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For sure that seems to me to be the most pertinent aspect of our political leaders as regards Christianity, but I have a bit more to say about this article which makes unwarranted associations and assertions.After 4 paragraphs basically void of insights or new info we get a couple along the lines of "Gillard decided to bring Rudd in from the cold" like huh? he's been in hospital undergoing surgery!Then as if anything worthy had been said we have "To cap it all off, Prime Minister Gillard decided to appear in person at the Mary MacKillop Canonisation Dinner"and "most surprisingly, she has just agreed to answer questions put to her by the Australian Christian Lobby" do you really find it so strange that our prime minister would take an interest in Australia's first saint or answer questions from the ACL just because she doesn't believe in God?Then due to you manufactured suprise you feel free to conclude the she "has decided that she can't ignore the Christian vote" although nowhere previous in the article did you have any real reason to say that she had been ignoring it before.I think that you take a lot upon yourself to use her words "I am not going to pretend a faith I don't feel" to infer a "profession of "no faith" "Either you are hiding behind "In the eyes of many" or you truly believe that not professing "a faith" (in God) means that she has "no faith".Then to cap it off your punch line "But this does raise serious questions concerning the authenticity of the Prime Minister's appeal to a lobby that, prior to this week, she seemed not to think she needed" relies entirely on what you assert she thought she didn't need! having said nothing substantive to show that such was the case.

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Home> Nightline Clinton Nears Decision on U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan Oct. 14, 2009 By CYNTHIA MCFADDEN and AMMU KANNAMPILLY Cynthia McFadden More from Cynthia » Co-anchor, 'Nightline' Follow @CynthiaMcFadden via Nightline Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is close to formulating a U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, she said today in an exclusive interview with ABC News' "Nightline." Although she refused to go public with what she believes is the best course of action for the United States in Afghanistan, a somber Clinton said she "will be prepared to offer the president my best advice when he asks for it." In response to reports that she took a more hawkish position on the war than that of President Obama's other advisers, she said, "I'm not going to comment on where I'm leaning, where anybody else is leaning, I think I owe the president my best advice and I think I'll leave it at that." Clinton also took pains to defend beleaguered Afghan President Hamid Karzai and took time to clarify his claim in an interview on "Good Morning America" Tuesday that al Qaeda has "no base in Afghanistan, the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan villages, it is not in the Afghan countryside." "There's no doubt," Clinton said, that the Taliban in Afghanistan "fund extremists." But, she added, what Karzai "was trying to get at, which is also our analysis, is there are people who are Taliban, who are fighting because they get paid to fight. They have no other way of making a living, you've got a very poor population in general, they get paid more to be in the Taliban than to be a police officer. "Another is there are all kinds of internal conflicts in Afghanistan between certain tribal groups or ethnic groups who find it opportunistic to ally with the Taliban. They're very conservative, but they're not a direct threat to us." Part of the problem, Clinton said, was "to sort out who is the real enemy. Our goal is to disrupt, dismantle, defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies. But not every Taliban is al Qaeda." But she acknowledged that the irregularities in the Afghan elections had made the timing of any decision on sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan more challenging. Her words diverged sharply from Karzai's take on the controversial elections, which he described as "good and fair and worthy of praise." Clinton: I Was 'Resistant to the Idea' of Being Secretary of State Earlier this week, Clinton surprised many people when she ruled out running for president again. She reiterated today her refusal to run, saying, "I gave it all I had," adding that she was looking forward to taking some time off after her stint as secretary of state. Recalling the aftermath of the election, Clinton, for the first time, shared the details of how she was offered and later accepted the position of U.S. secretary of state. "It was about five to six days after the election, and my husband and I were out for a walk, actually, in a sort of reserve near where we live in New York. And he had his cell phone in his pocket, [and] it started ringing in the middle of this big nature reserve. And, instead of turning it off, he answered it and it was President-elect Obama wanting to talk to him about some people he was considering for positions, and he said I'd like to also talk to Hillary at some point." At the time, she thought Obama was calling to ask her for her opinion of other people he wished to hire, saying, "we know a lot of people, so obviously [he's] calling to say, 'Should I put this person there? What do you think about that person?' "When I did talk to the president, he said he wanted me to come to Chicago because he wanted to talk to me." "Even then," Clinton said, "I honestly did not believe it was about me. … I did not." Obama immediately offered her the job, Clinton recalled. "He said, 'I want you to be my secretary of state.' And, I said, 'Oh, no you don't,'" she said, laughing. "I said there are so many other people who could do this and do it really well. I had this image in my head, I'd be back in the Senate, I'd spend time at my house, I'd visit my friends in the city and upstate and go back and work on health care. ... So I was very taken aback and somewhat resistant to the idea because it just seemed so unexpected. I couldn't grasp it," she said. "But we kept talking, [and] I'm pretty old-fashioned ... so, at the end of the day, when your president asks you to serve, you say yes if you can." Since taking on the role, Clinton said, Obama "has been very supportive, very forthcoming. "I feel not only incredibly involved but relied upon." -- This embed didnt make it to copy for story id = 8815655. Related Topics: Hillary Clinton, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamid Karzai, Dmitry Medvedev, U.S. Troops, Presidential Election 2012, Good Morning America, Missile Interceptors, White House

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Hill Blues: From Low Point, Obama Seeks to Rally Congressional Troops By Jonathan Blakely Jan 27, 2010 8:08am By Rick Klein: There will be applause. Check the smiles, though, for gritted teeth. It’s all well and good to say the real audience for a State of the Union address sits far beyond the House chamber. But that doesn’t have to be true Wednesday night for this speech to be interesting. The state of the Democrats’ union, it turns out, is not all that strong. All it took was one little special election, and one big lost seat, to reveal that fact, reorder Washington, and force Jon Favreau to rewrite a major speech. President Obama goes into the State of the Union address at perhaps the low point in his relationship with Congress. His top priority is on the shelf. Democrats are worried about coattails — while grabbing their coats and headed for different careers. The big idea designed to catch the attention of independent voters? Met with a big flat no thanks, from the president’s allies on the Hill. If the president can win back the confidence of his allies on the Hill, that would be a major step back toward getting his agenda on track. He still has the kind of congressional majorities George W. Bush would have loved. What he doesn’t have are soldiers willing to march for him at the moment. The big picture — don’t expect retreat. The president has talked repeatedly about failures in communication — not in misplaced priorities. And remember when this was all going to be about health care? Specific details on how to get from here to there (wherever that may be) — that can wait for another speech, maybe one with a few less people watching. “When Mr. Obama presents his first State of the Union address on Wednesday evening, aides said he would accept responsibility, though not necessarily blame, for failing to deliver swiftly on some of the changes he promised a year ago. But he will not, aides said, accede to criticism that his priorities are out of step with the nation’s,” Jeff Zeleny reports in The New York Times. “The public posture of the White House is that any shortcomings are the result of failing to explain effectively what they were doing — and why. He will acknowledge making mistakes in pursuit of his agenda, aides said, but will not toss the agenda overboard in search of a more popular one.” “A popular president has spent a year’s worth of political capital pushing an agenda that’s proving to be largely unpopular with the public,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reported on “Good Morning America” Thursday. “So — how will he recover?” The tone? “A hopeful Obama,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, on “GMA.” “Though Washington believes every day is an Election Day, people in this country want to know the president and the Congress are working hard together to solve the challenges and the problems that they have.” And: “The president’s going to explain why he thinks the American people are angry and frustrated.” “Obama's speech will be underpinned by two themes — reassuring millions of Americans that he understands their struggles and convincing people that he is working to change Washington even as he finds himself working within its old political ways,” the AP’s Ben Feller writes. “The 9 p.m. EST address has enormous stakes for Obama. He rode a tide of voter frustration into office and now is getting smacked by it himself.” What he can’t get done with a speech: “President Obama aims to deliver a game-changing message, one capable of convincing Americans that his policies will create jobs, curb spending and restore prosperity,” the Los Angeles Times’ Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons report. “But with voter discontent over his healthcare overhaul running high and the recession's effects cutting deep, the president's trademark eloquence may not be the antidote to his troubles.” This is it? “His goals will be to reset his agenda, assure his demoralized party that he has not given up on key priorities and try to convince a skeptical public that he can still change Washington,” Shailagh Murray and Michael D. Shear write in The Washington Post. “Barack Obama won the White House in part because he controlled the narrative of the campaign, a story line of change and possibility,” Bloomberg’s Ed Chen and Nicholas Johnston report. “His first State of the Union address today is a chance for a rewrite.” Mass. in mind: “The president’s address, his first official State of the Union speech, is shaping up as a policy answer to the political wake-up call Obama and Democrats received with the election of Republican Scott Brown to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy,” Susan Milligan writes in The Boston Globe. “Instead [of health care], the president will emphasize a fresh agenda: cutting federal spending, bolstering the economy, and encouraging private-sector job creation.” As for the immediate crowd: “President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be all smiles as the president arrives at the Capitol for his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, but the happy faces can’t hide relationships that are fraying and fraught,” Politico’s Glenn Thrush and John Bresnahan report. They add: “In a display of contempt unfathomable in the feel-good days after Obama’s Inauguration, freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stood up at a meeting with Pelosi last week to declare: ‘Reid is done; he’s going to lose’ in November, according to three people who were in the room. Titus denied Tuesday evening that she had singled out Reid, but she acknowledged that she said Democrats would be ‘f—ed’ if they failed to heed the lessons of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat last week.” Only fueling the frustration on the Hill: “His decision to use the speech to call for a spending freeze, his full-court press for reconfirmation of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and his arms-length approach to much of the politically crippling health care debate have hardly been welcomed by House and Senate Democrats,” Emily Pierce writes for Roll Call. On the spending freeze — ABC’s Jonathan Karl catches up with a few of the president’s usual allies: “At a time when people are going hungry and our educational system is crumbling, do we want to cut back or freeze these programs? No,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “As much as I want to support the president, I have doubts,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. Behind the new priorities — it’s not just Massachusetts: “According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 51% of Americans believe Mr. Obama has paid ‘too little attention’ to the economy. Forty-four percent think he has paid ‘too much attention’ to his proposed overhaul of health care. A plurality continues to think that Mr. Obama's health-care plan is a bad idea,” the Journal’s Peter Wallsten writes. Details — on jobs: “He will make small-business hiring the centerpiece of that message, pressing Congress to act on a slate of tax cuts that have languished for months,” Jonathan Weisman and Peter Wallsten write in The Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Obama will call for eliminating capital-gains taxes on investments in small businesses. He will redouble efforts to give small employers a tax credit for new hires. And he will call for extending bigger tax breaks to those that purchase new facilities and equipment.” Not frozen — and being touted in the run-up: “President Obama will propose a major increase in funding for elementary and secondary education for the coming year in Wednesday's State of the Union address, one of the few areas that would grow in an otherwise austere federal budget,” Nick Anderson and Michael D. Shear write in The Washington Post. “The proposal to raise federal education spending by as much as $4 billion in the next fiscal year was described by administration officials Tuesday night as the start of an effort to revamp the No Child Left Behind law enacted under President George W. Bush. … The funding would include a $1.35 billion increase in Obama's ‘Race to the Top’ competitive grants for school reform.” For the symbolism: “Within tomorrow’s State of the Union address, President Obama will extend a freeze on the pay for top government officials and political appointees,” ABC’s Sunlen Miller reports. “This year the president is extending this freeze to all political employees, including executive branch employees under the executive schedule, ambassadors, non-career members of the foreign service, and politically appointed senior executive service employees.” Responding to Citizens United: “President Barack Obama in his first State of the Union address on Wednesday night will encourage Congress to pass legislation restricting foreign corporations from getting involved in federal elections,” Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel writes. ABC’s coverage of the State of the Union comes at 9 pm ET, with Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos anchoring, and reporting from Jake Tapper, Jon Karl, and Martha Raddatz. Coverage continues through “Nightline” at 11:35 pm ET. ABC News NOW’s coverage starts at 8:30 pm ET, with a special “Nightline Twittercast” hosted by Terry Moran, Yunji de Nies, and myself. We’ll be joined by ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd, plus guests from Capitol Hill. Coverage will livestream at ABCNews.com. Review some presidential pep talks from previous State of the Union addresses, as compiled by ABC’s Devin Dwyer and Lindsey Ellerson. On health care — why rush? “With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them,” The New York Times’ David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear report. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: “There is no rush.” Everyone agree? From the media advisory, for the 11 am ET event on Capitol Hill: “Today, hours before the President’s State of the Union Address and at a key moment in the health care negotiations between the House and Senate, Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL), Democracy for America Chair Jim Dean, and leaders from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Credo Action will hold a press event outside the Hart Senate Office Building calling on the Senate to pass a public health insurance option through reconciliation.” Any path at all will do: “Centrist Democratic senators have circumvented party leadership to approach Maine GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins about reviving healthcare talks,” The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. “Democrats such as Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) have approached Snowe within the past week to discuss her potential support for various healthcare proposals.” Not much time to change some storylines around… Amy Walter, at National Journal: “Much closer on the horizon are state filing deadlines for ballot access. The sun may come out tomorrow, but for those folks who have a go/no-go decision in their immediate future, they only see dark clouds. This makes for a dreary scenario for Democratic committee flacks. Instead of a ‘flood’ of retirements, it's more likely to be a steady drip.” Getting out there — President Obama is planning a trip to Florida Thursday, then New Hampshire Tuesday, backing up the messaging with local/national events. Seriously? No scheduling conflicts sitting around anywhere? “Gov. Charlie Crist, who has been taking a steady pounding for his ‘man hug’ with President Barack Obama in February, now says he might be with the president again Thursday in Tampa,” Steve Bousquet reports in the St. Petersburg Times. “If we can work it out logistically, I'll be with him,” Crist said Tuesday. When did New York Democrats change their primary process into a name-calling contest? Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is calling Harold Ford Jr. a “parakeet”: “Him calling me names doesn't hurt me but it affects New York because it distracts from issues,” Gillibrand tells the New York Post’s Maggie Haberman. “All we know about him is his record which is abysmal for New York.” On the Hill, a big day for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: “Facing a rising tempest and new investigations, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday will defend before Congress his 2008 decision to use taxpayer bailout money to pay major banks the full $62 billion face value of bets made on risky offshore securities,” McClatchy’s Greg Gordon reports. Per ABC’s Matthew Jaffe, in Geithner's prepared testimony, the Treasury chief reiterates that he had no input on disclosure decisions at AIG. “I had no role in making decisions regarding what to disclose about the specific financial terms of Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III, and payments to AIG's counterparties,” he says. One year in, taking stock — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to Tavis Smiley, on the new primetime “Tavis Smiley Reports” Wednesday on PBS: “Now, there's a lot of work to be done; we still face many threats and other issues that we have to deal with, but I think we’ve changed the tone, we’ve changed the attitude, and there's a great deal more openness to the United States.” Plus, how campaign critiques changed her view on gender equity: “What I was not prepared for was a lot of the criticism that I thought had less to do with me and more to do with attitudes about women, that was surprising to me. I mean, it was 2007 and 2008, but you know, that’s something we still have to work on in this country.” Look for Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass., to be sworn in Feb. 11: “That's 23 days after the election, but the sense among his supporters that he must be seated immediately has eased somewhat now that President Obama and Congressional leaders have promised there will be no scramble to ram a health care bill through the Senate before he takes office,” Lisa Wangsness reports in The Boston Globe. “The interim period will allow the requisite time for overseas military ballots to arrive, for town and city clerks to submit official vote counts to the Secretary of State's office, and for the governor's council to formally accept them. It also gives the senator-elect a brief window in which to assemble his staff.” But first — Barbara Walters interviews Brown on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. You can’t make it up… “Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility,” David Hammer reports in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. All four men were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.” “Given that history with O'Keefe, Democrats gleefully pored over the details of the criminal charges Tuesday, while Republicans either spoke about waiting for all the facts to come out or kept their thoughts to themselves,” The Washington Post’s Carol D. Leonnig and Garance Franke-Ruta report. The Kicker: “Is somebody having lox?” — Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., smelling something fishy in the Capitol. “That was a one-time incident.” — Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., on how he plans to conduct himself this time around. For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day: Email blog comments powered by Disqus About The NoteThroughout the day, ABC News' political team contributes to The Note with the very latest news and analysis from the nation's capital and the 2012 campaign trail. More from ABC News Politics Ebola Czar Ron Klain Starts His Job — Quietly

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People / Places Themes / Events http://africanhistory.about.com/od/zimbabwe/l/bl-Zimbabwe-Timeline-4.htm Zimbabwe Timeline -- Part 4: Leaving the Commonwealth to Present Day A Chronology of Key Events in Zimbabwe By Alistair Boddy-Evans, About.com Zimbabwe leaves the Commonwealth of Nations in response to a continued suspension by the Commonwealth committee. US President George W Bush announces economic sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and a score of his officials in the grounds that they are undermining the democratic institutions of the country. Simon Mann, and his group of 63 mercenaries are arrested at Harare Airport, detained as they made their way (allegedly) to help stage a coup d'état in Equatorial Guinea. Mann is sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to procure arms. The Zimbabwean government announces plans to nationalize all farm land and abolish private land ownership. People will be allowed to bid for 99-year leases, payable to the government. The government backtracks 12 days later after international pressure. Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is acquitted of charges for treason over an alleged plot to kill President Robert Mugabe in 2002. There is still a treason charge from June 2003 outstanding. Law is passed that bans foreign rights groups from entering Zimbabwe or funding local rights groups within the country. Zimbabwe is named as one of six 'outposts of tyranny' by United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. (The other countries so named by Rice were Belarus, Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.) 3.4 Million Zimbabweans living abroad are banned from taking part in the election, they represent 20% of the electorate. Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) wins roughly 67% of the votes in parliamentary polls. Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claims the election was rigged. May-July 2005 Operation Murambatsvina, ('Operation Drive Out Rubbish', though officially known as 'Operation Restore Order') results in the eviction of tens of thousands of slum dwellers. Shanty town homes were declared illegal and, along with unofficial street markets, they were removed by bulldozers in a massive 'clean-up' campaign. The United Nations estimates that around 700,000 peoples were made homeless as a result. The state backed Herald newspaper reports that more than 22,000 people were arrested in the process. Two children are reported to have been crushed as a bulldozer flattened their home. Outstanding treason charge, from 2003, against Morgan Tsvangirai is dropped by government prosecutors. Seats for a newly created upper house of parliament, known as the Senate, are up for election. Unsurprisingly, the ruling African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party wins a majority. The MDC faired badly because Morgan Tsvangirai decided to boycott the elections, this causes in split in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Year-on-Year (YoY) inflation has reached 1000%. The government issues new banknotes (with values reduced by a thousand). The presidents of Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique attend the official opening of the Giriyondo borderpart of the planned development of the Greater Limpopo Trans-frontier Park, which will span 14,000 square miles across the three countries. A demonstration against the governments handling of the economic crisis is halted by armed riot police. Union leaders are arrested, and later transferred to hospital. There are allegations that they were tortured whilst in detention. Robert Mugabe's African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government announces its intention to delay presidential polls by two years, moving them from 2008 to 2010. This is widely seen as an attempt to extend his term in power. Political rallies in Zimbabwe are banned for four months. The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, is beaten and suffers head wounds by Zimbabwean police after his arrest at a rally. Another man is shot dead at a prayer meeting by riot police. Inflation has reached a reported 3,700%. Robert Mugabe's African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) hold talks in South Africa. Death of Ian Smith, Rhodesia's last white premier, in South Africa. Hw was 88. Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claims victory in presidential and parliamentary elections -- they say that 128 out of 210 parliamentary seats have been won by the MDC, giving them a 60% majority, whilst they say that Tsvangirai had won 50.3% of the presidential vote against Robert Mugabe's 43.8%. Zimbabwe's electoral body announces that although Morgan Tsvangirai, for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), won a majority of votes in the presidential election, it was not enough to avoid a 'run-off' against Robert Mugabe. Mugabe's 'war veterans' march through the streets of Harare to voice their support for Mugabe. South African President Thabo Mbeki holds talks with Robert Mugabe over the post-election crisis in Zimbabwe. Morgan Tsvangirai pulls out of the second round of presidential voting, just days before the election is to take place, after complaining of intimidation. (At one point 60 MDC supporters are arrested during a raid on Moragn Tsvangirai's headquarters.) It is reported that over one hundred MDC supporters have been killed in politically motivated violence. Mugabe is declared the winner of the presidential election by the ruling African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). A UN Security Council resolution to impose further sanctions on Zimbabwe is vetoed by China and Russia. The European Commission insists that Morgan Tsvangirai be named head of government, South Africa's Thabo Mkeki rejects their call. The ruling African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) resume power-sharing negotiations. The EU condemns President Robert Mugabe for a 'unilateral decision' to form a new government despite continuing power-sharing negotiations with the MDC. The EU and US increase the level of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe despite the failure of the UN resolution the previous month. President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai sign a power-sharing agreement. The process quickly comes to a halt due to bickering over apportionment of the ministerial posts. National emergency in Zimbabwe as its health care system fails to deal with a cholera epidemic. The death toll exceeds 500. In order to relieve the pressures of hyperinflation, the Zimbabwe government allows the use of foreign currencies. Morgan Richard Tsvangirai becomes prime minister, representing the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whilst Robert Mugabe continues as president. Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is injured and his wife, Susan Nyaradzo, is killed in a car crash. Rumors abound about it not being an accident -- two government ministers were killed in separate car crashes back in 2001. It was reported by CNN that an ex-United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe said it was Mugabe's 'Modus Operandi' to remove opposition in this way. For the first time after years of hyperinflation shop prices begin to fall. Diamond certification body calls for a ban on trade of Zimbabwean diamonds over concern for human rights abuses. A constitutional review is undertaken. Meanwhile Prime Minster Morgan Tsvangirai tours the United States and Europe. On the first anniversary of power-sharing between the Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Robert Mugabe's African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), the MDC express frustration about intimidation of its members and political violence. International Monetary Fund releases $400 million as part of G20 agreement to help Africa. The World Bank announces a $74 million grant to improve the agricultural sector. President Robert Mugabe re-elected as leader of African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) for another five years. Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minster representing the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), calls for softening of sanctions against Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean High Court throws out a regional court ruling that Mugabe's land-grab was illegal. New legislation requiring foreign owned businesses to be majority owned by Zimbabweans comes into effect. Death of Bishop Abel Muzorewa at the age of 85. He was the first black leader of the former white settler state of Rhodesia, and became an opponent of Robert Mugabe after independence. White, commercial farmers plead for action over renewed farm invasions. With the world still reacting to claims of human rights abuses at the Marange diamond fields, Zimbabwe recommences the sale of diamonds. Robert Mugabe is the chosen nominee for the presidential race for the ruling African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Robert Mugabe's wife Grace is cited, amongst other Zimbabwean government officials and members of the elite, in diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks as being involved in the illegal diamond smuggling trade. Sanctions against 35 of Mugabe's supporters are reduced by the European Union and their assets are un-frozen. Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minster representing the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), claims that the work of the government is being undermined by politically motivated violence by members of the African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Retired General Solomon Mujuru, leader of Robert Mugabe's guerrilla forces during the civil War (Rhodesian Bush War) and ex-Army Chief dies in a 'suspicious' house fire. He had been representing the Chikomba district in parliament for the African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). He was believed to have been under security force surveillance since being implicated in a plot against Mugabe in November 2007. Ban on export of Zimbabwean diamonds is lifted from two of the Marange mines as part of the Kimberly Process. This follows extensive negotiations involving Zimbabwe, the European Union, South Africa, The United States, and the World Diamond Council. Robert Mugabe affirms his intention to run in the next elections for African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). He also states that he wishes to do away with power-sharing. Reports of political violence in Zimbabwe are increasing. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claims that government forces repeatedly shut down its political rallies. Zimbabwe Timeline • Part 1: Prehistory to UDI • Part 2: UDI to One-Party State • Part 3: One-Party State to Leaving the Commonwealth • Operation Murambatsvina • Gukurahundi • British South Africa Company (BSAC) • Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) Related ArticlesBurkina Faso Timeline -- Timeline of Burkina Faso from Prehistory to Presen...Zimbabwe - Profile of ZimbabweThis Day in African History: March 04Southern African IndependenceGukurahundi -- Attempted Genocide in Zimbabwe Alistair Boddy-Evans About.com African History Write for About African History See More Abouthistory of zimbabweafrican history timeline Explore African History African Slavery 101Atlas of African IndependenceApartheid 101What Caused the Scramble for Africa?Independence Dates for Africa What Was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?What Led Up to the Colonial Scramble for Africa?Why Idi Amin Dada Was Known as the 'Butcher of...Which 2 African Countries Were Never Actually...What Everyone Should Know About African Slavery See More About:history of zimbabweafrican history timeline ApartheidSlaveryBiographiesMilitary HistoryAfrican History GlossaryHuman Origins in AfricaPre-Colonial AfricaColonial AfricaIndependent AfricaTimelinesCountry History A to ZCountry History by RegionAfrican History ResourcesBlog African HistoryAbout.comEducationAfrican HistoryAdvertise on About.comOur StoryNewsSiteMapAll TopicsReprintsHelpWrite for AboutCareers at AboutUser AgreementEthics PolicyPatent Info.Privacy PolicyYour Ad Choices and Cookie Policy©2014 About.com. 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Politics Topics: birth certificate, drivers license, elections, foreign-born, Gov. Bob McDonnell, minorities, passport, political system, school ID, tax, valid photo identification, Virginia, voter ID, voting, voting requirementsIn Fairfax County, Virginia, a voter holds their voting permit and ID card at the Washington Mill Elementary School near Mount Vernon, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. . (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Opinion: Virginia’s voter ID law – a backdoor poll tax by Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto Follow @NBCLatino8:32 am on 03/28/2013 Pretty much anything we do is taxed, whether it’s flipping on our cable, making a call on our cell phone or biting into a Snickers bar. Taxes are inescapable. The one tax-free haven, at least in theory, is voting. A free and fair vote is the bedrock of our political system. Voting is the one instance where all of us, no matter how rich or poor, influential or humble are completely equal because there is no cost involved. Voting is the great equalizer, of course, assuming it is free. However this week the state of Virginia joined a growing number of states that have implemented or are pending implementation of a voting system that taxes voters. In other words, Virginia has implemented a poll tax. Governor Bob McDonnell signed into law a bill that requires voters to present a valid photo identification in order to vote. At first read, the new voting requirement seems innocuous. Most people tend to have a photo identification either in the form of a driver’s license or school ID. And if they don’t have one, then the state will provide one free of charge. But what the bill does not address is the cost it takes to secure the documents needed to get that free ID. According to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles you can obtain an identification card principally through a birth certificate or passport. Both of these forms of ID have costs attached to them. A passport costs around $150. Securing a birth certificate is much less expensive, though there is still a fee attached; in Virginia it’ll run you $12. To most of us, twelve bucks may not seem like a lot of money. But let’s say you are an elderly person living on a pension of about $1200. Twelve dollars may be the cost of one week’s worth of medication. And the twelve dollar fee for a birth certificate does not take into account the transportation costs associated with going to the DMV to secure the “free” voter ID. So while the photo ID itself is free, the documents and logistics required to secure it are not. If you’re a Virginian, voting in elections could now come at a cost. Prior to 1966, you could still be explicitly charged (taxed) if you wished to cast a ballot. Coincidentally, Virginia was one of the last states to have a poll tax. It was a case brought against the Virginia Board of Elections that reached the Supreme Court in 1966 that definitively outlawed poll taxes as a result of them being ruled unconstitutional. In the Jim Crow era poll taxes were blatant; today they are discreet. Blatant or discreet, poll taxes have had the intent of suppressing the vote. A long line of political science research tells us that as the cost of voting increases, turnout decreases. And those most disproportionately affected by the costs of voting are also those with the least resources, typically minorities, the elderly, and the foreign born. Though signed into law, Virginia’s new voting requirements will not automatically go into effect. Virginia is one of the states covered under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and as a result any change in voting and/or election procedures must be approved by the Department of Justice. Section 5 was intended to safeguard against disenfranchisement such as that put forward this week in Virginia. But this legislative safeguard itself is in peril as there is a possibility that this summer the Supreme Court may rule that Section 5 is no longer applicable. The right to a free and fair vote is in danger. At the state level, most recently in Virginia, we see the enactment of a poll tax. And perhaps more seriously, at the federal level there may no longer be a mechanism to prevent voting from once again becoming a taxable good. Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is an NBC Latino and MSNBC contributor, Senior Analyst for Latino Decisions and Fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, at Austin. A healthy idea: caldo verde, Portuguese potato and kale soup Chef José Andrés talks nutrition, hunger in America: “We have a responsibility”

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More Syria War Resolution Will Require 60 Votes in Senate posted by Josh Rogin Senate leadership will ultimately need to muster 60 votes to pass the resolution authorizing the use of force in Syria, as the measure will be treated like any other resolution and will also be subject to a potential filibuster. Some reports have speculated that under the War Powers Act, the Syria war resolution could be brought to the Senate floor under special circumstances with only limited debate and requiring only a simple majority to pass. But Senate leadership has decided to treat the Syria war authorization, approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 10–7 Wednesday afternoon, like any other joint resolution. This means that it will be subject to a cloture motion, which requires 60 votes to pass, except in the unlikely event that all 100 senators give unanimous consent to move directly to a final vote. “This joint resolution will be treated like any other joint resolution,” a Senate Democratic leadership aide tells The Daily Beast. “That means we’ll have to move to proceed to the measure, and without consent it could face a 60-vote cloture vote on the motion to proceed.” Final passage of the resolution will require only 50 votes, as with all legislation, but to get to the final vote, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (R-NV) will have to corral 60 senators. Democrats currently have a 54–46 majority in the Senate. Three Republicans: Bob Corker (R-TN), John McCain (R-AZ), and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) voted for the measure Wednesday in committee while two Democrats, Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Tom Udall (D-NM), voted against. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) voted present. Obama Arrives in Russia Sorry, Evangelicals, Syria Will Not Spur the Second Coming Meet Yoel Weisshaus, the Hasidic Face of American Apparel

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KURDISTAN SEPARATISM President Talabani suffers stroke and brings new threat to fraught Iraq Steve LeVine President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) A stroke suffered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani this morning could reignite tensions between Baghdad and an increasingly self-confident Kurdistan—a conflict that the president has been instrumental in mediating. The 79-year-old Talabani, who is himself a Kurd, is being treated in Baghdad, though doctors are in the process of determining whether to fly the ailing president to a hospital abroad, said a spokesman. Over the last year, Kurdistan—the separatist northern region bordering Turkey—has aggravated Baghdad by carving out new autonomy. Global oil companies, upset with meager contracts in Iraq proper, have pulled up stakes and flocked to Kurdistan. Turkey, meanwhile, has signaled a willingness to defy Baghdad and allow the construction of independent oil and gas pipelines through its territory. Against that backdrop, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has deployed the military in the north, and said late last month that he would not sign a conciliatory agreement negotiated between Baghdad and the Kurds. In recent days, Talabani issued new warnings of possible armed conflict between the two sides, calling directly for Maliki to be replaced if he does not pull back his troops and sign the agreement. Under Iraq’s power-sharing arrangement, a Kurdish leader is entitled to be either president, prime minister or speaker of parliament, provided that he wins approval by two-thirds of the parliament. However, if Talabani is incapacitated and unable to continue serving, it is unclear that the Kurds have a candidate capable of winning sufficient political support.

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Opinion: Who Is ALEC? Filed Under: ALEC, Citizens United, civil rights, Department of Justice, Karl Rove, lobbying, Mitt Romney, voting rights Karl Rove (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Outsourcing has become a major theme in the Presidential campaign. For most Americans the idea of having their job outsourced is their worst nightmare. Not so for Republican Governors and legislatures across the country. They have outsourced the burdensome job of writing legislation to a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). In school this would be called plagiarism. In right wing politics, this is a ticket to the next office. ALEC serves as the nexus between corporations and aspiring Republicans always eager to find access to additional campaign cash. It serves as a fertile cross breeding opportunity for lobbyists and legislators. ALEC allows corporate lobbyist to write model legislation that is then introduced by state legislators as their own work. Funded and controlled by corporate interests, ALEC members pay for a seat at the table in order to introduce bills at ALEC conferences. One of the areas that ALEC has focused attention is on writing the model voter supression laws that have been introduced across the country in the past two years. Of course ALEC isn’t just in the business of voter suppression. They are also very keen on allowing corporations vastly more influence in the political process. According to the People for The American Way, who tracks the work of the right-wing group, ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections taskforce, co-chaired by Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics, is “one of the most vociferous pro-corporate election groups, and promotes model legislation that would devastate campaign finance reform and allow for greater corporate influence in elections.” This is the virtuous cycle for ALEC’s corporate partners and the legislators willing to do the bidding of ALEC rather than the bidding of their constituents: ALEC creates a more favorable climate for their lobbyists to write the law and the lawmakers act as straw men for the lobbyists and protect their incumbency. Mitt Romney’s 2011 statement to an Iowa critic that “corporations are people to, my friend” could easily serve as ALEC’s motto. More accurately, the logic of this belief system is that corporations deserve a greater role in the public space than students, African Americans, Hispanics, women and the elderly – all targets of ALEC and the New Suppresionists. In 2006, Karl Rove implored conservatives to take up voter fraud as an issue and ALEC became the vehicle. Rove is uniquely qualified in American politics when it comes to voter suppression as the architect of the Bush campaign’s efforts to remove “felons” from the voting rolls. Karl Rove, who continues to personally benefit from the funders of ALEC through his SuperPAC network, is the Godfather of the New Suppressionists. His efforts and the work of ALEC in the state legislatures show that the fight for the right to vote is under more attack now than at any time since the Voting Rights Acts was passed in 1965. About Bill Buck Bill Buck is a Democratic strategist, President of the Buck Communications Group, a media relations and new media strategies consulting business based in Washington, DC, and Managing Director of the online ad firm Influence DSP. He has over twenty years of international and national communications experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.

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Pawlenty: I Heart The Minnesota Shutdown ByEric KleefeldPublishedJuly 8, 2011, 10:05 AM EDT Tim Pawlenty, who retired as governor of Minnesota and almost immediately moved towards a national campaign for president, is now back in the thick of politics back home -- with Pawlenty vocally supporting state Republican legislators in a government shutdown fight against Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton.Pawlenty, who is struggling to break out in the presidential field, has been cheering on the Republicans in his home state --Â and likening them to Republicans in Washington who are holding out on the debt ceiling. On Thursday, during an Iowa/Facebook Townhall event, he boasted in remarks that were e-mailed out on his campaign press-list: "In Minnesota now, they're having a big fight about the next budget. And that one's projecting a $5 billion deficit. There's going to be a deficit. But you know what? That assumes a 20% increase in spending, which is ridiculous. It is outrageous. I would have never allowed that as governor. I applaud the Republican legislature in Minnesota for standing strong and standing firm and saying we're not going to raise taxes in Minnesota. We don't have a state in Minnesota that's over-taxed, we have a state that has spent too much, before I became governor, and we've got to get it back in balance."I share that with you because it's similar to the challenges seen in Washington D.C. going on with this debt ceiling limit issue. They've got the President and Republicans negotiating, and I urge our Republicans in Washington D.C. to stand strong. The only way you get real change in Washington D.C. is to draw lines in the sand. And if you notice, most politicians are like running water downhill. They want least resistance. So it's helpful, in having them do bold and courageous things, to put up some points of resistance. And there is a moment here now, it's not an easy moment, but it's a dramatic and it's an important moment, for our conservatives in Washington to stand tall and stand strong and stand courageously, and say the answer to America's future is not to pile more debt on our children and our grandchildren. The answer is to get our financial house in order and to live within our means, just like families have to do, just like businesses have to do, and just what we'd expect in our personal lives." When Pawlenty left office, after a term of jousting with a Democratic-majority legislature, Minnesotans then performed the notable act of electing Democrat Mark Dayton to succeed Pawlenty -- with a Republican-majority legislature, in a mirror image of what came before. This new bunch then had to deal with a problem -- an inherited projected deficit of $5 billion. Dayton has proposed a mix of spending cuts and tax increases -- which has been backed up by public polling -- but state Republicans have held firm against any tax increases at all, wanting to go entirely with spending cuts, leading to the new government shutdown. Pawlenty's new ad boasts of his performance in a past state government shutdown in 2005. In the run-up to the new shutdown, he even looked back on the 2005 experience and wished he had held out longer against Democratic legislators: "I think it was nine days (of government shutdown) at that time, and I think we could have gotten a better deal if we had allowed that to continue for a while." TPM asked Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant for some clarification: Is Pawlenty intervening politically or actively participating in any way in the shutdown, or is it more that he is responding to his own name being used in the debate? "He's speaking out in support of Republicans in the legislature," said Conant. On Tuesday, Democratic former Vice President Walter Mondale and Republican former Gov. Arne Carlson announced the formation of a new bipartisan group, which will seek to mediate a compromise. Then, during an interview with Politico, Mondale slammed Pawlenty as being responsible for the budget problems. "He left basically the mess that we see -- the huge deficits," Mondale said. "He shifted these issues into the future so that he wouldn't be around." Later that day, Pawlenty released this statement, slamming Mondale, Carlson, the Minnesota Dems, and President Obama, all at once: "Walter Mondale ran for president against Ronald Reagan on a platform that called for higher taxes. Arne Carlson supported John Kerry, Barack Obama and other Democrats. It should surprise no one that they both support more spending and higher taxes in Minnesota. We did it the right way for the last eight years, with dramatically lower spending and tax cuts. I commend the Republicans in the Legislature for sticking to their guns, even when politicians of the past call for old-fashioned high tax and spend solutions."The last budget on my watch ended last week with a positive balance. The projected deficit for the upcoming two years is based on large projected spending increases, which I never would have allowed as governor. Minnesota government is shutdown because of Democrats' insistence on Obama-esque solutions to increase spending and raise taxes." It is indeed true that Walter Mondale said during the 1984 presidential election that he would raise taxes. (Mondale actually said that both he and Reagan would do so, only he was being honest about it -- and in fact, Reagan raised taxes during the second term.) It is also true that Arne Carlson has endorsed the Democratic nominees in the last two presidential elections. In fact, the state GOP has banned him from taking part in party functions for two years, after he endorsed the centrist Independence Party candidate Tom Horner for governor in 2010. On the other hand, it does seem notable that Pawlenty, a candidate for president in the 2012 election cycle, is now in a political scuffle with Walter Mondale, who ran for president all the way back in 1984 and whose name was last on a ballot in the 2002 Senate race (when he was the unsuccessful last-minute, substitute nominee after the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone), and with Arne Carlson, who left office in 1998.

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By Farish A. Noor On 8th March 2008 Malaysians went to the polls and voted at the country’s 12th General Elections. The results, as they were announced over the very same evening and well into the next morning, sent shock waves across the country. After being in power for more than half a century, the ruling National Front Coalition not only lost the vital two-thirds majority of seats in Parliament, but came close to losing its majority altogether. In the bargain, five state governments were lost, and the opposition coalition made up of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party (PAS), the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Peoples Justice Party (PKR) won more than 80 Parliamentary seats and control of five state assemblies. The most remarkable thing about the election results on the day itself was the fact that they were hardly ever mentioned in the mainstream state-controlled media. As the results came pouring in, it was clear that there was about to be a massive swing to the opposition and that the administration of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was in for a pounding. Yet official commentators on TV and radio could only mumble inanities such as “we never knew the public were so disaffected”. How? Why? This election was a clear and simple sign that the Malaysian public has grown thoroughly fed up and disillusioned by the empty promises of the Badawi government, that had won such an overwhelming mandate in 2004. Badawi came to power on a wave of electoral promises, ranging from institutional reform, the opening and freeing of the public domain, the settlement of outstanding cases of high-level corruption and abuse of power, greater transparency and accountability. Yet after five dismal years hardly any of these promises have been fulfilled and instead the Malaysian public were fed with broken promises, stunts and gimmicks that were better suited to a vaudeville opera instead. While thousands of Malaysians continued to live below the poverty line and as prices and crime rates soared, the Badawi government sent a Malaysian astronaut to space as a space tourist on board a Russian spacecraft, just to break its own book of records. While the poor Malay-Muslims of northern states such as Kelantan and Trengganu looked for sound economic development and equal distribution of wealth, Badawi’s government treated them to an Islamic civilisation theme park that cost 250 million ringgit (RM), complete with merry-go-round instead. The real merry-go-round, however, was the Badawi establishment’s total failure to address key institutional, structural and socio-cultural issues that had irked and alienated so many Malaysians over the past four years: The non-Malay minorities have been demanding greater state protection of their collective identities after the spate of Hindu temple demolitions, denial of permits for building churches, seizure of Bibles, etc. Yet in all these cases when and where Badawi could have personally intervened, he did nothing and stood silent and indifferent, falling back on his worn-out mantra of being the ‘Prime Minister of all Malaysians’. But surely the Prime Minister of all Malaysians would stand up for the rights of minorities, defend the plight of the poor and marginalised, listen to the demands and protests of the disaffected, and actually take corrective measures to do his job properly. Throughout 2006-2007 all the signs of a latent protest movement were there, with lawyers demonstration for judicial reform, ordinary citizens calling for free and fair elections, and religious minorities begging to have their concerns addressed. The Badawi administration’s reaction to these demands was to demonise protestors, set the police on civil society gatherings, refuse permits for public seminars, ban books deemed dangerous, and stifle freedom of press instead. Thus it came to pass that an inward-looking administration cut off and isolated from its own public was finally served its notice last weekend. Throughout the campaign the opposition parties of PKR, DAP and PAS repeatedly used the now-iconic image of Prime Minister Badawi dozing off asleep during one of his UMNO party’s meetings, as an emblem of an administration that is cut off, unable to listen and unwilling to respond. By the second week of the campaign it was clear that the momentum had developed and that the vote swing this time round would be as great as in 2004, though in the opposite direction. The morning after, a shocked and dazed Badawi stood before the cameras and admitted that his administration had failed to take into account the demands of the public. But with a weakened government and an UMNO party that is unwilling and unable to correct itself, how can there possibly be any change to the Malaysian governmental system, save by voting UMNO and the National Front out of power at the next elections? This much, however, is certain: The ‘sleeping administration’ of Prime Minister Badawi has been served its wake-up call. And this time it is the Malaysian public that is going to be making the demands on the state, and not vice-versa. End. Dr. Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore; and one of the founders of the http://www.othermalaysia.org research site.

