WASHINGTON – A transformative health care bill is headed to President Barack Obama for his signature as Congress takes the final steps in Democrats’ improbable and history-making push for near-universal medical coverage.

On the cusp of succeeding where numerous past congresses and administrations have failed, jubilant House Democrats voted 219-212 late Sunday to send legislation to Obama that would extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, reduce deficits and ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

“This is what change looks like,” Obama said later in televised remarks that stirred memories of his 2008 campaign promise of “change we can believe in.”

“We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.”

Obama will travel outside Washington on Thursday as he now turns to seeing a companion bill through the Senate and selling the health care overhaul’s benefits on behalf of House lawmakers who cast risky votes. It is most likely that he will sign the bill on Tuesday, but the plans are not yet final, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss as-yet unannounced strategy.

Obama’s young presidency received a much needed boost from passage of the legislation, which would touch the lives of nearly every American. The battle for the future of the health insurance system — affecting one-sixth of the economy — galvanized Republicans and conservative activists looking ahead to November’s midterm elections.

A companion package making a series of changes sought by House Democrats to the larger bill, which already passed the Senate, was approved 220-211. The fix-it bill will now go to the Senate, where debate is expected to begin as early as Tuesday. Senate Democrats hope to approve it unchanged and send it directly to Obama, though Republicans intend to attempt parliamentary objections that could change the bill and require it to go back to the House.

Sen. John McCain said Monday morning that Democrats have not heard the last of the health care debate, and said he was repulsed by “all this euphoria going on.”

Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” McCain, who was Obama’s GOP rival in the 2008 presidential campaign, said that “outside the Beltway, the American people are very angry. They don’t like it, and we’re going to repeal this.”

McCain, who is in a tough Republican primary fight in his home state, said the GOP “will challenge it every place we can,” and said there will be reprisals at the polls, in Congress and in the courts.

The complicated two-step approval process was made necessary because Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof supermajority in a special election in January, a setback that caused even some Democratic lawmakers to pronounce the yearlong health care effort dead. Under the relentless prodding of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in particular, it was gradually revived, and the fix-it bill will be considered under fast-track Senate rules that don’t allow minority party filibusters.

“We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, health care for all Americans,” said Pelosi, D-Calif., partner to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the grueling campaign to pass the legislation.

“This is the civil rights act of the 21st century,” added Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the top-ranking black member of the House.

GOP lawmakers attacked the legislation as everything from a government takeover to the beginning of totalitarianism, and none voted in favor. “Hell no!” Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, shouted in a fiery speech opposing the legislation. “We have failed to listen to America and we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents.”

Thirty-four Democrats also voted “no” on the Senate-passed bill.

Sunday night’s votes capped an unpredictable and raucous weekend at the capitol, with Democratic leaders negotiating around the clock for the final votes as hundreds of protesters paraded outside, their shouts of “Kill the Bill! Kill the Bill!” audible within the Capitol.

A last-minute deal with a critical group of anti-abortion lawmakers Sunday afternoon sealed Democrats’ victory. The leader of the anti-abortion bloc, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., didn’t get to add stricter anti-abortion language to the underlying bill, but was satisfied by an executive order signed by Obama affirming current law and provisions in the legislation that ban federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

Republican abortion foes said Obama’s proposed order was insufficient, and when Stupak sought to counter them, a shout of “baby killer” was heard coming from the Republican side of the chamber.

Far beyond the political ramifications — a concern the president repeatedly insisted he paid no mind — were the sweeping changes the bill held in store for Americans, insured or not, as well as the insurance industry and health care providers.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation awaiting the president’s approval would cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade. For the first time, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Much of the money in the bill would be devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums.

The second measure, which House Democrats demanded before agreeing to approve the first, included enough money to close a gap in the Medicare prescription drug coverage over the next decade, starting with an election-season rebate of $250 later this year for seniors facing high costs.

It also included sweeping changes in the student loan program, an administration priority that has been stalled in the Senate for months.

