As a follow-up to this post about Barack Obama's response to Paul Krugman's column about the failure of Obama's health care plan to include a mandate for universal health care coverage, I thought it interesting that Utah is considering a plan that would require every resident to have health insurance. Advisors to Gov. Gov. Jon Huntsman say it's the way to go:

"This is not government insurance. We don't think that's the solution to these challenges. Individuals are going to have more responsibility," [House Majority Leader Rep. David Clark,] said. "Our goal is to try to find a way for every Utahn to have an opportunity to have access to health care." For the poor, the plan would aim to boost enrollment in existing programs such as Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and Utah's Premium Partnership for Health, which helps workers pay premiums.

Working residents who do not qualify for those programs but can't afford health insurance would receive subsidies that put coverage within their reach. People who can afford health insurance but don't buy it could be prohibited from enrolling in university classes or getting a job. Nielsen said it's possible they could also someday face a tax penalty, as is the case in Massachusetts.

The Salt Lake Tribune has more on the plan.

Fans of irony will appreciate this:

The second [Supreme Court appeal] was filed by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, appealing a decision that has blocked the transfer to the Iraqis of another naturalized United States citizen, Shawqi Ahmad Omar. ... The administration’s Supreme Court appeal, Geren v. Omar, No. 07-394, describes the case as one of “exceptional importance,” adding, “As far as the government is aware, no court has previously sanctioned such a far-reaching and internationally unsettling exercise of American judicial power.”

Using the U.S. military to arrest an American citizen at his Baghdad home, holding that citizen in prison (at Abu Ghraib, among other places) for three years, and then turning him over to the Iraqi government for a terrorism trial is not, in the administration's view, "a far-reaching and internationally unsettling exercise of American ... power"? The unsettling use of military power doesn't disturb the Bush administration; it's only the use of judicial power to protect American citizens from the actions of the American government that it finds unsettling.
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The AP has an exclusive report that Mike Huckabee's response to the AIDS epidemic in 1992 was to oppose federal funding for research and advocate isolating AIDS patients:

As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.

Huckabee also said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk.".

I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."

On funding AIDS research he wrote: [More...]

Sam Stein at Huffington Post has a new article on Mike Huckabee and the parole of Arkansas rapist Wayne Dumond. Shorter version: He succumbed to the anti-Clinton zealots.

The individuals who served on Arkansas' parole board recounted a similar Huckabee mindset. And Butch Reeves, the governor's top aide, told the Huffington Post on Wednesday that, contrary to his now former boss's claims, Huckabee lobbied the parole board to reverse its previous rejection. Huckabee has said that in supporting Dumond's parole he was merely following the judgment of the board. But just one month earlier the board had voted 4-to-1 against Dumond's parole

By that point in time, those who have followed the case claim, Huckabee was convinced both of Dumond's rehabilitation in prison and of his victimhood at the hands of the Clinton machine. Throughout the case, they claim, Huckabee exhibited poor judgment and a lack of political skill.

Stein interviewed Dumond's lawyer, John Wesley Hall (who contributes to TalkLeft as Last Night in Little Rock) about whether he ever met with Huckabee. The answer is no.

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New York Times columnist Paul Krugman criticizes Barack Obama's health care plan as inferior to those proposed by Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. He also writes that Obama's response to those who point out its deficiencies, particularly in its lack of a universal health care mandate which would require health insurance for everyone, is one that will come back to hurt Americans, by fortifying Republican opposition, should he become President.

[L]ately Mr. Obama has been stressing his differences with his rivals by attacking their plans from the right — which means that he has been giving credence to false talking points that will be used against any Democratic health care plan a couple of years from now.

....Mr. Obama is storing up trouble for health reformers by suggesting that there is something nasty about plans that “force every American to buy health care.”

....My main concern right now is with Mr. Obama’s rhetoric: by echoing the talking points of those who oppose any form of universal health care, he’s making the task of any future president who tries to deliver universal care considerably more difficult.

After discussing why Obama is wrong to oppose a mandate and universal health care, he concludes:

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In for a quick post on an important issue

Via Turkana, we see that Steny Hoyer and Rahmbo are determined to have Dems own the Iraq Debacle:

House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday. . . . "The way you pass appropriations bills is you get agreement among all the relevant players, among which the president with his veto pen is a very relevant player," Hoyer said. "Everybody knows he has no intention of signing anything without money for Iraq, unfettered, without constraints. I think that's ultimately going to be the result."