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Obama's Budget Bill Goes Over Budget Considering the amount of money that has been and will be shoveled out from the U.S. Department of Treasury isn’t an easy task in light of the billions and trillions being tossed around like hot cakes in Congress. But the magnitude of the error in the Obama budget plan, estimated today at $2.3 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office, is worth a second look. One analyst says it’s almost hard to fault the original, mistaken estimates, given how large and complex the original budget and bailout plan is. Another claims that while Bush’s numbers dance was condemnable, it doesn’t come close to the smoke-and-mirrors scheme of the Obama administration. Obama’s budget calculations were nearly a quarter off. He thought his spending spree was only 75% of what it actually cost. That’s enough to make a homeowner default on his mortgage, but not enough to make a President default on his spending plans. Some think Obama’s faulty estimates will make Democrats who are already skeptical about overspending withdraw their support. Or maybe it won’t matter, and the additional spending will simply sail through a Congress already eager to oblige View Cartoon the executive branch. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), told the Los Angeles Times that the bad numbers might influence what he and other more conservative Democrats think “is the appropriate level of spending – what might be put off to another budget, what we can pursue incrementally.” The 51-member Blue Dog Democrat group released a statement Thursday indicating their hesitation with the size and speed of spending. At this point, Obama himself has simply reinforced his commitment to handing out taxpayer’s money – under the guise of “investing” in projects he deems appropriate. The cost of these “investments” is daunting. “In rough magnitude, right now we’ve got about $19,000 worth of public debt for everyone who lives in the U.S., and that will be roughly tripling for every person by 2019,” said Chris Edwards, director of Tax Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. He added that the estimates for programs such as health care were extremely conservative, meaning that estimates about future debt were also probably low. It’s the largest amount the US will have ever spent as a percentage of GDP since World War II. The savings Obama says he has made in the budget don’t count the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; to the contrary, Obama’s budget counts the cutting of funds from those wars as “savings.” Edwards says the battle axes are now going to be pointed in another direction. “Were going to have the biggest budget battles we’ve had in the next ten years than we’ve ever had in history,” he said. One section of the newly released CBO estimates claims that the stimulus package would benefit the economy in the short term, bringing the U.S. out of a recession by 2010. But Stephen J. Entin, President and Exex director of The Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, said that this evidence is contradicted by long-term estimates. “Massive amounts of spending might ultimately crowd out investing or increase tax rates, which would ultimately impede the growth rate,” he said. Isabel Sawhill Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, supports bailout packages, but has no illusions about the rate of spending and its effect on future growth. “I think quite simply that we have an unsustainable fiscal future, and that something is going to have to be done, and it’s not clear what can be done because the spending cuts and tax increases are politically poisonous,” she said. Share this on Facebook Tweet Tags: Congress

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Ryan says budget deal possible as he readies his own plan Share Tweet By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republicans' point person on fiscal issues in Congress said on Sunday that compromise with President Barack Obama is possible on taxes and spending even though his soon-to-be-unveiled budget plan faces certain rejection from Obama's Democrats. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, acknowledged that Democrats who control the Senate are likely to defeat his proposal to repeal Obama's signature healthcare law and other elements of his plan to balance the budget within 10 years. But Ryan, whose ideas on taxes and spending gained national prominence when he was selected as the Republican vice-presidential candidate last year, said Democrats and Republicans might be able to agree on less dramatic steps that would narrow budget deficits in coming years. "There are things that we can do that don't offend either party's philosophy, that doesn't require someone to surrender their principles, that make a good down payment on getting this debt and deficit under control," Ryan said on "Fox News Sunday." Ryan had lunch with Obama last week as part of an effort by the president to reach out to Republican lawmakers to resolve a fiscal standoff that has slowed economic growth and generated repeated crises over the past two years. "This is first time I've ever had a conversation with the president lasting more than, say two minutes, or a televised exchange," Ryan said of their meeting. "We exchanged very different frank and candid views of one another that were very different. But at least we had this conversation," he said. Ryan's budget blueprint, due to be unveiled on Tuesday, will open the next front in Washington's fiscal battle over how to tame the growth of the $16.7 trillion federal debt. It would cut spending by $5 trillion and partially privatize the Medicare health plan for retirees in order to balance the budget in 10 years, he said. Though the plan is likely to win approval in the Republican-controlled House, it faces steep odds in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Senator Patty Murray is preparing a blueprint that is expected to reduce breaks for wealthy taxpayers and keep safety-net spending largely unchanged. SIMILAR CUTS, DIFFERENT RESULTS Ryan's plan to balance the budget in 10 years is a dramatic change from last year's plan, which also envisioned $5 trillion in cuts but would not have balanced the budget until 2040. Ryan's budget-balancing efforts are helped by the $620 billion in tax increases on the wealthy that Obama won in a January 1 deal to avert the "fiscal cliff." But further tax increases are out of the question, he said. "We already had a tax increase. We think it's unfair to ask hardworking taxpayers to pay more so Washington can spend more," he said. Both Republicans and Democrats want to simplify the tax code to reduce the tax breaks and loopholes that have proliferated since the last comprehensive rewrite in 1986. But they have contrasting goals: Republicans want to use those savings to lower rates, which they say would boost economic growth. Obama and other Democrats want to put that money towards deficit reduction. Ryan's budget plan also rests on several other approaches that Democrats have rejected in the past. It would impose deep cuts on food assistance for the poor and dramatically scale back federal contributions to the Medicaid health program for the poor. It would give retirees an option to stay in the current Medicare health program or use a subsidy to purchase private coverage, an approach that Democrats say would weaken the existing program and force seniors to shoulder more of their own health costs. Obama is not likely to back those ideas this time around, either, Ryan acknowledged. "My guess is he won't," Ryan said. "But are there some things we can do short of that that gets you closer to balancing the budget, that delays a debt crisis from hitting this country? Yes, I think there are." After four straight years of deficits over $1 trillion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the fiscal 2013 gap will fall to $845 billion. As the economy improves, deficits will narrow to around $430 billion by 2015, CBO said, but they are projected to rise after that, nearing $1 trillion again by 2023 as the massive "baby boom" generation ages and draws more retirement and health benefits. (Editing by Eric Walsh) Share this on Facebook Tweet Tags: Budget Budget Deal

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Jordan king swears in government to prepare elections 10/11/2012 2:17:35 PM - Reuters News By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - King Abdullah swore in a new government on Thursday charged with preparing for Jordan's first parliamentary election since the Arab Spring. The new prime minister, Abdullah Ensour, said his main task was to restore public confidence in an election process long marred by accusations of meddling by the authorities and the powerful security forces. "The main challenge is holding free and fair elections," said Ensour, 73, who has held a string of senior ministerial posts in more than two decades in public office. However, Jordan's only effective political opposition, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), have already said they will boycott the poll because nothing has been done to rectify an electoral system that is skewed against them. Ensour was appointed by the king on Wednesday to replace Fayez al-Tarawneh, a week after parliament was dissolved halfway through its four-year term. An election must be held within four months. Foreign Minister Nasser Joudeh and Finance Minister Suleiman al-Hafez, who negotiated a $2 billion loan from the IMF, kept their posts in a smaller, 21-member cabinet dominated by conservative politicians who held sway in previous governments. Most of the cabinet are drawn from tribal areas inhabited by the native Jordanians who are the backbone of the army and security forces, and could lose out from any wider democratic reforms. Only three ministers including Joudeh come from the Palestinian community making up the majority of Jordan's 7 million population, who are under-represented in government and parliament but dominate the business elite. ISLAMIST HOPES THWARTED Ensour's pledge of transparent voting appears designed to reassure members of less influential Jordanian tribes that they will get fair representation, unimpeded by official meddling. Officials say they hope the election will pave the way for a prime minister to emerge from a majority bloc in parliament, rather than be handpicked by the king. But it will do nothing to fulfill Islamist hopes that the pro-democracy groundswell of the Arab Spring would prompt Jordan to rebalance its electoral system and give fairer representation to its citizens of Palestinian origin. Sparsely populated rural constituencies where pro-government tribes are strong get a bigger weighting in parliament than the Palestinian-dominated poor urban constituencies where the Islamists find their support. Wealthier Palestinians with economic power tend not to vote at all. Some analysts say a parliament without the Islamists could make life easier for the government in the short term, but risks storing up more resentment among citizens of Palestinian origin. Ensour urged the IAF, the political arm of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, to drop their boycott, saying their opposition would be more effective inside the assembly and denying that the authorities were bent on undermining them. "We don't want to exclude the Islamist movement and we are extending our hands to them. They are an important element of democratic life in Jordan." He said voter registration could be extended beyond Monday's deadline if the Islamists indicated they were prepared to take part. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Israel frees Palestinian prisoners, pushes settlement plan Wed Oct 30, 2013 | 12:55pm GMT Released Palestinian prisoner Hazem Shobair is welcomed home at Khan Younis camp in the southern Gaza Strip October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa A woman celebrates in front of released Palestinian prisoners upon their arrival in the West Bank City of Ramallah October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Awad A released Palestinian prisoner hugs a relative upon his arrival in the West Bank City of Ramallah October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Awad Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (2nd L) welcomes Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons in the West Bank city of Ramallah early October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman A released Palestinian prisoner kisses his father's head upon his arrival in the West Bank City of Ramallah October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Awad A released Palestinian prisoner is greeted by people upon his arrival at Erez crossing between Israel and northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem A released Palestinian prisoner reacts upon his arrival at the Erez crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem By Mohammed Abu Ganeyeh | BETHLEHEM, West Bank BETHLEHEM, West Bank Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday as part of U.S.-brokered peace efforts, but said it was pressing on with plans to build more homes for Jewish settlers, in an apparent move to appease hardliners.The inmates, who were convicted of killing Israelis, basked in a heroes' welcome from hundreds of relatives and well-wishers in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip."Our heroes are coming home, long live the prisoners," crowds chanted outside the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.Issa Abed Rabbo, convicted of murdering two Israeli hikers in 1984, was carried through the alleys of the Biblical town of Bethlehem on the shoulders of cheering Palestinians as fireworks went off and patriotic songs blared."My feeling is that of a commander returning from battle, carrying a banner of victory and freedom," Abed Rabbo said, his outstretched fingers forming a triumphant V.The inmates, jailed before or just after the first Israeli-Palestinian interim peace deals were signed 20 years ago, were released as part of a limited amnesty demanded by the Palestinians to revive long-stalled statehood negotiations.The second prisoner release since peace talks resumed in July after a three-year break opened fissures in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist government. A pro-settler coalition partner, the Jewish Home party, and members of his own Likud, called on the leader to cancel the amnesty. Israel's Interior Ministry announced it would proceed with a plan for 1,500 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement in an area of the occupied West Bank that Israel considers part of Jerusalem.Those plans were first announced in 2010, clouding a visit to Israel at the time by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who condemned the project, which was subsequently shelved.Israel announced last December it would proceed with the construction but froze the move again ahead of a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama in March this year. The Palestinians, who want to establish a state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war, condemned the move."This policy is destructive for the peace process," said Nabil Abu Rdeineh, a spokesman for Abbas.Most countries deem Israeli settlements, built on occupied land, as illegal, and Palestinians say the enclave could deny them a viable state. Israel says Ramat Shlomo, as part of its Jerusalem municipality, will remain in its hands in any future peace deal. Outside Israel's Ofer prison in the West Bank, where the inmates boarded buses for home, dozens of Israelis protested against the release. One held a sign with the photographs of some of the Israelis they killed."The victims of terror are turning they graves," one placard read.In all, 104 long-serving Palestinian inmates will be freed in accordance with the U.S.-brokered understandings that paved the way for the revival of peace talks.Yuval Steinitz, Israel's strategic affairs minister and a Likud member, made clear in a radio interview on Monday that by agreeing to the prisoner releases, the government effectively had quashed a Palestinian demand to halt settlement building.But at the celebrations in Ramallah, Abbas denied any connection between the prisoner release and settlement expansion."The settlements are void, void, void," he told the crowd.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Andrew Heavens)

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[ EN - FR - PT ] ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL IITO H.E. MR TÉRENCE NSANZE,AMBASSADOR OF BURUNDI* Thursday, 15 May 2003 Mr Ambassador, Welcome to the Vatican, where I have the pleasure of meeting you, Your Excellency, on the occasion of the presentation of the Letters accrediting you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Burundi to the Holy See. Thank you for your courteous words. Your accredition to the Holy See occurs at the very moment when your country, implementing the Arusha Declaration, is embarking on a new stage in its journey towards renconciliation and the establishment of peace. I would be grateful if you would convey to those responsible for the nation's future and to all its inhabitants my fervent good wishes for the Authorities and for all Burundians, so that, whatever their social background, they may more and more clearly express their effective commitment to the process under way. May all the inhabitants of the country work courageously to achieve a lasting peace founded on justice and forgiveness, so that they can live in safety in their own land. It is the common patrimony of all Burundians, in which all are called to recognize one another as brothers and sisters! You have just stressed, Mr Ambassador, that the need to arrive at a definitive and permanent ceasefire is a necessary prerequisite for peace in your country. Hatred and violence have caused too much suffering and are still stirring up too much resentment. The agreements concluded between the Government and the majority of the armed groups witness to the progress that can be achieved when paths of constructive dialogue and consultation are followed. The agreements have also restored the confidence of the international community which has begun to give active support to the process under way. They have also inspired great hope among the Burundian people, scarred by years of conflict. It is important today, therefore, not to disappoint this hope but to reinforce it. To do this, it is the task of political leaders first of all to demonstrate their sincere desire to have the ceasefire agreement respected and to enforce it. This will be impossible without a proper conception of the exercise of authority marked, in particular, by disinterested service to the national community and the common good, by rectitude in the responsibilities entrusted to them, and by concern to protect the civilian population and ensure that its rights are respected, as well as involving all Burundians in the cause of the nation. These values, which take priority over any political programme, are an ethical requirement which is the best way to guarantee the internal peace of nations and peace between States. They will protect them from ethnic conflicts and from caprice and corruption, as I reminded the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See last 13 January (cf. n. 5). The consolidation of national unity requires all the members of the nation to take part in the process under way, to set up stable institutions primarily to guarantee social harmony. For this, it is necessary to persevere in dialogue with all the groups present, in order not to enter into a logic of exclusion that exacerbates antagonism and leads to violence. In this perspective, it also seems necessary to implement, in conformity with the Agreements, adequate measures to enable all the inhabitants of the country, whatever their political, ethnic or religious affiliation, to benefit from the necesssary means of subsistence, which will lead each one to respect the good of the others and, especially, of the civilian population. You mention, Mr Ambassador, the heritage of human, cultural and spiritual values which your country possesses. These values are a precious heritage, thanks to which Burundi, learning constructively from the lessons of the past, can work to build a new form of coexistence in an increasingly reconciled society with ever greater solidarity, careful to trace the path of a future of peace and hope for the new generation. The Catholic Church has been present in Burundi since 1898. She continues today to spare no effort to enlighten hearts and consciences about the need to work for peace and reconciliation, and to put all the wealth of her experience at the service of the integral development of individuals and of society as a whole. By her presence in the areas of education, health care, and social and charitable assistance, she hopes to contribute to building Burundian society, while enabling all the country's inhabitants to participate in the human and spiritual progress of all, helping them to be increasingly involved in their own development. She knows from experience that a country's development depends on a better and better formation and on human, moral and spiritual education. Please allow me, Mr Ambassador, through you, to give a warm greeting to the Catholic community of Burundi and its Bishops. I ask them all never to despair as they face the immense task that awaits them. In this Easter Season, they know that on the Cross of Christ all the works of death were nailed: fear of others, selfishness, violence and hatred. I encourage them to remain watchmen of hope and actors of reconciliation, careful to bring the Gospel of Life wherever the "pillars of peace" are unsteady: truth, justice, love and freedom (cf. Message for World Day of Peace 2003, n. 4). As you are starting your mission to the Apostolic See, I offer you my best wishes for its success. Rest assured that you will find here with my collaborators the attentive and understanding welcome you may need. Upon you, Your Excellency, upon the persons who surround you, upon the people of Burundi and upon those who preside over their destiny, I cordially invoke an abundance of divine Blessings. *L'Osservatore Romano. Weekly Edition in English n.24 p.9, 10. © Copyright 2003 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana © Copyright - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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New U.S. Sen. Tim Scott brings pro-business message to Aiken Senator Tim Scott shakes the hand of Aiken City Councilman Reggie Ebner. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who was just sworn into office this month, made an appearance at the 95th Annual Chamber Dinner Saturday evening. The senator made a quick speech to attendees. “I’m so excited about the success of Aiken County,” Scott said, mentioning the growing economy in the area and citing the Bridgestone expansion. Scott talked a little about his mentor, John Moniz, who taught him to think his “way out of poverty” when he was flunking his classes in school. “He was a fantastic man,” Scott said. “He taught me that business was the way out of poverty, not entertainment and sports.” Greater Aiken Chamber of Commerce President and CEO J. David Jameson said he was thrilled to have the senator at the event. “It’s a high honor,” Jameson said. “He’s been in office for 15 days, and he came to Aiken. He brought us a strong, pro-business message.” Scott, who said he has visited Aiken County three times with this being his first since he was sworn in, stated that he’s impressed by the community. “You look at the cohesiveness and feel the energy – it’s really impressive,” Scott said.

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Fonseka convicted in Sri Lanka amid delayed inquiry over Tamil Tigers war Save for later Former Sri Lanka Army chief Sarath Fonseka was convicted today of meddling in politics while on duty. Fonseka has said war crimes may have been committed during the civil war with the Tamil Tigers. By Stephen Kurczy, Staff writer Former army chief and parliamentarian General Sarath Fonseka waves as he leaves after a media conference at the parliament in Colombo July 8. A Sri Lanka military court today convicted Fonseka of meddling in politics while on duty. Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters/File View Caption About video ads of A Sri Lanka military court today convicted former Army chief Sarath Fonseka of meddling in politics while on duty, raising concerns that the government is trying to silence a retired general who has hinted that the government may have committed war crimes during its 25-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers.General Fonseka, a hero to many Sri Lankans for his role in defeating the Tamil rebellion, has said senior government officials may have issued orders that could amount to war crimes. He also charged that the defense secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is a brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, ordered the execution of Tamil leaders despite promises of protection.“Certainly one of our concerns is the need for criminal investigation into war crimes by both sides, which have not occurred,” says James Ross, the legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch in New York. “And the fact that the government may, in part, be going after him because of these allegations is a concern.” A three-member panel found Fonseka guilty of talking with opposition parliamentarians in October and November 2009 to secure himself a slot on the party ticket for the January presidential election. He retired as chief of defense staff Nov. 16, and two weeks later announced his candidacy. President Rajapaksa beat him in the Jan. 26 election and the military arrested Fonseka Feb. 8 on allegations of political meddling and corruption. The latter charge is still pending, and he now also faces accusations in civilian court of inciting unrest. His conviction must now be ratified by the Army's commander-in-chief, a title held by Rajapaksa. It carries no prison term, but would strip Fonseka of his title and medals.Part of a power struggleThe two men were allies during the civil war, but a rivalry grew as Fonseka developed political aspirations.“I see this as part of a power struggle between politicians,” says Asoka Bandarage of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. “There should be due process of law and a legitimate inquiry. Whether the charges are legitimate can only come out in a proper hearing.”His conviction comes on the heels of a US State Department report that found the Sri Lankan government has made no progress investigating crimes committed during the civil war.In a longer October 2009 report, the State Department detailed more than 300 incidents of abuse, including allegations of forcible recruitment and unlawful use of children in armed conflict; killing of captives or combatants seeking to surrender; and the denial of food and medical supplies to civilians. The International Crisis Group issued a report in May that also found violations of international humanitarian law. Speaking to reporters Thursday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner urged Sri Lanka to show “greater transparency and accountability as they move forward.”The State Department report shows that “real progress on justice demands an international investigation," Human Rights Watch said in a statement.“The government has shown absolutely no interest in investigating possible war crimes,” adds HRW’s James Ross, speaking by telephone. “It was clear in the final months of the fighting that there were crimes by both government forces and the Tamil Tigers.”A broader signal, or sideshow to reconciliation?Mr. Ross says Fonseka’s conviction today sends a broad signal to the Sri Lankan public not to participate in the war crimes investigation.Fonseka has openly expressed interest in seeing the incidents investigated. “I will go out of my way to expose anyone who has committed war crimes,” Fonseka told reporters in May. “I will not protect anyone, from the very top to the bottom.”Professor Bandarage, author of the 2008 book “The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka: Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political Economy,” says the trial of Fonseka is a sideshow to the greater task of reconciliation in the war-torn nation.“The losers are the country as a whole,” she says in a telephone interview. “Ordinary people want to move forward, to put terrorism behind them, to have reconciliation, to have reconstruction. But this issue actually gets in the way.” Sri Lanka, UN duel over wartime investigations Rights groups say new evidence suggests Sri Lanka war crimes against Tamil Tigers Sri Lanka crackdown goes beyond arrest of Sarath Fonseka

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North Korea Successfully Tests Intercontinental Missile, Iranian Influence Suspected 52 comment(s) - last by dark matter.. on Dec 17 at 3:35 AM Progress boosts the profile of North Korea's new dictator, but draws international criticism North Korea, a nation titled by former President George W. Bush as part of "The Axis of Evil", shook the international political sphere Wednesday when it appeared to successfully launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. I. Kim Jung-un is Boosted by Surprise Success The Asian nation recently saw power pass from the late dictator Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jung-un, 28 (or 29, according to some sources). The last two decades have taken their toll on Kim Jung-un's isolated kingdom, with a famine in the 90s wiping out an estimated 10 percent of the population, and amidst ongoing struggles with poverty. A third of North Koreans are estimated to be malnourished, at present. In short, the nation's young leader has grown desperate for successes to continue his campaign to put a positive spin on the country's direction and quell unrest. And he got one on Wednesday. After a delay due to unspecified launch issues, South Korean and Japanese officials detected a rocket launch just before 10 a.m., which flew out over the Pacific. Later this morning came word from The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) who said that the missile "deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit." The launch was North Korea's first successful trip into orbit. [Image Source: Reuters] North Korean state television station KCNA took to the air in a festive announcement, with its announcer garbed in colorful traditional garb and with propogandist tunes piping in the background. The announcer said, according to Reuters, "The satellite has entered the planned orbit. Chosun (Korea) does what it says." "At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sun." The confirmation from NORAD (a joint defense effort of the U.S. and Canada) is the first time the U.S. has confirm North Korea's bold claims of successful test launches. North Korea has seen a string of prior launches end in fiery failures. For example, during an April launch while North Korea boasted of great success, NORAD and Asian ally states believe that missile crashed only 2 minutes after launch. II. White House Condemns Launch The launch brought condemnation from the U.S. and many of its allies. U.S. officials called it "highly provocative" and suggested the launch inched the hostile nation closer to intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, which could allow the nation to strike targets in the mainland U.S. The White House in its statement comments, "The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences." Japan has already filed a complaint with the U.N. requesting a special U.N. Security Council meeting. However, the possibility of furth sanctions against North Korea is unlikely, as China -- a key ally of North Korea -- is expected to block any such move. North Korea defended the launch, saying it merely launched a weather satellite into orbit, and calling the effort a "peaceful project". KCNA comments, "The attempt to see our satellite launch as a long-range missile launch for military purposes comes from hostile perception that tries to designate us a cause for security tension." III. Missile Defense Systems Could Block North Korean Nukes Currently, North Korea is estimated to have enough plutonium to potentially build half a dozen nuclear bombs. However, technologically it is estimated to be at least several years away from being able to create a functional warhead, which it has expressed a desire to do. But the nation has received a boost from Middle Eastern ally Iran -- another member of the "Axis of Evil" and persistent thorn in America's side. U.S. intelligence tracked missile shipments travelling from Iran to North Korea over the last year; it is believed that much of the missile was constructed in the increasingly high-tech Middle Eastern nation. Iran has denied helping North Korea, but according to intelligence officials Iranian observers were spotted on the ground in the Asian nation, taking notes on the launch. The Middle Eastern nation has been regularly in the news, after it was also accused of funneling rockets to Islamist militants in the recent conflict between Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Israel. In that conflict the Israel Defense Forces are estimated to have shot down between 80 and 90 percent of dangerous hostile rockets using their high-tech "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system. Japan and South Korea have similar missile interceptors systems -- Patriot-missile based systems co-developed with the U.S. and partially deployed -- to ward off potential threats from China or, particularly, North Korea. However, they declined to fire test those systems on the North Korean missile, after China issued a warning advising against counter-measures. A member of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces is seen running to PATRIOT Interceptor Missile battery on Wednesday. Japan and U.S. declined to intercept the North Korean rocket after being warned by China. [Image Source: Reuters] Nonetheless, in months to come expect the U.S. and its allies to focus on establishing a strong countermeasures perimeter capable of shooting down North Korean nuclear warheads, should it try to launch them in future conflcts. Sources: Reuters, The White House Comments Threshold -1 RE: Priorities Russia. Iran may have a hand in the pot, but I'm suggesting that Iran could not do this themselves without an OK from Russia at some level. Parent Iran Claims to Have Snared Another U.S. UAV, Navy Says It's a Lie Iron Dome Helps Mitigate 1 in 3 Rocket Strikes on Israel as Gaza Conflict Escalates North Korea Says Countries Need Nukes to Defend Against U.S. Attacks Israel Says It's Ready to Intercept Iranian Nukes North Korean Ballistic Missile Launch Fails

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Who would be final arbiter on Ted Cruz’s eligibility for presidential run? Tough to say Filed under WASHINGTON — Voters decide who wins a presidential election. But if there’s a question about a candidate’s eligibility to run and serve, who decides that?There’s no clear answer.No federal agency or court vets candidates. The Electoral College goes into action only every four years, and only after Election Day. Congress weighs in on a contested election only after ballots are cast. State by state, parties or a chief election official might oversee the rules.In other words, it’s a maddening patchwork with no particular enforcement mechanism.That could prove at least a mild headache for Canada-born Sen. Ted Cruz as he presses toward a White House bid.His ambition, at least, is unambiguous enough. Cruz just agreed to hunt pheasant in Iowa in late October. No politician hunts pheasant in Iowa by accident, whatever his status as a “natural born” American under Article 2 of the Constitution.In 2008, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the eventual GOP nominee, faced a flurry of court challenges stemming from his birth in the Panama Canal Zone. Most were dismissed for lack of legal standing by the people who filed the suits.But questions persisted, and Congress felt compelled to step in, affirming his eligibility with a resolution that lacked the force of law and, in any case, applied only to him.“These issues were resolved when Senator McCain ran for president,” said Dallas attorney James Ho — like Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general. “The courts uniformly rejected those challenges. … I see no reason why it would be any different if some people wanted to try to stop Cruz.”That might not stop the litigation, though. “Birthers” continued to torment President Barack Obama long after he released his Hawaii birth certificate and despite a string of legal setbacks.One of many spectacles occurred in Kansas in the summer of 2011 — more than halfway through Obama’s first term. The State Objections Board met to weigh a challenge to his eligibility, though it was ultimately dismissed.The Congressional Research Service reviewed the issue in 2011. Its 53-page report covers Cruz’s situation, concluding that someone born abroad to an American parent could legally grow up to be president.“The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term ‘natural born’ citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship ‘by birth’ or ‘at birth,’ either by being born ‘in’ the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents [or…] by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents,” the report says.The findings are nonpartisan — but also nonbinding.It’s no better from the perspective of birthers. Recourse is nearly impossible.“Judges either sit on cases for years or dismiss them with procedural rulings — that they have no jurisdiction, or the plaintiffs have no standing,” said one outspoken anti-Obama “birther,” California lawyer Orly Taitz, who suggested Cruz seek declaratory relief. “Have a court declare whether he’s eligible or not and take this issue off the table.”The Constitution says nothing of dual citizenship, something Cruz recently realized he had, like it or not.In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that a man named Wong Kim Ark — born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, making him a subject of the emperor under Chinese law — counted as a natural born American. U.S. law determines who its citizens “at birth” would be, regardless of any other nation’s laws, the court held.That’s a good precedent for Cruz. But where could he go to put such questions to rest authoritatively?The Federal Election Commission sounds like a natural arbiter. It’s not.Take the case of a New York lawyer named Abdul Karim Hassan, a naturalized American who decided to run for president in 2008.After a federal court refused to declare him eligible, he turned to the commission, seeking guidance to ensure that he wouldn’t violate campaign finance law by running anyway.In a September 2011 advisory opinion, the commission said that while Hassan couldn’t tap federal matching funds, it was fine for him to hold himself out as a candidate and even to collect donations. As for ballot access, that was up to each state.As the CRS report noted, “There has never been any federal officer or bureaucracy which acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ controlling who may be a federal candidate.”Follow Washington Bureau Chief Todd J. Gillman on Twitter at @toddgillman. View Comments

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Skip to double wide sidebar Skip to tabbed sidebar Skip to left sidebar Home The bad faith presidency Top Stories Sports Crime Reports Opinions Deaths Legals Classifieds e-edition The bad faith presidency in Opinions Wednesday, December 11. 2013 At the end of the day, the root of President Barack Obama’s mendacity on Obamacare was simple: He didn’t dare tell people how the law would work. He couldn’t tell people how the law would work. Forthrightness was the enemy. It served no useful purpose and could only bring peril, and potentially defeat. It had to be banished. Instead, President Obama made the sale on the basis of dubious blandishments and outright deceptions. If this is the only way to pass your signature initiative -- and a decades-long goal of your party -- it ought to give you pause. But Obama was a natural at delivering sweeping and sincere-seeming assurances that just weren’t true. This kind of thing is his metier. If he were awoken at 3 a.m. and told that he had to make the case for nationalizing the banks by denying he was nationalizing the banks, he would do an entirely creditable job of it, even without a teleprompter. The salesmanship for Obamacare represents in microcosm the larger Obama political project, which has always depended on throwing a reassuring skein of moderation on top of left-wing ideological aims. All politicians are prone to shaving the truth and trying to appear more reasonable than they are. Obama has made it an art form. He will never admit his deep bias toward the growth of the federal government, or that he doesn’t care that much if Iran gets the bomb, or that he is liquidating the American leadership role in the Middle East. No, no -- he is just trying to make government work, giving diplomacy a chance and pivoting to Asia, respectively. In this vein, the things that the president couldn’t say about Obamacare keep mounting. The New York Times reported the other day on how the word “redistribution,” which aptly describes the law’s intent and effect, is anathema. “These days the word is particularly toxic at the White House,” according to the paper. “But the redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of the law and lies at the heart of the insurance market disruptions driving political attacks this fall.” Heaven forbid that the president tell people that. The Times notes that the last time the president mentioned redistribution, it was -- of course -- to say that he wanted nothing to do with it. In private, the president admits that he has kept his true ideological self carefully under wraps. According to the authors of “Double Down,” Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, Obama brought up climate change in a political strategy meeting in 2011 as an example of his undue caution. “Maybe I should just come out and say what I really feel,” he said. “Maybe I should just say what I think about everything.” As a crazy thought experiment, his aides let him dabble with heartfelt sincerity. To the next meeting he brought a list of causes dear to him, all liberal cliches: climate change, immigration reform, poverty, Israeli-Palestinian peace, closing Gitmo and gay marriage. Only gay marriage surfaced in the presidential campaign because he couldn’t bear any longer to hide what he really thought. He knew the danger of too much forthrightness.

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Home / general election Comeback Country? Don't you believe it. When George Osborne unveiled his budget last week, he claimed that after five years of the coalition, the economy was improving so much that we could consider the UK March 13, 2015 The canary in the coalmine - can self-interest end austerity? Two stories caught my eye on our website yesterday (12th March), both relating to the effects of austerity on the United Kingdom. Marking the political parties on learning disabilities Five political parties in England have been invited to present their case to a Citizen Jury made up of people with learning disabilities and family members. Voting for Values - reflecting on Ekklesia's General Election paper For the last few months Ekklesia staff, associates and partners have been thinking and talking about our approach to the 2015 General Election and beyond. General Election 2015 focus: 'Vote for what you believe in' 'Advices and Queries': from 1682 to the general election of 2015 “Remember your responsibilities as a citizen for the conduct of local, national and international affairs. Do not shrink from the time and effort your involvement may demand.” This is one of 42 challenges and questions posed to members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) by the rather quaintly named 'Advices and Queries'. Help fact check the General Election campaign Whoever we decide to vote for in May, we need an election campaign fought on the basis of truth, not spin. In the past, charities would have spoken out if a politician tried to give a false picture of reality, but many now feel gagged by the Lobbying Act passed last year. Happily, one charity exists solely to check facts, but it needs our help to meet the challenge of the election campaign. Young people urged to register to vote for job security and better pay New analysis published by the TUC reveals that young people, currently least likely to vote, are getting an especially rough deal on pay and job security. Lobbying Act impact is not good for democracy Commenting on a new report from the independent Harries Commission on the impact of the Lobbying Act, Simon Barrow, co-director of the politics February 3, 2015 Charities and NGOs inquiry says Lobbying Act impact is 'chilling' A new report highlights the "chilling" impact on free speech of the UK government's Lobbying Act in the run up to the 2015 General Election.

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Gerrymandering in Michigan and the Super District Remedy Posted by Jais Mehaji, Super Districts Congressional redistricting in Michigan once again has been controversial, with partisan calculations driving many decisions about how district lines were drawn. The root of the problem is use of winner-take-all elections in single-member districts in which 51% of voters can elect 100% of representation. Political activity will have no impact on representation in a a district where one is comfortably ahead or hopeless behind. FairVote has drawn an alternative map based on the most recent census data that upholds Supreme Court rulings on equal population while nearly guaranteeing fair representation for both major parties, a better chance for independents and competitive voter choice for all Michigan voters in every election. This year's controversies over redistricting in Michigan provide the latest evidence of the failure of winner-take-all, single member district rules. Winner-take-all elections inevitably represent many voters poorly and tempt partisans to gerrymander outcomes. The 1967 law mandating that states use them should be repealed so that states like Michigan can explore “super district” form of proportional voting to increase voter choice and fair outcomes. Used for many national elections and in a growing number of American cities, proportional voting (sometimes called “proportional representation”) allows like-minded voters to come together to elect representatives in numbers mirroring their level of public support – and thereby puts voters in charge of their representation in every election rather than redistricting mapmakers once a decade. The 2011 Congressional Gerrymander Here’s the story from Michigan this year. The state is closely divided between Republicans and Democrats, but after a near-sweep of the 2010 elections, Republicans have complete control of redistricting. Last month Republican legislators released their proposed redistricting plan for the next decade of congressional elections and have already passed it for Gov. Snyder’s expected signature. As inevitable in a state that does not require independent redistricting and rewards winner-take-all calculations, the Republican plan is seen as a partisan gerrymander, although limited by the overall Democratic leanings of the state in federal elections. Democrats hold both of Michigan’s U.S. Senate seats and Barack Obama won the state by 16.5% in 2008. Republicans picked up two House seats in 2010 for an overall 9 -6 edge and now seek to protect their nine incumbent, with an apparent goal of reducing Democrats to five seats as the state loses a seat due to reapportionment. In the 2010 plan, Democrats had a partisanship advantage (as measured by whether Barack Obama ran ahead of his national average in the 2008 presidential race) in nine of 15 districts, including five by large margins – not surprising in a state where President Obama ran some 9% ahead of his national average, although limited by the concentrated nature of the Democratic vote in the Detroit area. In the proposed plan, Democrats would have a partisan advantage in only five seats, with Republicans having an edge in seven seats and two seats evenly balanced. The map represents a risk for Republican in seeking to preserve their nine incumbents. In cutting its advantage closely, no district was drawn where the underlying Republican advantage was greater than 55% to 45% even as four districts have Democratic advantages of at least 60% to 40%. By seeking to keep incumbents safe, it also establishes a winner-take-all ceiling for women challengers in a state where women hold only one U.S. House seat.Democrats have criticized the plan, but their relative concentration of votes in urban areas makes them vulnerable to such tactics. Democrats and reform watchdogs have criticized the Republican proposal on several grounds: It forces two Democratic incumbents to run against each other, but not Republican incumbents: Under the new plan, the newly-created 9th district will be carved out from a part of the 12th district, which was represented by Rep. Sander Levin (D), and part of the 9th district which was represented by Rep. Gary Peters (D). It seeks to protect all Republican incumbents: The lines are drawn in a manner designed to protect all nine current Republican incumbents. More Republican territory is added to the first District, for example. Democrats are exploring legal challenges to the Republican plan on constitutional grounds. It “overpacks” African American voters: Michigan currently has two African-American Members of Congress, representing black-majority districts. The new plan keeps these districts as African American majority districts only through devices that make these districts more heavily Democratic and more heavily African American than some observers see as necessary for allowing African Americans to elect candidates of choice in those districts. Contorted geography: Critics have noted limitations in the compactness and even simple contiguity of the congressional districts. “Defined by isolated islands,” districts 9, 10, 11, and 14 are all within a few miles of each other and their shapes are convoluted. Partisan process: Citing closed meetings, some have suggested the maps were being drawn through a rushed process lacking transparency, having stifled public input and evaded public scrutiny. A Better Way: Putting Voters in Charge with Proportional Voting So what should Michigan do? Independent redistricting along the lines of the Iowa model would reduce particularly egregious gerrymandering, but inevitably would still determine representation for most voters, as many districts would end up being noncompetitive due to current concentrations of Republicans and Democrats. It also might continue to “overpack” the Democratic vote in its areas of concentration, leading to statewide outcomes not reflecting statewide voter preference. To make independent redistricting work, we need to replace winner-take-all elections that disadvantage those in the minority with geographically compact “super districts.” In each super district, several representatives would be elected with a proportional voting system like choice voting. Under our proposed plan, Michigan would be divided into four super districts with five seats in Super District 1 (SD1) and three each in SD2, SD3 and SD4. Each district would have the same number of seats per person. (The United States has a long history of multi-seat district elections based on this apportionment principle -- e.g., a Maryland House of Delegates district with three seats has three times the number of people as a House of Delegates district with one seat.) With a proportional voting plan in a three-seat super district, winning a seat would take just over 25% of the vote. Winning two seats would take just over 50% and sweeping all three would take more than 75%. In the five-seat super district, winning one seat would take about 17% of the vote, winning two would take about 34% and winning a majority of three seats would take just over 50%. Drawing Super Districts for Michigan To create and evaluate our super districts, we were limited to using districts from the 14 congressional districts as approved by the Republican legislature. We used partisan data about these super districts provided on the Daily Kos blog, using presidential election results from 2008 (We using our variation of the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which was developed in 1997 based on our model that we released earlier that year. We measure the relative performance of the presidential candidates in the district compared to their national average. If Barack Obama ran 5% ahead of his 2008 national average in the super district and John McCain ran 5% below his national average, then the district would have a Democratic partisanship of 55% and a Republican partisanhip of 45%.) Here is our proposed super district map as compared to the new 14 seat congressional redistricting map passed by the legislature: Analysis of Our Super District Plan Super district Population per seat Threshold to win 1 seat PartisanIndex, Dem.* (D) Projected party split What districts used to create super districts SD-1 64.9% (D) (D-3,R-1,1?) 9,11,12,13,14 (D-1, R-1, 1?) * Democratic partisanship is based on the relative performance of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates in the district. Republican partisanship would simply be the flip side of this number. (64.9% Democratic translates into 35.1% Republican.) Partisan Analysis of Super District Plan: Backers of both major parties would have the power to elect at least one candidate in each our four super districts. Democrats would be favored to earn a 3-2 edge in SD-1, with a chance to earn four seats in a strong Democrat year in which their candidates won two-thirds of the vote in the district. Republicans would be favored to earn a 2-1 edge in SD-4, but would not be guaranteed winning two seats. Absent popular incumbents, the third seat in the remaining districts (SD-2 and SD-3) would also be a toss-up for either party. Minor parties and independents would have a greater chance to win a seat in every district, especially SD-1 Voting Rights Analysis: We don’t have racial data for our proposed plan, but we know that African American voters are relatively concentrated in the Detroit area. African Americans and other racial minorities would not be near the victory threshold in SD-2, SD-3 and SD-4, but their vote still could be influential for influencing who wins In SD-11, African American voters likely are about 25% of the vote, making it easy for those voters to elect one candidate of their choice, and creating a reasonable chance of helping to elect two candidates. Finally, Michigan might well boost its representation of women; today only one of its U.S. House Members is a woman. Overall, in every district backers of both major parties would almost certainly end up with a representative of their preferred party and have a reason to vote in a competitive election every two years. Using this proportional voting system would ensure Michigan’s electoral outcomes reflect the reality that Democrats have a slight advantage in the state overall, but Republicans can make the state highly competitive. It would mitigate the pernicious effects of gerrymandering that plague our democracy. Fair voting / proportional representation Lebanon Discusses Adopting Proportional Representation Ranked Choice Absentee Ballots: Preventing the Disenfranchisement of Military and Overseas Voters