For the president, the events capped an 18-day stretch in which he traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of his signature domestic issue. He also postponed an overseas trip to remain in Washington and push for the bill.

Obama watched the vote in the White House’s Roosevelt Room with Vice President Joe Biden and dozens of aides, exchanged high fives with Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, and then telephoned Pelosi with congratulations.

Now Obama will have to sell the bill to the public, and a White House aide said he was likely to take at least one trip this weekend to emphasize the legislation’s benefits.

The measure would also usher in a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor. The insurance industry, which spent millions on advertising trying to block the bill, would come under new federal regulation. Parents would be able to keep children up to age 26 on their family insurance plans.

To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade and cuts more than $500 billion from planned payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and other providers that treat Medicare patients.

Darren Mattox, 29, admitted posting a message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character when he appeared at Wrexham Magistrates Court.

He used the word in a posting to ex-girlfriend Ashleigh Speed.

He wanted to see his baby son, born last October after their three-month relationship ended in April.

Magistrates were handed printouts of messages sent by Mattox to Ms Speed, her father and her sister, but they were not read to the court.

The Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: “There have probably been only a handful of cases resulting from offensive material either on Facebook or YouTube.”

A spokeswoman for the Magistrates Association said: “Its certainly not a common offence. I haven’t come across it in the 20 years I’ve been sitting as a magistrate, but I imagine it may become more common.”

Mattox, unemployed, of Acton, Wrexham, admitted the offence. He was fined £65, plus £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Justin Espie, prosecuting, said he had wanted contact with the baby and on November 29 was issued with a harassment order because he was ‘constantly texting’ Miss Speed.

He said: “Around February 12 this year the victim’s sister said that the defendant had made contact with her on Facebook and the victim also received a message. The message was brief but clearly of a harassing nature. He claims he just wants to see his baby.”

Rod Williams, defending, said: “Mattox went to see his son at hospital – that is the one and only time he has seen his son.

“He became increasingly angry and frustrated and it’s because of this that he has posted these messages.”

After the case Mr Williams said: “There was a whole background of animosity. The comment certainly wasn’t particularly abusive or offensive. He basically made a posting calling her an offensive name.”

WASHINGTON – Two guns used in high-profile shootings this year at the Pentagon and a Las Vegas courthouse both came from the same unlikely place: the police and court system of Memphis, Tenn.

Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that both guns were once seized in criminal cases in Memphis. The officials described how the weapons made their separate ways from an evidence vault to gun dealers and to the shooters.

The use of guns that once were in police custody and were later involved in attacks on police officers highlights a little-known divide in gun policy in the United States: Many cities and states destroy guns gathered in criminal probes, but others sell or trade the weapons in order to get other guns or buy equipment such as bulletproof vests.

In fact, on the day of the Pentagon shooting, March 4, the Tennessee governor signed legislation revising state law on confiscated guns. Before, law enforcement agencies in the state had the option of destroying a gun. Under the new version, agencies can only destroy a gun if it’s inoperable or unsafe.

Kentucky has a similar law, but it’s not clear how many other states have laws specifically designed to promote the police sale or trade of confiscated weapons.

A nationwide review by The Associated Press in December found that over the previous two years, 24 states — mostly in the South and West, where gun-rights advocates are particularly strong — have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions. Gun rights groups are making a greater effort to pass favorable legislation in state capitals.

John Timoney, who led the Philadelphia and Miami police departments and served as New York’s No. 2 police official, said he doesn’t believe police departments should be putting more guns into the market.

“I just think it’s unseemly for police departments to be selling guns that later turn up,” he said, recalling that he had once been offered the chance to sell guns to raise money for the police budget.

“Obviously, we always need the money but I just said, `No, we will take the loss and get rid of the guns’,” said the former police chief, who now works for Andrews International, a security consulting firm.

A spokeswoman for the Memphis police said gun swaps are a way to save taxpayer money.

