed process when she announced she would vote against the Senate healthcare bill, even after she supported the Democratic healthcare bill in the Finance Committee.

One liberal Democratic senator said Emanuel has a much better relationship with House Democrats.

The senator said that Emanuel allowed White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who had worked 15 years for Baucus, to take more of a lead in the upper chamber. The lawmaker said that was a mistake that allowed Baucus more time than necessary to negotiate with Republicans.

Baucus scoffed at the notion that Messina could pressure him.

“He’s not going to put pressure on me,” Baucus told The Washington Post last year during an interview for a profile of Messina.

A liberal healthcare advocate said this management strategy wasted months of time.

“It’s true that Messina was the person the White House relied on to quarterback the Senate strategy. He agreed with the Baucus strategy of going ahead to make this deal [with Republicans] and it did go on too long,” said the advocate.

Some Democrats in Congress also question whether Emanuel scheduled enough time for the president to travel the country to stump for healthcare reform.

“For a guy who talked a lot about not liking the culture of Washington, he spent a lot of time in Washington,” said a Democratic leadership aide.

The aide noted that former President George W. Bush traveled to states and congressional districts he carried on Election Day to pressure Democratic lawmakers to support his agenda. The aide said Obama did not put similar pressure on centrist Republicans.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said Obama’s advisers lost touch with the county’s populist sentiment as he became consumed by the challenges of his agenda.

“As a group, overall, I would give them a good grade, but there’s something missing there and that’s an overall strategy of ‘What are the things we’re going to get done and how are we going to work with Congress?’ ” Harkin said of Obama’s circle of advisers.

Harkin said they lacked “a feeling for what’s going on around the country, the populist sentiment.”

Obama’s advisers have since realized this mistake. The president has sounded more populist tones in recent weeks, such as proposing a hefty tax on the bonuses of Wall Street bankers.

ABC:

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan — Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism — responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”

Brennan writes that, “Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill.”

In the oped, titled “‘We need no lectures’: Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad,” Brennan writes that politics “should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.”

The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled “National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour.”

Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration’s handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was “thoroughly interrogated and provided important information.”

He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.

The most important breakthrough in the interrogation occurred “after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, which the FBI made standard policy under Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s attorney general,” he writes, noting that failed shoe bomber Richard Reid “was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then.”

Brennan said anyone who wants to change the policy would be casting aside lessons learned “in waging this war” on extremists.

“Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one’s determination to resist cooperation,” he writes.

He calls it “naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical.”

Moreover, Brennan says, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in criminal courts while only three have been convicted in the military tribunal system.

The former CIA official also asserts that the Obama administration is doing a better job than the Bush administration did in taking the fight to al Qaeda. “This administration’s efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond — far more than in 2008.”

“We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war,” he says.

USA Today’s editorial writers see it all a bit differently, of course, writing that though “the Obama administration’s national security officials have struggled to assure the public that they know exactly what they’re doing,” they are so far “achieving the opposite, and they’re needlessly adding some jitters in the process.”

The editorial writers fault the Obama administration for announcing “last week that an attack by al-Qaeda is likely in the next three to six months. The warning is bound to frighten the public, with no obvious benefit beyond the ability to say ‘I told you so.’”

They also refer to National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair (ret.) as having “had a ‘Duh!’ moment” for acknowledging that “authorities fumbled the initial questioning of Abdulmutallab by failing to call in the high-value interrogation group, which was created to question terrorism suspects. Refreshingly candid, yes, but not a statement that inspires confidence. Especially when the same day, at another Senate hearing, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that the high-value unit was still in its ‘formation stages’ and that ‘there was no time’ to get it to Detroit.”

USA Today’s editorial writers say that when senior administration officials revealed Abdulmutallab’s cooperation with authorities, “the news pretty much negate(d) earlier claims that no intelligence was lost when Abdulmutallab was prematurely read his rights.”

- jpt

UPDATE: Missouri Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to the Brennan op-ed: “The only one making this political is the White House. The Administration must do better, because trying to pass the buck for their dangerous decisions and divulging sensitive information to al Qaeda is not an effective terror-fighting strategy.”

WASHINGTON (AP) - A spokesman says Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps officer who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 77.