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Obama: Our journey not complete WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring "our journey is not complete," President Barack Obama took the oath of office for his second term before a crowd of hundreds of thousands Monday, urging the nation to set an unwavering course toward prosperity and freedom for all its citizens and protect the social safety net that has sheltered the poor, elderly and needy."Our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," Obama said in his relatively brief, 18-minute address. "We believe that America's prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class," he added, echoing his calls from the presidential campaign that catapulted him to re-election.The president declared that a decade of war is ending, as is the economic recession that consumed much of his first term.The inaugural fanfare spread across the capital Monday, including a traditional lunch with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Before departing the Capitol, Obama paused in the Rotunda in front of a bust of Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader whose birthday holiday coincided with the inaugural festivities.From the Capitol, the president and first lady Michelle Obama climbed into the black armored limousine that ferried them past cheering crowds lining Pennsylvania Avenue for the inaugural parade. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, the Obamas stepped out of the limousine and walked the parade route for about eight minutes, holding hands and waving to the exuberant crowds.Before diving into the afternoon celebrations, Obama previewed an ambitious second-term agenda, devoting several sentences in his address to the threat of global climate change and saying that failure to confront it "would betray our children and future generations." Obama's focus on climate change was notable given that he barely dealt with the issue in his first term.In an era of looming budget cuts, he said the nation has a commitment to costly programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. "These things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us," he said.Sandwiched between the bruising presidential campaign and relentless fiscal fights, Monday's inaugural celebrations marked a brief respite from the partisan gridlock that has consumed the past two years. Perhaps seeking a fresh start, Obama invited several lawmakers to the White House for coffee before his speech, including the Republican leaders with whom he has frequently been at odds.Among then was the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. In a statement following Obama's swearing-in, McConnell said the president's second term represents "a fresh start when it comes to dealing with the great challenges of our day."Looking ahead to those challenges, Obama implored Congress to find common ground over the next four years. And seeking to build on the public support that catapulted him to the White House twice, the president said the public has "the obligation to shape the debates of our time.""Not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals," Obama said.Moments earlier, Obama placed his hand on two Bibles — one used by King and the other by Abraham Lincoln — and recited the brief oath of office. Michelle Obama held the Bibles, one on top of the other, as daughters Malia and Sasha looked on.Vice President Joe Biden was also sworn in for his second term as the nation's second in command. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, several Cabinet secretaries and dozens of lawmakers were on hand to bear witness to history.Monday's oaths were purely ceremonial. The Constitution stipulates that presidents begin their new terms at noon on Jan. 20, and in keeping with that requirement, Obama was sworn in Sunday in a small ceremony at the White House. Because inaugural celebrations are historically not held on Sundays, organizers pushed the public events to Monday.Obama soaked in the history on a day full of traditions as old as the Republic. Gazing over the crowd before retreating into the Capitol, he said, "I want to take a look, one more time. I'm not going to see this again."After a stunning sunrise, the weather for the swearing-in and parade was chilly — upper 30s rising into the lower 40s. Overcast skies gave way to bright sunshine for the parade.Once the celebrations subside, Obama will be confronted with an array of pressing priorities: an economy still struggling to fully a recover, the fiscal fights with a divided Congress, and new threats of terrorism in North Africa. The president has also pledged to tackle immigration reform and stricter gun laws in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., — sweeping domestic reforms that will require help from reluctant lawmakers.Obama is also facing fresh concerns about terrorism in North Africa. In the midst of the inaugural celebrations, a U.S. official said two more Americans died in Algeria, bringing the U.S. death toll from a four-day siege at a natural gas plant to three. Seven Americans survived, the official said.The president did not offer any specific prescriptions for addressing the challenges ahead, though he is expected to offer more detail in his Feb. 12 State of the Union address.Asserting "America's possibilities are limitless," he declared at the Capitol: "My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it, so long as we seize it together.""We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit," he said. "But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future."Obama's second inaugural lacked the electric enthusiasm of his first, when 1.8 million people crammed onto the National Mall to witness the swearing-in of the nation's first black president. Far fewer people attended this year's inauguration — officials estimated up to 700,000 people — but the crowd still stretched from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. And shortly before the president spoke, U.S. Park Police announced that the public viewing areas on the Mall were full.Security was tight across Washington, with streets closed off for blocks around the White House and Capitol Hill. Military Humvees and city buses were being used to block intersections. Volunteers fanned out near the Mall to help direct the crowds.David Richardson of Atlanta and his two young children were among the early-goers who headed to the Mall before sunrise."We wanted to see history, I think, and also for the children to witness that anything is possible through hard work," Richardson said.Wendy Davis of Rome, Ga., was one of thousands of inaugural attendees who packed Metro trains. Davis came four years ago as well but was among the many ticketholders who couldn't get in then because of the massive crowds."I thought I was early last time, but I obviously wasn't early enough," she said.By 8 a.m. thousands of people were also waiting in security lines that stretched a block to gain access to the spots along the parade route that were accessible to the general public without a special ticket.The cold weather was easily tolerated by Marie-France Lemaine of Montreal, who received the trip to the inaugural as a birthday present from her husband. She headed up an Obama advocacy group in Quebec that cheered on the president from north of the border."The American president affects the rest of the world," she said.

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China tells military to ignore rumors, obey party | Fri Apr 6, 2012 1:21am EDT | Chris Buckley Posted on 04/05/2012 10:51:56 PM PDT by Olog-hai China's top military newspaper told troops on Friday to ignore rumors on the Internet and steel themselves for "ideological struggle" as the ruling Communist Party faces a leadership transition, in a sign of jitters in Beijing. The Liberation Army Daily did not mention outlandish rumors of a foiled coup in Beijing that spread on the Internet in past weeks, after the abrupt ousting of Bo Xilai, an ambitious contender for a spot in the new central leadership to be unveiled at a party congress later this year. A front-page commentary in the newspaper, however, left no doubt the party leadership wants to inoculate People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops against rumors that could corrode the authority of President Hu Jintao, who also serves as head of the party and chairman of the Central Military Commission, which commands the PLA. The paper admonished soldiers to "resolutely resist the incursion of all kinds of erroneous ideas, not be disturbed by noise, not be affected by rumors, and not be drawn by undercurrents, and ensure that at all times and under all circumstances the military absolutely obeys the command of the Party central leadership, the Central Military Commission and Chairman Hu." … In late March, authorities shut 16 Chinese websites and detained six people accused of spreading rumors about unusual military movements and security in the capital, feeding talk of an attempted coup or schism in the leadership. The rumors fed on speculation about the ousting of Bo, who in mid-March was removed as party boss of Chongqing city in southwest China, over a month after his vice mayor, Wang Lijun, fled to a U.S. consulate, triggering a scandal exposing accusations of infighting and abuses of power. TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events KEYWORDS: china; coup; redchina by Olog-hai To: Olog-hai Where there is smoke, there’s fire. by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.) by TEXOKIE To: Jonty30 Not necessarily, in Texas. Sometimes, where there is smoke there IS a wildfire in the forest or grasslands. BUT sometimes, there is BBQ! by muffaletaman (In My Not So Humble Opinion. I MIGHT be wrong - but I doubt it.) Communist Parties, leftists in general, have an instinctive distrust of regular military forces because they have they have a clear chain of command and control that can never be completely under party control if it is to be useful. (Sarah.... We really need you now!) To: Ronin Why would they want to have an e-bay party? Oh never mind. by shineon

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Sinnott: No endorsements in county executive primary March 9, 2013 03:39 AM Erie Mayor Joe Sinnott announces his bid for a third term at Erie City Hall on Jan. 23. GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS March 9, 2013 03:39 AM Online Extras MORE ON THE BLOG: To read more about politics, campaigns and elections in northwest Pennsylvania, across the state and country, click here.MORE ONLINE: To all our stories, candidate bios, photos and videos related to the 2012 election season in northwest Pennsylvania, click here. Erie Mayor Joe Sinnott and Erie County Executive Barry Grossman have worked together for the past four years. But Sinnott said he's staying neutral and not endorsing anyone in the May 21 Democratic primary for county executive, with Grossman seeking a second term and facing a challenge from former Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper. Sinnott said it's not a good practice for a sitting Democrat to endorse one candidate over another in a party primary because he must work with the winner. "Barry and I have worked well together. I feel he's done a good job. But for now, we're focused on preparing to run our own campaign,'' said Sinnott, who may run unopposed for his third and final term. Grossman said he would never ask another elected official for an endorsement in a party primary. "You run, the voters respond, and you abide by the decision,'' he said. Dahlkemper said she wouldn't ask for the mayor's endorsement either, adding that she followed the same practice of not endorsing in Democratic primaries when she served in Congress. "I expect that the race between Barry and I will be a good race for the vision of Erie County,'' she said. Dahlkemper is expected to formally announce her candidacy Monday. Tuesday is the deadline for Democrats and Republicans to submit nomination petitions to qualify for the primary ballot. Michael Federici, a political-science professor at Mercyhurst University, has said that Dahlkemper would be "a formidable opponent" against Grossman in what he said would be the primary's marquee race. Dahlkemper was elected to Congress in 2008, representing a 3rd District that then included all of Erie County. She served one term before U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, of Butler, R-3rd Dist., defeated her in 2010. The Erie County's portion of the 3rd District is now split between Kelly and U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, of Howard Township, Centre County, R-5th Dist., due to gerrymandering. JOHN GUERRIERO can be reached at 870-1690 or by e-mail. Follow him at twitter.com/ETNguerriero. Read the Campaign '13 blog at GoErie.com/blogs/campaign and post comments.

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Middle-Class Tax Cuts Preserved For A Year In Bill Passed By Senate (UPDATE) Michael McAuliff Senior Congressional Reporter, The Huffington Post WASHINGTON -- Senators blinked in the political standoff over how much of the Bush-era tax cuts to extend for another year and voted Wednesday to keep current rates for people with incomes of less than $250,000. Tax rates would rise by 4 percent on incomes above $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for single filers. Popular breaks like the child tax credit would be preserved. The extension, passed on a vote of 51 to 48, represents a short-term win, at least, for President Barack Obama, who has been pushing for a similar plan. But it appeared unlikely that the House would embrace a similar measure before the election, having proposed its own bill to extend all the Bush-era cuts. The House hasn't proposed extending Obama's breaks for millions of middle-class families. Democrats estimated the GOP version would add an extra $155 billion to the deficit. They also argued that the GOP plan raises taxes on some 25 million Americans by not renewing the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and a college tuition break. The GOP version failed in the Senate, 45 to 54, with GOP Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.) and Susan Collins (Maine) against it, and Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) voting for it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slammed the votes, saying they represented an irresponsible attack on the weak economy. "Here's the Democratic plan for the economy: We'll get this thing going again; we'll get it going again by raising taxes," McConnell said. "Let us create the jobs, instead of small businesses out in America." He also picked up on Obama's recent "you didn't build that" argument, taken out of context, that successful business owners didn't build the nation's infrastructure that supports those businesses. "This is the legislative equivalent of 'you didn't build that,'" McConnell said. "You are not responsible for your success. Washington is. So give us your money and we'll handle for you. That's their tax plan." But Democrats argued that the Bush-era tax rates coincided with an economy that collapsed at the end of George W. Bush's presidency, which showed some of the weakest job growth in modern history. And they said the GOP tax plan would be another giveaway to the wealthy, while taking away middle-class breaks. "The wealthiest taxpayers in America would get back $160,000 a year from the Republican tax plan," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chiding McConnell that his suggestion to "do no harm" for a year was not a sensible middle ground, considering the cost. "It's not a compromise," Boxer said. "It's going right back to the problems that led us to this in the first place." The House is expected to vote on its bill next week. Although revenue measures are supposed to start in the House, Democrats said they should take up the Senate plan, rather than raise a so-called "blue slip" procedural block. The Senate vote was by a rare simple majority, which Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said McConnell allowed because it was the only way he would get a vote on the GOP plan, and his caucus didn't want to be stuck only voting "no" on the Democratic plan. Schumer suggested the political reality of needing to back the middle class would prompt action by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "I am sure that Speaker Boehner does not appreciate the uncomfortable position that Sen. McConnell has put him in," Schumer said. "The speaker knows that if he puts this bill on the floor, his members will have trouble voting against it." Schumer argued that Congress has already passed two revenue bills that started in the Senate -- the recent highway and Federal Aviation Administration bills. He also suggested the politics would be good for Democrats if the GOP balks. "If House Republicans insist on blocking our middle class tax cuts ... that is a debate we are willing to have," Schumer said. "Democrats will be happy to bring this argument to the American people and ask them whether they think obscure procedural rules are reason enough to let over 100 million families face a tax hike of $1,600 next year," he said, referring to what happens if the cuts expire, as they are scheduled to in 2013. UPDATE: 6:03 p.m. -- Boehner signaled that he would not go along with Schumer's suggestions. “Here in the House, where tax legislation originates under the Constitution, we're going to vote to stop the tax hike. That much is clear," Boehner said in a statement. "The only questions are these: How many House Democrats are going to side with [Minority] Leader [Nancy] Pelosi and President Obama and vote against stopping a small business tax hike that will cost 700,000 American jobs? Will any House Democrat offer the president's tax hike proposal as an amendment, so that it can be brought to a vote?" UPDATE: 6:25 p.m. -- The Senate vote means "House Republicans are now the only people left in Washington holding hostage the middle-class tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and nearly every small business owner," Obama said in a statement. He continued: "The last thing a typical middle-class family can afford is a $2,200 tax hike at the beginning of next year. It’s time for House Republicans to drop their demand for another $1 trillion giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and give our families and small businesses the financial security and certainty that they need. Our economy isn’t built from the top-down, it’s built from a strong and growing middle class, and that’s who we should be fighting for." Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook. Senate Tax Cuts For The Rich Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Democrats Tax Cuts Middle Class Tax Cuts

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VoicesComment The Republicans need a dose of Lincoln's human factor Out of America: The party's swing even further to the right has prevented compromise in American politics Rupert Cornwell @IndyVoices Sunday 30 December 2012 00:00 BST Political wiles: Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, who could handle the opposition Dreamworks Yes, it's fiscal cliff countdown time. Will the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the White House strike a deal to avert the looming tax increases and budget cuts before tomorrow's deadline? Or is tomorrow really the deadline? And, despite the doom-mongering, does it really matter? Some eminent economists now argue it would be better if we do go over the cliff.But the cliff-talk obscures the real story: how this impasse has been reached because the Republican Party, prisoner of its extreme conservative wing, for whom tax cutting is all, has simply gone off the rails. If you don't believe me, then consider Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal-centrist Brookings Institution respectively, both of them dispassionate, experienced observers of the US political scene, about as unpartisan as you can get.Yet, in their book earlier this year on the dysfunctional system that has spawned the fiscal cliff debacle, entitled It's Even Worse than It Looks, Mann and Ornstein let slip any pretence of even-handedness. "One of our two major parties, the Republicans," they write in exasperation, "has become an insurgent outlier – ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."The Republicans, in short, have lurched so far to the right that politics in the normal sense of give and take, of taking other points of view into consideration, has become virtually impossible. Yes, Democrats must bear some of the blame for the stalemate, but only a small part. Their move to the left is far less than the Republican shift rightward.Ronald Reagan is the saint to whom modern conservatives mouth ritual devotion. But Reagan, always ready to make a deal when he had to, would be lost amid today's Republican zealotry, where moderates have been systematically expelled and ideology is now all. But it was not always thus – as a couple of things reminded me last week.The first was the turn for the worse in the health of George H W Bush, Reagan's Republican successor in the White House. Bush is now 88 and in intensive care, being treated for bronchitis. Happily, the last news was more encouraging: "Put the harps back in the closet," was his mood, according to a spokesman.Bush is America's oldest living former president. More to the point, he's the sort of Republican you don't find any more, a patrician moderate and East Coast establishment gentleman, who might have been a bit out of touch on occasion, but whose heart was in the right place. Yet the elder Bush is anathema to great swathes of his party.His sin was to have abandoned his celebrated 1988 campaign pledge of "Read my lips, no new taxes", when economic facts of life obliged him to strike a deficit reduction deal, two years later, with the Democrats who then controlled Congress. The deal helped to pave the way for the boom later in the decade, but it is an article of faith for modern Republicans that the broken pledge was responsible for his 1992 election defeat. Never again, they said – and so it has been.The other reminder came from a Republican of the 19th century, whose occupancy of the White House prevented the country from sliding off an existential cliff, in comparison with which the 2012 fiscal variety is the gentlest incline.Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is being released in the UK on 25 January, and don't miss it. Not only does Daniel Day-Lewis deliver an unforgettable portrayal of America's greatest president, as he seeks passage of the 13th amendment, banning slavery, through the House of Representatives in the final months of the civil war (and his own life). It is also perhaps the most realistic cinematic depiction ever of how the US political system, with its separation of powers, works.Lincoln knows his opponents' foibles. He wheedles, flatters and cajoles; he appeals to their best instincts and, when necessary, their worst. On occasion, he stretches the truth almost to breaking point. And, in the end, he rounds up the votes required, without betraying his principles.The message of the movie is not so much that compromise is essential in politics (although it is). Rather, it is that politics is ultimately about people and how humans interact with one another. Obviously, there is a lesson for President Obama as he seeks a way down from the cliff-edge. Wheedling and flattering is not his style; all too often, he seems contemptuous of the human spadework at which Lyndon Johnson excelled.But the greater lesson, laying bare the terrible flaw of US politics as currently practised, is that this human factor has vanished from the Republican Party. When only ideological purity matters, everything else is pointless. Even LBJ wouldn't have had a prayer with the Tea Party.Worst of all, the mess is of the Republicans' own making. They hold a 233-200 majority in the House, even though they lost the popular vote in congressional elections by over half a million. Americans, in other words, didn't vote for a Republican House in 2012. They got one however, thanks to the gerrymandering of Republican-controlled state legislatures.But gerrymandering also makes seats vulnerable in primaries to intra-party challengers claiming greater ideological purity. Thus moderates are driven out and extremists take over. Now, however, the revolution is devouring its own. Before Christmas, the House Speaker, John Boehner, was humiliatingly forced to withdraw fiscal cliff legislation, as dozens of Republican members, arch-purists all, rebelled. A party that loses control of itself is surely doomed. America teeters on the fiscal cliff – but, for Republicans, the political cliff that looms is steeper still. More about: Bestsellers (books)

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The limits of international pressure The limits of international pressure September 17, 2012, 7:26 pm By Jehan Perera The last fortnight has seen several important international visitors to Sri Lanka. These have included a large number of Parliamentarians from Commonwealth countries who attended the meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Colombo. The Sri Lankan government took this opportunity to present its side of recent history and post-war developments to the visiting dignitaries. Delegations of the Parliamentarians were taken on well organized visits to different parts of the country, including the north and east. Media reports indicate that many of them were impressed by the normalcy they witnessed as well as the economic development of the former war zones of the north and east. Two other important visits of a more critical bent also took place during this period. One was the visit by US Undersecretary of State Robert Blake and the other was the visit by a three member team from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. During his visit, Undersecretary Blake expressed his hopes and aspirations for the country, including the resumption of government-TNA dialogue on a political solution, the holding of Provincial Council elections for the Northern Province and the implementation of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. Most of the issues he raised were ones taken up by the LLRC in its report, and included the issue of investigations into alleged human rights violations in the course of the war. The visit of the three member UN team was more on a low profile. This visit followed the resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2012 by a majority vote. The resolution called on the Sri Lankan government to implement the recommendations of the LLRC and also to obtain technical assistance from the UN especially with regard to issues pertaining to the alleged violations of international law in the course of the war. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is expected to report back on the progress in respect of the implementation of the UNHRC resolution in March 2013. The coincidence of the Blake visit with the UN team’s visit was marked, especially as it was the United States that had sponsored the resolution over the strenuous opposition of the Sri Lankan government. INCREASED CONFIDENCE By and large the issues taken up by Undersecretary Blake during his visit have been taken up in the Action Plan prepared by the government in respect of the LLRC recommendations. The implementation of these recommendations is to take place in the coming period. The question is how effective will be the implementation of the LLRC recommendations taken on by the Action Plan. For instance, the government has appointed military courts of inquiry into the issue of human rights violations during the war on the grounds that this is standard practice in other countries as well. It has also tasked the security forces and Ministry of Defence with investigating abductions and disappearances although these are the very institutions that the victims have raised questions about. The government’s strategy in dealing with international pressure appears to be one of accommodating them in external form. Today, the feeling of betrayal and vulnerability that accompanied the shock of the defeat in the UN Human Rights Council in March appears to have evaporated. It has been replaced with a new approach to the international community that includes going along with it in form, but not necessarily in spirit and substance. At the same time, the divisions within the international community have facilitated the Sri Lankan resistance to it. Even within the United States, which led the campaign against Sri Lanka in the UN Human Rights Council on the issue of war crimes and the need for accountability, the State Department is not necessarily supported by decisions by other branches of the US government. A US court has decided that a legal case filed against President Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot be heard as he is protected as a government leader, regardless of the merits of the complaint against him. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the confidence of the government that it can handle international pressures has increased. In addition, in the modern world countries have less ability to coerce other countries to do what they would rather not do. International relations today are more about politics where images are important and numbers count. The Sri Lankan government has become adept at getting numbers on its side. It has honed this skill in local politics, and is now able to apply it skillfully to international politics as well. In addition, Sri Lanka practiced solidarity in being with the majority of Commonwealth countries that oppose the setting up of a Commonwealth human rights investigative mechanism. As a country that has recently been engaged in polemics with Western countries on the issues of human rights and national sovereignty, the Sri Lankan contribution to this debate would have been much appreciated by other non-Western countries. DISTANT PROSPECT The victory of the government at the provincial elections will also serve to reinforce the government’s confidence that it can continue on its present path without changing direction. The government today controls all the Provincial Councils and is once again inducing those elected from rival parties to join it with the promise of ministerial positions. The government has a 2/3 majority in Parliament obtained not through elections but by inducing Members of Parliament elected from opposition parties to cross over to the governing party by offering them posts of Ministers. This strategy subverts internationally accepted democratic norms for which inducer and the induced are equally responsible for the weakening of the system of checks and balances that is essential in a healthy democracy. The government has no internal opposition capable of restraining it, or pushing it in the direction of problem solving of national issues. For instance, the government has put out a National Action Plan for implementing human rights. While this plan has been welcomed by many civic groups who were hopeful of its implementation, there is little evidence so far that the plan is being implemented. Human Rights are not being adequately protected by the State despite the presentation of a National Human Rights Action Plan to the international community. It is necessary for the Rule of Law and the protection of human rights that there is a police which will have the independence to act according to the law. When the police is at the beck and call of the politicians belonging to the ruling political party the police become not the Police of the State or the people but the police of the ruling political elite. Despite the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission recommending the separation of the Police Department from the Ministry of Defence and the establishment of independent commissions for the police and public service there is no sign that this is about to happen any time soon. A political solution by all parties in the Sri Lankan polity, both within and outside Parliament, which addresses the problems of impunity, militarization, breakdown of law and order, and the reduction of the concentration of power within the government continues to be the need in Sri Lanka. There is a need for the decentralization, devolution and sharing of power amongst independent institutions that will ensure a check and balance on central power within the framework of a united and law-abiding country in which international standards are met. While current indications are that such political reform is a distant prospect, the pressure for reform by the international community and by national political parties and civil society must continue. Hits: 603 Send to Friend

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Home » News & Views » Israel » Twenty Years Later, Oslo Accords Debated Rather Than Celebrated By: Alex Traiman Published: September 17th, 2013 Tzipi Hotovely. Twenty years after the signing of the fateful Oslo Accords between Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Knesset members are debating the merits of the peace process and the two-state solution paradigm. Parliamentarians from both Israel’s left and right agree that the process has not yielded the results anyone hoped for, including the deaths of more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians, and agree that Israelis and Palestinians are more skeptical than ever about the prospects for a negotiated settlement. Where Knesset members disagree is on whether the process was flawed from the outset, and on whether the principles that led to the signing of the interim peace agreement should still be applied. Consequently, the 20-year anniversary of the Oslo Accords, signed Sept. 13, 1993, has not seen a celebration of the agreement’s outcome but rather a debate on its merits. “The main lesson is that the paradigm of the left – that land for peace will bring security to the region – has failed,” Deputy Defense Minister and MK Danny Danon (Likud) told JNS.org. On the other side of the political divide, MK Hilik (Yechiel) Bar, deputy speaker of the Knesset and secretary general of the Labor Party, said that thinking about the alternatives to the Oslo Accords and to Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations “is foolish, unfair, and it will not happen.” “There is no other option than to have a Jewish state and a Palestinian state based on the ‘67 borders,” Bar told JNS. Details of the current round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations are largely being kept from the public. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appear to be entertaining the possibility that a peace settlement can be reached through the current round of negotiations, most Israelis and Palestinians are not paying much attention. In an unusual turn of events, members of Israel’s governing coalition and the prime minister’s party are coming out against negotiations, while members of the opposition are supporting the government’s initiative. “The prime minister said clearly that he supports negotiations without preconditions. Yet he hasn’t said where he stands on the outcome of negotiations,” said Likud’s Danon. “I think Israelis are waking up and they have understood that the idea is not valid anymore, and we see more and more Israelis shifting. We should not endorse any idea that we will give land to the Palestinians,” he said. Labor’s Bar, however, believes it is the very distrust between Israelis and Palestinians that makes a two-state solution a necessity. Bar insists that if peace efforts had played out only slightly differently, the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank provinces of Judea and Samaria could have resulted. “We had three major attempts to make peace,” said Bar. “One was Rabin-Arafat. The treaty was signed. But as we know, Rabin was [assassinated]. There is no way to know what would have happened if Rabin were still alive.” The second attempt, said Bar, was between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat. During those negotiations, Barak offered Arafat more than 95 percent of the West Bank for a Palestinian state. Arafat famously rejected the offer, and embarrassed President Bill Clinton in the process. “Arafat chose to die as a shahid [martyr], not as a peacemaker. That was his choice,” Bar said. As for the third round, between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, “Both sides say it was Olmert’s legal problems at home in Israel that prevented the negotiations from going all the way,” Bar said. While the three rounds of negotiations ultimately resulted in failure and greater distrust between the two sides, with a second intifada following in the wake of the Barak-Arafat parleys, Bar suggested that Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations may still deliver results. “This current Knesset has a very clear majority for the two-state solution. I think that more than seventy Knesset Members would vote for a two-state solution if brought for a vote,” he said, adding that “the status quo is unsustainable.” Other Knesset members are less than optimistic that negotiations will cure decades of unrest. “When you try a certain medicine and it doesn’t work, you need to either realize the medicine doesn’t work or reanalyze the disease,” said Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud). Alex Traiman to “Twenty Years Later, Oslo Accords Debated Rather Than Celebrated” More Articles from Alex Traiman Debating The ‘High-Stakes’ Of Netanyahu’s Congress SpeechOn Monday, the Zionist Organization of America responded to Jewish-organizational critics of the Netanyahu speech, calling out those organizations in a press release and saying, “The United States Congress is discussing the Iran situation now. Prime Minister Netanyahu must speak now…. Syria Leak, Iran Sanctions Accentuate Differences Between U.S. And IsraelThe leaking of information on an Israeli air strike in Syria and a growing divergence in approach to Iran sanctions have accentuated the Obama administration’s differences with the Israeli government. Twenty Years Later, Oslo Accords Debated Rather Than CelebratedTwenty years after the signing of the fateful Oslo Accords between Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Knesset members are debating the merits of the peace process and the two-state solution paradigm. Ettinger: Kerry Preoccupied With ‘Peace Process’ While Turmoil Reigns Across RegionSecretary of State John Kerry has many in Israel wondering if the U.S. has its foreign policy priorities straight, particularly in the Middle East. Iran Looks To Make Syria Regional Bulwark Against IsraelThe recent Israeli air strikes on Syria – which have neither been confirmed nor denied by Israeli officials – targeted weapons depots allegedly storing Iranian-made weapons intended for the Lebanese terrorist organization Hizbullah. Management and Design by WebAds. Development and maintenance by Marc Gottlieb Creative Solutions | Log in Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/twenty-years-later-oslo-accords-debated-rather-than-celebrated/2013/09/17/

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2.00E+07 U.S. 2.00E+07 By Sharon SamberJuly 25, 2001 9:00am WASHINGTON, July 25 (JTA) — Agreeing to disagree is a way of political life in Washington. But in light of recent incidents where Jewish organizations withdrew from coalitions because of the participation of extreme Muslim groups, some Jewish groups are increasingly concerned about the future of Jewish- Muslim and Jewish-Arab relations. The American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League withdrew their names last week from a legal brief to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Council on American Islamic Relations signed on to the brief. The groups did not want to work with or lend legitimacy to CAIR, which has defended terror attacks against Israel. They since have filed their own brief in support of the plaintiff, a Muslim woman subjected to employment discrimination. Also last week, the Orthodox Union stepped down from the advisory board of the Alliance for Marriage, a group that promotes heterosexual marriage, because a representative of the American Muslim Council was a board member. The Muslim Council supports Hamas and Hezbollah, two Middle East-based extremist groups that participate in terrorist attacks against Israel. These two incidents exemplify the dilemma facing Jewish groups — the desire to cooperate on issues of common concern to American Jews and Muslims is countered by fears that some U.S. Arab or Muslim groups hold extremist views on Israel or other issues important to the Jewish community. American Jews share many interests with American Arabs or Muslims — such as immigration policy, religious freedom and civil rights — so that Jewish groups often find themselves on coalitions with groups like the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee or the Supreme Islamic Council. These more mainstream groups do not support terrorists. But the ADL has found it difficult to work even with the more mainstream groups over the past five years, according to Ken Jacobson, the organization’s associate national director. Jacobson also said that it is important to ensure that extremist organizations do not gain legitimacy. There is no easy way to determine when a line has been crossed, officials say, and situations must be assessed on an individual basis. It is hard to know where to draw the line given the increased violence and rhetoric related to ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence, said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella organization of 122 local councils and 13 national agencies. But her decision appears to be clear for now. “Would we join a coalition with AMC or CAIR tomorrow?” Rosenthal asked. “No.” Despite the short-term tension, Rosenthal said there is no alternative but to hope that additional efforts will succeed in establishing more common ground between Jewish and Muslim groups. Coalition building is the lifeblood for many organizations’ activism, and is critical for their ability to push issues forward. But it “makes no sense” to work with any organization that is committed to goals “antithetical to the Jewish people,” said Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress. Baum added that the AJCongress would have to withdraw from any coalition involving CAIR or AMC. Calls to the two Muslim groups were not returned. Hyman Bookbinder, a retired AJCommittee official and a longtime activist in Washington, worked during the “golden age” of civil rights alliance-building in the 1960s and 1970s. Bookbinder recalls “having to swallow hard about what the groups did to Israel” in order to work with them on human rights issues. While groups must be willing to take chances, Bookbinder says some positions or people — such as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who repeatedly has made anti-Semitic comments — are beyond the pale. Jewish groups must hold a candid discussion on how to relate to Muslim groups, said Nathan Diament, director of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs. “We don’t have a coherent approach,” Diament said. “And it’s increasingly unworkable.” Richard Foltin, legislative director for the AJCommittee — and chair of the Coalition for Religious Freedom in the Workplace — says that before withdrawing from a coalition, a group must consider if it will harm the larger cause. On the local level, Jewish groups in San Francisco and Detroit — which have large Arab and Muslim populations — have felt some tension lately. Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco, says that Jewish groups used to have more frequent meetings with Arab or Muslim groups, but relations are now at a difficult stage. Despite the tension, the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit continues to work with Arab and Muslim groups on issues of immigration and racial and ethnic profiling. “There have been instances where we’ve felt uncomfortable, but we’ve never left a coalition because another group joined,” said David Gad-Harf, the Detroit council’s executive director. Gad-Harf predicts that Jewish groups will refrain from expanding relationships with Muslim and Arab groups as long as there is instability in Israel, and as long as certain Muslim and Arab groups continue to project an antagonistic tone. Nevertheless, Gad-Harf believes that local Arab groups still want to maintain ties with the Jewish community because of their shared concerns. Never miss breaking news and other must-read features. Like JTA on Facebook » Next: Cabinet votes to build in the Negev > Featured Stories

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The CA Senate Advisory Commission on Cost Control Costs Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars It's Now Illegal to Play Pokemon Go (and Other Things) While Driving Hillel Aron Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 6:14 a.m. By Hillel Aron The State Capitol building in Sacramento Tiocfaidh ár lá 1916 / Flickr We can't decide if this qualifies as irony or just Alanis Morissette irony. In 1984, the California State Senate created the Senate Advisory Commission on Cost Control in State Government to um, control costs, we think?The commission costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, with little to show for itself other than a handful of reports. Al Jazeera America's America Tonight aired a segment last night called "Money for Nothing," about the proliferation of "hundreds of obscure committees, commissions and boards, each packed with staffers and appointees.”To wit: the Bipartisan Internet Political Practices Commission, the Commission on Uniform State Laws and the California Cling Peach Growers Advisory Board. Some are perfectly legitimate government committees. Others are industry groups who meet together under the aegis of state government, because if they did so in private they'd risk violating antitrust laws.Related StoriesWhat Happens When a Random Citizen Becomes a California Legislator?And others are just a waste of taxpayer money. Like the Senate Advisory Commission on Cost Control, which paid its executive director, a longtime Sacramento staffer named Melissa Kludjian, $116,928 a year, The commission also rung up various expenses, according to the Al Jazeera report, like a $70,000 American Express bill to ... do something? Al Jazeera A public records act request by Al Jazeera turned up only two meeting agendas since 2010. One agenda item read: "Make the Legislature aware the Commission exists." Even that simple task appeared beyond the powers of Kludjian and the rest of the commission – no one seems to have any idea what the commission does. (Kludjian recently retired from her post, which has apparently gone unfilled. This reporter would like to hereby throw his hat in the ring.)The commission's website, a study in minimalism, offers few clues. One page lists a number of reports; the commission's most recent work is a hodgepodge. Since 2012, it has commissioned five reports: two on prison procurement, two on veterans programs. Nothing was published from 2005 to 2012.So just how many of these vaguely wasteful committees are there? Douglas Johnson, a fellow at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont College, who's heavily featured in the Al Jazeera report, says there's no way of knowing, but the number of pointless California government committees and commissions could number anywhere from 10 to 80. Upcoming Events The existence of these commissions is, of course, nothing new. In 2004, then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger formed – what else – a commission, to reorganize the state government and make it more efficient. The commission produced a report that, among other things, recommended the elimination of 88 boards and commissions. But the recommendations were largely ignored.Says Johnson: "Every one of these commissions has some advocate." Contact: Hillel Aron @hillelaron

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Moultrie News forum ‘the event’ of the campaign season Mount Pleasant Town Council candidates wait for their turn at the candidate forum hosted by the Moultrie News and the League of Women Voters. Mount Pleasant mayoral candidates (from left), Joe Bustos, George Freeman, Ken Glasson and Linda Page wait for their turn at the candidate forum hosted by the Moultrie News and the League of Women Voters. A Mount Pleasant candidate forum hosted by the Moultrie News and The League of Women Voters included all candidates except Carl Carroll, Jr., a Mount Pleasant mayoral candidate. It turned out to be the event to attend for candidates on the campaign trail.The forum was designed to allow each candidate four minutes to introduce themselves as well as address various questions previously submitted by readers of the Moultrie News. Only two candidates took the opportunity to poke jabs at their opponents in front of more than 200 audience members.Mayor Mayoral candidate George Freeman made mention of the number of attendees, applauding their concern over who the next leaders of Mount Pleasant will be.Linda Page, a sitting council member, took the podium first. She relayed her family’s 54 year history in the town. She asked the audience to support someone who stands for “who we want to be” - not just a voice for “what we are.” Page said that the job of mayor is about leading a community, reaching out to citizens and understanding what the vision of a community is.”She said that reaching across county lines was crucial to decision making.Ken Glasson, also a sitting council member, said if elected as mayor his role would be to continue to grow the economy. “There is no time for on-the-job training,” he said. He explained that he knows the issues, has been studying them and has been a part of them,” which would be beneficial should he take office.George Freeman, said there has been a lot of talk about top issues, “but the top issue is about the individuals you elect to lead us in the next four years.” Freeman hopes to create a downtown business district. “We depend on tourism and construction of new homes for our tax base but we need new revenue streams,” he said. He has always stressed a grid system for traffic and promoted the establishment of businesses other than retail.Joe Bustos, a second time candidate for Mount Pleasant mayor and a former town councilman, said that he will push for open government with fewer executive sessions and have the town attorney justify such sessions. Ecoomic development is also of importance to Bustos, specifically by the airport. But he noted that is crucial to have schools and housing to support that. Bustos added that a second senior center in the upper reaches of Mount Pleasant is also desperately needed. He said he does not believe the town needs a new town hall.Town council All eight town council candidates appeared, and many emphasized the need to keep pressure on the Charleston County School District to build new schools east of the Cooper.Joseph Wren emphasized being a good steward of our natural resources. He served on the Mount Pleasant Land Conservancy for six years.He said if elected he would be a fresh face with new ideas.Mark Smith answered every question submitted by readers and posted those to his website.But at the forum he stressed the importance of maintaining quality life in Mount Pleasant. “Traffic, infrastuctre, access and interconnectivity all need to be carefully monitored in all decision making,” he said.He added that if elected he would donate 100 percent of his council salary.Gary Santos ran for mayor in 2009. He has also previously served on town council for 13 years.He touted his voting record, and accomplishments over the years such as helping to obtain the land for Waterfront Memorial Park, the creation of the no smoking ordinance and his lengthy career as a volunteer athletic coach.He ensured voters he would pay close attention to infrastructure and unbridled growth.The Rev. Anthony Kowbeidu, clergy of St. Andrews Church, explained that as a child born to two illiterate parents, raised in a home with dirt floors, he is a man who fled civil war in Liberia to come to this country of honey and milk and give. He said America has given him so much that he felt it was his calling to give back.The three major functions of government and his commitment if elected would be to represent the people, serve the people and protect the people.After 30 years in the private sector, Timm Gipe wants to return to public service. He served on Mount Pleasant Town Council under Mayor Johnnie Dodds and alongside current Mayor Billy Swails from 1981 to 1983.He applauded the current council members and the mayor, and says his 40 years of real estate and development experience will be beneficial. Gipe’s campaign promise is to run on his civic and community record.Paul Gawrych, a Mount Pleasant native, has served previously on town council for 12 years.Most recently he was mayor pro-tem.He wants to form a committee of citizens and business leaders to push for construction of new schools east of the Cooper. He said CCSD “missed it by mile” when they agreed to build a school on Sullivan’s Island for 500 students when the need was not there.“If the district wants to extend the bond we can help get that approved if the language says a new high school and elementary school will be built in Mount Pleasant,” he said.Elton Carrier is a 40 year resident of Mount Pleasant and a sitting councilman. He is a retired banker and said he would focus his energy on infrastructure repair and maintenance.Ben Bryson said he has never held elected office but has served on many boards and commissions.But his future service to the town, if elected would mirror his current civic service. He said his experience has given him a clear understanding of how great the town is and he would work to make even better, to include improving and addressing infrastructure issues, economic development, and be an advocate for education.Mount Pleasant Waterworks Dolph Rodenberg grew up in Mount Pleasant. He has been an engineer working with Berkeley County, the North Charleston Sewer District and Charleston Public Works. He said that experience gave him much exposure to water and waste water treatment. He is also a former town council members.Rick Crosby, and incumbent for past 15 years, said that water is the most essential element of what we have in this town. “We deliver water to your home and pick it up and disposed of it 24/7.”He said the need to appropriately address aging infrastructure will be a challenge that he is prepared for.Alys Campaign knows all too much about infrastructure, she said.“It is hidden from view and most don’t think about it until it is a problem. But that infrastructure is vital to our health and economy and our quality life,” she said.Campaigne has a Masters Degree in Urban Planning and Public Policy with graduate and professional experience in water quality and management. As co-owner of a consulting firm, Engage Strategies, located in Mount Pleasant, she knows how to balance a budget and manage a growing, successful business.John Burn a sitting town council member also grew up here and serves a chairman of the Water Supply Committee.He said he found great interest in the environment and water resources during his time as an ex-officio member.“I have learned so much about the water and wastewater industry and the effects the services provided by Mount Pleasant Waterworks have on our community today and in the future,” said Burn.The municipal election will be held Nov. 5 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.Voters will choose one mayor, four council members and two waterworks commissioners. Visit www.moultrienews.com for polling places and voter information. Latest Videos