One of the weapons in the Pentagon attack was seized by Memphis police in 2005 and later traded to a gun dealer; the gun used in the Jan. 4 courthouse shooting in Las Vegas as sold by a judge’s order and the proceeds given to the Memphis-area sheriff’s office. Neither weapon was sold by the Memphis law enforcement agencies directly to the men who later used them to shoot officers.

In both cases, the weapons first went to licensed gun dealers, but later came into the hands of men who were legally barred from possessing them: one a convicted felon; the other mentally ill.

The history of the two guns in the recent attacks was described by officials from multiple law enforcement agencies on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the investigations. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives provided reports on the gun traces to the investigating agencies, but is barred from publicly disclosing the results.

At the Pentagon, gunman John Patrick Bedell carried two 9 mm handguns, one of them a Ruger.

Law enforcement officials say Bedell, a man with a history of severe psychiatric problems, had been sent a letter by California authorities Jan. 10 telling him he was prohibited from buying a gun because of his mental history.

Nineteen days later, the officials say, Bedell bought the Ruger at a gun show in Las Vegas. Such a sale by a private individual does not require the kind of background check that would have stopped Bedell’s purchase.

Mike Campbell, an ATF spokesman in Washington, would not confirm the details. He would only say Bedell “appears to have purchased the gun from a private seller.”

The gun already had changed hands among gun dealers in Georgia and Pennsylvania by the time Bedell bought it. Officer Karen Rudolph, a Memphis police spokeswoman, said her department traded the weapon to a dealer in 2008 for a different gun that was better for police work.

The Ruger had sat in Memphis police storage for years at that point, after being confiscated from a convicted felon at a 2005 traffic stop.

The trail of the gun used at the Las Vegas federal courthouse is older and harder to pin down. Johnny Lee Wicks, an elderly man enraged over cuts to his Social Security benefits, opened fire with the shotgun at the security entrance to the courthouse. He killed one officer, Stanley Cooper, and wounded another.

Wicks, like Bedell at the Pentagon, was killed by officers’ return fire.

Before that courthouse attack, what records exist suggest officers in Memphis confiscated that gun in 1998.

A judge in Memphis ordered the sale of the shotgun as part of a criminal case, and the proceeds of that sale went to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed sheriff’s spokesman Steve Shular.

He said the gun dealer who bought it later sold the weapon to a dealer in Nevada. It is not clear how Wicks got the shotgun.

Rich Wyatt, a former police chief in Alma, Colo., who now operates a gun store — and who has bought weapons from police agencies — defended the practice of police selling guns.

“Maybe if they put the money they made selling the guns into training those officers better, they’d be better off,” said Wyatt. “Nobody ever, ever questions selling a car that was used in a crime. I am sad that officers were shot, but I don’t care where the guns came from. To say we need to chase guns is not the issue, we need to chase people.”

VIENNA – At least two mass graves containing dozens of people killed by the Nazis have been found on property used by the Austrian army, government officials said Friday. An army statement suggested some of the remains may be that of U.S. pilots shot down and imprisoned during World War II.

Police Col. Rudolf Gollia, an interior ministry spokesman, said his ministry plans talks with the owners of the site to discuss exhumation, adding it was not yet clear whether the army owned the property or was renting it.

The mass graves are located in bomb craters underneath an army sports field in the southern city of Graz. Officials said they contain about 70 bodies of victims killed by the SS to eliminate witnesses to Nazi atrocities shortly before Soviet troops arrived.

The graves were identified from wartime photos, made from U.S. bombers, showing open graves and bodies. U.S. authorities made the imagery available on request of Austrian historians tasked two years ago by Defense Minister Norbert Darabos with researching documented war crimes at the site, used by the SS during World War II.

A statement available Friday on the Austrian army web site said up to 219 people were massacred at the location during the dying days of World War II in an attempt to hush up atrocities committed there.

