“I came here to renew the American Dream, so my kids and their kids have the same opportunities I had. I came here to fight big-government monstrosities like this bill that dim the light of freedom and diminish opportunity for future generations," Boehner said in a statement.

“Americans want a common-sense approach to health care reform, not Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover that increases costs, adds to our skyrocketing debt, destroys jobs with tax hikes and new mandates, and cuts seniors’ Medicare benefits," the statement added. "Americans asking ‘where are the jobs’ are getting more of the same from out-of-touch Washington Democrats: more spending, more debt, and more government.

“Republicans have better solutions to lower costs and expand access to quality care – especially for those with pre-existing conditions – without adding to the crushing debt Washington has placed on our children and grandchildren," he continued. "Our plan will lower premiums by up to 10 percent, making health care more affordable for families and small businesses. That’s what the American people want, and that’s what Republicans will continue to fight for.”

One Republican joined the Democrats in supporting the bill; 37 Democrats joined Republicans in opposing it. The bill passed the House 220-215.

The Republicans' bill referenced in Boehner's statement was estimated by Congressional auditors to cover just 3 million more Americans by 2019, and leave 52 million Americans without coverage (a net improvement of 5 percent).

Tonight, in an historic vote, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would finally make real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality affordable options for those who don’t; and bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the government while strengthening the financial health of Medicare.

And it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce our long-term federal deficit.

Thanks to the hard work of the House, we are just two steps away from achieving health insurance reform in America.

Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.

STATEMENT FROM DNC CHAIRMAN TIM KAINE:

WASHINGTON – Tonight the House of Representatives passed the Affordable Health Care for America Act, landmark health reform legislation that will ensure every American has access to quality, affordable, stable and secure health care coverage. The legislation, which cracks down on some of the insurance industry’s worst practices, would extend coverage to 36 million Americans and cut the deficit by $104 billion over ten years. Groups representing doctors and farmers, seniors, consumers, and cancer patients have endorsed the bill. It passed the House with only one Republican vote in support of the measure.

“This day has been a long time coming. Teddy Roosevelt first called for health reform nearly 100 years ago, but today – in the face of furious lobbying by the insurance industry and nearly unanimous opposition from Republicans – House Democrats accomplished something no other Congress has been able to do: pass comprehensive health reform legislation. I want to thank President Obama for his extraordinary leadership on this issue, and extend my congratulations to Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Chairmen Waxman, Miller and Rangel, Congressman Clyburn and countless others in the U.S. House of Representatives for taking this historic step.

“The Affordable Health Care for America Act will provide more security and stability to people who already have insurance by enacting much needed reforms to the insurance industry. No longer will an insurance company be able to deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or cancel someone’s coverage when they get sick. The Act will provide more quality, affordable choices for the millions of Americans who are uninsured. And the bill will bring down the high costs of care, for American families and businesses, while lowering our deficit.

“This historic day would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of Organizing for America (OFA) in rallying the public to see through Republican scare-tactics and lies and energizing them behind the cause of our generation – meaningful health insurance reform. In total, more than 2 million people participated in OFA’s grassroots campaign for reform by signing pledges, sharing their personal stories and hosting and attending one of the thousands of local events in all 50 states and all 435 Congressional Districts. In the final week of August and the first week of September alone over 110,000 people attended a pro-reform event providing the necessary momentum that made possible this monumental achievement.

“Americans from all walks of life have endorsed this legislation. The AARP endorsed the bill because they believe it will reduce health care costs and expand coverage for older Americans. The American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association have lent their support because they believe it will help to fix the problems in our broken system and strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. The Consumers Union endorsed the bill because they believe it will create a more secure, affordable health care system, and the National Farmers’ Union has given their support because it will help Americans who live in rural areas access care.

“Despite the overwhelming support this legislation has received and despite a strong mandate from the public for action, the Republicans have held tight to their just-say-no approach, firmly rooting the GOP on the side of the insurance lobby and the status quo that is breaking American families and small businesses. It is evident from their obstructionism that the Republicans are more interested in protecting their own reputations and political fortunes than ensuring that our generation and generations to come have the best possible access to health care. Unfortunately for the Republican Party, their misguided and shameful campaign to kill health reform looks doomed to fail – something all Americans should be thankful for.

“Today, Congressional Democrats put opponents of reform on notice: the status quo is unsustainable and inaction is not an option. This vote doesn’t mark the end of this process – we still have a ways to go – but it is a critical milestone on the road to passing health insurance reform. The American people want reform – they need reform – and Democrats will not rest until we pass comprehensive health reform legislation.”

"I wanted to know how many of them knew – at this late juncture – how many of their constituents lacked insurance," reported from his website. "Not one Republican could give me an answer. Quite a few, however, served up some entertainment."

Only one anti-reform congressman could give him a number -- a Democrat, Dan Boren of Oklahoma.