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Statement by the NATO Secretary General on the Libyan election results 18 Jul. 2012 - | Press Release (2012) 095 Issued on 18 Jul. 2012 | Last updated: 18 Jul. 2012 08:38 I congratulate the Libyan people on the announcement of the results of the first election held accross the country in almost half a century. This election marks an impressive step forward in Libya's transition to democracy, after over forty years of dictatorship. I pay tribute to all the candidates and political parties who have contributed to the success of this first free and democratic vote, and to the almost 2 million men and women who exercised their hard-won right to vote. NATO is proud of the role that we played, together with our partners, in protecting the Libyan people under the mandate of the United Nations Security Council. We look forward to working with Libya's new leaders, including the elected National Congress. NATO stands ready to assist, if requested, in building the modern security and defence institutions that the new Libya needs. Topics

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Last updated: 07 Apr. 2016 13:24 NATO and Azerbaijan actively cooperate on democratic, institutional and defence reforms, and have developed practical cooperation in many other areas. Azerbaijan’s Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) lays out the programme of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO. Azerbaijan is seeking to achieve Euro-Atlantic standards and to draw closer to Euro-Atlantic institutions. Consequently, support to security sector reform and democratic institution building are key elements of NATO-Azerbaijan cooperation. Another important area of cooperation is the country’s support for NATO-led operations. Azerbaijan currently contributes troops to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. In the past, it also actively supported the operation in Kosovo. Framework for cooperation Cooperative activities, reform plans and political dialogue processes are detailed in Azerbaijan’s Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), which is jointly agreed for a two-year period. Key areas of cooperation include good governance and democratic control of the defence and security sector, defence planning and budgeting and the reorganization of the armed forces structure using NATO standards. Beyond supporting reform, another key objective of NATO’s cooperation with Azerbaijan is to develop the ability of the country’s forces to work together with forces from NATO countries. Azerbaijan also cooperates with NATO and Partner countries in a wide range of other areas through the Partnership for Peace (PfP), the Planning and Review Process (PARP) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). Key areas of cooperation Security cooperation Thanks to regular participation in PfP activities, Azerbaijan has been able to contribute actively to Euro-Atlantic security by supporting NATO-led peace-support operations. From 1999 to 2008, troops from Azerbaijan were part of the NATO-led operation in Kosovo (KFOR). Azerbaijan actively supports the ISAF operation in Afghanistan since 2002, where it has gradually increased its forces to about 95 personnel. An infantry company, deminers, medical assistant and staff officers from Azerbaijan are serving alongside NATO forces, as part of a Turkish contingent, in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan also contributes to the NATO-ANA (Afghan National Army) Trust Fund. Azerbaijan has declared a number of units available for PfP activities, on a case by case basis. These include infantry units, combat support and combat service support units and two medium transport helicopters. The Internal Troops, in cooperation with NATO, are also developing a police support unit to be made available for NATO-led operations. Azerbaijan contributes to the fight against terrorism through its participation in the Partnership Action Plan on Terrorism (PAP-T). This includes sharing intelligence and analysis with NATO, and cooperating with the Allies on enhancing national counter-terrorist training capabilities and improving border and infrastructure security. Information exchange through NATO’s terrorist threat intelligence unit is being developed. Azerbaijan is also working to establish an international Anti-Terrorism Training Centre at the Academy of the Ministry of National Security. Azerbaijan aims to improve maritime security and its capabilities to reduce illegal activities in the Caspian Sea in cooperation with some NATO member countries and some regional Partner countries. NATO nations also support efforts to improve border security. NATO has no direct role in negotiations aimed at resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which are being conducted in the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group. However, NATO takes an interest in this process and encourages all sides to continue their efforts aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Peaceful resolution of conflicts is a core value of NATO, and is one of the core commitments that all Partner countries commit to when joining the Partnership for Peace (PfP). Defence and security sector cooperation Defence and security sector reforms are crucial to the development of Azerbaijan and its goal of achieving Euro-Atlantic standards as well as its increasing Euro-Atlantic cooperation. This is an area in which NATO and individual Allies have considerable expertise which Azerbaijan can draw upon. A key priority is working to strengthen democratic and civilian control over the armed forces. NATO is also supportive of the wider democratic and institutional reform process underway in Azerbaijan. With NATO advice, Azerbaijan has developed strategic documents on defence and security, which will support and provide guidance during the conduct of the Strategic Defence Review. Consultations are also underway on the necessary steps for improving other areas of defence planning and budgeting. NATO and individual Allies continue to assist Azerbaijan in developing selected units so they are interoperable with those of the Allies. Azerbaijan’s participation in the PfP Planning and Review Process (PARP), since 1997, has been instrumental in the development of the Peacekeeping Battalion and a detachment of two helicopters is now supporting the development of the Mobile Battalion , which would potentially be available for the full spectrum of NATO operations. Consultations are ongoing on Azerbaijan’s military education structures and methods, since the Ministry of Defence is interested in adapting these to meet NATO standards. Within and alongside the PARP process, NATO and Azerbaijan are cooperating on reorganizing units in accordance with NATO standards and on improving the command and control capabilities of each of the armed services and improving logistics. NATO and Azerbaijan continue to cooperate on the demilitarisation of unexploded ordnance. In 1991, a major explosion at a former Soviet munitions facility in the Agstafa region spread unexploded ordnance over a large area. With technical and financial support from NATO, more than 5.68 million square meters of the contaminated area was cleared, on both the surface and in the subsurface. In addition to this, some 640 000 pieces of unexploded ordnance were cleared. The five-and-a-half-year Trust Fund project was completed in June 2011. A further project of this kind was launched in 2012 to clear unexploded ordnance from a former Soviet live firing range in the Jeyranchel region. The project will focus on clearing a 19 square kilometre section of the area over a 28-month period. Much like the previous Trust Fund project, NAMSA is directing the project, with Azerbaijani National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) working on the ground as the executing agency. Civil emergency planning In cooperation with NATO and through participation in activities organised by NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC), Azerbaijan is developing its national civil emergency and disaster-management capabilities. Azerbaijan’s special search-and-rescue platoon has participated in several exercises organised by the EADRCC. In addition, Civil Emergency Planning experts from NATO and NATO nations are providing advice to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Emergency Situations on a number of issues, including organisational issues, and CBRN defence. Azerbaijan is developing two units (search and rescue and CBRN) to be on high readiness and ready to be deployed on disaster relief operations. Science and environment Under the Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme, Azerbaijan has received grant awards for about 30 cooperative projects and has had leading roles in 87 activities, with even more joining various cooperative activities as participants and key speakers. Projects include collaboration on improving trans-boundary water quality, protecting drinking water supply from terrorism, identifying the earthquake vulnerability of segments of two important pipelines running through Azerbaijan, and mitigating the effects of earthquakes in the Caucasus region by improving seismic hazard and risk. In addition, Azeri and international experts participated in an SPS training course entitled “Crisis Management National Capacity Building: an Essential Element in the Fight against Terrorism” in June 2009 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan also participated in the Virtual Silk Highway project, which aims to increase internet access for academic and research communities in countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia through a satellite-based network. NATO has also supported the conversion of stocks of mélange – a highly toxic and corrosive rocket fuel oxidizer, formerly used by Warsaw Pact Countries – into a harmless chemical. In response to a request from Azerbaijan for assistance, NATO sent a transportable conversion plant, which was officially inaugurated in July 2006. This project was successfully concluded in 2008. Another key area of cooperation is to improve access to information and increasing public awareness of NATO and the benefits of NATO-Azerbaijan cooperation. Since 2003, NATO has been co-sponsoring a summer school in Baku. Programmes developed year on year, leading to the establishment of the NATO International School in Azerbaijan (NISA) in 2005. Seminar topics have included transatlantic energy security, regional security and financial security issues. NISA continues to be an active and productive forum on international security issues for students from Azerbaijan and beyond, organizing NATO-related conferences and workshops twice a year. The Diplomatic Academy of Azerbaijan (ADA) is also very active in promoting cooperation with NATO. Visits to NATO Headquarters of opinion formers from Azerbaijan take place on an annual basis. In every partner country an embassy of one of the NATO member states serves as a contact point and operates as a channel for disseminating information about the role and policies of the Alliance. The current NATO Contact Point Embassy in Azerbaijan is the embassy of Romania. Evolution in milestones 1992 Azerbaijan joins the newly created North Atlantic Cooperation Council, renamed the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997. Azerbaijan joins the Partnership for Peace (PfP), a programme aimed at increasing security and defence cooperation between NATO and individual Partner countries. 1997 Azerbaijan joins the PfP Planning and Review Process. Azerbaijan sends a unit to support the NATO-led peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. Azerbaijan hosts a multinational PfP military training exercise “Cooperative Determination 2001”. Azerbaijan sends a unit to support the NATO-led force in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan is connected to the Virtual Silk Highway. At the Istanbul Summit, Allied leaders place special focus on the Caucasus – a special NATO representative and a liaison officer are assigned to the region. President Aliyev presents Azerbaijan’s first Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) paper to NATO in Brussels. Azerbaijan begins its first IPAP with NATO. The Euro-Atlantic Centre (NATO information centre) is officially opened in Baku. A NATO PfP Trust Fund project is launched to clear unexploded ordnances from a former military base at Saloglu, Agstafa district. President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, visits NATO Headquarters. The Mélange Project is successfully concluded. Azerbaijan and NATO agree the second IPAP document. Azerbaijan withdraws troops from KFOR. The Azerbaijani military contingent in Afghanistan is increased to about 45 personnel. President Aliyev visits NATO HQ and meets with the North Atlantic Council The Azerbaijani military contingent in Afghanistan is doubled to about 90 personnel. Preparation of third Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) with NATO The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Mr. Elmar Mammadyarov, visits NATO Headquarters. The five-and-a-half-year SPS project to clear unexploded ordinance is completed in June. NATO and Azerbaijan agree their third Individual Partnership Action Plan. 2012 The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, visits NATO Headquarters. The President of Azerbaijan attends a meeting at NATO’s Summit in Chicago in May, joining counterparts from countries that are supporting the NATO-led stabilization mission in Afghanistan. In September, NATO Secretary General visits Azerbaijan. Video NATO Secretary General with President of Azerbaijan - Joint Press Point, 15 January 2014 15 Jan. 2014 Press point by the NATO Secretary General in Azerbaijan NATO Secretary General and the President of Azerbaijan: Joint Press Point A strong security cooperation with Azerbaijan Supporting civilian oversight of the Afghan National Army and Police 06 Apr. 2016 Azerbaijanis train in cyber defence25 Sep. 2014 NATO mine clearance project advances in Azerbaijan08 Jul. 2014 Active cooperation with Azerbaijan10 Apr. 2014 NATO Secretary General says Alliance open to further cooperation with Azerbaijan15 Jan. 2014 NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) Office of the NATO Liaison Officer (NLO) in Central Asia Official Texts Riga Summit Declaration - Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Riga on 29 November 200629 Nov. 2006 Istanbul Summit Communiqué issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic...28 Jun. 2004 Address of the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to the Euro-Atlantic Center Links Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan to NATO SPS Country Flyers - Science for Peace and Security (SPS)

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McCain, Born in Canal Zone, Dismisses Citizenship Flap He says he's a natural-born citizen, which qualifies him Feb 29, 2008 9:12 AM CST John McCain says the 'natural-born citizen' question was settled when Barry Goldwater ran for the White House in 1964. Goldwater had been born in Arizona when it was still a territory. (Archive Photos) A recent media flap about John McCain's citizenship is a non-issue, the candidate says. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father served there in the Navy, which makes him a natural-born citizen and qualifies him to run for president, the AP reports. His camp recently sought a legal analysis on the matter, and a New York Times article got pundits speculating. McCain says the matter was settled in 1964. "Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory, Arizona was a territory, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court," he said. Dems won't be making an issue of it. Barack Obama said yesterday he will co-sponsor a bill to clearly define anyone born abroad to US citizens serving in the forces as a natural-born citizen. Turkey Pulls Out of N. Iraq Silverbow7 Well that hen came home to roost.

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Cape May County freeholder candidate is second to be told to stop campaigning in supermarket parking lot on November 02, 2010 at 12:13 PM Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-LedgerCongressman Frank LoBiondo was told no to speak with voters in the parking lot of a Cape May County supermarket last month. A Cape May County freeholder candidate was also asked to stop greeting voters in an Acme parking lot Monday. LOWER TOWNSHIP — The parking lot at a supermarket in Cape May County is a no spin zone. Management told Democratic Cape May County freeholder candidate Robert Jackson to stop greeting voters in the Acme parking lot in Lower Township on Monday. Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo got the same treatment last month. Store manager Brett Katsiff told The Press of Atlantic City the store does not allow candidates of any party to campaign on its property. "We can't be partisan," he said. "It's all politicians (who are banned), because we can't be seen as being for or against any particular candidate." That policy does not sit well with Jackson, who also recently caught flak for approaching voters in the parking lot of a Wawa convenience store. "I can't stand in a black asphalt parking lot without permission from the Acme?" he asked. "A parking lot should be a common place. The general public is losing its ability to have discourse in a public place. It's about open access to the public where they meet. It's shocking to me that this is the way things are going." Katsiff said the supermarket recently bought the parking lot from the shopping center of which it is part. He said the store gives permission to community and scholastic organizations to use space in front of the store to raise funds. Last month, the store let various groups use the space to promote breast cancer awareness. Complete election coverage Full coverage of New Jersey's congressional elections can be found here. Choose a district below to jump to highlights of the coverage in the 13 congressional districts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

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State refocusing on gay marriage debate Posted: May. 4, 2013 11:05 pm Updated: May. 9, 2013 12:40 am By ROB JENNINGSrjennings@njherald.com With Rhode Island on Thursday becoming the 10th state to approve gay marriage, attention is refocusing on the debate in New Jersey, overshadowed in recent weeks by gun control. It seems inevitable that gay marriage will be legalized in New Jersey. The real question is when, and how, it will happen. Democrats hold a majority in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly, but as of yet do not have enough votes to override Republican Gov. Chris Christie's conditional veto in February 2012 of the gay marriage bill. They have until Jan. 14, 2014, the last day of the legislative session. Though Christie proposed a statewide referendum to decide the issue, it is unclear whether gay marriage supporters — many view it as a civil rights issue that should not be subject to popular whims — will pursue that option. The deadline for submission of proposed amendments to the State Constitution is Aug. 4. If gay marriage is on the ballot, expect it to pass. A Rutgers/Eagleton Institute of Politics poll, on April 16, found 62 percent would vote yes. Looming in the background is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, expected this summer, on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. If the 1996 law restricting federal marriage benefits to heterosexual couples is struck down, only gay couples in the 10 states where gay marriage is legal would be entitled to the benefits. That discrepancy would undermine the premise of a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling which led lawmakers to approve the civil unions law in 2006. Opponents of gay marriage cite civil unions as an acceptable alternative, arguing that it entitles gay couples to the same rights as heterosexuals, in keeping with the state court's ruling, but without redefining marriage. That argument would collapse if the federal law is overturned, as many legal observers expect, because a couple in a civil union would not be eligible for benefits that a married gay couple would obtain. Striking down the federal law could be a game-changer in New Jersey. It could offer political cover for enough legislators to reverse their position and override Christie's veto. It might even give Christie an out. He could defer to the will of the Democratic-controlled Legislature and sign gay marriage into law while reiterating his opposition, though that would be a tricky dance for someone who almost certainly will be running in the staunchly conservative Republican presidential primaries starting in less than three years. All of this means that candidates for office in New Jersey, at every level, will find themselves being asked for their views on gay marriage, just as with gun control. So just how might the debate play out here? Different than statewide, it seems fair to say. Republican-dominated northwestern New Jersey, especially Sussex and Warren counties, is much more conservative than New Jersey as a whole, which leans Democrat. Warren Republican Chairman Douglas Steinhardt described Sussex and Warren as "probably two of the most conservative counties in the state." "It's a product of the makeup of these counties," Steinhardt said, citing their mostly rural character. "There are second-, third- and fourth-generation families that have grown up here, that haven't had the same type of outside influx of people, the cycle of diversity that you get in the more urban areas. Oftentimes, because of that, views have been slow to change," Steinhardt said in speaking generally about the region's politics, not specifically gay marriage. Christie's proposal for a statewide referendum mirrored a resolution, introduced one month earlier, by the three Republican 24th District legislators. State Sen. Steve Oroho, Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose and former Assemblyman Gary Chiusano, now Sussex County surrogate, all voted against gay marriage. However, even in their district, which includes all of Sussex and parts of Warren and Morris counties, there are indications of growing acceptance for gay marriage. Of 529 Sussex County residents questioned in November 2011 for "The Pulse of Sussex County," administered by Sussex County Community College in partnership with the New Jersey Herald, more than 58 percent said they supported it. That finding, then as now, was viewed by some as inflated. Bill Weightman, a Democrat from Hardyston running for Assembly, said Wednesday that he supports gay marriage. "It's the right thing to do," Weightman said, adding, "I'll probably lose over this issue." In reality, being a Democrat in Sussex County is far more damaging to Weightman's electoral prospects than any policy viewpoint he might take. For a truer test of the political consequences, it would be interesting to see what might happen if a prominent Republican on the ballot endorsed gay marriage. Longtime political observers, including Sussex Republican Chairwoman Ailish Hambel, could not name any Republican officeholders in the region who support gay marriage, which is telling. For a Republican in northwestern New Jersey to come out in favor of gay marriage, at least in terms of local politics, would be a dramatic development. Not quite on a par with Jason Collins, who on Monday became the first active athlete in a major U.S. team sport to announce he is gay, but historic in its own way.

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GOP Must Regroup, Redefine Itself After Election November 7, 20123:00 PM ET Mara Liasson Melissa Block talks to Mara Liasson for an overview of what Tuesday's election means. MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: Karen just mentioned a coalition of races and ethnicities that re-elected President Obama. And there's a lot to say, one day after the election, about race and the changing demographics that helped the president win. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson is here to talk more about that. Hey, Mara. MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hello. Nice to be here. BLOCK: Mara, we see in the exit polls that President Obama lost white voters by 20 points. The spread was 39-59. How are Democrats and Republicans interpreting that demographic breakdown in the vote? LIASSON: Well, demographics is kind of the number one topic today as the parties, particularly the Republicans, shifts through the rubble of Tuesday night and figure out what are the lessons learned for them. Mitt Romney did about as well with white voters as any previous Republican seeking the White House. He got close to 60 percent. He kind of maxed out among white people. The problem is that in - among the Hispanic vote, for instance, he only got 27 percent, less than 30 percent. So the white vote is shrinking. It went from 74 percent of the electorate in 2008 to 72 percent this year. But the Hispanic vote grew from nine percent in 2008 to 10 percent this year. Black votes stayed the same. So he's getting a bigger and bigger market share in a shrinking market. And that's not sustainable over the long term, and Republicans obviously want to do something about that. BLOCK: Do something about that. And what exactly is on the table for what they should do about it? LIASSON: Well, there's a lot of talk about whether this was a problem unique to Mitt Romney, is it a problem that's structural with the party, do they have to merely change their tone when they talk about Hispanics, or do they actually have to embrace a different kinds of immigration policies? I think once Mitt Romney made the decision - and he did make a choice in the primaries to go hard right on immigration, talk about self deportation, which is something that he just could not erase in the minds of Hispanic voters, he made a choice that was hard to change in a general election. Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, not all Republican candidates decided to go in that direction. So some people think the Republicans need to make a deal on immigration legislation that will be coming up next year, whether it's the DREAM Act or something more comprehensive. Other people think it's just the candidate. Once you have Marco Rubio, for instance, running for president, he'll be able to paint a different face - put a different face on the Republican Party for Hispanic voters. BLOCK: You mentioned Marco Rubio from Florida. Are other rising stars within the Republican Party who might be leading this effort to make the party more inclusive bring in more Latino votes, for example? LIASSON: Well, there are a lot of candidates for that. Marco Rubio is clearly the most prominent Hispanic elected official, and he will be a leader on immigration and all Hispanic issues for the Republicans. But Brian Sandoval, Susanna Martinez - two Southwestern governors - they're also considered to be rising stars. BLOCK: Nevada and New Mexico. LIASSON: Nevada and New Mexico. Also, you've got people who's - like Jeb Bush. He's not a Hispanic, but he's been a very prominent voice for an inclusive approach to immigration and Latinos in the Republican Party. BLOCK: And on the Democrat side, what are they going to be doing to try to hold their advantage, both among Latinos and the other coalitions that kept President Obama in office? LIASSON: Well, one of the most remarkable things about what happened last night was that the Democrats kept their coalition. And it is a majority coalition. They kept them even against all the headwinds. In other words, this was a bad economy, the euphoria and the novelty of 2008, the Obama campaign was gone, they still got their voters to the polls. They think they're just going to keep on doing the same thing. They're going to try to deliver on immigration reform. This is something that the president promised but failed to deliver on in his first term. They also have the advantage of a lot of Hispanic voters are young. And these are voters who are going to the polls for the first time, the second time. They're getting their voting habits ingrained and, not unlike the Democrats in previous generations, created a coalition of immigrant groups. That's what the Democrats hope that they can do now. BLOCK: And replicate the next time. LIASSON: Yes. And they replicated it twice now. There's no reason to think that they can't continue to do that. BLOCK: OK. NPR's Mara Liasson. Mara, thanks so much. LIASSON: Thank you.

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page: www.nytimes.com/archive/article/news, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/archive/article, position: Bar1 The Disruption of the Democratic Party. The Charleston Convention has abandoned the attempt to nominate a Democratic candidate for the Presidency. The failure is due partly to the disorganized condition of the party, and partly to the blind blundering of the Convention itself. The contest between the two sections of the Union has at last penetrated the Democratic Party, and rendered it impossible for the two wings to agree upon a declaration of principles. When the majority adopted its platform the minority seceded. Thereupon the delegates who remained, and who constituted the rightful Convention, resolved that a vote of two-thirds, not of the actual body, but of the whole original number, should be essential to a nomination. In other words, the seceders were still to be counted, and to have all their original weight as members of the Convention! Upon what ground of reason or of common sense, the majority, and especially the delegates from this State, thus put themselves, bound hand and foot, into the power of the seceding minority, it is not easy to conjecture. The result was to give the South the victory. They have controlled the Convention, and prevented the nomination of any candidate. Whether, on reassembling at Baltimore, they will harmonize their differences, remains to be seen. The disruption itself is a fact of very marked importance, not only in the history of political parties but of the country itself. It seems to sever the last link of nationality in the political affairs of the Union. When all other organizations have been gradually giving way, one after another, to the pressure of sectionalism, timid and conservative men have fallen back upon the national position of the Democratic Party, and felt that so long as this was maintained the Union would be secure. The first effect of this Charleston split will be to alarm this class by the dread of immediate dissolution. Some of the Republican journals refer to this incident as only another proof of the "irrepressible conflict" between Freedom and Slavery, -- and as showing that the contest must go on until one or the other is extirpated. If we believed this to be the true view of the question, we too should despair of the Union. But we do not. We do not believe that the conflict is between Slavery and Freedom, or that the existence of either will be affected by the result. We regard the struggle as one for political power, -- and Slavery as playing merely a secondary and subordinate part on either side. Unquestionably, thousands of Northern men seek the overthrow of Slavery, and thousands of Southern men seek its permanence and extension, as the aim of their political contests. But both would be disappointed. Neither class would reap the advantage which it anticipates from victory. The Slave States have substantially controlled the policy of the Federal Government for the last fifty years. Upon all questions -- tariff, currency, foreign relations -- their views and sentiments have guided the action of the nation. For a long time they held this power by the legitimate tenure of numbers, weight and influence. Then came a period when they held it by alliances with Northern politicians. And for the last few years they have held it by coercion, -- by menaces, by appeals to the fears of the timid, the hopes of the ambitious, and the avarice of the corrupt, in the Northern States. The time has come when they must relinquish their grasp. Power is passing into the hands of the majority -- into the hands which hold the numbers, the wealth, the energy, the enterprise of the Confederacy. There is no help for it. It is among the inevitable events of political history. It can no more be arrested than the revolution of the earth around the sun, or the rising and falling of the tides of the sea. Naturally, however, it excites a commotion. All great changes, -- especially all restorations of disturbed balances of power, -- are attended with more or less of turmoil and alarm. Righting a ship, which has long been so careened as to make it impossible to walk across her deck, throws everything into confusion, and the unaccustomed passenger who has valuables on board, is quite certain she is capsizing. He sees his mistake only when she stands upright, and with full sail makes direct for her destined port. The South believes sincerely, we doubt not, that the North seeks power in order to crush Slavery. In our opinion it denounces Slavery mainly that it may acquire power. In many respects the policy of the Federal Government in Northern hands would be different from what it has been hitherto. Men would no longer be excluded from office for doubting the wisdom or the justice of the system Slavery. Federal power would not be used to force it upon unwilling communities. We should no longer be represented abroad by active apostles of Slavery, nor would that be held up to the world as the cherished glory of American institutions. But there would be no interference with Slavery in any Southern State, -- no refusal to execute the constitutional provision for the rendition of fugitives, -- no attempt to coerce the population of new Territories. A Northern President, -- Northern in sentiment as well as geographical position, -- would have a degree of influence over his own section, which would disarm the hostility which a Southern sectionalist would be sure to encounter. One thing is very certain: -- the South must make up its mind to lose the sway it has exercised so long. The sceptre is passing from its hands. Its own imprudencies have hastened the departure of its power, but it has always been merely a question of time. The South can either accept it as inevitable and make the best of it, -- or plunge the whole country into turmoil, and bring down swift ruin upon its own borders, in the vain contest against national growth and development. Inside NYTimes.com Health » Too Hot to Handle

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Robert C. Byrd | Robert C. Byrd News about Robert C. Byrd, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More Updated: July 19, 2010Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, was a Senator for 51 years and a member of the House for 6, making him the longest-serving member of the Senate and Congress in U.S. history. He died on June 28, 2010, at the age of 92.During his three terms in the House and nine terms in the Senate, Mr. Byrd became known as a master of parliamentary procedures and a fierce defender of Congress against the expanding power of the executive branch. He held a number of Senate offices, including majority and minority leader and president pro tem.But the post that gave him the most satisfaction was chairman of the Appropriations Committee, with its power of the purse — a post he gave up only in 2009 as his health declined. A New Deal Democrat, Mr. Byrd used the position in large part to battle persistent poverty in West Virginia, which he called "one of the rock bottomest of states."That attention brought the state billions of dollars for highways, federal offices, research institutes and dams. It also won him a reputation as "the prince of pork."Mr. Byrd's death came as Senate Democrats were working to pass the final version of the financial overhaul bill and win other procedural battles in the week before the Independence Day recess. In the polarized atmosphere of Washington, President Obama's agenda seemed to hinge on Mr. Byrd's health, just as in the final days of the health care debate, the ailing senator was pushed onto the Senate floor in his plaid wheelchair so he could cast his votes.Governor Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, appointed Carte P. Goodwin as interim successor to Mr. Byrd. Mr. Byrd was the valedictorian of his high school class but was unable to afford college. It was not until he was in his 30s and 40s that he took college courses. But he was profoundly self-educated and well read. His Senate speeches sparkled with citations from Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible and the histories of England, Greece and Rome.As a champion of the legislative branch, he found cautionary tales in those histories. In 1993, as Congress weighed a line-item veto, which would have given President Bill Clinton the power to strike individual spending measures from bills passed by Congress, Mr. Byrd delivered 14 speeches on the history of Rome and the role of its Senate."Gaius Julius Caesar did not seize power in Rome," he said. Rather, he said, "the Roman Senate thrust power on Caesar deliberately, with forethought, with surrender, with intent to escape from responsibility."A decade later, Mr. Byrd saw a similar lack of Congressional spine. In deferring to President George W. Bush on the Iraq war, Congress had shown a willingness to "hand over, for the foreseeable future, its constitutional power to declare war," he wrote in "Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency" (Norton, 2004).In 2007, at the unveiling of a portrait of Mr. Byrd in the Old Senate Chamber, former Senator Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, a colleague of 30 years, recalled that Mr. Byrd had taught him how to answer when a constituent asked, "How many presidents have you served under?""None," was Mr. Byrd's reply, Mr. Sarbanes said. "I have served with presidents, not under them."Mr. Byrd's perspective on the world changed over the years. He filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and supported the Vietnam War only to come to back civil rights measures and criticize the Iraq war. Rating his voting record in 1964, Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal lobbying group, found that his views and the organization's were aligned only 16 percent of the time. In 2005, he got an A.D.A. rating of 95.Mr. Byrd's political life could be traced to his early involvement with the Ku Klux Klan, an association that almost thwarted his career and clouded it intermittently for years afterward.His opponents used his Klan membership against him during his first run for the House of Representatives in 1952; Democratic leaders urged him to drop out of the race. But he stayed in and won, then spent decades apologizing for what he called a "sad mistake."He went on to vote for civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960, but when the more sweeping Civil Rights Act was before Congress in 1964, he filibustered for an entire night against it, saying the measure was an infringement on states' rights. He backed civil rights legislation consistently only after becoming a party leader in the Senate.In the Senate, he was the Democratic leader from 1977 to 1989, though at the same time something of a loner. He was not particularly well liked, and some senators feared him as a threat to their own spending projects. But he was deeply respected as a voice of the institution.He was never a particularly partisan Democrat. President Richard M. Nixon briefly considered him for a Supreme Court appointment. Mr. Dole recalled an occasion when Mr. Byrd gave him advice on a difficult parliamentary question; the help enabled Mr. Dole to overcome Mr. Byrd on a particular bill.Mr. Byrd returned to the post of majority leader in 1987, but after the 1988 elections, Senate Democrats wanted to replace him with someone they thought would make a better spokesman on television. They chose Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine.Mr. Byrd was given his dream job, as the Appropriations Committee chairman. In June 1990, he traveled to Clarksburg, W. Va., to announce a $4 million grant to study whether to move the F.B.I.'s identification division there. But he had bigger plans as well."I hope to become West Virginia's billion-dollar industry," Mr. Byrd told reporters."By the time this six-year term of mine is up" in 1995, he went on, "I will have added at least a billion dollars. That's my goal for West Virginia."In 1991, he had already reached that goal, four years early, according to a tally by The Associated Press.Mr. Byrd wrote four books. He compiled speeches about the Senate into a four-volume history of the institution, published from 1989 to 1994. His speeches about the Roman Senate, intended to steel his colleagues against demands for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution and a line-item veto for the president, were published in 1995.Mr. Byrd always carried a copy of the Constitution. He said his second-proudest accomplishment was legislation requiring every educational institution receiving federal aid to observe the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution on Sept. 17 by teaching students about it.He had an abiding concern for the traditions and dignity of the Senate. When the Senate was struggling to agree on rules for the impeachment trial of Mr. Clinton in 1999, Mr. Byrd warned that the Senate itself was also on trial."The White House has sullied itself," he said, "and the House has fallen into a black pit of partisanship and self-indulgence. The Senate is teetering on the brink of that same black pit."When, in 2005, Republicans considered banning the filibuster on judicial nominations, he warned that such an action would change the "nature of the Senate by destroying the right of free speech it has enjoyed since its creation."In "Losing America," he wrote that the Senate without the filibuster "will no longer be a body of equals." Latest From ‘a Child of the House’ to Longest-Serving Member Representative John D. Dingell Jr., Democrat of Michigan, is about to set a new standard with 57 years, 5 months and 26 days of House service. By ASHLEY PARKER Byrd Got F.B.I. Documents on Civil Rights Movement C.I.A. employees leaked the papers to the late Senator Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, who suspected that Communists and subversives were influencing the cause. Run for a Seat Thought Safe Turns Into a Battle Joe Manchin, a Democrat, was widely considered to be a shoo-in when he decided to compete to fill Robert C. Byrd’s term, but he is in a close fight. Senate Fields Are Set in West Virginia and Louisiana In the race to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Robert C. Byrd, Gov. Joe Manchin III won the Democratic nomination over the weekend, and John Raese won a crowded Republican primary. Reader Response: Why Are the Bush Tax Cuts Expiring in the First Place? A reader named Kentuck writes in with a great question: National Briefing | Mid-Atlantic West Virginia: Capito Declines to Run Representative Shelley Moore Capito, viewed as the Republicans’ best hope in a special Senate election to fill the seat Robert C. Byrd held until his death, announced Wednesday that she would not run. West Virginia Governor to Seek Byrd’s Senate Seat The decision by Joe Manchin III, who easily won a second term as governor in 2008, most likely increases the Democrats’ chances to hold Robert C. Byrd’s Senate seat. West Virginia: Special Election Approved to Fill Byrd’s Seat A last-minute legislative compromise has cleared the way for an Aug. 28 primary and a Nov. 2 general election to fill the late Robert C. Byrd’s. Senate seat. West Virginia Governor Picks Ex-General Counsel to Succeed Byrd Carte P. Goodwin, 36, a Democrat, will be the Senate’s youngest member, replacing its longest-serving one. West Virginia: Legislature to Consider Special Election The Legislature will decide whether the state should hold a special election this year to choose a successor to Senator Robert C. Byrd. Election to Replace Byrd Gets Official’s Approval Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia has gotten approval to call a special election this year to fill the vacancy created by the death of Senator Robert C. Byrd. New Snag for Senate Financial Regulations Bill West Virginia's Governor, Joe Manchin, on Wednesday put off naming a successor to the late Senator Robert Byrd, which could further complicate passage of financial reform legislation in the Senate, Reuters reported. West Virginia: Special Election Sought to Fill Byrd’s Seat in the Senate Gov. Joe Manchin called Wednesday for a special election to fill the seat of the late Democratic senator Robert C. Byrd and said he would consider running for it. Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 In the matter of race, we still take steps back and forward in bewildering alternation. Byrd and the Bard American politics loses more than just its greatest quoter of Shakespeare. For Power, Prestige and Office Space Senator Robert C. Byrd accumulated much during his half-century of service: power, reputation, records for longevity — and real estate. Hundreds Gather in West Virginia to Honor Senator Byrd Hundreds of West Virginians, two presidents and dozens of family members and friends paid tribute to the memory of Senator Robert C. Byrd. A Democratic Stronghold Loses a Big Pillar Some wonder if West Virginia’s politics may shift with the death of Senator Robert C. Byrd. Senator Byrd’s Legacy Readers respond to an article about the career of Senator Robert C. Byrd. June 29, 2010 Bank Tax Is Dropped From Financial Overhaul Bill 7:38 p.m. | Updated Congressional negotiators on Tuesday evening briefly reopened the conference proceedings on a sweeping financial regulatory bill after Senate Republicans threatened to defeat the final measure unless Democrats removed a proposed tax on big banks and hedge funds, The New York Times's David M. Herszenhorn reports from Washington. Recent Videos TimesCast | June 28, 2010

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Pakistani Public Opinion Pakistanis see their country in crisis. They give their national government lower ratings than at any time in this decade, and almost no one is satisfied with national conditions. Crime and terrorism are seen as major problems by virtually everyone. And huge percentages of Pakistanis also see their country struggling mightily with corruption and a deteriorating economy. A long-standing concern about Islamic extremism has grown even greater over the past year. No fewer than 69% of the Pakistanis questioned worry that extremists could take control of the country. At the same time, indifference and mixed opinions about both al Qaeda and the Taliban have given way to a strong condemnation of both groups. In 2008, just 33% held a negative view of the Taliban; today, 70% rate it unfavorably. Similarly, the percentage of Pakistanis with an unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda has jumped from 34% to 61% in the last year. However, growing concern about Islamic extremism has not resulted in an improved view of the United States. Opinions of America and its people remain extremely negative. Barack Obama’s global popularity is not evident in Pakistan, and America’s image remains as tarnished in that country as it was in the Bush years. Only 22% of Pakistanis think the U.S. takes their interests into account when making foreign policy decisions, essentially unchanged from 21% since 2007. Fully 64% of the public regards the U.S. as an enemy, while only 9% describe it as a partner. Further, many express serious concerns about the U.S.-led effort to combat terrorism, both globally and in Pakistan specifically. In particular, many who are aware of the drone strikes targeting extremist leaders believe these strikes are causing too many civilian deaths and are being carried out by the U.S. without the consent of the Pakistani government. However, for all the anti-American sentiment, the new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project also finds an openness to improving relations with the U.S. and considerable support for the idea of working with it to combat terrorism. By a margin of 53% to 29% Pakistanis say it is important that relations between the two countries improve. Moreover, many endorse U.S. assistance for the Pakistani government in its fight with extremist groups.Nearly three-fourths of those interviewed (72%) would support U.S. financial and humanitarian aid to areas where extremist groups operate. As many as 63% back the idea of the U.S. providing intelligence and logistical support to Pakistani troops who are combating these groups. And after being asked about these forms of cooperation between Pakistan and the U.S., nearly half (47%) then say they would favor U.S. missile strikes against extremist leaders. It is not surprising that American cooperation with the Pakistani military is popular, given the confidence that Pakistanis have in it. As many as 86% say the military is having a good influence on the country, which is far greater than the number who feel that way about the police (39%), courts (58%), and even religious leaders (64%). Just 36% say the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is having a good impact, although many respondents (41%) do not offer an opinion. These are the latest findings from the 2009 Pew Global Attitudes survey of Pakistan. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,254 adults in Pakistan between May 22 and June 9, 2009. The sample, which is disproportionately urban, includes Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). However, portions of Baluchistan and the NWFP are not included because of instability. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were not surveyed. The area covered by the sample represents approximately 90% of the adult population.1 (Pakistan was surveyed as part of the Spring 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which included 24 nations and the Palestinian territories. For more findings from this survey, see Confidence in Obama lifts U.S. Image around the World; Most Muslim Publics Not So Easily Moved, released July 23, 2009). Concerns About India Long-running concerns about India are also reflected in the poll. The dispute between Pakistan and India over Kashmir is cited as a major problem facing the country by no fewer than 88%. And growing worries about extremism notwithstanding, more Pakistanis judge India as a very serious threat to the nation (69%) than regard the Taliban (57%) or al Qaeda (41%) as very serious threats. Most Pakistanis see the U.S. as on the wrong side of this issue: by a margin of 54% to 4% the U.S. is seen as favoring India over Pakistan. While fears about India persist, Pakistanis express overwhelmingly positive opinions about another Asian giant — 84% have a favorable view of China and 80% consider China a partner to their country. Support for Severe Laws One of the ironies in the survey is the extent to which Pakistanis embrace some of the severe laws associated with the Taliban and al Qaeda, even as they reject Islamic extremism and these extremist groups. The new poll finds broad support for harsh punishments: 78% favor death for those who leave Islam; 80% favor whippings and cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery; and 83% favor stoning adulterers. Pakistani public opinion departs significantly from the Taliban on the issues of girls’ education and extremist violence. As many as 87% of Pakistanis believe it is equally important for boys and girls to be educated. The poll also finds that support for suicide bombing that targets civilians in defense of Islam remains very low. Only 5% of Pakistani Muslims believe these kinds of attacks can often or sometimes be justified; as recently as 2004 roughly four-in-ten (41%) held this view. Fully 87% now say such attacks can never be justified — the highest percentage among the Muslim publics included in the 2009 survey. Breaking Down Views Toward the Taliban and Al Qaeda Analysis of the survey data finds a number of important patterns regarding views of the Taliban and al Qaeda. First, both groups are unpopular across the board. Among all the major subgroups within Pakistani society analyzed in the study, negative views of the Taliban and al Qaeda outweigh positive views. Second, support for both groups is low even among those who agree with some of the severe punishments endorsed by the Taliban and al Qaeda, such as stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, and executing people who leave Islam. Still, those who disagree with these harsh measures are somewhat more likely to express an unfavorable view of both groups. For instance, among Pakistanis who support the death penalty for people who leave Islam, 69% have a negative view of the Taliban, while 77% of those who oppose the death penalty in such cases give the Taliban a negative rating. Third, education plays a role in views about extremism. Pakistanis with higher levels of education are consistently more likely to reject the Taliban and al Qaeda. Fourth, the Taliban and al Qaeda tend to be unpopular across regions, including the NWFP, where government forces are currently fighting extremist groups. However, Sindh stands out as the region with the most negative views. For example, 82% in Sindh have a negative opinion of the Taliban, compared with 75% in the NWFP and 67% in Punjab. More than half in Baluchistan do not offer opinions about the Taliban or al Qaeda. Fifth, and perhaps unsurprisingly, views about the Taliban are linked to the extent to which people believe the country is threatened by extremist groups. Analysis of the data shows that people who think extremist groups may be able to seize control of the country are more likely to voice negative views about the Taliban, which has been engaged in armed-conflict with the Pakistani military. Also of Note: The nation-state is of great significance to Pakistanis, and despite important ethnic and regional differences, national identity is strong throughout the country. Overall, 89% say they think of themselves first as Pakistani, rather than as a member of their ethnic group. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s ratings have plummeted: Last year, 64% had a favorable opinion of him; now just 32% hold this view. Zardari is much less popular than the other public figures tested: opposition leader Nawaz Sharif (79% favorable), Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani (67%) and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (61%). About seven-in-ten (72%) want the U.S. and NATO to remove their military troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Only 16% approve of Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. In 2008, 53% said the economy would improve in the next 12 months. This year, only 23% believe the economy will get better. The Pakistani media receives very high ratings — 77% say it is having a good influence on the country. While views about national conditions are overwhelmingly negative, most Pakistanis are upbeat about their personal lives — 74% say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their overall lives, and most are satisfied with their family lives and incomes. Nonetheless, compared with other nations, levels of personal satisfaction in Pakistan are relatively low. For more details, see Survey Methods. ↩ Next: Chapter 1. The Battle Against Extremism OverviewConcerns About IndiaSupport for Severe LawsBreaking Down Views Toward the Taliban and Al Qaeda Chapter 1. The Battle Against Extremism Chapter 2. Religion, Law, and Society Chapter 3. Attitudes Toward the United States Chapter 4. Attitudes Toward President Barack Obama Chapter 5. Relations with India Chapter 6. Ratings of Leaders and Institutions Chapter 7. Views of National Conditions Chapter 8. Pakistanis View Their Lives Multi-section ReportsApr 27, 2016 The Divide Over Islam and National Laws in the Muslim World TopicsU.S. Global Image and Anti-AmericanismAsia and the PacificWorld EconomiesNational ConditionsBarack ObamaNon-U.S. Political LeadersInternational Threats and AlliesTerrorismReligious ExtremismBilateral RelationsReligion and Government Popular on Pew Research