Among other things the probe was meant to “find out more over the identity and the whereabouts of the victims killed in the last days of the Second World War,” said the statement. “The systematic violence of the Gestapo … focused mostly on resistance fighters, prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates and forced laborers but also shot-down U.S. pilots.”

The site originally contained hundreds of victims but many were moved by the officer in charge of the wartime facility out of fears that he would be found responsible for the killing. The exhumation and reburials were stopped, however, because of the approach of the Soviet Army.

While the relocated bodies were subsequently found and given a proper burial, about 70 of the dead remained unaccounted for until they were located by the probe.

The army statement said that the investigation also established the identities of two suspected perpetrators who subsequently fled to Germany and could still be alive. It gave no details.

My entire adult life I’ve felt the injustices imposed upon honest, hard-working individuals in our society: frivolous traffic tickets, lying politicians, extorted taxes for things we neither want nor need, abusive law enforcement and the like. I’ve always been passionate about these injustices but not actively so.

After spending nearly a decade abroad living and working in Europe I found myself returning to a country I didn’t recognize. I found it difficult to acclimate and integrate into this politically correct, socially abusive, statist society; a society that seemed to be desensitized to police abuse of all magnitudes. The prevailing attitude seems to be: if the cops have someone in custody then they must deserve it.

Almost immediately I was confronted with the abusive nature of the new state order: driving to get a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning in Syracuse, NY, I was pulled over for talking on my cell phone. Having only been in Syracuse for 3 months I had no reason to believe that such a law existed. Regardless the doughnut feeder pulled me from my car, patted me down in the street, and put me in his car while he ran my license and wrote out the citation. It was humiliating and I felt like a common criminal.

I was determined to fight the citation, but my contract ended and I left Syracuse. Eventually I paid the $100 fine.

Just recently I moved to Princeton, NJ, to begin a new short-term contract. This past Saturday evening I rode my bicycle to the Princeton University campus where there are a number of pubs and restaurants. My intent was to get Chinese takeout and go back to my room off campus.

As I rode down the sidewalk on famed Nassau Street on this clear, cool March evening, myself and others were startled by a Mercer county patrol car blazing its siren and lights and darting into the sidewalk ahead of me. My first thought, of course, was: what could be going on? It wasn’t more than a few seconds until I got the answer to that question. The short, well-armed female officer exited her cruiser and with a firm right hand, outstretched arm and condescending look in her eyes, she looked dead in my eyes as I approached her and exclaimed: “Stop!” I kid you not.

Of course, this is one of those situations where anyone still in possession of a fully functional frontal lobe thinks to themselves: what could I possibly have done? The responsible answer is, of course: nothing. Reason and responsibility, unfortunately, rarely seem to figure into a tax-feeder’s thought process. As it turns out, it is illegal to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk. Even more ridiculous is the fact that it’s only illegal in a 4–5 block section of Nassau street AND only on my side of the street. At least that’s what she told me.

Given my survival training learned from LRC and other sites, I immediately knew how to handle the situation. The first thing I said was: I do not consent to any searches of my person. Of course, this riled her; she immediately replied: “why, do you have something to hide? When you say that you seem suspicious.” Of course this would be her response since in her mind, as she sees herself as anointed by God herself, and anyone not wanting to cooperate with a servant of the almighty must be immoral and hiding something. Actually, I saw myself as being accosted by a total stranger imposing on my freedom of movement, and was no more willing to consent to an invasion of privacy by her anymore than I would any other stranger accosting me on the street. I told her that I didn’t trust her and was simply exercising my constitutional rights. That made her even angrier. Cops hate it when mundanes say things like that.

I couldn’t help but think that this whole situation could have been avoided if only her father had loved her more. But I digress. Continuing with her irresponsible and abusive activities, she called for backup. Backup for a guy riding his bicycle. When she did that it instantly became clear to me that we were on the other side of the looking glass and tea was about to be served.

