Scott Brown camp regrets plagiarism "oversight"

The office of Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is blaming a technical error for the fact that comments attributed to Brown posted to his campaign website were lifted verbatim from former Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

The Boston Globe first reported the plagiarism, which the newspaper was directed to by the Democratic Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. 

"I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference," Brown was quoted as saying on his site in comments that were removed earlier this week. "From an early age, I was taught that success is measured not in material accumulations, but in service to others. I was encouraged to join causes larger than myself, to pursue positive change through a sense of mission, and to stand up for what I believe."

Dole, the former North Carolina Republican senator, used those exact words in kicking off her campaign in 2002.

Brown's spokesman told the Globe that Dole's website, where the speech was posted, was "one of the models" for Brown's site, and that "during construction of the site, the content on this particular page was inadvertently transferred without being rewritten."

"It was a staff level oversight which we regret and is being corrected," added spokesman John Donnelly.

White House eliminates insurance program for long-term care

The Obama administration cut a major planned benefit from the 2010 health-care law on Friday, announcing that a program to offer Americans insurance for long-term care was simply unworkable.

Although the program had been dogged from the start by doubts about its feasibility, its elimination marks the first time the administration has backed away from a key piece of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

Republican critics of the law immediately said the decision proved that the legislation is unsound and unsustainable. Every major GOP presidential candidate has pledged to work to repeal it.

Because the insurance program had been projected to reduce the federal deficit by $86 billion over the next 10 years, terminating it complicates the nation’s budget picture. It is now estimated that the health-care law will cut the deficit by $124 billion from 2012 to 2021, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Known as the Community Living Assistance Services (CLASS) Act, the program was intended to be purely voluntary and open to all working Americans. It would have provided a basic lifetime benefit of a least $50 a day in the event of illness or disability, to be used to pay for even nonmedical needs, such as making a house wheelchair-accessible or hiring a home caregiver to assist with basic tasks.

The program was to be entirely self-financed with the premiums participants paid. Obama officials said that presented them with a problem: If they designed a benefits package generous enough to meet the law’s requirements, they would have had to set premiums so high that few healthy people would enroll. And without a large share of healthy people in the pool, the CLASS plan would have become even more expensive, forcing the government to raise premiums even higher, to the point of the program’s collapse.

For the past 19 months, experts in the administration had searched for ways to get around the conundrum.

Kathy Greenlee, assistant secretary for aging at the Department of Health and Human Services, announced its conclusion Friday: “At this point, we do not have a viable path forward to implement the CLASS Act.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey said the finding was long overdue. The Georgia Republican, who sponsored a bill to repeal the legislation, observed that more than a year ago the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services determined that the program was at significant risk of failure.

“I feel justified and vindicated,” Gingrey said. Like other Republicans, he predicted that this would be the first thread in the health-care law to unravel. “The bottom line is: As people start to understand this bill, you are going to see more and more of a domino effect,” he said.

Sherry Glied, assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at HHS, countered that the CLASS program was an isolated case whose practicality was questionable from the beginning. Indeed, she said, for this very reason, the law stipulated that the secretary of health and human services had to certify that any CLASS Act plan she designed would be solvent for the next 75 years before she could implement it.

“There is a very clear difference between that kind of uncertainty and the rest of the law,” Glied said.

Meanwhile, consumer advocates accused the administration of giving up too easily.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Connie Garner, who helped draft the CLASS Act while on the staff of the late senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

“CLASS is a critical backstop, giving working families a tool to protect themselves from being one illness or injury away from poverty,” said Garner, who directs a group called Advance CLASS Inc. “The president promised to implement this program. We expect him to keep that promise.”

Romney surges ahead in New Hampshire, new poll shows

A new Harvard and St. Anselm poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ahead of his nearest competitor by 18 percentage points in New Hampshire, the first primary state, and it reveals support for Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropping precipitously.

Romney was favored by 38 percent of likely Granite State voters in the Republican primary, ahead of second-place Herman Cain, the former the Godfather's Pizza executive, who got 20 percent. Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul placed third with 13 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich came in fourth with 5 percent, and Perry and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman tied for fifth place with 4 percent each.

The poll results were especially dismal for Perry, who just a few weeks ago was tied with Romney for front-runner status, but whose fortunes have declined with a string of weak debate performances. The results also confirmed other recent surveys showing Cain gaining strength, although he was once dismissed at having no chance in the Republican primary field.

Huntsman has made New Hampshire the focus of his campaign, saying he must win there to be competitive, but the poll shows him making little traction despite repeated visits to the state's towns and hamlets. The survey also confirmed the downward spiral of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann since winning the Iowa GOP straw poll in August, although she has not targeted New Hampshire as intensely as Huntsman. Bachmann got just 3 percent support from likely GOP voters.

The candidate ballot test appears far from settled, according to the survey-takers. Only 10 percent of likely primary voters say that they are "definitely" voting for Romney, while 6 percent say the same about Cain. Just 14 percent report they are "very satisfied" with the field of candidates. However, the likely primary voters appear confident that Romney can beat President Obama in a general election matchup, with 72 percent saying Romney would win and 20 percent saying Obama would win.

The survey was conducted for the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It was conducted from Oct. 2 to Oct. 6 and consisted of telephone interviews with likely Republican primary voters. It has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Global crisis could roil Lat-Am export markets

The global economic crisis is worrying officials in Latin America, who fear the effects of a decline in demand for the region's raw materials, particularly from China, analysts said.