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Historic Election Year in Governors' Races Pamela M. Prah This year's sweepstakes for 36 governors' seats is shaping up as one for the history books. Democrats appear poised to reverse 12 years of growing Republican gubernatorial power. Massachusetts could place in office the second elected black governor in U.S. history. And Alaska, Illinois or Nevada could put a woman at the helm for the first time.This also is the year the issue of illegal immigration burst into governors' campaigns, not just in the border states of Arizona, California and Texas, but also in states such as Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma and Tennessee.While the war in Iraq, President Bush's sagging popularity and Republican scandals dominate races for the U.S. Congress, the homespun issues of taxes and education are the crux of a majority of contests for governor.Still, a tinge of Washington, D.C., is following gubernatorial candidates to the polls in a quarter of the races. Not counting incumbent governors, eight current and two former U.S. congressmen are making bids to step into the governor's mansion at a time of record-low approval of the U.S. House and Senate.A state-by-state synopsis of the 36 gubernatorial elections, prepared with help from reporters in state capitols, yields these and other emerging trends in the biggest year for governors' races of the four-year election cycle.Read the full report with interactive election guides at the Stateline.org Web site. Topics

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Lawmakers Demand Army Apologize for Anti-Christian Briefing Lawmakers Demand Army Apologize for Anti-Christian Briefing DIARY / toddstarnes // Posted at 6:03 pm on April 10, 2013 by toddstarnes At least a dozen members of Congress have signed a letter demanding the Secretary of the Army rescind and apologize for a briefing that labeled Evangelical Christians and Catholics as religious extremist groups, sources on Capitol Hill tell me. “This is astonishing and offensive,” read a draft of the letter written by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO). “We call on you to rescind this briefing and apologize for its content and set the record straight on the Army’s view on these faith groups by providing a balanced briefing on religious extremism.” [caption id="attachment_6186" align="alignright" width="300"] Material presented to soldiers at training session.[/caption] Caleb Howe Lamborn is referring to an Army training session conducted last year that featured a presentation listing Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of extremism – alongside Al Qaeda and Hamas. Army spokesman George Wright later said it was an isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army. And the slide, he said, was not produced by the Army nor did it reflect their policy or doctrine. “To say that Evangelicals or Catholics are somehow in the same league with Al Qaeda or the KKK is outrageous,” Lamborn told me. He said it appeared the Army was using material gleaned from the Southern Poverty Law Center. “I’m amazed that the army would listen to voices of intolerance that would play fast and loose with these kinds of labels,” he told Fox News. “I’m concerned this group has any sway with the Army.” The training briefing is just the latest in a number of incidents involving attacks on the Christian faith within the ranks of the military. I obtained a copy of an email written by a lieutenant colonel at Fort Campbell identifying the Family Research Council and American Family Association, two prominent Christian ministries, as “domestic hate groups.” Read the email by clicking here. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told Fox News he believes there is an anti-Christian movement within the military. “There’s been an effort for a long time to marginalize Christianity,” King told Fox News. “I wonder why that is?” READ - The Army's List of Domestic Hate Groups READ - Army: Keep an Eye on Anti-Gay, Anti-Muslim Soldiers READ - Army Labels Christian Ministries as Domestic Hate Groups READ - Military Trainer Calls Evangelicals, Catholics, Religious Extremists King said the latest incidents remind him of when the Army banned Bibles from Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The rule was later rescinded. “They said it was done out of ignorance,” King said. “I don’t believe it was. I believe some anti-Christian wrote that in.” King is among the lawmakers who signed the letter to the Secretary of the Army and he’s prepared to call military officials to Capitol Hill to explain the recent incidents. “If we’ve got to have the FBI going through federal documents scrubbing out anything that might be critical of Muslims, we surely can’t allow an anti-Christian movement taking place within our own United States military,” King said. Army spokesman George Wright denied there is any anti-Christian movement in the military. “The notion that the Army is taking an anti-religion or anti-Christian stance is contrary to any of our policies, doctrines and regulations,” said Wright. “Any belief that the Army is out to label religious groups in a negative manner is without warrant.” Lamborn’s letter to the Army acknowledges that religious extremism is a serious topic. “But equating these major world religions with violent extremist groups is simply not acceptable,” Lamborn wrote. “This briefing reveals an anti-religion bias rather than a rational approach to religious extremism.” Some of the nation’s top religious leaders have condemned the military’s attacks on Christianity – and all of them place the blame on the Obama Administration. “This is reprehensible,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “The people who are responsible should be severely reprimanded.” Land called for an investigation to determine if there is an anti-Christian movement afoot in the military. “It’s not only warranted, I think it’s essential,” Land told Fox News. “It’s absolutely required. This needs to be stopped and we have to have guarantees that it doesn’t happen again.” Todd is the author of Dispatches From Bitter America - endorsed by Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. Click here to get your copy! twitchy.com 73-Year-Old Man Jailed After Shooting Robber bearingarms.com Federal Judge Rules That Obama’s Handover of Internet Control Can Go Through

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Obamacare ... Employer Mandate Delayed Thread: Obamacare ... Employer Mandate Delayed Posts 4,287 Hasn't anyone noticed this is just a clever ploy???...a ruse???...a regime gift to the Democrats for the 2014 election cycle? What a joke. And yet, even on this board, with all the so-called gun advocates, we continue to see the hypocrisy from those toads with their heads shoved where the sun don't shine, continuing their allegience to this oligarchy. Are we to assume they are too stupid to recognize what is happening to THEIR country??? OR, don't they just give a damn? But Won’t People Die?By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | They told us we had to do it. We had to rush through Obamacare; passing it to find out what was in it, as Nancy Pelosi told us. We had to do it and it could not wait because lives were depending on it. We needed to save lives and we needed to provide women access to birth control. Suddenly, yesterday, the Obama Administration announced it would deny women access to contraception paid for by their employer after campaigning throughout 2012 on just how important paying for abortions and birth control under employer provided plans would be. If you aren’t following along, Barack Obama has decided to delay implementation of the employer mandate — the mandate that employers must provide health insurance to employees — until after the 2014 election cycle. The law that had to be passed quickly to save lives can now be delayed. So how many people will die? That was their rhetoric. Lives depended on Obamacare. Contraception is now considered an “essential benefit” under Obamacare that employers must provide, but now it’s only going to be essential to those who already have employer health insurance. The rest of the women? Sorry. Back on May 24, 2013, Ezra Klein opined that employers would not stop dropping employees when the employer mandate went into effect. Now he says repeal it. We’re going to hear this a lot. Barack Obama suddenly does not think he needs a central part of his law so it can be scrapped. What is ironic here is that the left has, for months, used the talking point that Republicans are causing problems by obstructing the implementation of Obamacare. Now, suddenly, the President is going to delay implementation of one part of Obamacare. Republicans need to take notice. We sent them to Washington to end Obamacare, not mend it. There should be no fixes. There should only be a continued fight to repeal Obamacare. The law we had to have yesterday is suddenly a law that can be punted. That means we should be able to repeal it and, concurrently in the debt ceiling fight, work to defund it. Employers who have held off hiring employees because of the employer mandate will not suddenly start hiring, knowing they’re just prolonging the inevitable fines and taxes. This delay leaves uncertainty in the economy and the whole law should be repealed or, at a minimum, fully defunded. There should be no half measures. 1tulip Posts 2,283 Obama runs America the way the Democrats have run Chicago. You can see how swell that is working out. You too can enjoy the same superb level of health care offered to Chicagoans by Cook County Regional Hospital. You'll have lots of time to sit and cool (i.e., to room temperature) while waiting for a foreign medical graduate to treat your bullet wound and if you're lucky enough to receive some morphine while you wait you can be drift off with the comfortable thought that the gun used to shoot you was illegal and you were so much safer without one of your own. Posts 3,593 There's now talk of a lawsuit to block the suspension of the employer mandate. Candidly, this reminds me of the story of the Woo-Woo bird. The Woo-Woo bird flies in ever decreasingly smaller concentric circles and eventually flies up its own a**hole and is heard to chirp "Woo-Woo." OTOH we have the Democrats who say the ACA is the greatest thing since sliced bread and is the one thing this country really needed, yet they are now delaying implementation of a key provision such that all the other provisions will be in complete disarray. The Republicans hate the ACA and have passed countless resolutions in the House to destroy it either by defunding it or eliminating it altogether yet they are talking about a lawsuit to keep it in place. Woo-Woo....! WRC HR Lennoxlove's Run with Wolves JH, WCX ("Cheyenne") ... still so fondly remembered HRCh Struan's Devil's in De Tails SH, WCX ("Lucy") ... as is her daughter SR CH Struan's Flight of Fancy JH ("Muse") Struan's Master of the Hunt JH, WC ("Charlie") Struan's Just Plain Perfect ("Jane") CH Struan's Driving Us Crazy ("Daisy") ... the baby in charge Dixie ... the "spare parts" dog Jay Dufour Location Pine Grove, Louisiana, 70453 Posts 2,480 Can you imagine talking to a injun about healthcare,when you can't even understand them discussing your DVD player ?* Bonadventure's Buster *** Bonadventure's Bijoux Bonadventure's Jiggs www.retrieversdufour.com www.retrieversdufour.blogspot.com Posts 8,942 This has been mentioned before, but always gets conveniently ignored. Additionally, I have read somewhere that the state exchanges are funded by the law, but Federal exchanges are not. One of the glitches overlooked. For good reason the Internal Revenue Service is one of the most despised government agencies, and it’s more unpopular than ever. A Fox News poll finds that 84 percent of those responding were concerned about the agency’s abuse of power. It’s only going to get worse. Obamacare requires states to establish health care exchanges by Jan. 1, 2014. These bureaucratic creations are meant to offer highly regulated health plans carrying the administration’s seal of approval. This is a central element of how Obamacare works: Individuals who obtain health insurance through a state exchange qualify for federal subsidies and tax credits. The availability of subsidies is the basis of the employer mandate. The text of the health care law unambiguously says that a “state” must set up the exchange to enforce the tax credit and the mandate penalty. The federal government can create a federal exchange, but the plain language of the statute clearly says the mandate penalty and associated tax credits apply only to state exchanges. A new lawsuit argues that this puts the 33 states that chose not to establish state exchanges off the Obamacare hook. To get around this difficulty, the IRS unilaterally declared Obamacare’s tax provisions applicable to the federal exchange. The IRS decision sets out that subsidies shall be available to anyone “enrolled in one or more qualified health plans through an Exchange,” and then defines “Exchange” to mean “a State Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary Exchange, and Federally-facilitated Exchange.” Michael Carvin, who argued the Supreme Court’s Obamacare cases last year, is working with the Competitive Enterprise Institute to reverse the agency’s decision. “The IRS rule we are challenging,” says Mr. Carvin, “is at war with the act’s plain language and completely rewrites the deal that Congress made with the states on running these insurance exchanges.” If the Obama administration thinks there’s a problem in the law, it should ask Congress to fix it. The White House can’t bring itself to admit the president botched his greatest legislative achievement, so the IRS was dispatched to do the work behind the scene. Given the revelations of IRS misbehavior over the past few months, the agency itself demonstrates that it can’t be trusted. The courts should expedite this important case before the rogue agency undermines health care in the way it undermined the tax code. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2YIidIyin Of course, we could also say that the administration is arbitrarily "waiving" the employer mandate without the approval of Congress by delaying the implementation of this particular tax. If it is possible for the POTUS to waive this tax, or delay it, then why do we have to wait for Congress to fix the tax code? Couldn't an executive order simply re-arrange it temporarily? This may sound like fluff on the surface, but essentially the executive branch is deciding, at it sole discretion, not to enforce a law made by Congress. Similar to a decision not to enforce existing immigration law. As long as this kind of executive action is not challenged, what difference does it make if Congress passes any law if the executive branch can just choose to not enforce the law at its whimsy? If the law needs "fixing", then that is the job of Congress to fix it. If we complain about the fact that the SCOTUS ends up "legislating from the bench", then one has to ask why is that happening? Posts 8,942 http://townhall.com/columnists/derek...1635237/page/2 Another view of the tactic of delaying the employer mandate: The employer mandate is a very key element in the cost factors of ACA. With that mandate delayed, but no delay in the individual mandate, many individuals (than otherwise) could be forced into the "exchanges" ... which are subsidized by taxpayers in various ways. Thus, individuals will feel the full financial force of the law; even more so than if both mandates went into effect simultaneously, rather than more gradually. What of the states that have set up their exchanges? They will be given a burden of #s that they had not envisioned. This will create a clamor toward single-payer at a much more rapid pace than if ACA followed its legislated course. Then the Ds can campaign on single-payer in 2016 and have a better chance of getting it if they continue to control the WH and the Senate. It was Obama's stated goal to progress toward a single-payer system. If both mandates were suspended by the WH, then where would the main funding for the law come from? It would financially implode before it even got off the ground. So, it would appear the best way to move toward single-payer is to let the individuals feel the pain and "demand" single-payer. It sounds a lot like the sequester scenario, with the exception that sequester turned out not to be painful enough for the grass roots as the Ds insisted it would be. In the interim, there has also been lots more info on fraud and corruption in the unwieldy Fed govt; which may very well make voters less inclined to give more in taxes to be wasted in the same way. There is no hope of repeal of ACA as long as the President's party controls the Senate. There also seems no way to "fix" this law. Its complexity gives it so many tentacles that it's hard to tell what will be triggered when one tentacle is cut off when others are left intact. The only real way to "fix" it is to start from scratch, tackling individual weaknesses in the existing system in a pragmatic way. The CBO has recently stated that 30 million will be left without health insurance once ACA is implemented in its present form. Isn't that just about the same number (or is it more?) that we started out with? It appears the net result is that some who had very minimal coverage before might get better coverage with ACA ... or might get none at all. Some people who had more adequate coverage, may remain in the same relative position. Some who had very generous programs will have less with ACA in place (except for the people who wrote the law, that is!). Since this law was so complex, it is possible that those who passed it expected it would give them a sweep of votes in 2014 and 2016. Now, that the flaws are showing up, they are realizing that it could bring disaster in those elections, and they need to postpone the electoral anger that would result from those flaws? Do we remember how this law was passed? The Senate took a bill previously passed by the House, and gutted the contents of that bill. They left only the House Bill # & replaced the contents with ACA. They had to do that since bills involving taxation must originate in the House, and they knew the House would never pass the ACA crafted in the Senate. This process had been used for other bills in the past, but never one as impactful as ACA. There HAS to be something wrong there. I believe it was Harry Reid's brilliant idea, or one of his close cohorts. caryalsobrook Location Shelbyville, Tn http://townhall.com/columnists/derek...1635237/page/2 I have no doubt that Obamacare was set up to evolve into a single EMPLOYER system. That is the true hoax that has been perpetrated on the American people. This is the cornerstong of total loss of individul freedoms. Once this happens there will be no bounds to the loss of other freedoms. I remember the statement I once heard, "I had rather see everyone poor than someone rich". Well, we are on the way to such a system. Posts 8,942 Another interesting analysis: prosecutorial discretion may have been part of the system of checks and balances? The question would be whether there are enough informed voters to make the debate and use their votes to make a change. Thus the remedy for the Executive's exercise of discretion not to enforce law is not judicial but political, that is, at the polls or by impeachment. [snip] Rather than impeaching Mr. Obama for refraining from enforcing ObamaCare, we should confer upon him a medal for admitting that his law is improvident, unenforceable, and, ineluctably, stupid and injurious to the people. That medal should be conferred visibly, loudly, and repeatedly in public discourse from now through the elections of 2014 and probably all the way to 2016, for it is at the polls that the best, surest, and most resounding remedy will be found. I call attention to the reference to an observation made by Randy Barnett that appears at the very end of Adler's post on VC [ed: Volokh Conspiracy]. Mr. Obama himself sets the precedent for a decision by a future President not to enforce ObamaCare in gross. [snip] I observe that, in the absence of the conferment by a statute of some cognizable right that the statute makes assertable against a person (or entity) with a cognizable duty to yield to or satisfy the right (be it the government itself or a third party), it's hard to see how anyone has standing to seek judicial compulsion of executive action. And that's probably a good thing. If it is true that, in the real world, not every law can be enforced and not all laws can be enforced at all times, then someone has to decide which laws get enforced and which laws don't, and when. That, it seems to me, is a decision soundly committed by the Constitution to the Executive and not to the Legislature or the Judiciary. That the Legislature doesn't get to enforce the laws it makes is a check on the legislative power; that the Judiciary doesn't get to pick which cases come before it is a check on the judicial power. The Executive's power of inaction is thus a legitimate check on the powers of the other two branches, and the proper venue for review of the exercise of that is not the courtroom but the debating chamber or the hustings. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/...#ixzz2YNrXmFO6 G.Clinchy@gmail.com Posts 8,942 Evidently, since the employer reporting is delayed, individuals who apply to exchanges for a subsidy will be taken on their word as to their eligibility for a subsidy. What could go wrong? Surely no one will be untruthful about whether they qualify for a subsidy. Sorry, can't find the link again, but the source said the info appeared in the Federal Register (is that what it's called?) and quoted from it. Evidently, since the employer reporting is delayed, individuals who apply to exchanges for a subsidy will be taken on their word as to their eligibility for a subsidy. What could go wrong? Surely no one will be untruthful about whether they qualify for a subsidy. Sorry, can't find the link again, but the source said the info appeared in the Federal Register (is that what it's called?) and quoted from it. Gerry, it would be a lot easier to take your posts seriously if you could post links and cite your sources. Otherwise we can only view your posts as your opinions. While you are certainly welcome to post your opinions... is it OK if we take them as just such? You do post alot of them. Most of us have access to the same internet resources as do you. and some of us take them as gospel, and others do not. I'll ask? Why do you feel compelled to post internet gossip? Over and over again? Tell us about your dogs. JD

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Obama Is 'Hopeless Optimist' on Fiscal Cliff, Scales Back Expectations After talking to Speaker John A. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, President Barack Obama said Friday that he still hopes to avert an income tax increase on 98 percent of Americans before Dec. 31. Then the White House promptly announced the president would be leaving Friday evening for Hawaii, where he will spend Christmas with his family. “Call me a hopeless optimist,” Obama told reporters at the White House about the fiscal cliff. And in a sign that he still believes he will have something to negotiate, Obama ended his statement by saying he’d be cutting his Hawaii trip short. “Because we didn’t get this done, I will see you next week,” he said. Indeed, both Obama and Reid indicated that they were willing to scale back their expectations for what a fiscal cliff deal might entail when talks resume next week. Shortly before taking the podium, Obama met with the Nevada Democart at the White House. The duo apparently talked about a “fallback” plan that would extend tax cuts for middle-income taxpayers, as well as unemployment insurance. A Reid aide said the majority leader agrees with Obama’s position that Republicans should continue negotiating with Democrats on a deal that would avert tax increases on all Americans and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that are set to take effect in January. “As a fallback plan to protect the middle class, Republicans should support passing a bill that extends tax cuts for families up to $250,000, extends unemployment insurance and delays the so-called sequester while we negotiate additional policies next year,” the Reid aide said. “But the bottom line is that moving forward on any solution will require cooperation from Speaker Boehner and Senator [Mitch] McConnell. We hope they will return from Christmas ready to cooperate.” That statement represents a slight shift for Reid, who has repeatedly said he does not want to pass any legislation that just pushes more substantial action on the fiscal cliff to next year. Of course, Boehner tried to pass a “plan B” on Thursday, but abruptly pulled the measure for lack of GOP votes. Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican, said Boehner would also return to Washington after the holiday hoping to find a deal. “Though the President has failed to offer any solution that passes the test of balance, we remain hopeful he is finally ready to get serious about averting the fiscal cliff,” Buck said. “The House has already acted to stop all of the looming tax hikes and replace the automatic defense cuts. It is time for the Democratic-run Senate to act, and that is what the Speaker told the President tonight.” The president said he believes a deal can be negotiated and passed in the next 10 days that, at a minimum, would do what all parties say they want to do: avoid a tax increase on the middle class. Obama also wants the legislation to extend unemployment benefits and set the stage for deficit and jobs legislation next year. “All of us, every single one of us, agrees that tax rates shouldn’t go up for the other 98 percent of Americans,” he said. “There is absolutely no reason — none — not to protect these Americans from a tax hike.” Obama said he hoped the Christmas holiday would help lawmakers reflect. “Drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones ... [and] think about the obligations to the people who sent us here,” Obama said of the members of Congress who have been unable to reach a deal for two years to avert the fiscal crisis they created. The president appealed repeatedly to lawmakers to compromise. “The American people have determined that governing is a shared responsibility. Nobody gets 100 percent of what they want,” he said. Obama said he is still ready and willing to do a comprehensive deal, “whether it happens all at once or in several different steps.” He also touched on other priorities he would like to accomplish next year, such as gun safety and jobs legislation, but said lawmakers first must avert the cliff. He left the briefing room without answering any of the shouted questions on the cliff or the National Rifle Association and gun control. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., meanwhile, continued to call on Reid to bring up the House’s tax cut bill, allow for amendments and go to conference with the House. Boehner, too, put the onus on the Senate. But earlier Friday, Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, urged Boehner to negotiate with the president and realize that he needs Democratic votes to pass anything. “There are probably 100, 120, 140 Republicans in the House who are willing to vote for a deal along the lines that both President Obama and Speaker Boehner talked about,” Schumer predicted. “The problem is he was trying to get another 60 to 70 votes and the further right you go the harder it is, so I don’t get the logic.” Schumer said that without Boehner signing off, the Senate won’t want to act. “We are not going to want to come to a deal if we know Boehner is not going to move it in the House,” he said. “And Sen. McConnell, I don’t know why he would want his members to put their necks on the line for deal that may not pass the House. So the key to this is the House.” Humberto Sanchez contributed to this report.

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Independent map group to open Rockford office ROCKFORD — The campaign to take politics out of legislative redistricting is coming to the Forest City.The “Yes For Independent Maps” campaign is opening a Rockford office at 123. N. Alpine Rd., and will have an open house at the new office at 6 p.m. Thursday. Parking is available and refreshments will be served.Campaign staff will join local volunteers and assisting organizations to open the campaign office.The public is invited and petitions will be available for distribution. Campaign Manager Michael Kolenc will meet people and the press.The “Yes” campaign is an attempt to change the way Illinois redraws state legislative districts after every U.S. Census. Under the current system, the dominant political party draws the map to benefit its legislative members at the expense of the minority party, resulting in a 97 percent re-election rate.The “Yes” campaign seeks to change that to a an independent commission, similar to California’s, where an independent board, with input but not control from both parties, draws a legislative map that is fair to all voters in all parts of the state.This would become law if a constitutional amendment is passed. To get the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, the “Yes” campaign must turn in 298,000 signatures from Illinois voters by May 4.Kolenc, the campaign coordinator, says the group hopes to turn in about 450,000 signatures to withstand challenges from the Democratic and Republican parties.“We’re right on target in our petition gathering,” said Kolenc. To learn more about the campaign or to volunteer, come to the open house or go to independentmaps.org.Chuck Sweeny: 815-987-1366; csweeny@rrstar.com; @chucksweeny

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Place an Ad This Just In Vermont’s first woman in Washington: Coming soon? By Joy LiuSpecial to the Times Argus | December 15,2013 For Vermont, the Washington delegation remains an old boys� club. While nearly a century has passed since women first gained the right to vote, the Green Mountain State has yet to send its first female to Capitol Hill � one of just four states never to have elected a woman to the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives.Like the other three states yet to break through this glass ceiling � Delaware, Iowa, and Mississippi � Vermont has a small congressional delegation where incumbents tend to stay for a long time, and open seats are a rarity. Vermont stands in contrast to neighboring New Hampshire, where the entire four-member congressional delegation is female in the wake of the 2012 election, and Maine, where half of the four-person delegation is made up of women. But, overall, only 18 percent of today�s Congress is comprised of women � 20 in the 100-member Senate and 78 in the 435-member House. The reasons range from the current realities of campaign fundraising to personal-life priorities and the difficulties of accomplishing change within the legislative process, according to those who closely observe the process of women running for office.�We�ve seen women (who have) been detoured in terms of the dirtiness of politics, currently the ineffectiveness of politics,� said Kelly Dittmar of Rutgers University�s Center for American Women and Politics in New Brunswick, New Jersey. �If you look at Washington today, you might not see that as a place to get things done. So why would women be motivated?�Vermont can boast of having elected Madeleine Kunin, who in 1984 became only the fourth woman in U.S. history to be elected governor in her own right (as opposed to succeeding her husband). But if Kunin, who left the governorship in 1990, eventually made it to Washington � as the No. 2 official in the Education Department during the Clinton administration � she never sought election to Congress.�The timing was just not right,� she said. �There wasn�t any (vacancy) � it wasn�t right politically.�No vacancy means having to challenge an incumbent. More often than not, it remains an uphill battle to dislodge an incumbent: According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, the reelection rate of incumbent members of Congress has been running at more than 75 percent since 1982.During the past four decades, Senate seats have come open only twice in the Green Mountain State � in 1988, as Kunin was seeking a third term as governor and Republican Robert Stafford was retiring, and in 2006, when Republican-turned-Independent James Jeffords called it quits. In both instances, the state�s lone U.S. House member � Jeffords and Independent Bernard Sanders, respectively � were elected to move up and fill the vacant Senate slot.Today, while all three men in the Vermont delegation are older than 65, none has shown any public sign of contemplating retirement. The state�s two senators, Democrat Patrick Leahy and Sanders, have more aggregate seniority than the senators from the other 49 states. Leahy, first elected in 1974, is now the longest-serving member of the Senate. Sanders, first elected to the House in 1990 before moving to the Senate 16 years later, has now spent nearly a quarter of a century on Capitol Hill. Kunin believes that when it comes to running against an incumbent, gender is no longer a question, given that it�s difficult for any newcomer to raise a �tremendous amount of money� to win against a long-time serving member. But others suggest that fundraising remains an obstacle for women contemplating office, whether challenging an incumbent or seeking an open seat.�When we survey women legislators who are potential candidates, they always say that fundraising is a barrier,� said Dittmar of the Center for American Women and Politics. �It�s something that they don�t like to do, and they see as a barrier to office.�According to Dittmar, surveys suggest that although men and women raise about the same amount of money in comparable races, fundraising may take more effort for women. In closing the fundraising gap between male and female candidates, help from outside infrastructure is �invaluable�, she noted.Several political-action committees � such as EMILY�s List, which backs Democratic female candidates who support abortion rights � have been created to help funnel money to women running for office. Other groups aim to provide women with training in the nuts and bolts of running a campaign.In Vermont, Kunin heads a group, Emerge Vermont, which provides intensive training to Democratic women about how to run a successful campaign, in the hope that this will ultimately provide them with a springboard to higher office. Emerge Vermont is part of the national organization that started in California and now operates in 14 states. Vermont would seem to have a head start in this regard, as it already ranks ahead of many other states when it comes to electing women to state and local office. With Gov. Peter Shumlin�s recent appointment of Democrat Marjorie Ryerson of Randolph Village to an open seat in the Vermont House, women now are a majority in the Democratic Party of that chamber. Vermont now ranks first nationwide in terms of the percentage of women in the Legislature. At present, 41.1 percent of the Vermont Senate and House are comprised of women, according to statistics compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics. (Colorado�s legislature is a close second with 41.0 percent; neighboring New Hampshire ranks fifth nationally, with 33.5 percent.)But in congressional elections, personal factors often come into play for women: It�s often harder for women to make the decision to run, as they are more �relationally embedded� than men, Dittmar said.Women often do not see politics as �either an option or the best route for them� in the way men do, she said. Women, most being primary caregivers, consider running for office in Washington a factor that could bring unwanted changes to their families and children.But what some see as a benefit of having the increasing numbers of women elected to higher office came into focus during the partial shutdown of the federal government in early October.Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, put forth a plan to end the shutdown, and called upon members from the two major parties to come together and �legislate responsibly and in good faith.� The next day, Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined Collins� effort. Soon, Collins was leading a bipartisan group of 14 senators, nearly half of them women, in drafting a spending plan.A few hours before the final vote on Oct. 16, three of the women senators involved physically moved across the Senate aisle, sat next to each, and chatted and laughed. It was a scene one almost never sees in C-SPAN broadcasts of the Senate proceedings, particularly in an era of unrelenting partisanship. �The fact (is) that having less testosterone really makes you less combative and more willing to work across the aisle and want to get the job done,� Kunin said. �Women don�t enjoy confrontation as some men do.�Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was also in the group of 14 senators. He later told Time magazine that he was �proud� of the women�s effort in ending the shutdown. �Imagine what they could do if there were 50 of them,� McCain said. As McCain pictured a more effective Congress formed by more women, Dittmar said women�s decisions to run for office are often guided by whether they feel they can be effective.While men�s motivations for running are largely associated with a desire for being in power, women make this decision differently, Dittmar said: They run to make policy changes.�If we continue to see that among the women who run and win, as more women get in, it could be helpful to the environment in Washington,� she explained.As �the time has come� and little bias remains about having women in federal legislative positions, Kunin, now 80, is confident there will �absolutely� be a woman representing Vermont on Capitol Hill in the near future. �We will, I expect in five years, see a woman in Congress,� Kunin said. �There are many talented women serving in the (state) Legislature and some serving in the (state) administration. Many are potential candidates for higher office.�

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Governor Howard Dean is a physician who previously shared a medical practice with his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg. He became governor of Vermont in 1991 and served until 2003. He campaigned for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 presidential election and served as honorary chairman of Democracy for America, an organization dedicated to building a grassroots network for the Democratic Party. He is currently the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Get updates about Howard Dean and recommended reads from Simon & Schuster. Plus, get a FREE eBook when you sign up! By Howard DeanBy Howard Dean Winning Back America Plus, receive updates about Howard Dean,recommended reads and more from Simon & Schuster.

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Dead Certain SlatePoliticsWho's winning, who's losing, and why.Sept. 4 2007 12:07 PM This week, Slate is publishing three exclusive excerpts from Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bushby Robert Draper. In preparing this chronological narrative of the Bush presidency, Draper has had unprecedented journalistic access to the Bush White House, including six interviews with the president in late 2006 and 2007. Our second extract is about Bush's relationship with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It was something Bush talked about every week during his video teleconferences with Tony Blair: These guys Maliki and Abbas [the president of the Palestinian National Authority], we've gotta nurture them. ... He had tried with Allawi and Ja'fari, the two previous prime ministers. But the former had little interest in policy, while the latter—definitely not Bush's kind of guy—was more inclined to recite poetry than build a democracy. By the time he first laid eyes on Maliki in Baghdad on June 13, 2006, Bush could not afford to be choosy. Iraq was out of control, here was its new leader ... and through his willful optimism, Bush would see to it that theirs was a match made in heaven. In 2007, he found himself mentoring the head of the world's most frail democracy on how to lead a nation. Advertisement "I'm convinced you will succeed," he told Maliki that day in front of the media. Shortly afterward, Bush acknowledged to the Iraq Study Group (as some of its members would recall in interviews) that "my job is to give confidence to the Maliki government." Though some in the group evinced less enthusiasm for the new prime minister, Bush had a different outlook. Maliki, he said, was "a lot better than what we've had." And in any event, the president's job was to "inspire" the novice politician. In the months that followed, the prime minister's Shiite patron, Moktada al-Sadr, ran roughshod over Baghdad while the government arrested only al-Sadr's Sunni foes. Bush didn't lecture or threaten Maliki. When National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's memo criticizing Maliki was leaked to the New York Times in late November, Bush immediately contradicted it, saying that Maliki was "the right guy for the job"—and then dispatched Hadley to the Sunday talk shows, where the latter assured viewers that Maliki "has the will and desire to take responsibility." Bush and Hadley happened to be on their way to Amman, Jordan, to meet with Maliki when the Times published its story about the memo. The president thought to defuse the matter right away. Pulling Hadley toward him, Bush grinned at Maliki and said, "Do you know our national security adviser, Steve Hadley?" When Maliki smiled and hugged Hadley, Bush thought, This speaks well of the guy. The prime minister had been hearing rumors of a coup against him and feared that Bush and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad supported it. Maliki therefore came armed with a security plan of his own. Though it struck Bush as ambitious in the extreme, he was delighted by Maliki's assertiveness and returned from the Middle East just as upbeat as he had been six months earlier. Advertisement Five weeks later, Bush was conducting a secure teleconference to brief Iraqi officials on his upcoming address to the nation on the new Iraq strategy when he suddenly said, "Let's clear the room." Maliki's aides departed, as did Bush's. Now it was just the two leaders. "You know," Bush would—in a later interview—recall telling his counterpart with a fatalistic laugh, "we're hanging out here together. A lot of people here don't think we can succeed. I do." Then, challenging Maliki, the president said, "It's looking like al-Sadr's gonna run your country." Maliki grew solemn. "I swear to God," he vowed, "al-Sadr will not run this country." Bush took that in. "Well," he said, "I'll put my neck out if you put your neck out." Advertisement Bush's decision to appoint General David Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq didn't please some in Maliki's government who remembered Petraeus's empowerment of former Baathists in Mosul. "I know you have concerns about this," Bush said. "But let me just tell you, leader to leader: I have a lot of respect for this man. Trust me on this." A week later, Maliki appointed First General Aboud Jenber to be his new Baghdad security commander. General George Casey contacted Bush to register his concern. Jenber, he said, was an unknown quantity. Bush got Maliki on the phone. Maliki said to Bush, I have a lot of respect for this man. Trust me on this. Turning the tables on him—Bush loved it! Advertisement "He's learning to be a leader," Bush said a few weeks later. "And one of my jobs as the president and his ally is to help him be that leader without being patronizing. At some point in time, if I come to the conclusion that he can't be the leader—he's unwilling to lead or he's deceptive—then we'll change course. But I haven't come to that conclusion. As a matter of fact, his recent actions have inspired me." So far, Maliki's armed forces had begun to enforce laws across sectarian lines. His government had passed a $41 billion budget. The prime minister had yet to fulfill all his promises—most prominently, ratifying an oil-revenue-sharing deal that would grant the Sunnis a stake in the Iraqi economy. But Bush would cut Maliki some slack. "Everybody tells him the same thing—you better get moving, or else," Bush would say. "That's what I told [Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman] Carl Levin. I said, 'You went to Iraq and you told him point blank, You better get moving.' I said, 'Thank you for doing that.' "He said, 'Why don't you do the same thing?' I said, 'I've got other audiences. My message isn't just to the Iraqi government. It's to U.S. troops, the enemy, the Iraqi people. And therefore I've got to be careful about how I deliver the message. I want to be viewed more as a mentor than a scolder." Maliki was learning leadership on the fly—and getting into a groove, Bush believed, where the more hard decisions the Iraqi made, the stronger he became. It was Bush's theory of political capital transplanted to Baghdad: The more of it you spent, the more you accrued. "I do believe, however," said Bush in February, "that he knows he's running against the clock." October-November Man By: authors An Oval Office Conversation

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Bush's appalling Iraq speech. SlateWar StoriesMilitary analysis.Sept. 13 2007 11:42 PM Deceptive or Delusional? By Fred Kaplan President Bush's TV address tonight was the worst speech he's ever given on the war in Iraq, and that's saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional. The biggest fiction was that because of the "success" of the surge, we can reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq from 20 combat brigades to 15 by next July. Gen. David Petraeus has recommended this step, and President George W. Bush will order it so. Fred Kaplan is the author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War. Advertisement Let's be clear one more time about this claim: The surge of five extra combat brigades (bringing the total from 15 to 20) started in January. Their 15-month tours of duty will begin to expire next April. The Army and Marines have no combat units ready to replace them. The service chiefs refuse to extend the tours any further. The president refuses to mobilize the reserves any further. And so, the surge will be over by next July. This has been understood from the outset. It is the result of simple arithmetic, not of anyone's decision, much less some putative success. It is true that Bush is ordering the withdrawal of 5,700 of those troops—one Army brigade and a Marine expeditionary unit—before Christmas, a few months earlier than they need to go home. This is clearly in response to a request by Sen. John Warner, the ranking Republican on the armed services committee. The Republicans need political cover on the war; they need to show they're bringing some troops home soon; they hope that doing so will defuse the war as an election issue. Bush hopes this will be enough to keep them on his side—and limit the support for Democrats' proposals of speedier withdrawals. But by acceding to this political compromise—and by selling the larger withdrawal as a decision instead of as an inescapable fact of life—Bush undermined his case that the fight for Iraq is the central fight for civilization. If this claim is true, why pull any troops out earlier than necessary? His showcase example of success was the recent alliance between U.S. troops and Sunni insurgents to join forces against jihadist terrorists in Anbar province (an alliance, by the way, that was formed before the surge). Yet even so, the president said in tonight's speech, "In Anbar, the enemy remains active and deadly." Again, under the president's own assumptions, what's the substantive case for letting any troops leave? Advertisement The speech was rife with evasion and fantasy from the outset. "In Iraq," he declared, "an ally of the United States is fighting for its survival." This sounded as if some well-established government were under attack from an outside force. In fact, a U.S.-installed regime is racked with divisiveness as a result of sectarian clashes within its own society. That is a very different thing. As Gen. Petraeus has said many times, there is only so much U.S. military force can accomplish under such circumstances. Back to the speech: "Terrorists and extremists who are at war with us around the world are seeking to topple Iraq's government, dominate the region, and attack us here at home." Even if it were true that the movement called al-Qaida in Mesopotamia is one and the same with the larger al-Qaida organization (a point that the U.S. intelligence community disputes), AQM accounts for only 5 percent of the attacks inside Iraq—some of the deadliest 5 percent, but it is misleading to suggest that they are the biggest obstacle to Iraqi unity, much less the greatest threat to regional peace. The rationale for the surge was to improve security in Baghdad and thus give Iraq's national political leaders the "breathing room" to reconcile their differences, pass key legislation, and form a unified government. The recent debates over conflicting charts and statistics—some showing a decline in civilian deaths and sectarian attacks, others showing an increase—are beside the point. The point is whether life in Baghdad has improved enough to allow for political progress on a national level. As Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker conceded several times in congressional hearings this week, no such progress has been made. Advertisement President Bush tonight tried to suggest otherwise. He correctly outlined the premise of the surge strategy: "For Iraqis to bridge sectarian divides, they need to feel safe in their homes and neighborhoods. For lasting reconciliation to take root, Iraqis must feel confident that they do not need sectarian gangs for security. The goal of the surge is to provide that security and help Iraqi forces to maintain it." But then he said: "As I will explain tonight, our success in meeting these objectives now allows us to begin bringing some of our troops home." (Italics added.) Does he really think, whatever the advances toward these goals, that we have reached "success in meeting these objectives"? As he himself admitted, those goals haven't yet been achieved in Anbar, much less in Baghdad, much less in national Iraqi politics. He could not evade today's news—that Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the Sunni tribes' revolt against al-Qaida in Anbar province, has been assassinated. He admitted that the Iraqi government "has not met its own legislative benchmarks" of success. But he then returned once more to the promise of Anbar and proclaimed, "As local politics change, so will national politics." This adage isn't nearly always true in the United States. It certainly isn't true in a country like Iraq, which is fissuring into at least three separate countries. Advertisement The president then turned to long-term U.S. policy in Iraq, and his attempts at assurance were anything but. He cited Gen. Petraeus' testimony recommending not only a reduction in troops but a gradual change in their mission. "Over time," Bush said, "our troops will shift from leading operations, to partnering with Iraqi forces, and eventually to overwatching those forces. As this transition in our mission takes place, our troops will focus on a more limited set of tasks, including counterterrorism operations and training, equipping, and supporting Iraqi forces." However, the chart that Gen. Petraeus presented in this part of his testimony gave no dates—not even a projected range of dates—for when this shift in mission would take place. Many Democrats, some Republicans, and a fairly large number of Army and Marine generals would like to see this shift begin now. That is the debate that Congress will be taking up. Bush's speech is an evasion. Then Bush muddied the waters further. On the one hand, he has a "vision for a reduced American presence" in Iraq. On the other hand, he foresees a need for "U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency," and he talked about building "an enduring relationship" between the United States and Iraq. Advertisement What is this enduring relationship? What does it require, in the way of troops, bases, and other resources? What other countries or international agencies will be involved? Do the relationship's elements include stepped-up diplomacy with Iraq's neighbors? None of these vital questions was broached, much less answered. Finally, he presented a series of pleas under the guise of compromise. He asked the Congress to "come together" and support Gen. Petraeus' recommendations on troop cuts—not seeming to recognize that a mere return to pre-surge levels (which will be inevitable by next summer), with no change in direction, is no basis for a sustained consensus. He asked "the Iraqi people" to "demand that your leaders make the tough choices needed to achieve reconciliation"—not seeming to recognize that "the Iraqi people" is a tenuous concept and that many of Iraq's Shiites, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds themselves have very different, possibly irreconcilable, demands about their futures. Oddly, he thanked "the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq." At the peak of the "coalition," back in the fall of 2004, only 31 countries besides the United States had any troops in Iraq. They amounted to 24,000—fewer than one-fifth of America's numbers—and one-third of those were contributed by Britain. Now, according to the most recent official report (dated Aug. 30, 2007), just 25 countries have troops there; they number fewer than 12,000 (an average of fewer than 500 per nation), and more and more, including Britain, are leaving every month. The question could be asked throughout the speech, but particularly at that point: In what world is the president of the United States living?