Rep. Steven King, (R-IA), the leader of today's anti-reform rally, told a crowd that page #644 of the Democratic health reform bill says, "The government will be required to encourage suicide, and, or assisted suicide."

This, of course, is factually false.

Watch:

In this next video, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) tells Stark that he has been fed "a lot of baloney" by the Dems about their health care reform bill, and warns him that the bill will take his private insurance away.

When asked which portion of the bill would cause a person to lose their private coverage, Gohmert stops a moment as if he is going to explain exactly where in the bill to find it, but finally can only offer that he knows "It's in there."

Watch:

These YouTube videos were all via Mike Stark at Starkreports.com.

Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.), a former Jesuit seminarian, is rumored to be on the fence if the House approves the amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that would prevent federal funding for abortions.

Cao was originally expected to vote “no” on the bill along with the rest of his colleagues because it didn’t explicitly ban funding for abortion.

But since Democrats agreed to allow a vote on the Stupak amendment, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gave their blessing on the Democratic health care bill provided the amendment is accepted — the vote became even tougher for the freshman Republican.

Sensing that Cao might provide Democrats with a Republican vote, the White House has been in constant contact with Cao, according to a House aide.

Story continues below...

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“Rahm is going all in to get him,” the aide said, referring to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Cao’s defection would ruin Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) pledge for a unanimous GOP vote against the Democratic health care bill.

More here.

These latest documents were part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit being conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union. Last week, newly released memos indicated that the FBI began to conduct an investigation into CIA interrogation techniques and secret prisons, but was denied regular access to prisoners. Department of Justice officials decided that there was not enough evidence to prosecute CIA interrogators.

This week, fresh documents in the ACLU lawsuit go deeper into the conflict between the FBI and the Pentagon. The belief at the Bureau was that though the Army-based interrogation tactics were useful for battlefield information gathering, "the reliability of information obtained using such tactics is highly questionable, not to mention potentially legally inadmissible in court.” This memo from May 2003 brings important questions to mind: Did the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers drafting later memos for the CIA not know about these early warnings? Did the CIA dismiss these warnings altogether, or were they told to ignore them?

Senior officials from the Criminal Investigative Task Force “lamented the fact that many DHS [Defense Human Intelligence Services] interrogators seem to believe that the only way to elicit information from uncooperative detainees is to use aggressive techniques on them.”

According to the Washington Independent, "Not only did the officials not succeed in convincing DHS to abandon the techniques, but the document described how the military and DHS inaccurately portrayed to the Pentagon that the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit approved of and helped design the very techniques that the BAU warned would backfire." The mischaracterization by the DHS may be the sole reason that abusive interrogations were carried on 4 years after stern FBI warnings reached the Department of Defense.

The new documents can be found here.

Some 64 percent agreed that "the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable", up six percent from July, while 27 percent disagreed, down four percent. Ten percent said they did not know.

Similar numbers said British forces should be withdrawn as quickly as possible, with 63 percent agreeing and 31 percent disagreeing.

Some 54 percent felt they had "a good understanding of the purpose of Britain's mission in Afghanistan", with 42 percent disagreeing.

"Overall there is the sense that Afghanistan is becoming for (British Prime Minister) Gordon Brown what Iraq became for (his predecessor) Tony Blair," said Andrew Hawkins, chief executive of pollsters ComRes.

"More than four in 10 don't understand Britain's mission; support for the British presence there is ebbing away, and a majority have responded to the presidential election very negatively indeed.

"The results suggest that the impact of the war must be having an impact on Labour support, since it is that party's core supporters who are most strongly opposed to it."

Meanwhile 52 percent agreed that "the levels of corruption involved in the recent presidential election show the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting for." Thirty-six percent disagreed.

"This is potentially devastating for the government's case for war," said Hawkins.

ComRes surveyed 1,009 adults of different ages and social classes across Britain for BBC television's "The Politics Show".

Three agents in street clothes snatched her and friend Orlando Luis Pardo off the street in the Havana district of Vedado.

"They beat me and then they shoved me into a car head first. They did not give me any explanation at any time, but it is clear their goal was to stop us from taking part in the march," Sanchez, who writes the blog "Generation Y," told AFP.

Two other friends of hers were ordered into police cars and released later, she added.

In an item on her blog, which is often critical of the Americas' only one-party communist system in which only state media are legal, Sanchez wrote an expose under the headline "A Gangland-style Kidnapping."

"It was a very violent episode," she wrote.

"They squeezed my wrists very hard, beat me in the back in the kidney area, and when people stepped in to do something, they said we were counter-revolutionaries."

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch condemned the attack in a statement that said "Cuban authorities should cease all attacks on human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers and civic activists.

"The international community should condemn attacks on those who peacefully exercise their basic rights to freedom of expression, opinion, and assembly in the strongest terms," it said.

"Cuban authorities are using brute force to try to silence Yoani Sanchez's only weapon: her ideas," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch. "The international community must send a firm message to Raul Castro that such attacks on independent voices are completely unacceptable."