He had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery.

In 1974, Murtha became the first combat veteran of the Vietnam War elected to Congress. He wielded considerable clout for two decades as a leader of the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending. But frustration over the Iraq war led him to call for an immediate pullout of U.S. troops in 2005.

Murtha’s congressional career was clouded by questions about his ethics—from the Abscam corruption probe in 1980 to more recent investigations into the special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for election campaigns.

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

Isn’t it ironic that a Scottish newspaper reported this?

The Scotsman:

BEER is a rich source of a nutrient that can help prevent weak bones – but it depends what type you drink.
As one of the nation’s favourite tipples, dietary silicon in beer can help cut the chance of developing diseases such as osteoporosis, researchers say.

However, health experts are warning against using beer as a source of the nutrient. And not al
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l beers are the same, with those containing malted barley and hops having higher silicon content than beers made from wheat.

According to the study from researchers at the University of California, beer was a major source of dietary silicon – roughly half of the silicon in beer can be readily absorbed by the body.

Dr Claire Bowring, from the National Osteoporosis Society, said: “While the society welcomes measures to improve bone health we do not recommend anyone increases their alcohol consumption on the basis of these studies.

“There are also many other health concerns linked with alcohol which cannot be ignored.”

Catherine Collins, a dietician at St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust in London, said:

“Sources of silicon do include beer – either alcohol-containing or alcohol-free.

It is found in different amounts in water, so contributes to beer’s total silica content.

“Silica may well contribute to bone health but in a minor way. It is not really significant compared with nutrients we know are essential for bone health and are potentially deficient in the UK diet such as calcium and vitamin D.”

FOX News:

A new report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation is advocating that children as young as 10 be given extensive sex education, including an awareness of sex’s pleasures.

The report, “Stand and Deliver,” charges that religious groups, specifically Catholics and Muslims, deny their young access to comprehensive sexual programs and education.

“Young people’s sexuality is still contentious for many religious institutions. Fundamentalist and other religious groups — the Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic Schools) for example — have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction. Currently, many religious teachings deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex.” the report states.

Click here to read the report.

The report demands that children 10 and older be given a “comprehensive sexuality education” by governments, aid organizations and other groups, and that young people should be seen as “sexual beings.”

“Young people have the right to be informed about sexuality and to have access to contraceptives and other services,” Bert Koenders, the Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation, wrote in the foreword to the report. It was his organization that helped fund the report.

The report argues that sex education should be “recast” to show sexuality as a “positive force for change and development, as a source of pleasure, an embodiment of human rights and an expression of self.”

Much like a U.N. report released last August that advocated teaching masturbation to children as young as 5, “Stand and Deliver” has set off a wave of protest among religious and conservative groups.

Ed Mechmann, spokesman for New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, charged that Planned Parenthood was “trying to teach children sex without values and that sex is a matter of pleasure and done without consequences.”

He said religions like Catholicism and Islam teach sex as part of a much bigger picture and that Planned Parenthood was trying to de-link sex from traditional values.

“It is part of an effort to get children to reject traditional values and accept a liberal American-European view,” he said. “In many traditional countries — Catholic and Muslim — it won’t work and should be seen as cultural imperialism.”

Mechmann also charged that Planned Parenthood’s report was compromised because it has a financial stake advocating the changes. “The difference between Planned Parenthood and us is that we don’t make money off what we teach and say. They do. They make money off contraceptives and abortions,” he said.

Michelle Turner, president of the Maryland-based Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, said Planned Parenthood was simply trying to eliminate parental say.

“What are they trying to do? They are trying to eliminate the role of mom and dad in the family,” Turner said. “For Planned Parenthood to decide that governments, private organizations and religious organizations should make decisions about kids’ sexuality is just going too far.”

“It is part of a bigger push to change the way we think about sex,” she said. That sex is all about pleasure and there are no consequences. They are wrong. No matter how much we teach children, some will make mistakes. They will forget. And Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to deal with that,” she said.

“They see religious groups, especially those that counsel abstinence and waiting until marriage, as bad guys,” she added. “We aren’t.”

Planned Parenthood said it was unable to comment because the report was issued by its European office and it was unable to contact them.