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John Kerry: Russia Could Be Kicked Out Of G8 SlateThe SlatestYour News CompanionMarch 2 2014 11:19 AM US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to the press following talks with Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Holguin at the State Department in Washington,DC on February 28 Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images Secretary of State John Kerry had tough words for Russia on Sunday, accusing President Vladimir Putin of “possibly trying to annex Crimea. Even though Putin hasn’t shown he much cares about Washington’s opinion, Kerry warned on NBC that he would “lose on the international stage, Russia is going to lose, the Russian people are going to lose, and he's going to lose all of the glow that came out of the Olympics, his $60 billion extravaganza.” Speaking on ABC, Kerry emphasized that “all options are on the table,” but was sure to note that economic sanctions on businesses and individuals were likely the first steps rather than military confrontation. As the White House has been warning for days, Kerry noted the “distinct possibility” that the United States will boycott the G8, which is scheduled to be held in Sochi in June. But he also went on to say that Russia could be kicked out of the Group of 8 developed nations if it doesn’t back down. If he refuses to back down Putin “is not going have a Sochi G8, he may not even remain in the G8 if this continues. He may find himself with asset freezes, on Russian business, American business may pull back, there may be a further tumble of the ruble,” Kerry said, according to the AFP. On ABC, Kerry said Moscow was guilty of carrying out “a 19th century act in the 21st century and it really puts at question Russia’s capacity to be within the G8.” Republicans harshly criticized President Obama on Sunday, saying Washington now finds itself in a problem of its own making. Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Obama is “a weak and indecisive president” and that “invites aggression,” reports USA Today. For his part, Rep. Mike Rogers suggested Putin feels free to ignore Obama because the Russians have been “running circles around us” in several international negotiations relating to issues such as Syria and missile defense. For now, it seems there are very limited options to what the United States and its allies can do as world powers increasingly believe Ukraine has permanently lost Crimea to Russia, notes Reuters.

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ADVERTISEMENT Quelle surprise! France and EU no longer buddies Article by: RAF CASERT BRUSSELS — France stood at the cradle of the European Union and brought it back from crisis time and again — but now it's the French who are turning against the creature they helped conceive after World War II.A spat that started over a fervent Gallic defense of film subsidies in the face of a globalized Hollywood has mushroomed this week into a dispute that reflects larger troubles with France's economy, and growing frustration with the way an ever-more powerful Brussels is managing the EU.The dispute is the main undercurrent of an EU summit Thursday and Friday, where French President Francois Hollande will come face to face with the head of the EU's powerful executive commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.Hollande tried to downplay the controversy at the start of the summit. "We are talking about European policies. Personalities are only secondary," he said entering the summit headquarters.A fight between France and the EU will always stand out though."A large part of the politics of Europe has been molded by France. So now, we are facing this paradox," said Hendrik Vos, a professor and expert on European affairs at Ghent University.The paradox is fueled by the economic crisis, during which Barroso's European Commission has imposed hard austerity on member states. To some in Hollande's Socialist government, it has turned the EU into a cold-hearted beast that forces governments to serve the fat cats of the financial markets at the expense of workers and the common man.President Hollande is suffering from sagging popularity, France's rising unemployment and a new recession. It makes for a poisonous political mix that has claimed diplomatic niceties as its first victim.For months, frustration in Paris had been mounting over the insistence of the European Commission to include film and other cultural subsidies in free trade negotiations with the United States. Some French voices suggested that the EU trade negotiator was working more with the Americans than the French.Then, the Commission recommended harsh medicine for France to revive its economy. This hit hard in a nation that still considers itself as a global and essential power, unaccustomed to having someone else say what it should do.It seems the political beast that France helped conceive is now turning against its creator. Suddenly grand rhetoric turned against Brussels.France's Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg spoke Sunday of "this European ruling class, which doesn't notice that the European Union is the only region in the world that organized its own recession in a way, when everywhere in the world there's growth."He said this "Brussels-style sickness will be fatal for Europeans" and added for good measure that Barroso "is the fuel of the National Front" far-right party, arguing that EU policies are driving voters to the nationalist fringes.For Barroso, this proved too much. He counterattacked, saying that "it would be good if some political leaders understand that it is not by attacking Europe, by making the Commission a scapegoat for difficulties that they will get very far."On Wednesday, the French government spokeswoman said Montebourg's "frankness" may be grating, but that "the heart of his comments ... are comments that we share."Compounding France's problems is the fact that the longstanding axis linking Paris to Berlin is showing signs of strain. The relationship between conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel — whose country is increasingly calling the shots at summits like the one this week — and the leftist Hollande is weaker than under Hollande's predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.At the same time, France's confrontational stance comes at a time when Barroso's Commission is facing pressure from many sides, with struggling southern nations picking on the EU for forcing them into choking budget cuts that helped push youth unemployment to unprecedented levels.Even the Netherlands, one of the six original EU members, is now saying "enough is enough" when it comes to further integration and centralization."The time for an 'ever-closer union' in the EU at all levels is a thing of the past," the government said in a statement last week.The two-day summit opening Thursday is showing some signs of change in the air that could benefit France.After years of being dominated by the free-market, debt-cutting and austerity mantra to pull the continent out of recession, the summit will be looking at measures to ease unemployment with government support, even if the funds underpinning the initiative still look paltry compared with the task at hand."Where it was austerity and savings the past few years, we will see at the summit much attention for jobs for youngsters and growth stimuli," said Vos.Perhaps Hollande should take heart that the pendulum is slowly swinging back.

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Patrick’s strange pick I’m out of town on some family business, and unable to do a lot of blogging, but I wanted to weigh in on Deval Patrick’s choice for interim senator.� I don’t often disagree with Patrick, but this decision baffles me.This is not a ceremonial appointment.� Issues of huge importance are coming before the Senate between now and the June 25 special election.� Massachusetts should send a player to the Senate to replace John Kerry, not just someone to warm the seat. I understand that whoever got the job would follow the leads of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Joe Biden in the critical votes to come, and that some of Kerry’s staff would stay on to take care of routine business. But still…I don’t know Mo Cowan, and I’m happy to assume he’s a good guy and a smart man. But we’d all be better served by someone with recent experience in Congress, not someone who has spent the last few years immersed in state issues on Beacon Hill.� Barney Frank, who I favored, could have hit the ground running. He’s already an expert in the federal budget, a skilled hand in parliamentary procedures with personal relations on both sides of the Capitol.� I hope Deval didn’t reject Barney because he campaigned for the job.� I’d rather think that some of the big egos in the Senate (or the White House) saw him as a potential bull in the china shop who might get in the way of their delicate strategizing.Fair enough. But what about John Olver, who also just retired from the House? What about Cam Kerry, John’s brother, who works in the Commerce Dept., or Melody Barnes, former top aide to Ted Kennedy who ran Obama’s domestic policy operation? Both may have residency problems, but surely there are others who would fit the profile of inside players who know their way around Washington, just as Paul Kirk, our last interim senator did. For that matter, why not bring back Kirk?Because nobody knows much about him, much is being made of the fact Cowan is black, making him the second African-American in the Senate and the second African-American senator from Massachusetts.� Who cares? There is work to be done.

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Taiwan and the two-sided triangle - Taipei Times Taiwan and the two-sided triangle By Soong Hseik-wen Wang Jyh-perng 宋學文,王志鵬 There has been an increased focus on how the triangular relationship between Taiwan, China and the US will develop after president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) takes office on May 20. Although warming cross-strait relations may lead to positive developments for the economy and an opportunity for more cultural exchange, there may also be spillover effects with regard to security across the Taiwan Strait, US arms sales to Taiwan and the US’ Asia-Pacific security policy.On the eve of Taiwan’s presidential election, the US emphasized its “one China” policy and issued increasingly authoritative statements on the US’ unequivocal opposition to Taiwan holding a referendum on applying for UN membership.But at the same time, the US strengthened its resolve in enforcing the security of the Taiwan Strait through actions such as sending the Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk carrier to the Taiwan Strait on March 17. On March 21, the US not only officially confirmed the Kitty Hawk’s movement, but also said that the USS Nimitz performed naval exercises in a region near the Taiwan Strait. Admiral Timothy Keating of the US Pacific Command said that these actions were meant as a warning against any inappropriate military maneuvers. This shows that the US was not only taking preventive military action with regard to Taiwan, but that Washington is also concerned about China’s uncertain nature. There was a strategic element to the display of military might, which aimed at reminding the two sides of the Strait to exercise self-restraint.Although there was no instability in the Taiwan Strait after the presidential election, the US still has not withdrawn its carrier battle group from the area. According to an April 17 report in the Washington Times, the Kitty Hawk and the Nimitz will stay put until after May 20 to respond to any situations that could affect the security of the Taiwan Strait. In addition, American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young participated in the Yushan military exercise on April 22, triggering speculation on the significance of his presence. While he was ostensibly an observer, it is possible that the exercise was meant to simulate how US officials would be protected and evacuated in case of war. These events show that expectations for cross-strait relations and security across the Taiwan Strait do not necessarily match the recently popular “economic peace theory.”The nature and hopes of the “economic peace theory” both comply with and contradict the US’ “grand strategy” toward Asia. It is also closely related to the rise of China and its effect on Asian regional security and the structure of global power allocation. On the surface, China appears to have chosen a peaceful and gradual strategy for its rise. For example, in January, Beijing published its China Modernization Report in which it mentioned its “peace dove” strategy. Its purpose is allegedly to market the diplomatic strategy for its peaceful rise, but China also seeks to prevent other countries from interfering with what it sees as its “internal affairs.”Chinese military reports say that when vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) met during the Boao forum, Hu had recently inspected the navy’s Nanhai fleet and called for an all-out effort to increase combat readiness and a strengthening of the military. For its part, the US has kept the two carrier battle groups in the Taiwan Strait region on standby. Washington doesn’t say whether it is out of concern over internal developments in Taiwan, a preventative safeguard against any unusual movements from China, or to react to any action Beijing might take in response to the effect of the problems in Tibet on the Olympic Games. Neither the US nor China has made their intentions clear.

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MAC promises briefings before TAO meetings Wed, Dec 18, 2013 - Page 3 The Legislative Yuan and the public will be informed about any exchange of visits between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and his Chinese counterpart, Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), once details of such trips have been worked out, the council said yesterday.The need for such visits was agreed on when the two men exchanged greetings on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Bali in early October, it said.The two sides are working on the necessary arrangements, but neither a date nor a location have been determined, it added.Wang and Zhang addressed each other by their official titles during their brief encounter in a hotel lobby.The council said the use of official titles was a good beginning to the development of “the institutionalization of official interactions across the Taiwan Strait,” adding that it hopes the public will look upon an exchange of visits between the two men favorably.The council’s comments came one day after Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers said Wang should report to the legislature before visiting China.News reports have said that Wang was planning to make his first trip to China in his official capacity after the Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 31, and before the annual meeting of the Chinese National People’s Congress, which is expected in early March.Topping the agenda of a Wang-Zhang meeting could be the exchange of representative offices, a source said.However, if Beijing brings up the issue of political talks, Taiwan would stress that the agenda should be on issues that both sides are willing to discuss, the source said.If Chinese officials raise political issues “we’ll only discuss with the other side if they are in keeping with people’s will and needs,” the source said.

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As a nation, and as individuals, we Israelis carry a lot of pain within us. It is the pain of pogroms and disasters, most significantly the Holocaust, that have struck our people throughout the generations. It is the pain of wars, of numerous terrorist acts, of casualties from missile attacks. It is the plight of new immigrants from the heart of Africa or the former Soviet Union relocated to a new homeland. But there is something more—for the past decade, we have been turning on our radios and television sets every morning and listening to leader after leader from Tehran declaring his dream of annihilating Israel and showing us how he intends to do so. We almost get used to it and go on with our daily lives, but every now and then we are reminded of the lessons from our past, as memorial days and Jewish feasts teach us the lesson not to trust anyone but ourselves. For more than two years, every Israeli has had to prepare for a possible war with Iran. Drills have taken place all over the country day in, day out. Special units of the Home Front command have been established, and national exercises held, with the prime minister down to the last civil servant all participating in a national disaster drill. I will never forget when, as minister of welfare and social services, I attended a drill at a home for mentally challenged adults and escorted them to the shelter amid the sound of the sirens. Command and control centers have been established in expectation of the moment the Iranians and their agents in the region, such as Hizbullah and Hamas, could launch a grand missile attack. And still Israelis insist on going on with their lives, refusing to change their plans, and acknowledging much less than one would expect the possibility of a war of such magnitude. Deep in their hearts, Israelis agree that to prevent the worst of all evils, there may be no other choice, although they lack confidence in its prospects. They hope that world leadership and international pressure will finally succeed in stopping the Iranians from advancing their nuclear program. The person in the street does not want to talk too much about a potential war, mostly because he or she lacks some of the basic information needed to form a clear opinion on the merits of the issue. Most Israelis, therefore, prefer to deal with more concrete topics, such as social issues, sports, and politics, as they understand that those who really know more form a very small group of people. They feel that in any case, the outcome will be decided at the White House summit between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday. Indeed, most of the reports on the prospects of an attack that Israelis are exposed to flow into the country from abroad, mostly from American sources. Israeli leaders or officials who are asked about it find themselves truly perplexed, as they are limited in what they can say. Some speak of their own volition. Some feel that whatever they can say may hurt the Israeli position or be misinterpreted by the enemy or serve his causes. In the past few months, whether Israel should attack Iran has become a major news item and a subject of heated public debate, predominantly between security experts and former heads of the military and intelligence services. Visits by top American officials and world dignitaries, aimed at calming us, have had the reverse effect. The Israeli public has become more baffled as the tragedy in Syria unfolds in what should be viewed as one of the worst atrocities of this era, with the world apparently incapable of putting an end to it. The Russians and Chinese siding with Iran and Syria at the United Nations has only strengthened the general feeling that we may have to go it alone. “When you have nothing to say, turn to humor,” as the old saying goes. The satirical Israeli TV show Eretz Nehederet, or A Wonderful Country, recently ran a skit in which a group of Iranian nuclear scientists miss their deadline to complete the A-bomb because they’re watching too much Israeli television and going out on a dates with their girlfriends instead of finishing their work. Then some of them disappear. This coming Tuesday, Israelis and Jews worldwide will celebrate the feast of Purim, a wonderful Jewish holiday celebrating an ancient miracle that befell the Jews of Persia: Haman the Oppressor, who swore to annihilate the Jews, was hanged just before he could execute his plan. Mixed with the joy of Purim carnivals and costumes, the symbolism will not be ignored by Israelis. This week in Washington, D.C., it should not be ignored either. READ THIS LIST1War With Iran? Summit to DecideIsaac HerzogAboutAdvertiseContactJobsHelpPrivacyCommunity PolicyTerms & ConditionsCopyright & Trademark© 2016 The Daily Beast Company LLC

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Fiscal Cliff: Last ditch effort to avoid cliff under way President Barack Obama gestures during a statement on the fiscal cliff negotiations with congressional leaders in the briefing room of the White House on Friday, Dec. 28, 2012 in Washington. The negotiations are a last ditch effort to avoid across-the-board first of the year tax increases and deep spending cuts. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) By DAVID ESPO and JIM KUHNHENN, The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) � The end game at hand, the White House and Senate leaders took a final stab at compromise Friday night to prevent middle-class tax increases from taking effect at the turn of the new year and possibly prevent sweeping spending cuts as well. �I�m optimistic we may still be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time,� President Barack Obama said at the White House after meeting for more than an hour with congressional leaders. Surprisingly, after weeks of postelection gridlock, Senate leaders sounded even more bullish. The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said he was �hopeful and optimistic� of a deal, adding he hoped a compromise could be presented to rank-and-file lawmakers as early as Sunday, a little more than 24 hours before the year-end deadline. Said Majority Leader Harry Reid: �I�m going to do everything I can� to prevent the tax increases and spending cuts that threaten to send the economy into recession. He cautioned, �Whatever we come up with is going to be imperfect.� Officials said there was a general understanding that any agreement would block scheduled income tax increases for middle class earners while letting rates rise at upper income levels. Democrats said Obama was sticking to his campaign call for increases above $250,000 in annual income, even though in recent negotiations he said he could accept $400,000. The two sides also confronted a divide over estate taxes. Obama favors a higher tax than is currently in effect, but one senior Republican, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, said he�s �totally dead set� against it. Speaking of fellow GOP lawmakers, he said they harbor more opposition to an increase in the estate tax than to letting taxes on income and investments rise at upper levels. Also likely to be included in the negotiations are taxes on dividends and capital gains, both of which are scheduled to rise with the new year. Also the alternative minimum tax, which, if left unchanged, could hit millions of middle- and upper-income taxpayers for the first time. In addition, Obama and Democrats want to prevent the expiration of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, and there is widespread sentiment in both parties to shelter doctors from a cut in Medicare fees. The White House has shown increased concern about a possible spike in milk prices if a farm bill is not passed in the next few days, although it is not clear whether that issue, too, might be included in the talks. One Republican who was briefed on the White House meeting said Boehner made it clear he would leave in place spending cuts scheduled to take effect unless alternative savings were found to offset them. If he prevails, that would defer politically difficult decisions on government benefit programs like Medicare until 2013. Success was far from guaranteed in an atmosphere of political mistrust � even on a slimmed-down deal that postponed hard decisions about spending cuts into 2013 � in a Capitol where lawmakers grumbled about the likelihood of spending the new year holiday working. In a brief appearance in the White House briefing room, Obama referred to �dysfunction in Washington,� and said the American public is �not going to have any patience for a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. Not right now.� If there is no compromise, he said he expects Reid to put legislation on the floor to prevent tax increases on the middle class and extend unemployment benefits � an implicit challenge to Republicans to dare to vote against what polls show is popular. The guest list for the White House meeting included Reid, McConnell, Boehner and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The same group last met more than a month ago and emerged expressing optimism they could strike a deal that avoided the fiscal cliff. At that point, Boehner had already said he was willing to let tax revenues rise as part of an agreement, and the president and his Democratic allies said they were ready to accept spending cuts. Since then, though, talks between Obama and Boehner faltered, the speaker struggled to control his rebellious rank and file, and Reid and McConnell sparred almost daily in speeches on the Senate floor. Through it all, Wall Street has paid close attention, and in the moments before the meeting, stocks were trading lower for the fifth day in a row. The core issue is the same as it has been for more than a year, Obama�s demand for tax rates to rise on upper incomes while remaining at current levels for most Americans. He made the proposal central to his successful campaign for re-election, when he said incomes above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples should rise to 39.6 percent from the current 35 percent. Boehner refused for weeks to accept any rate increases, and simultaneously accused Obama of skimping on the spending cuts he would support as part of a balanced deal to reduce deficits, remove the threat of spending cuts and prevent the across-the-board tax cuts. Last week, the Ohio Republican pivoted and presented a Plan B measure that would have let rates rise on million-dollar earners. That was well above Obama�s latest offer, which called for a $400,000 threshold, but more than the speaker�s rank and file were willing to accept. Facing defeat, Boehner scrapped plans for a vote, leaving the economy on track for the cliff that political leaders in both parties had said they could avoid. In the aftermath, Democrats said they doubted any compromise was possible until Boehner has been elected to a second term as speaker when the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3. Further compounding the year-end maneuvering, there are warnings that the price of milk could virtually double beginning next year. Congressional officials said that under current law, the federal government is obligated to maintain prices so that fluid milk sells for about $20 per hundredweight. If the law lapses, the Department of Agriculture would be required to maintain a price closer to $36 of $38 per hundredweight, they said. It is unclear when price increases might be felt by consumers.

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Mayor slams new rival as McNamara enters race; Council chief scoffs at Bell’s economic record Supporters cheer as Joe McNamara, president of Toledo City Council, announces his mayoral candidacy in front of closed Fire Station No. 3. Hours after City Council President Joe McNamara declared his candidacy for mayor of Toledo, incumbent Mayor Mike Bell welcomed him to the fray, commended him for getting involved, then slammed him as having less backbone than he has. “Running for mayor and holding the position of mayor are not easy, so I commend him for getting involved in the process,” Mr. Bell said. But Mr. Bell said he has taken steps as mayor that he said Mr. McNamara would not have been willing to do, and he dismissed much of Mr. McNamara's criticism as “political rhetoric.” “I’m a change agent. I’m moving in totally different directions than he’ll ever move. I have more spinal cord than he has,” Mr. Bell said in the lobby of One Government Center. Mr. McNamara, 35, a Toledo lawyer, opened his campaign in front of a shuttered North Toledo fire station Tuesday morning with an attack on the mayor's economic development record. “Our mayor is responsible for making the most of the economic development opportunities that present themselves, and in this respect Mayor Bell has failed. I want to shift the focus of the city of Toledo’s economic development, [to] focusing on jobs,” Mr. McNamara said. He said if people are earning paychecks, revenue would flow back into the city. “We’ve seen a lot of turnover in the Department of Economic Development, we’ve seen the ball dropped many times,” Mr. McNamara said, promising to roll out examples as the campaign moves forward. “We need to hire a professional staff in economic development that has a background, that is focused on creating jobs,” he said. He also blasted the mayor’s record on safety, noting that there are fewer police today than in 2009 when Mr. Bell was elected. Regarding the mayor’s “spinal cord” comment, Mr. McNamara responded: “Mayor Bell might have more spinal cord than I do, but I have a better vision to move this city forward.” Mayor Bell, a political independent, declared his candidacy two weeks ago. Also running for mayor are Alan Cox, a city neighborhood development specialist and president of one of the city unions, and Opal Covey, a church minister. Both are political independents. Lucas County Auditor Anita Lopez and retired Toledo assistant chief of staff Theresa Gabriel are also mulling getting into the race. Ms. Lopez, a Democrat, brushed off reporters seeking to interview her Tuesday, telling them to make an appointment. Ms. Gabriel, a Republican, said she hasn't decided yet whether to become a candidate. As of the close of business Tuesday, a Blade request for an appointment with Ms. Lopez had been ignored. The filing deadline is July 12 to run in the Sept. 10 nonpartisan primary election. The top two vote-getters in that election, regardless of political affiliation, will face off in the Nov. 5 general election. Mr. Bell rejected Mr. McNamara’s criticism on both economic development and safety grounds. He said the city’s income-tax revenues have rebounded by $19 million since he took office in 2009 while confronting a $48 million shortfall, which he did without raising taxes. “We are meeting the goal of economic development, knowing that most of that is privately driven,” Mr. Bell said, noting that some other cities are facing deficits and layoffs. “I think we’ve done an unbelievable job of getting us where we’re at. “All I know is the bottom line of the revenue that we have coming in helps the quality of life. I don’t have to quantify it.” The mayor said he doesn’t keep records of how many jobs were created during his tenure, but spokesman Jen Sorgenfrei and Deputy Mayor Steve Herwat cited several expansions that Mr. Bell had a hand in, including the Chrysler Jeep assembly complex, the Hollywood Casino Toledo, and the Hickory Farms Inc. headquarters that moved from Maumee to downtown Toledo last year. And to Mr. McNamara’s criticism that Mr. Bell is overly focused on business and profits rather than using his office to recruit jobs to the city, Mr. Bell said, “We’re in better shape today because we’ve reached out to the business community.” The mayor also countered Mr. McNamara's criticism that fewer police officers are on the force now than when he took office, saying that no officers were hired in the four years preceding his term and that he has hired more police officers and firefighters than any previous strong mayor. Toledo’s strong-mayor form of government began in 1993. Mr. McNamara chose to kick off his election campaign in front of Fire Station 3 on Bush Street, a historic building the administration closed because of structural problems with the building, and which Mr. McNamara said he fought to keep open because of its importance to the neighborhood. Among those who cheered on the announcement speech was Sy Kreais, head of the neighborhood Block Watch. “It’s great to have someone that’s concerned with the neighborhood and not sitting behind a desk and dictating,” Mr. Kreais said. In the crowd of about a dozen family, political, and neighborhood supporters was Mr. McNamara’s wife, Valerie Moffitt, who is assistant director of the United North community development corporation, which serves the Vistula neighborhood. Mr. McNamara said “the jury is still out” on the Marina District, the East Toledo riverfront parcel that Mr. Bell sold, with council approval, in 2011 to Chinese investors for $3.8 million. Plans call for eventual construction of a commercial and residential project, though no work has begun. Mr. Bell has defended the move as raising money for the cash-strapped city and returning a tax-exempt property to paying property taxes. “Selling city assets to foreign investors is not the same thing as getting investment,” Mr. McNamara said. “We hope they do something with it, but what jobs have been created?” Staff writer Ignazio Messina contributed to this report. Contact Tom Troy at: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058. ,Joe McNamara ,Toledo mayor race

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More Liberal workers up the scrutiny in premier’s ridingZoe McKnight, Vancouver Sun 04.22.2013Students walk along a sidewalk on the University of B.C. campus on January 23, 2012. NDP candidate David Eby is aggressively canvassing for votes at the university after a narrow loss to Christy Clark in Vancouver-Point Grey in the 2011 byelection.Gerry Kahrmann / PROVINCEShareAdjustCommentPrintLiberal party scrutineers are challenging the proof of residency submitted by some University of B.C. students attempting to vote in Premier Christy Clark’s riding.A get-out-the-vote campaign sponsored by the New Democratic Party of B.C. brought about a dozen students by bus to the Elections B.C. district office on West Broadway last Wednesday in the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey to vote to cast advance ballots.But when fourth-year geography and political science student Quinn Runkle tried to use a printout of her university account proving she lives in Acadia House on UBC campus, her residency credentials were challenged by Liberal party members acting as “candidate representatives.”Runkle, who originally hails from the Sunshine Coast, eventually voted, but “in their minds I had insufficient documentation,” she said.“It seemed the B.C. Liberals were trying to dissuade us or make it a more uncomfortable experience. Certainly made it a more uncomfortable experience for me,” Runkle said in an interview, adding she worried some other students “would walk away from the poll that day and maybe wouldn’t come back.“I definitely do see it as problematic.”Runkle said many of her peers find voting information vague and often difficult to understand, which adds to the frustration of those who are frequently forced to vote outside their home ridings because of exams, travel and summer jobs. Runkle is staying in Vancouver for the summer to work but her permanent address is her family home.In a post on the UBC website, district electoral officer Jan Pierce reminded students to bring a piece of ID and proof of residency. Digital or electronic documents like e-bills and certain online profiles are now considered acceptable, according to Elections B.C. spokesman Don Main.“That was challenged by a couple of people observing the voting on behalf of one of the candidates in the riding,” he said, confirming that candidate was the premier.No other instances of challenges have been recorded during advance voting, but the scrutineers were present when the 10 UBC students arrived on a city bus escorted by NDP volunteers and NDP MP Olivia Chow.David Eby, the NDP candidate in the riding, lost to Clark by 564 votes in the 2011 byelection and has been pursuing the student vote as a way to avoid repeating that kind of outcome. In particular, the 564 Votes campaign at UBC is encouraging university students to vote in advance, since the school term ends before the May 14 election and some young people will be unwilling or unable to vote, especially if leaving the province for the summer. (Out-of-province students are eligible to vote if they’ve lived in B.C. for six months.)Liberal party communications officer Sam Oliphant said the party’s scrutineers had concerns about whether a screen shot is unreliable proof of residency.“We asked for clarification about what would constitute an acceptable proof of residency and whether a screen shot of a residency page or simply showing a smartphone image would be something (Elections B.C.) would accept,” he wrote in an email, adding university transcripts or proof of registration were more commonly used.The request for clarification was not a formal challenge, he added.UBC political science professor Kathy Harrison said the parties should be doing all they can to encourage university students to vote, rather than making it more difficult. In the 2009 election, only 34 per cent of voters aged 20-24 voted, compared to 74 per cent of voters aged 70-74.Students move frequently, so have a hard time proving their address, she noted. Others may not receive bills or other mail that can be used as supporting documentation. Even not having a printer can be considered a barrier to voting.“There’s a perennial problem in British Columbia and Canada that young people aren’t voting,” Harrison said. “The university has been working quite hard to encourage students to vote, so if there’s anyone actively challenging them and making it difficult for them to register — when we should be doing everything we can to participate in the democratic process — I just find that very troubling.”“I don’t care how the students vote, I just want them to vote.”zmcknight@vancouversun.com xShareLiberal workers up the scrutiny in premier’s riding

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Global Retreat Ron Feemster By Ron Feemster Protesters and police face off in the East Village.photo: Julia Xanthos In November, the World Economic Forum announced with great fanfare that it would hold its annual meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel to show solidarity with New York. That may, in fact, be why it came here last week. But that doesn't begin to explain what drove the annual gathering of multi-millionaire CEOs and politicians out of Switzerland in the first place. The Forum fled because it failed to manage the political and financial problems triggered by demonstrations the past two years. Rampaging anarchists scored a major victory in Davos in 2001. They disrupted the Forum's placid marriage to the sleepy ski resort, which had hosted the annual meeting for 31 years. Davos, first famous as the setting for Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, is not like Seattle or Genoa, cities that might lose a battle to protesters but never have to see them again. Davos is home to the World Economic Forum. If the Forum can't keep the peace, it has to go elsewhere. "It's just too small a town for big demonstrations," says Hans Klaus, spokesman for the Swiss Justice and Police Ministry. "We haven't found a good way to let all of those people in there at once." Demonstrators show up, like it or not. Crowds took to the streets here and in Zurich last weekend to protest the Forum's role in globalization. In Zurich, police arrested 54 protesters Friday night, and disturbances caused $180,000 in property damage, according to published reports. Upcoming Events Dealing with demonstrators is expensive. Security costs for a meeting in Davos have exploded from $175,000 in 1998 to an estimated $6 million to $9 million this year, according to Klaus. Convincing the provincial government of Graubünden to swallow its 62 percent share of the tab was tough. But parceling out the security tasks proved to be even more difficult. Well aware that a large, violent demonstration in Davos could spell the end of the Forum, Swiss authorities turned back protesters before they reached the meeting in 2001. This strategy moved the security problems to neighboring cities and sowed the seeds of Davos's political undoing. Protesters were not allowed into Davos last year because, in 2000, they had attacked a McDonald's and smashed shop windows along the main street of town. In 2001, the authorities created "Fortress Davos," and blocked roads and searched trains on Saturday, the traditional demonstration day. Forced to turn back, about 1000 protesters regrouped in Zurich, where they burned automobiles and battled police water cannons. Ironically, Zurich's riot police were 90 miles away in Davos and had to be helicoptered back. Zurich residents and businesses blamed their police for dedicating local resources to the rich visitors in the mountains, and then failing to keep order at home. Davos's security woes had become a national problem. A national police problem in Switzerland becomes a nightmare overnight. Each of the country's 26 cantons (provinces) has an independent police force, as do most cities and towns. Most of these forces are tiny by American standards. The city of Zurich (pop. 300,000) has 2000 uniformed officers. The canton of Zurich (pop. 1.2 million) employs another 2000 officers. These are the largest forces in a country of 7.2 million people. The police contingent that boarded helicopters to quell the Zurich riot numbered fewer than 50 officers. (This year, the NYPD dedicated 4000 officers to protect the Forum, freezing a three-block zone around the Waldorf-Astoria.) To police the Forum, each of the 26 cantons must send a few officers to the meeting, as almost all have done in the past. But after the unrest in Zurich, no canton wanted to be caught short if anti-Forum demonstrations spread across the nation. Zurich refused to send officers with experience in quelling demonstrations. At most, Zurich police would stand by, waiting to be choppered in if it were clear that Zurich remained peaceful. Similarly bitter negotiations with other cantons began in June, and they were still going on in October, when the Forum was forced to commit to Davos or find a new home. "Money was not the biggest problem," says Pascal Couchepin, the Swiss minister of economic affairs. "Finding money in Switzerland is easier than finding police officers." In the meantime, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, which altered the Forum's agenda as certainly as it changed the global political climate. Klaus Schwab, the founder and head of the Forum, was in New York on September 11, meeting with Rabbi Arthur Schneier of the Park East Synagogue when the planes struck. After Schwab returned to Geneva, the off-season headquarters of the Forum, he and his staff tore up plans for a meeting on the impending global recession and rewrote the program based on a new and insecure world. As Charles McLean, communications director for the Forum, tells the story, Schwab was toying early on with the idea of moving the 2002 meeting to New York. "He just brought it up as an idle remark in a meeting, but no one took it very seriously," McLean recalls. Meanwhile, on October 1, the Forum sent out 2500 invitations to the meeting in Davos. The negotiations about costs and security continued. The Forum agreed to pay for relocating police officers, which would have come to about 20 percent of the total bill, according to McLean. (He notes that the Forum did not save money by coming to New York.) The Swiss federal government committed $1.9 million to protect visiting heads of state and dignitaries. Asked about the ongoing security negotiations, McLean recalls them as "background noise." He says Swiss federal authorities assured the Forum that security questions could be solved in time for the meeting. That noise may have been a faint buzz in Geneva, but in Zurich and Graubünden, the canton that hosts the Forum, it was deafening. Esther Maurer, the Zurich police chief, a Social Democrat who is also a city councilmember standing for re-election on March 3, continued to balk at sending officers to Davos unless two conditions were met. First, the officers must not be needed in Zurich. Second, the Forum would have to change its format to become friendlier to demonstrators. Those seeking dialogue should be offered the opportunity to join the discussion, rather than being shut out, Maurer said. Late in October, the Forum dispatched two board members to New York to pitch Mayor Giuliani on holding the meeting here. McLean recalls: "The mayor looked at his advisers and asked, 'Does anybody think this is a bad idea?' " On November 7, Klaus Schwab held a press conference at the Waldorf announcing the Forum's "solidarity" with New York. When the Forum announced that it would leave Switzerland, negotiations took on renewed urgency. The parties agreed to bring the meeting back to Davos in 2003. Esther Maurer's conditions were met. The Swiss government and the Forum endowed a foundation called In the Spirit of Davos, which aims to "institutionalize a dialogue with demonstrators," according to Economic Affairs Minister Couchepin. Swiss Justice and Police Minister Ruth Metzler-Arnold called a meeting of the 26 provincial police departments, and the security costs were redistributed. But major questions remain for the demonstrators. They have succeeded, so far, in rocking the foundation of the World Economic Forum. Do they want to join the party? Or will the Forum be driven out of Davos forever? Contact: Ron Feemster Educating Prisoners Saves Money and Lives: 'Give a Brother a... NJ Transit Train Was Speeding Into the Station Before Fatal Crash

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NEWS HEADLINES King to seek re-election By Messenger Staff | Published Saturday, November 23, 2013Tags: Election, Wise County State Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) announced Nov. 12 that he has filed with the Republican Party of Texas for re-election as state representative, Texas House District 61. Phil King “It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Parker and Wise counties in the Texas House,” King said in a press release. “I have spent my tenure in office fighting for limited government, individual liberty, free enterprise and family values. “I will continue to defend and promote these principles that are so vital to Texas.” King will appear as a candidate on the 2014 Republican primary ballot. The Texas primary election date is March 4.

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World Your Balance +tax World The World This article was published 3/5/2013 (1246 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Castro kin predicts U.S.-Cuba tiesPHILADELPHIA -- Fidel Castro's niece says she believes Cuba and the U.S. will have normal relations one day, but she doesn't know when. CPMariela Castro Mariela Castro spoke in Spanish through an interpreter Friday in Philadelphia after visiting the city's historic Liberty Bell.The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro is visiting the city to take part in a gay-rights conference today. She is Cuba's most prominent gay-rights activistInitially, her bid to take part in the conference and visit Philadelphia had been denied by the U.S. State Department.League warned after ref attackedMURRAY, Utah -- A Utah school district has issued a formal warning to the president of a soccer league in which a referee was punched by a teen player and sent into a coma.The Granite School District's letter says the league is in danger of having its rental agreement revoked. La Liga Continental pays to hold its games at a district middle-school field each Saturday.The district cites Saturday's assault and previous complaints that the league didn't clean up trash and violated the ban on drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.La Liga president Mario Vasquez said Friday the team the teenager played on has been kicked out of the league, and he says the league will have security present at future games.Italy not racist: black ministerROME -- Italy's first black cabinet minister, who has been the target of racist slurs following her appointment last week, says Italians aren't racist, but some are merely ignorant of other cultures.Congolese-born Cecile Kyenge held a press conference Friday to introduce herself to Italians so they could get to know her, saying: "I am black. This is important to say. I emphasize it proudly."Kyenge's appointment as integration minister had been hailed as a big step for Italy, which has only recently had to cope with waves of immigration. But the move prompted racist taunts from xenophobic politicians and members of neo-fascist Internet groups.Kyenge thanked her defenders. She also stressed that Italy has a long tradition of welcoming foreigners and the tradition must be upheld.Obama nixes U.S. troops in SyriaSAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday he doesn't foresee any circumstance requiring the U.S. to send ground troops into Syria, even as Washington pursues more evidence about the regime's purported use of chemical weapons."I do not foresee a scenario in which boots on the ground in Syria, American boots on the ground, would not only be good for America but also would be good for Syria," Obama said at a news conference.The president's declaration was in line with the apparent prevailing sentiment in Washington. Even one of Obama's chief antagonists on Syria, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has said he does not advocate sending ground troops, arguing that would be "the worst thing the United States could do right now."Obama also said he had consulted with Mideast leaders who want to see Syrian President Bashar Assad's departure and agree with his assessment that the U.S. shouldn't send ground forces.Students get 'sun day' offSEATTLE -- In sun-deprived Washington state, the promise of nice spring weather has prompted a small private school to give students a day off to enjoy the sunshine.Friday will be a "sun day" of sorts for 205 students at Bellingham Christian School in Bellingham, Wash. Principal Bob Sampson announced the day off on the school's site.Sampson said he wanted to give students a chance to enjoy the weather and re-energize. He said he surveyed parents and floated the idea with the school board before cancelling school.Junk-food move targets governorCOLUMBIA, S.C. -- Lawmakers in South Carolina are trying to keep junk food out of the governor's mansion.State senators inserted a clause in the 2013-14 budget plan that would bar Gov. Nikki Haley's office and the governor's mansion from buying junk food with public money, whether for employee treats or entertaining.The move was a response to state efforts to fight obesity by limiting what people can buy with money from supplemental nutrition assistance, commonly known as food stamps. Those efforts need federal approval before being implemented.-- from the news services Report Error

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Louisiana residents petition to secede Posted By Drew Zahn On 11/09/2012 @ 6:45 pm In Front Page,Politics,U.S. | No Comments On Nov. 6, Americans voted to return Barack Obama to the White House; then on Nov. 7, some folks in Louisiana petitioned the White House to peaceably withdraw their state from the Union. According to the White House website, the petition was created by Michael E. (full last name not provided) of Slidell, La., the day after the election and has since been electronically signed by a few hundred people, most – but not all – of whom hail from the Pelican State. “We petition the Obama administration to: Peacefully grant the State of Louisiana to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government,” the petition reads. It continues, “As the Founding Fathers of the United States of America made clear in the Declaration of Independence in 1776: ‘When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.'” The petition concludes with a further quote from the Declaration of Independence: “‘Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government.'” The petition has until Dec. 7 of this year to gather 25,000 signatures, at which time, the White House pledges, it will be placed on a queue for response from the administration. Screen capture of White House petition page for Louisiana secession The White House created the “We the People” petition site ostensibly as a way of giving all Americans “a way to engage their government on the issues that matter to them.” “The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the page reads. “We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.” The page also explains, “You have just 30 days to get 25,000 signatures in order to get a response from the White House.” Once the White House does draft a response, it has pledged to send it via email to everyone who has signed the petition (registration on the site with a valid email address is required to sign petitions). To view or even sign the petition, click here. Article printed from WND: http://www.wnd.com URL to article: http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/louisiana-residents-petition-to-secede/ Click here to print. © Copyright 1997-2013. All Rights Reserved. WND.com.