As the biggest customer for Latin America's raw materials and commodities, China spends billions of dollars per year as the biggest customer for unprocessed goods, from copper to gold tosoybeans.

But China may be less eager to purchase Latin American commodities to fuel its industrial machine amid global economic uncertainty, experts say.

The first signs of possible trouble came last month, which saw precipitous declines in the price of wheat and corn, which each fell by 23 percent, and the price of soybeans, which declined by 19 percent.

The price of copper, for which Chile is the world's biggest exporter, has plummeted by some 25 percent.

The crisis "has already affected us," said Chile's President Sebastian Pinera. "Over the past few weeks, the price of copper has lost approximately one dollar, or about 25 percent of its value," he said recently.

"It is clear that the region is vulnerable with respect to global demand, no one is going to escape the crisis currently going on in Europe or in the United States," said Rodrigo Aguilera, an expert with the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The European Union is the world's biggest buyer of Chinese exports, worth about $380 billion in 2010, and analysts fear a collapse in demand which could trigger a loss in demand for raw materials by Chinese factories, including exports from Latin America.

A report published last week by the Fitch ratings agency also noted the slower economic activity in China, which it said could have an impact on revenue for the countries of Latin America which could lead to a monetary or balance of payments crisis.

China's rise in bilateral trade with Latin America is the greatest of any region in the world -- an astonishing 18-fold increase over the past decade, thanks mostly to exports of raw materials from the region including minerals and foodstuffs.

China also in recent years has become Brazil's largest trading partner, overtaking the United States, and in 2010 was the largest investor in the South American giant, pumping in some $30 billion.

For China, Brazil is an important source of raw materials -- oil, iron ore and soybeans account for 80 percent of Chinese imports and 90 percent of its investments in the largest Latin American economy.

But the export of manufactured products, which most economists say is the cornerstone of healthy economic development for emerging countries, is beginning to stagnate.

Belen Olaiz of the Abeceb economic institute in Buenos Aires said it is "difficult to predict what that magnitude of the impact will be."

But she was heartened that in his estimation so far that the drop in demand for primary materials from Latin America so far has been relatively slight, "considering the magnitude of the global economic crisis."

Shakria’s Speech from Yesterday’s White House

Being here today is a tremendous honor for me.  I am thankful to President Obama and I am humbled that my philanthropic experience could be helpful in some measure and can be used to amplify the message and work of the President and this Commission.Latino youth are the fastest-growing group in America, and more Latino children are living in poverty than children of any other racial or ethnic group. For a number of reasons, young Latinos in this country disproportionately drop out of school and far too few finish college.  And as I have seen in my own Foundation work, the only road out of poverty is education – of that I am convinced.

Investing in the educational achievement for Latinos will not only determine the economic future and competitiveness of this nation, but can serve as a model for the world.

I hope that through my appointment to this commission, I will be able to share what I’ve learned through the 15 years I have been involved in the education of Latino children. I am sure you will agree with me that race and ethnicity shouldn’t be factors in the success of any child.

It is my belief and its also been demonstrated that if we provide early childhood education to Latino children it would take less than a decade to reap the benefits since investment in early education is proven to generate the fastest returns to the state.

With more ECD programs there will be less Latino students being held back, less dropouts and less crime involving school-age children; and they will be more productive individuals to society.

Its proven that most Latino kids who drop out of school and perform poorly in high school didn’t have access to an early childhood education and lacked essential attention, stimulation and  nutrition during the first 6 years of their lives.

Therefore, it is clear that the most powerful avenue for boosting academic achievement is improving the basic academic skills of children before kindergarten.

The Obama administration has made a point to improve Latino education and – as I spoke to the President previously – I am extremely passionate about working with the White House to plan an early childhood education summit in the coming year.

Chris Christie is not running but he is okay with asking

Chris Christie, the wildly popular northeastern governor -- at least in GOP circles -- spoke in soaring terms on the subject of American exceptionalism Tuesday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation in Simi Valley.

The theme of the official speech was American exceptionalism -- delivered to an audience that included Nancy Reagan, former California Gov. Pete Wilson and conservative activist Andrew Breitbart.
But the theme of the Q&A that followed was about whether the New Jersey governor would jump into the 2012 Republican presidential race.
(Ciick here and here for a two-part video; and here for the full text, courtesy of The Weekly Standard.)
But first, he was asked about a subject that caused some trouble for a declared....

...candidate, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, in the last GOP debate down in Florida. Defending his decision with the Texas Legislature to grant discounted in-state tuition rates to children of illegal aliens, Perry had said: "If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart."
Christie took exception to that:

As for the education expense, I've dealt with this problem in New Jersey, and I need to be crystal clear about it. I want every child to be educated, but I do not believe that, for the people who came here illegally, that we should be subsidizing, with taxpayer money, through in-state tuition, their education.
Let me be very clear, from my perspective, that is not a heartless position. That is a common-sense position.

The next questioner addressed the presidential campaign: "Gov. Christie, you're known as a straight-shooter, not one given to playing games. Can you tell us what's going on here? Are you reconsidering or are you standing firm?"
"Listen," said Christie, "I have to tell you the truth -- you folks are an incredible disappointment as an audience." That got big laughs. "The fact that it took to the second question shows you people are off your game. That is not American exceptionalism."
That got bigger laughs.
But then the governor referred his listeners to Politico.com, which today posted a video compilation of Christie's denials that he's running