Sanchez, winner of the Maria Moors Cabot 2009 award and Ortega y Gasset Prize awarded by Madrid's El Pais, said she was not seriously injured and was released half an hour after the arrest.

"Clearly, the beating hurts even more a day later; I am still really affected by all of this, but it is not going to stop me from writing my blog," Sanchez said.

Cuban authorities say Sanchez and all other political dissidents are "mercenaries" in the pay of the United States and other western countries.

Abortion-rights supporters in the House were frustrated by the concession to 40 anti-abortion democrats who indicated they wouldn't vote for H.R. 3962 unless the current provisions were changed. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) told Politico "pro-choice members are not happy this morning."

Bart Stupak, on the other hand, is pleased with the amendment's success, claiming that he has 225 votes, including almost every single Republican.

Though the vast majority of House democrats are supporters of abortion rights, Nancy Pelosi told reporters she believes that her pro-choice peers will support the bill with the amended language on abortion.

The leader of the Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, Darcy Burner, released a video speaking out against the Stupak amendment. "Women who find they have cancer while they are pregnant won't get the choice of how to proceed, but those choices will instead be made by politicians in Washington, DC," Burner said. "The idea that we would throw women under the bus in the process of doing health care reform is completely unacceptable."

With the language of the bill as it is now, anyone would be able to buy private policies covering abortions. Critics like Ezra Klein at the Washington Post believe that this system will effectively outlaw abortion for those who simply can't afford it.

McClatchy News reports that representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were involved in the talks.

Darcy Burner's video can be found here.

In a telephone interview, Frank acknowledged he was present for the bust but denied knowledge that James Ready was growing cannabis. He reportedly told police during the August, 2007 incident that he only smokes cigars and would not be able to identify marijuana if he came across it.

Charges against Ready were dropped after he admitted to possession and paid a fine, MyFox added.

Congressman Frank, while professing to be unable to identify cannabis if he came across it, is no stranger to progressive positions on its prohibition. In April 2008, he proposed federal legislation that would have removed penalties for adult possession of the plant. Appearing on Real Time with Bill Maher, he jokingly referred to it as the "Make Room for Serious Criminals Bill."

“I think it is poor law enforcement to keep on the books legislation that establishes as a crime something which in fact society does not seriously wish to prosecute," he said in a media advisory. "In my view, having federal law enforcement agents engaged in the prosecution of people who are personally using marijuana is a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes."

Frank was also a co-sponsor of Rep. Ron Paul's (R-TX) bill that sought to legalize the farming of industrial hemp. Hemp is a drug-free relative of cannabis and can be used to make thousands of commercial goods, from food to paper, clothing, hygiene products and more. It is currently illegal to grow hemp in the United States.

Speaking to MyFox Boston reporter Alison Bologna, Frank called the arrest of his partner "one of those unfortunate incidents that happened in the past." Pressed by the reporter on whether he had seen Ready's cannabis, he said, "I didn't see it, the police didn't charge me with seeing it. It was out of sight of where I was; it was around the other side of the house."

Court records did not mention Frank's presence at time of the arrest, the report noted. However, sources who tipped off the news organization claimed the original police report listed the congressman as a witness.

This video is from MyFox Boston, broadcast Nov. 6, 2009.

The president's current plan would require 23,000 soldiers from Fort Campbell and Fort Drum to deploy. An additional 7,000 would support a division headquarters in Kandahar, with 4,000 more trainers coming with them, McClatchy reporter Jonathan S. Landay wrote.

The report continued: "The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional U.S. troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops."

President Obama has been criticized by Republicans for "dithering" on making a decision whether or not to escalate troop levels in Afghanistan. Speaking to right-wing television outlet Fox News on Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that he is "past angry" with the president for not having a decision in hand.

"The fact is, we already have men and women over there, and, the longer we delay in sending them the needed resources they need, the greater danger they are in," he said. "And that is just a fundamental fact of warfare."

Admiral Mike Mullen, commonly attributed as America's top military officer, took a different position in a recent interview with the Christian Science-Monitor, saying he is comfortable with the president's time frame and the "depth of the discussion" taking place at the White House.

Should the president -- who ran his campaign promising to end the wars -- decide to commit more troops, a rough estimate by the Pentagon predicts the escalation will cost up to $20 billion per year, breaking down to some $500,000 per soldier, per year.

"The actual costs could be higher, because the estimate does not include the cost of constructing additional facilities, providing support forces such as military intelligence assets that may be based outside Afghanistan or replacing damaged weapons or equipment," CNN noted.

An unnamed, senior administration official told Reuters recently that decision may not come for weeks and almost surely not before the president's trip to Asia from Nov. 11-20.

Officials additionally told McClatchy Newspapers that the administration is highly unlikely to move on Afghan troop levels before discussing plans with NATO allies. NATO's North Atlantic Council Military Committee meets on Nov. 23.

Currently, some 67,000 U.S. soldiers are in country.