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What Makes a Political Button Valuable? Posted by: Tom Carrier By Tom Carrier WorthPoint Worthologist Common or scarce? Political buttons were created for campaigns, for issues, even for special events—or sometimes just because. With so many different kinds of political campaign buttons available since they were first created in 1896, and more than 3,000 for the Obama campaign alone, how can you know which ones to collect? I spoke with Mark Evans of Collectors Archive of Avon, New York, a long time political collectibles dealer, about the tried and true method of determining what is collectible. “An awful lot of it is supply and demand and the graphic appeal of the item,” Evans says. “There is a wonderful button of Teddy Roosevelt with draped flags in his Rough Rider hat when he ran for Governor in 1898, but it’s very common. There were thousands and thousands of them made.” But, because of Teddy’s outsized personality, collector’s demand for this particular button has pushed the value for this relatively common button higher. A more recent example of this phenomenon is the “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right” campaign button of the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign of 1964. The satirical buttons of this campaign, such as “In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts” or “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right – Far Right” also have values much higher than the supply. With 3,000 buttons for the Obama campaign alone, how do we determine what is valuable as a collectible? Look for buttons that were used for a one day event, Evans says. Buttons of this sort were made in much more limited quantities, usually by local clubs or commercial companies and so their value remains high. Also, look to a candidate’s initial runs for political office. A Joe Biden campaign button for president in 1988, for example, now sells for $20 to $50 when just recently it was only about $2. Matched pairs are also collectible. This is a commercially produced button series where both the president and vice president candidates are each produced on a separate button. Collectors go out of their way to find the mates, producing an instant collectible. “Another factor,” Evans says, “is how well a button is made.” Evans shows a 1980 campaign button for Ronald Reagan where the graphic, while interesting and unusual, was poorly made. Spots, or foxing, started appearing on the paper reducing its value considerably. On the other hand, an interesting or unusual illustration, where the colors are bright and the quality is good, will only increase in value as a collectible over time. So, to find value in political buttons, it is more than supply and demand. An unusual or catchy campaign slogan, buttons used for one-day events, early campaign buttons of elected presidents and vice presidents, matched pairs of candidates produced commercially, and unusual buttons that are well made. These are all factors in finding continued value in political button collectibles. Still, there is one last thing to remember when collecting political buttons that tends to make all the difference. “As a collector, you should collect what you like,” Evans counsels. Hard to do in politics, but this is really the last word in collectible political buttons. Watch a video with Tom Carrier talking to Mark Evans about political buttons here. Tom Carrier is a general Worthologist, with an expertise in a wide variety of subjects. WorthPoint: Get the Most from Your Antiques & Collectibles. Collecting Presidential Campaign Items in 2016 isn’t as Big a Draw as in the Past Campaign Buttons Predict Winners William Jennings Bryan Items from the 1908 Democratic Convention Crazy Prices for Obama Victory Papers 20 Comments How to Determine the Value of a Political Button » Button Blogger says: January 29, 2009 at 1:54 pm […] What Makes a Political Button Valuable? – WorthPoint […] Lisa Walker says: September 23, 2013 at 8:39 pm What would Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon’s campaign buttons be worth? Tom Carrier says: September 24, 2013 at 1:18 am Lisa: Most political buttons from the 1970s and forward have a relative value of no more than $10, no matter the campaign. There are always examples such as how many were produced, whether they are made differently, or whether the button is so much different than most that were being produced. But, utlimately, most buttons from Nixon to today fall into the under $10 range. Without photos to determine whether your buttons differ from most others, I can be sure that yours will no doubt fall into this broad category. Thanks for visiting WorthPoint. Tom Carrier Worthologist Marc Sigoloff says: June 12, 2010 at 10:23 am The total number of Obama buttons is really under estimated here. There are probably 30,000 plus thanks to sites like CafePress and Zazzle. I personally have more than 3400, and the number of known buttons I don’t have is huge. Tom Carrier says: June 14, 2011 at 5:18 pm Marc: The number of Obama buttons in circulation at the time referred to only the ones used during the primaries up to the 2008 Democratic Convention. Naturally, once the general election began and he was the nominee (and because of the historical significance of his candidacy) the number of political buttons would have increased exponentially, as you pointed out. And because there are so many, it is even more important to follow Mark Evan’s advice more closely. Carol Satterfield says: June 13, 2011 at 10:55 pm I thought an error in a political button is valuable as it is in a coin, but that isn’t the case is it? I have a Strom Thurmond 1948 Dixiecrat presidential campaign button that is off center. I was under the impression it would be worth more than the centered ones but I have been offered less for it. How much would you say an off-centered one and a centered one would be worth? Tom Carrier says: June 14, 2011 at 5:14 pm Carol: Except Strom Thurmond didn’t win. That also helps make a difference. That’s not always the case, however. Barry Goldwater and George Wallace still sell well even though they both lost. But, they are also symbols of the underlying political philosophy they both were associated with; far right conservative for Goldwater, state’s rights for Wallace. In the case of your Thurmond button, it’s possible (without seeing it) that it is one of the more common buttons issued for the campaign and hence wouldn’t be considered a rarity, just made incorrectly. After all, Thurmond’s campaign didn’t alter history in any way, so it may not be particularly collectible in any condition. The value of one collectible hinges on different criteria. For an early book it may not be the content, but the paper itself; for flags it isn’t condition, but how the stars are arranged; for glassware, it isn’t the item, but the color; for political collectibles, it’s more the personality of the candidate that appeals to collectors. Hard to say sometimes. Still, it’s important that you asked, just to be sure. Thanks for visiting WorthPoint. Marc Sigoloff says: June 17, 2011 at 1:40 am Since your question wasn’t adequately answered I will be happy to. The hobbies of campaign buttons and coins are very different, and the rules of one don’t apply to the other. Off-centering on buttons is just viewed as a form of “damage”, much like scratches or spots. It diminishes the value of any button, whether it is rare or common. With a rare button, it might be worth adding to your collection in case you can’t find a better example. With a common button it is better to pass and just wait to find a good one. If it is worth $10 in mint, I wouldn’t bother with an off-center variety even for a $1. There are some Strom Thurmond buttons that are worth a lot of money, so the fact that he lost is not relevant to this situation. You might have the common one that would be worth around $10 in mint condition. Is it just a name button? There are certain manufacturer’s errors that do increase the value of a button. If there is a misprint in the lettering or the picture, and it is corrected, the error could bring high prices. A well known example is the Tigereye Barack Obama that pictured Larry Craig rather than Larry LaRocco. The Craig error version would certainly sell for more, particularly since fewer were made. A better example is the original Bill Clinton Announcement button. The union label was mistakenly left off the original batch, and the campaign refused them. They were returned to the manufacturer and destroyed, but one survived. The corrected version that was used at the event sells for up to $150, but the one without the union label can be considered priceless. A Clinton collector did offer $1000 for it. Marc Sigoloff says: June 14, 2011 at 9:24 pm Since your article is dated a few months after the general election the fact that you were referring to only the primaries would not be evident. There are other significant things to look for that weren’t mentioned. Labor union endoresments has been one of the dominating categories of Democratic buttons since the campaign of Walter Mondale. Coattails are also good if they are rare and not collector made. Then there are the Democratic National Convention buttons, if they came from official sources, such as the Mile High Stadium jugate, the Heartland Rural Council jugate, the ACORN Voters, and the square Illinois delegation button. My newsletter The Obama Guardian goes into far more detail about Obama buttons than you will find anywhere else. Tom Carrier says: June 15, 2011 at 2:06 am Thanks for the update, Marc. Actually, the original interview with Mark Evans was conducted at the American Presidential Experience exhibit at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado. At that time, it was estimated that there were about 3,000 primary campaign buttons in circulation. The article was included on the WorthPoint website well after the interview was conducted. Rosemary Werner says: October 24, 2011 at 12:42 pm Found a Political Button; JFK, It flickers with two pics. Thinks it worth the trouble to find its worth? Tom Carrier says: October 24, 2011 at 8:10 pm Rosemary: You have what we call a ‘flasher’ button. Most were made by a company called Veri-Vu which is no longer in business. Yours is relatively common and is collectible as long as it is good condition and the button itself can ‘flash’ and has no discernible scratches or marks. They are still widely available from $8 to $25, depending on where it can be found. Laura Bergeron says: November 2, 2011 at 7:26 am Good Morning, I collect antique sewing buttons, and in a recent purchase, there was a political button included. It is a mayoral campaign button for John F. Fitzgerald. Was wondering if it had much value? I know very little about political buttons. Thanks, Laura Tom Carrier says: November 2, 2011 at 9:58 pm Laura: You sent me some terrific closeups views of a 1906 mayoral campaign political button of John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, a maternal grandfather of John F. Kennedy and father to Rose Kennedy, his mother. Prior to winning that 1906 election as Boston’s mayor, he was also a member of Boston’s Common Council and US Congressman. Many will remember John F. Kennedy relaxing on the family yacht known as the “Honey Fitz” named for his grandfather when he was president of the United States. The images you showed me of his mayoral campaign were very clear and quite in good condition There are several in WorthPoint’s set of auction records showing it has sold most recently at Ebay auctions for $127 and $132. Hope this helps. Matthew David Wildman says: January 5, 2012 at 10:24 pm Hello, I have a “write in Coumo” pin, that is all metal the kind that you push the bcck to affix the graffic is the american flag it is 1 inch I have kept it in the “National draft Coumo for President Committee envolope since the spring of 92. I was a visiting student at Emerson and I was sent thease by Mr Krone and gave them out to fellow supporters when the Gov spoke at Harvard. I looked on ebay but dont see any. Do you have any idea what it’s worth. I can send pics It’s red , white and blue and is mint never been pushed back Thank You, Matt Joanne says: November 23, 2012 at 2:58 pm I have 3 campaign buttons. The first is “Kennedy for President”. This second is “Nixon” and the third is “LBJ for the USA”. I have had them all these years and have them on a padded cardboard in a plastic bag. I think they are in good condition. Do you think it is worth looking into the value of the buttons? Thank you roger says: January 19, 2013 at 10:20 pm yeah, i have a 1960 kennedy johnson oin says ‘new leadership’ on top and below says kennedy johnson. i have a 1976 president ford pin. i have a 1976 ford dole pin. i have a 1976 ‘gerald r. ford in ’76’ pin. i have a 1960 kennedy red white and blue pin. i have a 1936 ‘Landon’ ‘knox’ pin with elephant in middle seperating the two names, says gop on the elephant. i have a 1960 kennedy johnson, looks like you pin it on from the top its 1/2 in x 1″1/8 or 1/4 width. Are these worth anything. ? Tom Carrier says: January 20, 2013 at 12:30 am Roger: Except for the Landon Knox pin that has sold at auction recently for $15, the others have a value of between $3 to $10 with the Kennedy ones having the higher value, depending on condition. None of the buttons are particularly scarce, but in good condition can help with building a nice political button collection. Wortholgist Doug says: January 1, 2015 at 12:29 pm Do you have an opinion about when a collectable item is most valuable—during or after the lifetime of a president? I created the original/official “The Cure for the Blues—Clinton for President” items back in 1992. I still have my original sketches and the original mechanical artwork that was used to print the official shirts (there were a number of counterfeits), and I have a few of the original t-shirts and buttons. Does my signature on a few of the items increase or decrease their value? I also have a limited number of posters of the 1996 “ENCORE” design I created using the same illustration from the ’92 campaign. Some signed by me, the artist—does that increase or decrease the value? Lastly, I have one of the posters framed and autographed by President Clinton at an event I attended in D.C. with a personal inscription to me……Bottom line, I’m trying to figure out when is the most appropriate time should I decide to offer these up for sale. Any thoughts? Lynn says: June 19, 2015 at 2:39 pm I have a small stuffed donkey found in my mother’s cedar chest in 1993. It measures about 8″ from tail to nose and 7″ from hoof to top of head. It has a red “blanket” on its back with the words Adlai & Estes on it. I know, of course, to whom the names refer to but can not find any reference to this donkey on the internet. I tend to think it might have been a Convention souvenir. Is that possible and would it have any monetary value? Thank you kindly,

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Libs aim to retain all Senators Andrew Tillett and Andrew Probyn Canberra Libs aim to retain all Senators - The West Australian WA Liberals have been put on notice they will be expected to throw their resources and manpower into defending the party's three Senate seats in the re-run election.In a closed-door meeting with the State's MPs and senators in Canberra yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed the fresh poll will be held before what is expected to be a brutal Budget is handed down on May 13.The Liberals' tactical planning coincides with a new poll that shows businessman Clive Palmer's party might fail to replicate the success it had last time.The Patterson Research Group survey is the first to be released since the High Court confirmed last week West Australians would go back to the polls because the loss of 1370 ballot papers wrecked the result of the Senate election.The survey, held before the court's decision, found almost one in 10 voters were undecided on who they would support. But when undecided voters are allocated a voting intention, the poll shows a swing to incumbents.Though Liberals fear losing their third seat won by Linda Reynolds, the party's primary support has surged to 45 per cent, up from 39 per cent on election day. Labor has risen five percentage points to 32 per cent, while the Greens have gone from 9 per cent to 12 per cent.However, the Palmer United Party's support has plunged from 5 per cent to one per cent, according to the poll. The party claimed a seat on the original count but narrowly lost it in the re-count."Our interpretation is that the minor parties will be decimated," Patterson Research Group principal Keith Patterson said.Mr Abbott gave no hints to his thinking on an exact poll date, but many Liberals believe April 5 and April 12 are the most likely.

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Economy > That ‘T-HUD’ You Didn’t Hear: 5 GOP Knocks Against People’s Priorities Tweet That ‘T-HUD’ You Didn’t Hear: 5 GOP Knocks Against People’s Priorities June 15, 2015 Jacob Woocher The appropriations bills that Republicans are sending to the floor of the House of Representatives aren’t getting much attention, but they should – as statements of who conservatives really are and where they set their priorities. For example, last week the appropriations committee sent to the House floor a $55.3 billion spending bill for the departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The fiscal 2016 “T-HUD” budget included cuts to vital infrastructure investments and to programs that offer critical relief to low-income families and individuals. At a time when too many communities across the country are still struggling to combat poverty and when housing assistance is only going to one in four families who are eligible to receive it, Republicans in Congress continue their assault on the poorest Americans and on the basics we need for shared economic prosperity. Moreover, these cuts come less than two months after the very same Republicans voted to repeal the estate tax, a move that would cost the government $14.6 billion in revenue next year and would only benefit the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans (individuals worth more than $5.43 million, or couples worth more than $10.86 million). This contrast clarifies exactly where the GOP’s priorities lie – with the economic elite, not with the American people. The Transportation-HUD bill is just the fifth of 12 spending bills for the 2016 fiscal year, providing the starting point for the budget negotiations that will take place over the coming months. The Republican’s overall budget framework represents the lowest real level of discretionary spending in a decade. Here are five revealing choices Republicans made in the T-HUD appropriations bill last week: Amtrak Republicans chose to continue their irrational war against passenger rail, which has already had deadly consequences this year. This legislation would provide $242 million less to Amtrak than the 2015 budget, and $1.3 billion less than what President Obama requested. While Amtrak ridership is at a record high, these cuts would make it extremely difficult to improve the awful state of the rails, including on the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor. That cut was made even after it was clear – nonsensical claims of Republicans notwithstanding – that May’s catastrophic train derailment in Philadelphia would likely have been prevented by a safety control system whose deployment by Amtrak was slowed in part due to lack of funding. Republicans chose to do less to make affordable housing available to struggling families. The bill cuts $1.2 billion from the Housing Choice Vouchers program, which is designed to give low-income households more flexibility to find suitable housing. That cut means dire consequences for thousands of low-income families who rely on these vouchers to subsidize their homes. This amount of funding is insufficient to restore the 67,000 vouchers that were lost to the 2013 sequestration, and would leave an additional 28,000 vouchers unable to be renewed. It would also starve the program of necessary administrative funds to ensure that housing units are safe and habitable. Choice Neighborhoods Republicans chose not to give a needed boost to communities left behind by today’s economic recovery. Lawmakers could have used the Choice Neighborhoods program, which has a record of success in revitalizing struggling communities through improvements to opportunities in education, housing, and private enterprise. Instead, the GOP-approved appropriations bill cuts the budget of Choice Neighborhoods by 75 percent, a level that is $230 million below what President Obama requested. That deep a cut will mean that dozens of struggling communities would receive no help at all. Homeless Assistance Grants Republicans chose to cut a potential lifeline out of homelessness for an estimated 40,000 families. That is the expected effect of the decision by the Appropriations Committee Republicans to nix a $295 million increase in spending for homeless assistance grants. This would be a huge setback in the nation’s fight to eradicate homelessness. The funding would have supported rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing for families who would otherwise be in homeless shelters or on the street. Restricting Travel to Cuba Republicans chose to cling to a Cold War relic of a policy that has long lost its effectiveness. They managed to insert provisions into the T-HUD bill that would block new rules issued in January by the Obama administration relaxing restrictions on travel to Cuba. Specifically, the bill would place certain restrictions on flights and cruise ships going to Cuba, plus would create unnecessary burdens on those traveling to Cuba for educational, religious, or various other reasons. These measures would severely limit recent progress made in normalizing relations with the country. On the other hand, since Republicans showed little interest in investments to improve travel within the United States, not moving to make travel to Cuba easier is at least in a weird way consistent. Isaiah J. Poole contributed to this post. Posted by Jacob Woocher Recent Stories by Jacob Woocher Here’s Why Republicans Are Dooming Themselves With Millennial Voters GOP candidates have occasionally used the right buzzwords – inequality, opportunity, middle class – but they are dramatically failing to give the true explanation about how our economy ended up the way it is. Transportation Spending Priorities Are a Civil Rights Issue Not having access to good public transportation destroys the promise of equal opportunity for millions of Americans. When Congress returns to address long-term transportation funding, this needs to be part of the debate. It’s Still Tough To Curb CEO Pay After Five Years Of Dodd-Frank The say-on-pay provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is not having the impact its advocates had hoped for. Five years later, executive pay packages are the highest they have ever been. About Jacob Woocher

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Remarks on Receiving the First Consolidated Report on the Inspectors General Program Mr. Harper. Mr. President, we're pleased to present this, the first consolidated report of the Inspectors General, to you this morning. And, as I mentioned, we're going to be having a press briefing in a few minutes with other members of the press to tell them about your plans for the program, the commitments that you've made. And then these three Inspectors General are going to be telling the press about specific projects we've undertaken to improve the effectiveness of the Inspector General program. The President. Well, you have more than my interest; you have my support and enthusiastic backing in this. I think it is high time. We've spoken of this over a period of time -- going clear back to the campaign -- of fraud, waste, and abuse. And I never was in sympathy with the way one department in government, some time ago, eliminated fraud, waste, and abuse. As I understand it, they called a staff meeting and said they would no longer use those words. They would now call it mismanagement and something else. [Laughter] Therefore, fraud, waste, and abuse disappeared. But this is the way to go at it, and you sure do have our backing, and go get them. Mr. Harper. Thank you very much, Mr. President. We know you have a very busy schedule, and we've got to get over to our meeting with the press. Thank you for your time. The President. Well, thank you for what you're doing. Note: The exchange began at 9:43 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White House. Edwin L. Harper is Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Also attending the meeting were Thomas F. McBride, Inspector General of the Department of Labor, Joseph P. Welsch, Inspector General-designate of the Department of Transportation, and Paul R. Boucher, Inspector General of the Small Business Administration.

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Horatio Seymour Sen. Horatio Seymour Former Senator from Vermont, Bioguide Seymour, a Adams, a senator from Vermont from 1827 to 1833. He was previously Contact Sen. Horatio Seymour I am a constituent. I live in Vermont. I have an opinion I want to share. I want to urge Seymour to take an action on a bill. Visit Sen. Horatio Seymour’s website » Look for a contact form on Sen. Horatio Seymour’s website to express your opinion. I need help, have a question, or want to schedule a tour. I’m having a problem with a government agency, need legal help, want to schedule a meeting or White House tour, or have another question. Visit Seymour’s Website » Head over to Sen. Horatio Seymour’s website. If you are having a problem with a government agency, look for a contact link for casework to submit a request for help. Otherwise, look for a phone number on that website to call his office if you have a question. I am not a constituent. I live elsewhere. Not all Members of Congress will accept messages from non-constituents. You can try your luck by visiting Seymour’s website. Otherwise, try contacting your own senator: Find Your Senator » You are currently on the website GovTrack.us, which has no affiliation with Seymour and is not a government website. Choose from the options above to find the right way to contact Seymour. The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: Congressional Biographical Directory for elected positions United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole. Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo

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America divided: the politics of inequality Godfrey Hodgson 16 July 2010 The entrenchment of inequality in the United States damages the economy, degrades politics and corrodes the American dream. A new reality is also an epic challenge of leadership, says Godfrey Hodgson. The economic crisis in the United States has had a profound impact on the lives of millions of its citizens. Among the most damaging is the experience of unemployment. In a country where notions of work, self-reliance, and self-improvement are fundamental to its identity, the insecurities and hardships associated with forced idleness are hard indeed to cope with. The persistence of large-scale unemployment is a standing affront to another of America’s core ideas: that, as the country’s founding document says, all men are created equal. True, the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were here pledging fidelity to a natural-rights principle than thinking of absolute or even relative economic equality. Still, an important element in the American public philosophy has always been the idea that the United States does offer, certainly has offered, greater economic equality, and in particular greater and more equal economic opportunity. This was the American dream. Now, that proposition has become dubious. Many Americans question whether life will be as good for their children as it was for their parents. There is much statistical evidence to suggest that the United States is neither exceptionally equal nor exceptional in its modern record of upward social mobility. On the basis of such evidence I myself have written that “by all statistical measures . . . the United States, in terms of income and wealth, is the most unequal country in the world. While the average income in the United States is still almost the highest in the world . . . the gap between wealth and poverty is higher than anywhere else, and is growing steadily greater” (see More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century [Princeton University Press, 2006]). Another book, by the American historian Peter Baldwin, has refined and amplified this argument “(see The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe are Alike [Oxford University Press, 2009]). He uses a wealth of statistical research to show that the United States is less exceptional than either Americans or Europeans think, and that the differences in many parameters between (for example) Mississippi and Massachusetts are greater than those between Europe and America; while the differences between northern and southern Europe are similarly comparable to those between New England and the deep south. In most demographic respects, the United States lies not at an extreme of wealth or an extreme in any cultural variation, but somewhere inside the distribution of European countries in each particular respect. A broken contract The former United States labor secretary during the Bill Clinton presidency, Robert Reich, dissects the historical dimensions of “widening inequality” in a forensic article: “In 1928 the richest 1 percent of Americans received 23.9 percent of the nation's total income. After that, the share going to the richest 1 percent steadily declined. New Deal reforms, followed by World War II, the GI Bill and the Great Society expanded the circle of prosperity. By the late 1970s the top 1 percent raked in only 8 to 9 percent of America's total annual income. But after that, inequality began to widen again, and income reconcentrated at the top. By 2007 the richest 1 percent were back to where they were in 1928 -- with 23.5 percent of the total” (see Robert Reich, “The Root of Economic Fragility and Political Anger”, Huffington Post, 13 July 2010). What is important here is that Reich focuses not on the relative equality or inequality of wealth or income of American as compared with the populations of other countries, but on how a trend away from inequality, in the direction of relative equality, has been reversed. Things in this respect in America are now back where they were before the last great depression, in the 1930s. It is a serious charge with profound political implications (“What we get from widening inequality is not only a more fragile economy but also an angrier politics.”) Since the triumph of conservative economic principles and policies, beginning in the 1980s, Reich is saying, the United States has thrown away a pearl of great price: the improvement in the condition of its citizenry that was achieved by all the efforts of the New Deal and the labour movement, the opportunity afforded by the collapse of its competitors in the second world war, and the social-democratic policies of the Truman, Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Until the financial crisis of 2008, most Americans, if they noticed the growth of inequality at all, probably shrugged. Inequality, many believed, was the price paid for the dynamism of American industry and research, for the brilliant achievements of American research, and for the supposedly greater opportunity Americans enjoy of becoming, in the unforgettable phrase of Peter Mandelson, “filthy rich”. The economic events of 2008-10 ought to have swept such complacency away (see “The week that democracy won”, 29 September 2008). So far from being exceptionally dynamic, American industry seems strangely comatose - an appearance dramatised by the collapse of the American automobile industry, the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler and the desertification of Detroit. Only the computer and information-technology industries and medical and biological research seem competitive by the standards of China, the rest of east Asia and even the more dynamic countries in Europe. The American propensity to compare the country’s performance favourably with everyone else has reasserted itself, however, more quickly than the fortunes of General Motors. The troubles of European economies, highlighted by the judgments of New York ratings-agencies and exacerbated by New York bond-traders, have offered an enjoyable opportunity for American Schadenfreude. The fact that the dollar has recovered some of its parity against the euro has allowed many to embrace the illusion that the United States’s economic problems are over. For the present, the Barack Obama administration’s focus in economic policy is on its rather ambitious attempts to reform (or rather to re-regulate) the financial system. This is necessary, important and - given the resistance of Wall Street - difficult, even politically hazardous. To reform Wall Street, clearly, is a necessary element in a political strategy to undo the damage that has been done. It is not, however, a sufficient one. A lost generation Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, makes this point in a timely and persuasive fashion (see “’The Time We Have Is Growing Short’”, New York Review of Books, 24 June 2010). Volcker is theoretically an adviser to President Obama but appears from a distance to have been blindsided by the more ancien régime of the president’s advisers (such as Larry Summers and the treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner; the latter a protégé of the arch-deregulator, Alan Greenspan, who predictably took advantage of the G20 meeting in Canada to patronise his European colleagues). Volcker praises the administration’s proposals for financial reform. But he insists that the critical policy issues facing the United States “go way beyond the technicalities of law and regulation of financial authority”. The time, he says, is growing short for recognising this and for taking the necessary larger view: “Restoring our fiscal position, dealing with Social Security and health care obligations in a responsible way, sorting out a reasonable approach towards limiting carbon omissions, and producing domestic energy without unacceptable environmental risks all take time. We’d better get started. That will require a greater sense of common purpose and political consensus than has been evidence in Washington or the country at large.” He is right. And to this list of urgent priorities - each of which is either flatly denied or dangerously minimised by the Republicans - it is surely time to add another. That is, to reverse the trend identified by Robert Reich and restore what has always been an integral apart of the motive force of American society: a conscious political will to restore equality of opportunity (see “The next big issue: inequality in America”, 12 September 2006). The much trumpeted research successes and highly paid professors at a couple of dozen private American universities (including a handful of well-endowed public institutions) conceal the crisis in public higher education. The most recent figures show that while a higher proportion than ever before of Americans start university courses (more than 70%), a lower-than-ever proportion (roughly 30%) graduate. David Leonhardt comments: “Over the last few decades, the number of teenagers who enroll in college has actually been rising fairly steadily. But graduation rates have fallen. Less than a third of all students who enroll in community colleges with the intention of getting a two-year degree - a degree leading to jobs in nursing, auto repair, preschool education - ever do so at any college, statistics suggest. The United States still leads the world in getting students to start college, notes Lawrence Katz, co-author of a recent history of education. But we no longer lead in what really matters: educational attainment” (see “Students of the Great Recession”, New York Times, 3 May 2010). A similar process has long been growing in secondary education. For a time it was argued that the relatively poor performance of American college students (in all but the best private institution) was due to the high proportion of immigrants’ children. Again, research suggests it may have more to do with the poor quality of the average public secondary school. The weakness of American education and especially American scientific education has long been concealed by the ability to attract gifted scholars and graduate students from China, the Indian sub-continent and western Europe. That process is getting hard because of the irrationality of the Patriot Act, which makes it harder for what Rudyard Kipling (in his American period...) called “lesser breeds” to get visas to study and work in the United States. This is not just a fairness issue. It also directly affects the prospects of the American economy becoming more competitive. A political choice Americans have been slow to recognise that their country, long dedicated to the ideal of equality, is becoming a class society that in many ways resembles the inequalities of 19th-century European society, without the political regulating mechanism of class-based socialist and Labour parties. Political logic might dictate that as the Republican Party is increasingly identified with the interests and the attitudes of the “haves”, the Democratic Party ought to see its future as the representative of the “have-nots”. Some even supposed that President Obama might be planning to lead the Democrats in that direction. It has not happened. Obama promised a massive reform of the grotesquely expensive, wasteful and unjust healthcare system. With great difficulty, he succeeded in persuading Congress to pass a substantially weathered down, though still well worth having, version of his original plan. In other respects, his administration has been surprisingly conservative. In part, it is now clear, this reflects his own personal instincts and attitudes. In part, it reflects political “realities”, in the sense that even modest reforms are greeted by much of the American media and therefore by a surprisingly large proportion of the voters as dangerous threats to the American constitution and way of life. Obama is nothing if not politically cautious, and while his political skills are impressive in some respects (for example, his remarkable gifts as an orator), it is clear that, in is first term, he will not achieve the substantial reforms won by a Franklin Roosevelt or a Lyndon Johnson. That is why the outcome of the mid-term elections due in November 2010 is so vitally important, and so hard to predict. 4 July has come and gone. Traditionally, there is a political and electoral truce from Independence Day until Labor Day at the beginning of September, leaving two months for the electoral season. There are signs that that tradition is being ignored this year, partly because the mid-term prospects are at once so important and so hard to predict. If the Democrats survive the 2010 elections without major losses, it may be that Barack Obama will move relatively boldly to tackle the problem Paul Volcker has identified. If the turbulent political waters reinforce the president’s instinct for caution, his own prospects of winning a second term must be in doubt. In a future column, I will try to read the mid-term runes. Already, it is clear that the United States is fast approaching a exceptional set of political decisions that will have lasting consequences for its society. Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the Independent. He is the author of The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2009). Related Articles The war for American mindsGodfrey HodgsonThe next big issue: inequality in AmericaGodfrey HodgsonAmerican sickness: diagnosis and cure James A MoroneLawrence R JacobsBarack Obama: a market reportGodfrey HodgsonImmigration: control vs governanceSaskia SassenThe great American refusalGodfrey HodgsonThe American political system: ruin and reformGodfrey HodgsonThe United States: democracy, with interestsGodfrey HodgsonBarack Obama and America Godfrey Hodgson Read On Godfrey Hodgson, More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century (Princeton University Press, 2006) Robert Reich Peter Baldwin, The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe are Alike (Oxford University Press, 2009) Robert Reich, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (Random House, 2007) Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole & Howard Rosenthal, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (MIT Press, 2006) More On Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the Independent His most recent book is The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2009) His earlier books include The World Turned Right Side Up: a history of the conservative ascendancy in America, (Houghton Mifflin, 1996); The Gentleman from New York: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Houghton Mifflin, 2000); More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century (Princeton University Press, 2006), A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving (PublicAffairs, 2007) Subjects Democracy and government democracy & power institutions & government american power & the world The war for American mindsGodfrey Hodgson The next big issue: inequality in AmericaGodfrey Hodgson American sickness: diagnosis and cure James A Morone and Lawrence R Jacobs This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence. 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Politics Global Health & Development Richard N. Haass Follow @RichardHaass Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-2003), and was President George W. Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. His forthcoming book is A Wor… read more JUN 1, 2003 0 Remaking the Middle East President Bush, Palestinian Premier Mazen, and Israel's Prime Minister Sharon are poised to meet. Is America serious about bringing peace to Palestine and Israel? Where does this meeting fit in the overall US Middle East strategy? Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning in the US State Department, offers his road map to the entire Middle East region. What was accomplished in Iraq--and, more importantly, what the Iraqi people will now accomplish with American help--will determine the future of one of the Middle East's key countries. An open, market_oriented, and peaceful Iraq could also advance reform and growth across the entire region. But far-reaching change both in Iraq and the Middle East is certain to take time. The post-Saddam challenge in Iraq has four components: humanitarian, security-related, economic, and political. The humanitarian challenge has been less burdensome than anticipated, thanks to advance planning by the US and the world community and to the rapid, focused, and discriminate way in which coalition forces fought the war. Some pockets of humanitarian need remain, but the massive crisis that was anticipated thankfully never materialized. Refugees and internally displaced persons are relatively few; supplies of food, water and medicine are mostly adequate or at least improving. The US government has provided some $600 million through UN agencies and non-governmental organizations to meet immediate humanitarian demands. To continue reading, please log in or provide your email address Log in Receive our Sunday newsletter Receive our PS On Point newsletter Registration is free and gives you access to our newsletters, unlimited access to our archive, commenting rights, and more. Project Syndicate provides readers with original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by global leaders and thinkers. By offering incisive perspectives from those who are shaping the world’s economics, politics, science, and culture, Project Syndicate has created an unrivaled global venue for informed public debate.

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Voting the Fate of the Nation This can be a transformative election. Will economic meltdown, race or regional loyalty be the trump card? By Chalmers Johnson October 9, 2008 Reuters Pictures Obama supporters in Cleveland. Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006). All are available in paperback from Metropolitan Books. This essay originally appeared on TomDispatch. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama called the forthcoming presidential election a “defining moment” in this country’s history. It is conceivable that he is right. There are precedents in American history for an election inaugurating a period of reform and political realignment. Such a development, however, is extremely rare and surrounded by contingencies normally beyond the control of the advocates of reform. So let me speculate about whether the 2008 election might set in motion a political reconfiguration–and even a political renaissance–in the United States, restoring a modicum of democracy to the country’s political system, while ending our march toward imperialism, perpetual warfare and bankruptcy that began with the cold war. The political blunders, serious mistakes and governmental failures of the last eight years so discredited the administration of George W. Bush–his average approval rating has fallen to 27 percent and some polls now show him dipping into the low twenties–that his name was barely mentioned in the major speeches at the Republican convention. Even John McCain has chosen to run under the banner of “maverick” as a candidate of “change,” despite the fact that his own party’s misgoverning has elicited those demands for change. Bringing the opposition party to power, however, is not in itself likely to restore the American republic to good working order. It is almost inconceivable that any president could stand up to the overwhelming pressures of the military-industrial complex, as well as the extra-constitutional powers of the sixteen intelligence agencies that make up the US Intelligence Community, and the entrenched interests they represent. The subversive influence of the imperial presidency (and vice presidency), the vast expansion of official secrecy and of the police and spying powers of the state, the institution of a second Defense Department in the form of the Department of Homeland Security and the irrational commitments of American imperialism (761 active military bases in 151 foreign countries as of 2008) will not easily be rolled back by the normal workings of the political system. Most Popular1Donald Trump Is Being Outplayed by Women—and He’s Losing His Mind Over It2Wisconsin Is Systematically Failing to Provide the Photo IDs Required to Vote in November3Can These Pornographers End ‘MILFs,’ ‘Teens,’ and ‘Thugs’?4Colin Kaepernick Has a Right to Hate Both Candidates5My Post-Debate Blues, or, How a Rude Egomaniac Has Effectively Channeled Working-Class Anger For even a possibility of that occurring, the vote in November would have to result in a “realigning election,” of which there have been only two during the past century–the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and of Richard Nixon in 1968. Until 1932, the Republicans had controlled the presidency for fifty-six of the previous seventy-two years, beginning with Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. After 1932, the Democrats occupied the White House for twenty-eight of the next thirty-six years. The 1968 election saw the withdrawal of the candidacy of President Lyndon Johnson under the pressure of the Vietnam War, the defeat of his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, not to mention the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. That election, based on Nixon’s so-called Southern strategy, led to a new political alignment nationally, favoring the Republicans. The essence of that realignment lay in the running of Republican racists for office in the old Confederate states where the Democrats had long been the party of choice. Before 1968, the Democrats had also been the majority party nationally, winning seven of the previous nine presidential elections. The Republicans won seven of the next ten between 1968 and 2004. Of these two realigning elections, the Roosevelt election is certainly the more important for our moment, ushering in as it did one of the few truly democratic periods in American political history. In his new book Democracy Incorporated, Princeton political theorist Sheldon Wolin suggests the following: “Democracy is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs.” However, the founders of this country and virtually all subsequent political leaders have been hostile to democracy in this sense. They favored checks and balances, republicanism and rule by elites rather than rule by the common man or woman. Wolin writes, “The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. Democratic advance proved to be slow, uphill, forever incomplete. GET A DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION FOR JUST $9.50! Subscribe The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only in the twentieth century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal introduced a brief period of approximate democracy. This ended with the US entry into World War II, when the New Deal was replaced by a wartime economy based on munitions manufacture and the support of weapons producers. This development had a powerful effect on the American political psyche, since only war production ultimately overcame the conditions of the Great Depression and restored full employment. Ever since that time, the United States has experimented with maintaining a military economy and a civilian economy simultaneously. Over time, this has had the effect of misallocating vital resources away from investment and consumption, while sapping the country’s international competitiveness. Socioeconomic conditions in 2008 bear a certain resemblance to those of 1932, making a realigning election conceivable. Unemployment in 1932 was a record 33 percent. In the fall of 2008, the rate is a much lower 6.1 percent, but other severe economic pressures abound. These include massive mortgage foreclosures, bank and investment house failures, rapid inflation in the prices of food and fuel, the failure of the health care system to deliver service to all citizens, a growing global-warming environmental catastrophe due to the over-consumption of fossil fuels, continuing costly military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, with more on the horizon due to foreign policy failures (in Georgia, Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere), and record-setting budgetary and trade deficits. The question is: Can the electorate be mobilized, as in 1932, and will this indeed lead to a realigning election? The answer to neither question is an unambiguous yes. The Race Factor Even to contemplate that happening, of course, the Democratic Party first has to win the election–and in smashing style–and it faces two formidable obstacles to doing so: race and regionalism. Although large numbers of white Democrats and independents have told pollsters that the race of a candidate is not a factor in how they will decide their vote, there is ample evidence that they are not telling the truth–either to pollsters or, in many cases perhaps no less importantly, to themselves. Andrew Hacker, a political scientist at Queen’s College, New York, has written strikingly on this subject, starting with the phenomenon known as the “Bradley Effect.” The term refers to Tom Bradley, a former black mayor of Los Angeles, who lost his 1982 bid to become governor of California, even though every poll in the state showed him leading his white opponent by substantial margins. Similar results appeared in 1989, when David Dinkins ran for mayor of New York City and Douglas Wilder sought election as governor of Virginia. Dinkins was ahead by 18 percentage points, but won by only two, and Wilder was leading by nine points, but squeaked through by only half a percent. Numerous other examples lead Hacker to offer this advice to Obama campaign offices: always subtract 7 percent from favorable poll results. That’s the potential Bradley effect. Meanwhile, the Karl Rove-trained Republican Party has been hard at work disenfranchising black voters. Although we are finally beyond property qualifications, written tests and the poll tax, there are many new gimmicks. These include laws requiring voters to present official identity cards that include a photo, which, for all practical purposes, means either a driver’s license or a passport. Many states drop men and women from the voting rolls who have been convicted of a felony but have fully completed their sentences, or require elaborate procedures for those who have been in prison–where, Hacker points out, black men and women outnumber whites by nearly six to one–to be reinstated. There are many other ways of disqualifying black voters, not the least of which is imprisonment itself. After all, the United States imprisons a greater proportion of its population than any other country on Earth, a burden that falls disproportionately on African-Americans. Such obstacles can be overcome, but they require heroic organizational efforts. The Regional Factor Regionalism is the other obvious obstacle standing in the way of attempts to mobilize the electorate on a national basis for a turning-point election. In their book Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics, the political scientists Earl and Merle Black argue that the US electorate is hopelessly split. This division, which has become more entrenched with each passing year, is fundamentally ideological, but it is also rooted in ethnicity and manifests itself in an intense and never-ending partisanship. “In modern American politics,” they write, “a Republican Party dominated by white Protestants faces a Democratic Party in which minorities plus non-Christian whites far outnumber white Protestants.” Another difference on the rise involves gender imbalance. In the 1950s, the Democratic Party, then by far the larger of the two parties, was evenly balanced between women and men. Fifty years later, a smaller but still potent Democratic Party contained far more women than men (60 percent to 40 percent). “In contrast, the Republican Party has shifted from an institution with more women than men in the 1950s (55 percent to 45 percent) to one in which men and women were as evenly balanced in 2004 as Democrats were in the 1950s.” Now, add in regionalism, specifically the old American antagonism between the two sides in the Civil War. That once meant Southern Democrats versus Northern Republicans. By the twenty-first century, however, that binary division had given way to something more complex–“a new American regionalism, a pattern of conflict in which Democrats and Republicans each possess two regional strongholds and in which the Midwest, as the swing region, holds the balance of power in presidential elections.” The five regions Earl and Merle Black identify–each becoming more partisan and less characteristic of the nation as a whole–are the Northeast, South, Midwest, Mountains/Plains and Pacific Coast. The Northeast, although declining slightly in population, has become unambiguously liberal Democratic. It is composed of New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont), the Middle Atlantic states (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) and the District of Columbia. It is the primary Democratic stronghold. The South is today a Republican stronghold made up of the eleven former Confederate states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia). A second Republican stronghold, displaying an intense and growing partisanship, is the Mountains/Plains region, composed of the thirteen states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. A second Democratic stronghold is the Pacific Coast, which includes the nation’s most populous state, California, joined by Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. The Midwest, where national elections are won or lost by the party able to hold onto, and mobilize, its strongholds, is composed of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The two most important swing states in the nation are Florida (27 electoral votes) and Ohio (20 electoral votes), which the Democrats narrowly lost, generally under contested circumstances, in both 2000 and 2004. These five regions are today entrenched in the nation’s psyche. Normally, they ensure very narrow victories by one party or another in national elections. There is no way to get around them, barring a clear and unmistakable performance failure by one of the parties–as happened to the Republicans during the Great Depression and may be happening again. Why This Might Still Be a Turning-Point Election Beyond these negatives, in 2008 there have been a number of developments that speak to the possibility of a turning-point election. First, the weakness (and age) of the Republican candidate may perhaps indicate that the Party itself is truly at the end of a forty-year cycle of power. Second, of course, is the meltdown, even possibly implosion, of the US economy on the Republican watch (specifically, on that of George W. Bush, the least popular president in memory, as measured by recent opinion polls). This has put states in the Midwest and elsewhere that Bush took in 2000 and 2004 into play. Third, there has been a noticeable trend in shifting party affiliations in which the Democrats are gaining membership as the Republicans are losing it, especially in key battleground states like Pennsylvania where, in 2008 alone, 474,000 new names have gone on the Democratic rolls, according to the Washington Post, even as the Republicans have lost 38,000. Overall, since 2006, the Democrats have gained at least 2 million new members, while the Republicans have lost 344,000. According to the Gallup organization, self-identified Democrats outnumbered self-identified Republicans by a 37 percent to 28 percent margin this June, a gap which may only be widening. Fourth, there is the possibility of a flood of new, especially young, first-time voters, who either screen calls or live on cell phones, not landlines, and so are being under-measured by pollsters, as black voters may also be in this election. (However, when it comes to the young vote, which has been ballyhooed in a number of recent elections without turning out to be significant on Election Day, we must be cautious.) And fifth, an influx of new Democratic voters in states like Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico threatens, in this election at least, to dent somewhat the normal regional loyalty patterns described by Earl and Merle Black. Above all, two main issues will determine whether or not the November election will be a realigning one. The Republican Party’s failure in managing the economy, its involving the country in catastrophic wars of choice and its ignoring such paramount issues as global warming all dictate a Democratic victory. Militating against that outcome is racist hostility, conscious or otherwise, toward the Democratic Party’s candidate as well as deep-seated regional loyalties. While the crisis caused by the performance failures of the incumbent party seems to guarantee a realigning election favoring the Democrats, it is simply impossible to determine the degree to which race and regionalism may sway voters. The fate of the nation hangs in the balance. Facebook Chalmers Johnson Chalmers Johnson is the author of more than a dozen books, including Revolutionary Change (Stanford), Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Holt/Owl) and, most recently, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (Metropolitan). Donald Trump Is Being Outplayed by Women—and He’s Losing His Mind Over It By Joan Walsh Yesterday 3:04 pm What Would Alexis de Tocqueville Have Made of the 2016 US Presidential Election? By Arthur Goldhammer Oct 08, 2008 Wanted: Political Poetry By Erica Landau Oct 08, 2008 Lee Atwater’s Legacy By Antonino D’Ambrosio “AN INDISPENSABLE VOICE IN OUR POLITICAL DIALOGUE.”