What a loser Hoyer is. If "everybody [knew] that [the Democratic House] ha[d] no intention of [passing] anything with[] money for Iraq, unfettered, without constraints[,]" then ultimately THAT would be the result.

What a pathetic cowardly loser Hoyer is. There is no difference between Democrats and Republicans on Iraq. They both own it.

Update: Chelsea is in Iowa today as well.

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While Oprah stumps at two events in Iowa for Obama today, Hillary has her own plan. She'll be bringing her mother to three events and promoting the "buddy system."

More than a mother-daughter act, the appearance was designed to illustrate an urgent point of her campaign: The Buddy. “I wanted to bring a buddy with me!” Mrs. Clinton said. “So I brought my mother, Dorothy Rodham.”

The idea is that women will be more likely to attend a caucus if they have someone to go with.

In her quest to win the caucuses, Mrs. Clinton is working to demystify the curious Iowa process. With women voters her key target, she believes two are more likely to attend together than one would alone.

“We have thousands of women in their 80s and 90s who live alone who want to caucus on the night of Jan. 3,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It’s very inspiring for me for people who want to be there.”

The Washington Post has more on the gender race between Hillary and Obama in Iowa. [More]

Here comes Oprah Winfrey, all weekend long, beating the drum for Barack Obama, in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire.

It's now a stadium event in South Carolina. Can "the nation's wealthiest African-American woman" have an impact on the voters of a poor state like South Carolina? The race card is already in play. African American supporters of John Edwards are calling the Oprah-Obama tour a publicity stunt.

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Woody Allen on the writers' strike. And this came in by e-mail yesterday from a Hollywood writer and TalkLeft reader:

Yesterday the AMPTP has hired some big gun PR guys who have Democratic connections.

The AMPTP announced yesterday that it had retained Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane of Fabiani & Lehane and Steve Schmidt of Mercury Public Affairs "to assist in communicating the industry's proposed New Economic Partnership."

Fabiani and Lehane have a long history in Democratic politics, serving as senior aides and advisors to President Clinton, Vice President Gore and other Democrats across the country. Lehane is currently in the Hillary camp. Schmidt is a Republican guy, so nothing we can do there.

We would like to get blogs to write about this to put pressure on these guys. The idea that people who work closely with Dems would help to bust a union is disgusting. Hopefully we can pressure them to drop the job.

And a new way to support the writers: Tell the Networks How You Feel.

What's the proper response to a child that steals two cookies? Can it really be calling the police to issue her a citation?

Police cited a [14-year-old female]Bethlehem middle school student for stealing two cookies worth 50 cents from the cafeteria at the request of one of the student's parents, school officials said today.

True, she was on suspension for having stolen candy from a teacher's desk, and it was her parent who asked the school to call in the police, but this doesn't seem to me to be appropriate intervention.

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As Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee was pretty good on immigrants' rights. Today, he released his proposed immigration plan, and it's an about-face.

His new immigration plan does not address education, health care or other services provided to illegal immigrants....In addition to building the fence and installing surveillance cameras along the border, and adding law enforcement agents, the plan would, among other things:

• Punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, create a system to verify citizenship and stop the IRS and Social Security Administration from accepting fake Social Security numbers.

• Pass a tax plan, called the FAIR tax, which would eliminate the IRS as well as income, corporate, payroll and other taxes in favor of a 23 percent sales tax. Huckabee said this would credit an economic disincentive for illegal immigration.

• Eliminate the visa lottery system and admission preferences for brothers and sisters of citizens, increase visas for highly skilled and educated applicants and expedite processing for Armed Services members.

• Force illegal immigrants to return to their home countries before they are allowed to apply to return to the U.S.

It also rejects the Mexican consular ID card.

Only two copies of the Magna Carta exist outside Great Britain. One is in Australia and one is in New York. Southby's is auctioning off the New York copy.

In the year 1215, a group of English barons handed King John a document written on parchment. Put your royal seal on this, they said. John did, and forever changed the relationship between the monarchy and those it governed. The document was the Magna Carta, a declaration of human rights that would set some of the guiding principles for democracy as it is known today.

While that original edict was initially ignored and John died the next year, its key ideas were included in other variations over the next few decades, most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, which protects citizens against unlawful imprisonment. More than 800 years later, about 17 copies survive, and one of those, signed by King Edward I in 1297, will go up for sale Dec. 18 at Sotheby's.

Lindsay at Majikthise would really like the New York copy, which is expected to rake in $20 to $30 million. That probably won't happen, but we can all settle for reading it here.