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When her colleague arrived, he approached me and said that the law was the law and they were just doing their job. Of course at that point my first instinct was to pull his underwear up over his head and smack him for being stupid. But I didn’t. Instead I pointed out how the German officers at the Nuremberg trials also used the defense that they were just doing what they were told to which he rolled his eyes as if to say: where did this nut-job come from?

As the female cop completed the citation, I made a point of letting all folks passing by know that the situation was because I was riding my bike on the sidewalk. The first baby-boomer couple to pass by commented: that’s a shame. The sidewalk is the safest place for a cyclist to ride. Of course I agreed.

Obviously this is just another example of abusive law enforcement in an effort to extort yet more and more money out of the productive people in our society in these hard economic times, in order to keep the non-working class in business.

I have a court date on March 23rd at which time I will plead not guilty and I imagine I’ll receive another court date to plead my case. My position on this issue is simple: I cannot condone this sort of socially irresponsible behavior on the part of the state. It’s been made clear to me that I have no say in anything the state does, so I am forced into a corner from which I shall fight my way out. I won’t contend that I am not guilty of breaking the law but rather that the law itself is immoral and to cite me abusive, period.

I certainly cannot take the position of: let me just pay the citation and go along to get along. By doing so I would be condoning these sorts of reprehensible practices, which I do not. This particular issue is so clearly unjust that I have no problem “going to the mattresses” in fighting it. I can’t think of anything more insulting to me as an American as this sort of affront to my God-given rights of existence.

Those police officers ought to be ashamed of themselves, but I know they are not. Like so many in America – myself included – they no doubt believe in their righteousness. But one has to ask: do you really feel free anymore? Do you find yourself in public constantly wondering if you can cross the street here or there? Whether you can ride your bike on a sidewalk? The shoulder of the road? When you see a cop car in your rearview mirror, do you feel safer or do you get a short shot of adrenaline and start wondering what he could pull you over for? What’s your speed and what’s the speed limit? Did you signal when you changed lanes? I think we all know the answer to that question.

I’ve already arranged for bail on the 23rd when things go badly. Remember, always do what you know is right, even if the government says it’s wrong. And the government will always say it’s wrong. That’s how you can know it’s the right thing to do.

In spite of a gargantuan federal deficit weighing in at $1.5 trillion, one agency clearly didn’t get the belt-tightening memo. The Department of Commerce, which is responsible for the U.S. Census, has just mailed 120 million letters telling people like me that we will receive a Census questionnaire within a week. The cost of that little venture in paper and envelopes alone is a cool $4,200,000–and that’s only if you get a discount on the lowest-end supplies at Staples, including ink for high speed printers. Government agencies are not used to comparative shopping, so this number might be a bit conservative. Still you have to add an additional $2,500,000 for the ad Census Bureau aired on the Super Bowl–an ad that no one can remember 5 weeks later.

But the real cost of this wasteful spending falls to the Post Office, a government operation with negative trend projections that would make die-hard deficit doves fly the coop. The total: $52,000,000, if in fact delivering a first class letter is worth 44¢.

The Post Office expects a $7 billion shortfall this year, and John Potter, the Postmaster General, says it will likely get even worse. The reasons for this financial disaster are obvious: e-mail and fax, to name two. After spending $4.9 million on three different consulting firms, the USPS came up with a plan: drop Saturday delivery and charge more for postage. They’ve tried that strategy before, of course. But whenever first class postage goes up, large numbers of customers drop out–permanently. They make the leap from paying bills by mail to paying bills on line. They send e-cards and e-vites instead of mailing a greeting or an invitation.

And when second class postage is raised, as it has been almost every year for the past two decades, some catalogs convert to e-commerce only. As for magazines, postal increases have been so draconian that many have simply folded.

The Postal Service has trimmed its workforce and created new ancillary businesses in an effort to compete with FedEx and UPS. But the revenue from those ventures can’t keep up with the costs. Maybe what’s needed is a new campaign–an ad or two on the next Super Bowl broadcast, and a mailing to everyone in the country reminding them to watch, sent out 5 weeks in advance.