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sponsored by Obama to take action on manufacturing goal next week Send a link to a friend [January 11, 2014] By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) � President Barack Obama said he will talk next week about how he plans to create jobs in the U.S. manufacturing sector, one of several economic goals he set for his administration last year that is now receiving renewed attention from the White House. Obama's weekly address hinted that his Wednesday trip to Raleigh, North Carolina, will focus on manufacturing. "Working folks are looking for the kind of stable, secure jobs that went overseas in the past couple decades. So next week, I'll join companies and colleges and take action to boost the high-tech manufacturing that attracts the kind of good new jobs a growing middle class requires," Obama said in his address. The Raleigh-Durham region is known for being home to three research universities and a host of biotech firms. Obama has long said that jobs are his top priority. But his attention this year has been diverted by a series of thorny foreign and domestic policy problems, including the U.S. response to Syria's civil war, the botched roll-out of health care reforms, and anger at home and abroad about the scope of U.S. surveillance practices. The latest economic data showed that jobs growth remains a concern. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers hired the fewest workers in nearly three years in December, but the setback was likely to be temporary amid signs that unusually cold weather may have had an impact. Since December, Obama has turned his attention again to economic issues, pledging to address the gap between rich and poor in his remaining years in office. He has recently highlighted several issues from his 2013 State of the Union address. For example, this week, he announced new "promise zones" for government and private aid in five impoverished neighborhoods. In the address, he also promised to create three manufacturing hubs where businesses could work with government to create high-tech jobs, and highlighted the promise in a speech at an Asheville, North Carolina, truck plant the next day. The administration launched competitions to create the three new hubs in May, pledging $200 million in funding from the Defense, Energy and Commerce departments, and matching funds from industry, and state and local sources. The winners were to be announced by the end of 2013 but have not yet been named. The hubs were to be modeled after a manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio, where a former furniture warehouse was turned into a 3D printing center where local manufacturers could pick up new skills and ideas. Obama had asked Congress for $1 billion to spend on 15 such centers around the country, but Republicans want to rein in government spending and oppose spending taxpayer money on business. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; editing by Ken Wills)

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YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home→Collections→OpinionOp-Ed Goldberg: Tyranny of the typicalHistory has shown that in areas such as healthcare and poverty, Americans do better without the involvement of government.September 20, 2011|Jonah Goldberg And now let us recall the "Fable of the Shoes." In his 1973 "Libertarian Manifesto," the late Murray Rothbard argued that the biggest obstacle in the road out of serfdom was "status quo bias." In society, we're accustomed to rapid change. "New products, new life styles, new ideas are often embraced eagerly." Not so with government. When it comes to police or firefighting or sanitation, government must do those things because that's what government has (allegedly) always done. "So identified has the State become in the public mind with the provision of these services," Rothbard laments, "that an attack on State financing appears to many people as an attack on the service itself." The libertarian who wants to get the government out of a certain business is "treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax financed monopoly from time immemorial." If everyone had always gotten their shoes from the government, writes Rothbard, the proponent of shoe privatization would be greeted as a kind of lunatic. "How could you?" defenders of the status quo would squeal. "You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes … if the government got out of the business? Tell us that! Be constructive! It's easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government; but tell us who would supply shoes? Which people? How many shoe stores would be available in each city and town? … What material would they use? … Suppose a poor person didn't have the money to buy a pair?" It's worth keeping this fable in mind as the reaction to last week's CNN-Tea Party Express debate hardens into popular myth. Moderator Wolf Blitzer had asked Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) what should happen if a man refuses to get health insurance and then has a medical crisis. Paul — a disciple of Rothbard — explained that freedom is about taking risks. "But, congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?" At this point, a few boneheads in the audience shouted "yeah!" and clapped, though liberal pundits and activists imagine they saw an outpouring of support. Paul calmly replied that he's not in favor of letting the man die. A physician who practiced before Medicare and Medicaid were enacted, Paul noted that hospitals were never in the practice of turning away patients in need. "We've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves," he observed. "Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it." Both Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have condemned the response from the Paulistas in the audience and endorsed a more active role in government in healthcare. Still, it's amazing how quickly status quo bias kicks in. Since the 1960s, it has become a given not only that the government should be more involved in areas like healthcare and poverty but that these problems remain intractable because the government has not gotten more involved. That's the premise behind so many of the anti-libertarian questions at the GOP debates. Any rejection of the assumption is derided as a right-wing effort to "turn back the clock." Charles Murray, my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that the most remarkable drop in the poverty rate didn't come after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty but when President Eisenhower ignored it. Over a mere 12 years, from 1949 to 1961, the poverty rate was cut in half. Similarly the biggest gains in health coverage came when government was less involved in healthcare, i.e. before the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1966. Duke University Professor Christopher Conover notes that in 1940, 90% of Americans were uninsured, but by 1960, that number was down to 25%. Blitzer's specific error was to use "society" and "government" as interchangeable terms. People need shoes. But that doesn't require the government to provide shoes for everyone. Similarly, poverty rates should go down. But does that mean it's the government's responsibility? Maybe the answer is yes. But if it is, the burden of proof should fall on those who, in effect, want the government to win the future by "investing" in shoes — rather than on those of us who are open to the idea of turning back the clock. jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com MORE:Seizure Led to FloJo's DeathHis 104 scores make his caseRestaurant review: South Beverly GrillBrutal Murder by Teen-Age Girls Adds to Britons' ShockComaneci Confirms Suicide Attempt, Magazine SaysAdvertisement FROM THE ARCHIVESSo much data-gathering, so little doctoringNovember 24, 2013The pill? Yes. New Nikes? NoJanuary 29, 2012'Truth' vs. 'facts' from America's mediaAugust 23, 2009Doctor has common sense fixes to healthcare crisisAugust 12, 2009Obama's plan for healthcare reformJune 4, 2007MORE STORIES ABOUTOpinionShoesCommentaryColumnCopyright 2016 Los Angeles TimesTerms of Service|Privacy Policy|Index by Date|Index by Keyword

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« Fuhrman Hit | | KILLER MUGNIYEH DEAD! Booya! » The existence of a Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum that was entered into evidence at the federal trial of the Holy Land Foundation in Dallas. The following is an analysis of this memorandum by Stephen Coughlin, whose contract was not renewed by the Pentagon but who will soon be in a new position with the Office of the Secretary of Defense sent out by American Congress for Truth . The bottom line of this memorandum is this: It calls for “Civilization Jihad” (what we typically refer to as “cultural Jihad”) against North America. As we have noted in prior emails to you, this aspect of Jihad is ominous and insidious, in that it is incremental, occurs from within, and is thus unnoticed by most people. As the people of Great Britain have painfully learned (perhaps too late), resisting this form of Jihad will, in fact, require greater vigilance and will on our part than resisting the obvious assault of terrorism. The Memorandum clearly asserts that the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic organization that has spawned some 70 Islamic organizations around the world and in the United States (such as ISNA), is the authority for the advance of “civilization Jihad.” ANALYSIS OF MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD’S GENERAL STRATEGIC GOALS FOR NORTH AMERICA MEMORANDUM By Pentagon Joint Staff analyst Stephen Coughlin, 7 September 2007 (this is the Islamist at the Pentagon Heshie Islam had fired.) The following is a brief analysis of a Muslim Brotherhood document entered into evidence in the U.S. v Holy Land Foundation trial (Trial) that the U.S. Justice Department is currently prosecuting in Federal Court. Analysis is based on this document as well as other publicly available documents. (For a broad offering of Trial documents, see here). The attached documents relate to ISNA and the Trial. The first document is a Muslim Brotherhood memorandum that was accepted into evidence in the U.S. v Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case. The first 16 pages are in the original Arabic and the second are English language translations of the same. It is dated 22 May 1991 and titled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” (Memorandum). The document includes an Attachment 1 that contains “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” Among those noted in the Attachment are ISNA, MSA, AMSS, AMSE, NAIT, IFC, IPAC, IAP, UASR, ICNA (typo in the second listing) and IIIT. ICNA and ISNA are the only two organizations named in the body of the text. ISNA is additionally represented on the list as IFC (ISNA Fiqh Committee – now the Fiqh Council of North America) and IPAC (ISNA Political Awareness Committee). The second document is a signed letter from Members of Congress Pete Hoekstra and Sue Myrick to the Justice Department dated 28 August 2007 formally requesting that Justice stand down from “co-sponsoring” a conference with ISNA due to its very close relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Justice attended anyhow. The Memorandum was admitted into evidence at the same time the Letter was sent addressing Congressional concerns.Please read it all. CIVILIZATION JIHAD

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Some Texas Republicans already cheering for ‘super’ prospect George P. Bush By Peggy Fikac on November 12, 2012 at 3:40 PM George P. Bush, the product of American political royalty, has filed paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission to run for office. Bush, 36, is the nephew of former President George W. Bush and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush. His father is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and his mother, Columba, is a native of Mexico. George Prescott Bush with his Uncle George. (AP photo) The younger Bush’s move comes at a pivotal moment for the GOP, after the party’s lack of success with Latino voters was cited as a primary cause for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney‘s loss to President Barack Obama in Tuesday’s election. Obama drew 72 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit polls. Bush first reached the national consciousness at age 12, when his grandfather, George H.W. Bush, infamously introduced him and his siblings to then-President Ronald Reagan as “the little brown ones.” He speaks fluent Spanish and comes from a family – particularly his father and uncle – that has made a concerted effort to build bridges to Latino voters. “The two areas that we, as a party, are weakest in are areas he’s been focused on for well over two years,” said Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak, noting Bush’s work to attract younger voters and Hispanics. “I think that shows fortitude on his part.” Kelton Morgan, a San Antonio Republican consultant, said Bush enters the political arena with a “built-in network of people to raise funds from, and he’s also worked incredibly hard to raise funds for other candidates around the state.” Bush couldn’t be reached for comment Friday, and it’s not yet known which office he plans to seek. On Wednesday, he filed what is known as a form designating a campaign treasurer, required of all state and local candidates in Texas. State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who has announced for lieutenant governor in 2014, said he doesn’t know which office Bush may be eyeing but added, “If I were to pick, I would think his first choice is the Land Office.” Patterson said Bush showed great interest in how the General Land Office operates during a visit several months ago. Houston executive Fred Zeidman, a major GOP fundraiser, called Bush’s move “fantastic.” “George P. is super. He is incredibly bright. He’s got the best genes that Texas politics has ever produced, if not the United States of America,” Zeidman said. “And the election last Tuesday certainly gave a very, very clear indication of the major weakness in our party, and George P. certainly has all of the capacity of filling in that gap.” While many have speculated for years about a possible campaign run by Bush, his chief political role up to this point has been helping other candidates through the Hispanic Republicans of Texas, the political action committee he co-founded in 2010. That organization hit on the idea that the biggest challenge for Hispanic Republican candidates in Texas was not winning general elections, but making it out of GOP primaries. The Hispanic GOP group recruits, trains and funds Latino Republicans for primary races, theorizing that if the party expands its pool of Latino candidates, the GOP’s voter base will take care of itself. The organization has contributed more than $340,000 to Texas Republican candidates over the last three years, and Bush – with his numerous appearances before civic groups and college students – has served as its public face. George Antuna, a fellow co-founder of Hispanic Republicans of Texas, said he isn’t surprised Bush is ready to launch his political career. “You can see the passion in his eyes for the state, and the fact that he wants to serve,” Antuna said. “He’s the future of the party.” Bush lives in Fort Worth, where he runs a business consulting firm. He grew up in Florida and moved to Texas to attend Rice University. He met his wife, Amanda, while both were students at the University of Texas School of Law. He has also served in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Peggy Fikac View Comments Top Videos Senate CoverageMy Tweets

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MPR News Reporting on state politics and government House vote on same-sex marriage bill set for Thursday Tom Scheck 5 (DFL House Speaker Paul Thissen and DFL House Majority Leader Erin Murphy speak with reporters about same-sex marriage bill. MPR Photo/Tom Scheck) A spokesman for the House DFL caucus says Thursday is the day the House will vote on a bill that legalizes same-sex marriage in Minnesota. The House Rules Committee will vote today to put the bill on Thursday’s House Calendar. The move is a signal that there is enough support to pass the bill, because DFL House Speaker Paul Thissen and House Majority Leader Erin Murphy have repeatedly said that they will not bring the bill up for a vote unless it can pass. DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk has said there are enough yes votes in the Senate to pass the bill. Gov. Dayton has said he would sign it if the bill reaches his desk. Groups on both sides of the issue have been lobbying rural DFLers and suburban Republicans in the past few weeks. Several rural Democrats have said in the past few days that they have decided to vote for the bill. Minnesotans United, a group lobbying for the bill’s passage, will hold an interfaith vigil on Wednesday night to show support for same-sex marriage. UPDATE: “We are confident that we have the votes to pass it,” said House Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul. She said DFL members, particularly in rural areas, have been talking with people in their districts and supporters of the bill. “They have searched their conscience…and they are prepared to take the question up,” she said. “I hope this is a bipartisan issue but at this point I don’t have any clear commitment from Republicans.” First-term Rep. Shannon Savick, DFL Wells, said she’s voting for the bill. She said her brother is gay, and she didn’t think twice about the vote. “To me, it’s standing on principles,” she said. “I watched my brother being discriminated against when I was younger. I just can’t see why he can’t marry the person that he loves. I did.” “It could cost me the election because I come from a really conservative area, but I’m hoping I do enough good in other areas that they will overlook that,” Savick said. Mark Dayton MN Legislature ‹ Older The Daily Digest (terror raid, Ellison autobiography, same-sex marriage vote) Newer › Dayton, DFL leaders still looking for budget deal Browse by category Bachmann fact check tscheck@mpr.org @tomscheck Tom Scheck has covered politics and state government for more than ten years for MPR News. He’s covered several gubernatorial campaigns, two statewide recounts, the presidential bids of Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, U.S. Senate races, close Congressional contests and the Minnesota Legislature. He lives in Falcon Heights with his wife, son and dog. He can sometimes be found chasing a white ball on a golf course. It isn’t a straight walk. Tips are welcome at tscheck@mpr.org Related Blog Posts Dayton: time’s up for special session deal Dayton’s 87 county tour underway Dayton, Flanagan make DNC convention speeches bwild72 bye bye dfl majorities in 2014 sucid Posted by bwild72 | May 7, 2013 10:45 AM” Even if that were true, who cares? I’d rather sleep at night than vote against equality. I see it as brave. “bye bye dfl majorities”? Hardly! This has been a part of the DFL platform – and part of their election bid – since at least 2012. This took no one by surprise. The latest polls show that a majority of people support equality for same-sex couples. That majority is only rising as younger voters come of age. This is an idea whose time has come. In 2014 voters will have a clear choice between a party that’s making progress possible and a party that’s trying to drag us back into the past. I certainly know where I’ll be voting. Fantastic news. I’m glad this is moving and I hope it gets across the finish line this year. I hope the Republicans* who supported the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage realize that they have greatly hastened the day when all Minnesotans can marry. If not this year, it will be soon. Remember, a majority of Minnesotan’s voted against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Support for same-sex marriage continues to grow rapidly. This isn’t the political liability for the future opponents want Legislators to believe it is. *I’m also grateful for Republicans like former Rep. Kriesel who recognize that same-sex marriage isn’t a partisan issue. I hope this becomes a widely held view soon. More like bye bye wedge issue. Vote yes and then we can focus on issues like the economy and education.

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The EU Referendum Bill won’t appear in Parliament any time soon David Cameron delivers his Europe speech. Image: Getty Isabel Hardman Some Tories are all aquiver today after the Prime Minister’s radio hint yesterday that he might be prepared to introduce an EU referendum bill in this parliament after all. Here are David Cameron’s words on yesterday’s World at One that are supposed to set your heart pounding: ‘I think we need to demonstrate absolutely that we are serious about this referendum; we’ve said we’re going to hold it, we’ve said it’s going to be an in-out referendum, we’ve set a date by which it must be held. I look forward to publishing a bill, to getting support for it, to doing everything I can to show to people at the next election there will be a real choice: if you want a party that’s going to reform the European Union and Britain’s place in it, and then give you a proper in-out choice, there only is one option – that is the Conservative party. So anything we can do to strengthen that offer, as it were, I’m prepared to consider. I think the most important thing is just to go around explaining to people this very carefully thought through and absolutely right for Britain, right for Europe, policy.’ Given the 100 backbenchers who signed John Baron’s recent letter calling for legislation had timed their missive so that it landed on the PM’s doormat in plenty of time before the Queen’s Speech negotiations, some are excitedly wondering whether this means Her Majesty will announce this Bill next week when she opens Parliament. But speaking to Downing Street sources today, I gather that this isn’t any more of a push towards legislation than the hint the PM offered his party when it met recently. Those noises he made then about the benefits of legislation were no different, I’m told, from the radio noises he made yesterday. And while there is an appreciation in Downing Street of the argument that losing the vote on the bill would be of enormous benefit to the Conservatives, the chances of that bill ever making it as far as a vote are made considerably slimmer by the reality of Coalition. A source close to the Prime Minister tells me: ‘He doesn’t object in principle, but there is a large practical obstacle, and we have this pledge now for an In/Out referendum if David Cameron is re-elected, which is something we should be selling on the doorstep.’ The problem is that the Tories worry that even before a dramatic Commons face-off, the Lib Dems wouldn’t sign off on such a bill. They’re right: Lib Dem sources tell me they wouldn’t allow the legislation through the backroom negotiations, although they appreciate that this is what one calls ‘tummy-tickling’ by the Prime Minister. And they don’t think there’s a way of introducing legislation that part of the government has refused to sign up to, unless this has already been set in stone by the Coalition Agreement. A Lib Dem source says to me: ‘If you are going to start saying well the different parties in the Coalition can now bring forward any bills they like, then enjoy the mansion tax and 50p votes. That sort of thing would be of no benefit to either party in the Coalition or to the government.’ If there is a way to get the legislation into Parliament, then there might be a chance the Tories would try to support it by trying to give it time, although my sources from both parties wouldn’t comment on hypothetical situations like this. But this isn’t all that hypothetical when John Baron has already told Coffee House that if he and colleagues have no success through official routes, they will be ‘looking for all opportunities to raise this on the floor of the House’. And the Prime Minister might have been trying to tickle them a little with his radio interview, but he hasn’t responded to their letter yet, and the meeting that Baron is trying to arrange hasn’t happened yet, either. So Tory backbenchers might feel that if they hear no more than the same noises from the Prime Minister in the next few weeks, they’ll do their own thing, possibly using a Private Member’s Bill, or backbench business debates, or amendments to existing legislation. But the legendary EU referendum bill isn’t on its way into Parliament any time soon. TaggedConservatives, David Cameron, EU referendum, UK politics Local elections: UKIP’s ‘phenomenal performance’ The View from 22 — Ukip vs Westminster, Ukip vs the Tories and intervening in Syria Ministers made a poor use of Parliament on press regulation Ed Miliband stays in the rough with oddly charmless radio interview The Tory party holds its nerve – for now Welcome to Ukipland: where Nigel Farage’s dreams come true

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Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Polish Solidarity Movement Posted by DipNote Bloggers August 30, 2010 Sympathizers Stand Outside Gates of Lenin Shipyard Today, Secretary Clinton paid tribute to Poland's Solidary Movement on its 30th anniversary. The Secretary said: "When the brave men and women of the Gdansk shipyards stood up against an oppressive regime and demanded their right to form an independent trade union 30 years ago, their courage gave birth to Solidarity. What started as a union of workers became an extraordinary social movement for individual liberty, dignity, and human rights that ignited a democratic revolution. Solidarity's uncontainable messages of hope and freedom in Poland spread throughout Central Europe and helped speed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. "We honor those who stood against tyranny 30 years ago and all who followed in their wake. The heroes of Solidarity knew that the Polish people desired and deserved more from their country, and they laid the foundation for the Poland we see today. Thanks to their valor and their commitment to liberty, Poland is now a key NATO ally, a thriving democracy, and a beacon of hope to many who still suffer oppression. Poland is a leading voice in the Community of Democracies and a valued partner with the United States to advance our shared goals of freedom and human dignity. Poland's work promoting stability, security, and prosperity in Afghanistan is further evidence of this strong commitment. We thank the people of Poland for your partnership and honor your historic dedication to liberty. On behalf of the people of the United States, I send my warmest regards to the Polish people as you commemorate the 30th anniversary of the birth of the Solidarity movement." You can also read the Secretary's statement on www.state.gov. Previous: U.S. Embassy Georgetown Coordinates Navy Dialogues and Information Exchange »« Next: Office of the Chief of Protocol Advances Partnerships With China . Top stories delivered to your inbox. Europe and Eurasia View more stories in this area » An Update on NATO's Shared Ballistic Missile Defense Agenda Celebrating International Roma Day; Promoting Human Rights Ramping Up Momentum: U.S. To Host Upcoming Proliferation Security Initiative Meeting Latest Stories Photo of the Week: Democracy Is... Writing for the U.S. Department of State DipNote blog, DipNote bloggers present this week's "Photo of the Week," which is… more 0 A Day of Service and Remembrance in Zimbabwe About the Author: Dawn Anderson is the Coordinator of the Ambassador's Special Self-Help Program at the U.S. Embassy in Harare… more 1 Secretary Clinton Meets With Palestinian President Abbas Writing for the U.S. Department of State DipNote blog, DipNote Bloggers highlight the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary… more 0

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Texas fed building to be renamed for both Bush presidents Lieberman: Don't leave Afghanistan too quickly Sen. Scott Brown to serve in Afghanistan Comments Updated Updated at 2:11 p.m. ET GOP Sen. Scott Brown said today he will serve in Afghanistan later this year to fulfill his duties in the Massachusetts Army National Guard.Brown, who is up for re-election next year, issued a statement today. He is a lieutenant colonel with the National Guard, and has served for 30 years.I have service obligations that I fulfill each year. Following in the tradition of other lawmakers who have completed their military service requirements overseas, this year I have requested to conduct my annual training in Afghanistan. Doing so will help me to better understand our ongoing mission in that country, and provide me first-hand experience for my duties on the Senate Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs committees.Brown came into national prominence in January 2010 when he won a surprise victory in the heavily blue Bay State to fill out the remainder of Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy's term.Kennedy died in August 2009 after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.The Massachusetts Senate race is one that could help decide partisan control next year, and Democrats are targeting Brown for defeat. Brown has raised more than $7 million for his re-election and recent polls such as one by Suffolk University show a majority of voters believe he deserves a full term.Brown is not the first member of the U.S. Senate to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan since the wars began in those countries.For example, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps for the U.S. Air Force -- served for short stints in Iraq as a reservist in 2007. In 2009, Graham served in Afghanistan during Congress' summer break. Lieberman: Don't leave Afghanistan too quickly To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. About Catalina Camia

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posted on 03 January 2016Britain And The EU A History from the European Union When Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath took Britain into the European Economic Community in 1973 it was with a sense of optimism. After two failed attempts, Britain would finally be able to trade freely with its closest neighbours, and enjoy the kind of economic recovery being felt in France and Germany. Yet since the EU's conception after World War II, the UK has stood on the sidelines: its attitude towards Brussels standoffish and, at times, downright hostile. From the Schengen project to the Euro, the island nation has negotiated numerous exceptions and opt-outs from joint European endeavours.Initially the strongest opposition to the EU came from left-wingers. At a 1975 party conference, two thirds of Labour members, including current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, voted to leave. For them, the EEC was too cosy and too capitalist...a juggernaut that had rolled over Britain's jobs, welfare state and sovereignty in the name of free trade.However, those allegiances changed when Margaret Thatcher came to power. European integration was moving beyond economics and dipping its collective toe into the water of political and social issues. For the Iron Lady, Brussels had overstepped its remit.Today, many of Thatcher's Conservatives are calling for Britain to wrest back powers from Brussels, or leave the EU altogether. They claim most of Britain's concerns can be dealt with more efficiently at home, and even believe a "Brexit" would reduce demands on the country's social security system: despite the fact that most EU migrants living in the UK work, and therefore pay tax. Whatever the arguments for and against, a referendum on EU membership is now a certainty, and will likely take place in the summer of 2016.How did we get here? In this video - the first of viEUws' "Brexit" series - we provide a short potted history of Britain's tumultuous relationship with its continental cousins.Sourcehttp://www.vieuws.eu/eu-institutions/britain-eu-history/

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Brussels, 26 August 2014 European Commission adopts ‘Partnership Agreement’ with the Czech Republic on using EU Structural and Investment Funds for growth and jobs in 2014-2020 The European Commission has adopted a "Partnership Agreement" with the Czech Republic setting down the strategy for the optimal use of European Structural and Investment Funds throughout the country. Today’s agreement paves the way for investing €22 billion in total Cohesion Policy funding over 2014-2020 (current prices, including European Territorial Cooperation funding and the allocation for the Youth Employment Initiative). The Czech Republic also receives €2 billion for rural development and €31 million for the fisheries sector. The EU investments will help tackle unemployment and boost competitiveness and economic growth through support to innovation, training and education in cities, towns and rural areas. They will also promote entrepreneurship, fight social exclusion and help to develop an environmentally friendly and a resource-efficient economy. The European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) are: • The European Regional Development Fund The European Social Fund The Cohesion Fund • The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund • The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development Commenting on the adoption, Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn said: "Today we have adopted a vital, strategic investment plan that sets the Czech Republic on the path to jobs and growth for the next 10 years. This Partnership Agreement reflects the European Commission and the Czech Republic's joint determination to make the most efficient use of EU funding. Our investments must be strategic, according to the new Cohesion Policy focusing on the real economy, on sustainable growth and investing in people. But quality not speed is the paramount aim and in the coming months we are fully dedicated to negotiating the best possible outcome for investments from the European Structural and Investment Funds in 2014-2020. Commitment is needed on all sides to ensure good quality programmes are put in place.” Commissioner Hahn added: "This investment strategy builds on the important contribution the Czech Republic is already making to help the EU meet its goals of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The Czech Republic now has a firm base in this Partnership Agreement that covers all Structural and Investment Funds and gives strategic direction to future programmes that will enhance innovation, transform Czech SMEs into models of growth, and secure the Czech Republic's growing reputation in sectors like energy, engineering and nano-technologies. The ESI Funds are helping Czech regions and cities to face these challenges." Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, László Andor said: "I congratulate the Czech Republic for finalising its Partnership Agreement as a result of its intense collaboration with the Commission. The European Social Fund (ESF) will invest over 3.4 billion (more than 92 billion CZK) in the country during 2014-20 in order to help meet the Europe 2020 Strategy targets on employment, education and poverty. The ESF will help to maximise the Czech Republic's growth potential by supporting job creation, adaptability of workers and companies to economic changes, social inclusion through education and employment, and improvements in the quality of education at all levels. I also hope that the modernisation of Czech public administration, based on a new Civil Service Act and foreseen to be supported by the Structural Funds, will proceed according to plan and soon bring tangible benefits to the citizens." Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dacian Cioloş said: “Rural Development is a vital pillar of our Common Agricultural Policy, addressing elements relating to economic, environmental and social issues in rural areas, in a way which allows Member States or regions to design programmes suitable for their own specific situations and priorities. The rural development strategy agreed with the Czech Republic strongly emphasizes the balanced territorial development of rural communities and economies through the sustainable use of natural resources, biodiversity and climate action, and the competitiveness of the agri-food sector. All of this is in turn supported by a framework for the appropriate innovation and research." Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Maria Damanaki said: "In the Czech Republic, the financial support provided by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) will focus on the further development of a competitive and environmentally friendly fish farming sector. Farmed fish is local fish – so it also helps to create jobs in our local economies. The EU’s rules on aquaculture are among the strictest in the world – the funding will also help to ensure that the natural environment and resources are preserved." All Member States have now presented their Partnership Agreements to the Commission. The adoption of these agreements will follow after a process of consultation. MEMO on Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes Cohesion Policy and the Czech Republic European Commission-the Czech Republic Partnership Agreement and Summary Contacts : Shirin Wheeler (+32 460 76 65 65) – Jonathan Todd (+32 4989 94107) Roger Waite (+32 4989 61404) – Helene Banner (+32 4607 52407)

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Responses to Obama's budget Monday Feb 14, 2011 9:41 AM From NBC's Shawna Thomas, Luke Russert, and Kelly O'DonnellHere's a wrap up of responses to President Obama's budget proposal out today. (For some details on the budget, see First Thoughts.)REPUBLICANSSpeaker John Boehner (R-OH): "The president's budget will destroy jobs by spending too much, taxing too much, and borrowing too much. By continuing the spending binge and imposing massive tax hikes on families and small businesses, it will fuel more economic uncertainty and make it harder to create new jobs. "The president's budget isn't winning the future, it's spending the future. A group of 150 American economists signed a statement sent to the White House yesterday that says we need to cut spending to help create a better environment for job creation in our country. Our goal is to listen to the American people and liberate our economy from the shackles of debt, over-taxation, and big government. That's why the new House majority will vote this week to cut $100 billion in discretionary spending over the next seven months - with more cuts to come - in contrast to the Obama administration, which has proposed no cuts to the current fiscal year's budget while simultaneously asking for an increase in the national debt limit. And in the coming weeks, Budget Chairman Paul Ryan will offer a comprehensive budget for the next fiscal year that will contrast sharply with the president's job-crushing FY12 budget." Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA): "President Obama says he wants to win the future, but the future will not be won by repeating the mistakes of the past and failing to live up to our responsibilities in the present. The future will be won by bold and honest leadership that addresses our challenges head on. "Today, the President missed a unique opportunity to provide real leadership by offering a budget that fails to address the grave fiscal situation facing our country. At a time when unemployment is too high and economic growth is elusive in part because of the uncertainty created by our skyrocketing debt, we need serious reforms that will help restore confidence so that people can get back to work. We need a government that finally does what every other American has to do in their households and their businesses, and that's to live within our means. Instead, President Obama's budget doubles down on the bad habits of the past four years by calling for more taxes, spending and borrowing of money that we simply do not have. "President Obama has used tough rhetoric about the need to get our fiscal house in order, even assembling a bipartisan commission to address entitlement spending which accounts for more than half of our federal budget including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, the President again failed to put action behind his words by neglecting to even acknowledge these tough issues that everyone knows drive up our debt and must be reformed if they are to meet their obligations for younger Americans. "As our government continues to borrow forty cents of every dollar that it spends, our Democrat colleagues have offered no credible plan to get Americans back to work or seriously address our debt. In contrast, House Republicans are fully committed to using every tool at our disposal so that we can boost long-term economic confidence and help businesses to grow. And this week we will cut at least $100 billion of wasteful spending, a first step toward getting our fiscal house in order. "For years, Democrats have proposed more government spending to create jobs, resulting in the largest debt and deficits in history while unemployment remains too high. Republicans believe in free markets and the ability for small businesses and entrepreneurs to keep more of their own money so they can invest, grow their companies and hire employees. This is the difference, and it will be clearly evident in the coming weeks as Chairman Paul Ryan and House Republicans introduce our own budget, one that addresses the challenges we face so that our children have the same hope, opportunity, and ability to achieve that our parents gave to us and their parents to them." House Budget Chair Paul Ryan: "The President's budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much - stifling job growth today and leaving our children with a diminished future. In this critical test of leadership, the President has failed to tackle the urgent fiscal and economic threats before us." "Failing to heed the warnings of economists and the demands of the American people, the President's budget accelerates our country down the path to bankruptcy. Far from 'living within its means,' the President's budget puts the government on track to nearly double in size since the day he took office - a direct result of his party's reckless spending spree. His budget destroys jobs by imposing a $1.6 trillion tax hike, adding $13 trillion to the national debt and fueling uncertainty in the private sector. "We cannot tax, spend and borrow our way to prosperity. Where the President has fallen short, Republicans will work to chart a new course - advancing a path to prosperity by cutting spending, keeping taxes low, reforming government, and rising to meet the challenges of our time." Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): "Thanks to House conservatives, the spending culture in Congress is beginning to change. The White House still hasn't gotten the message, however. Even as Americans are looking for Washington to cut back, President Obama wants to burden families and employers with higher taxes, more spending, and more debt. "The President failed a crucial test of leadership by ignoring the need for reforms that will preserve Medicare and Social Security for future generations. These safety-net programs are in serious trouble without significant reforms, yet this budget has nothing to say about the problem. "House Republicans are working to reduce spending and put the country's budget back on the path to balance. Americans know that prosperity does not spring from government's power to tax, borrow, and spend. We need to rein in Washington's massive spending deficits and give American job-creators the freedom to grow once again." Sen. Bob Corker: "The president has missed an opportunity to show real leadership on the number one issue threatening our country's future. Getting spending under control and reducing our deficit will be difficult without presidential leadership. I hope in the coming weeks he will come to the table in a meaningful way to address these issues," said Corker. "As we approach our debt limit of $14.29 trillion, I see no better time to impose a fiscal straitjacket on Washington. We need to vote on and pass spending cuts this year, and we need to pass the CAP Act Senator McCaskill and I have offered to force Congress to dramatically cut spending over 10 years. By capping spending - discretionary and mandatory - to a declining percentage of GDP, we would put our country on a path to fiscal sanity, while incentivizing Congress to pass policies that promote economic growth." The Commitment to American Prosperity Act, the "CAP Act," would: (1) Put in place a 10-year glide path to cap all spending - discretionary and mandatory - to a declining percentage of the country's gross domestic product, eventually bringing spending down from the current level, 24.7 percent of GDP, to the 40-year historical level of 20.6 percent, and(2) If Congress fails to meet the annual cap, require the Office of Management and Budget to make evenly distributed, simultaneous cuts throughout the federal budget to bring spending down to the pre-determined level. Only a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress could override the binding cap, and(3) For the first time, eliminate the deceptive "off-budget" distinction for Social Security - providing a complete and accurate assessment of all federal spending.The Corker-McCaskill CAP Act is currently cosponsored by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): "President Obama's timid budget proposal represents a missed opportunity to lead. It increases the national debt by nearly $11 trillion, raises taxes, and ignores the recommendations of the President's own bipartisan debt commission. Republicans are ready to show we are serious about making these tough choices and getting the boot off the neck of American entrepreneurs and small businesses." NBC's Shawna Thomas reports that Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), vice chair of Budget committee, this morning made brief remarks that set up the GOP's prepared response to the budget with the line that it's "a budget that unfortunately spends a little bit too much, taxes too much and borrows too much again." House Budget Chairman Ryan and Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will hold a presser this afternoon on the budget."In the preview of what we've seen so far it is a continuation of a, as our chairman has said, a budget that unfortunately spends a little bit too much, taxes too much and borrows too much again," Garrett said. "The President has indicated to us that it's imperative that we sign the raising of the debt limit but at the same time we look at this budget and we see that the debt of the federal government continues to grow at outstanding rates and he's going... to ask us to do so again."When asked if he sensed there would be any common ground between the GOP and the president on this budget, Garrett couldn't seem to find any this morning."Well he, he says that he wants to work with us to begin reigning in spending," Garrett said. "Most of what we have seen as far as preliminary numbers go in exactly the opposite direction. Most of what we've seen is that the actual amount of borrowing will be going, as I said before, in an increased direction and that's why you're actually seeing a doubling of the debt since the time this administration came into office. On the tax side of the equation, the president said he wanted to work with us, basically to place less of a burden on the American taxpayers. But we see here again that it goes in the opposite direction about $1.5 trillion increase in the opposite direction, in that direction, as well. And he also said he wanted to care, as you said, for our future generations, our children and our grandchildren, but this is just going to place even our heaviest burden on them as well. So we're more than happy, I think all of us on our side of the aisle to reach a hand out to the administration to work where we can but there is very little that we see in this so far that there's commonality on spending."DEMOCRATSMinority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD): "Today, President Obama released his proposed Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The president's budget makes the tough choices we need to reduce spending and put our nation's fiscal house in order; in fact, it would reduce our deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. At the same time, however, the budget identifies those investments we need to grow our economy and create jobs-investments in out-building, out-innovating, and out-educating competitors around the world. President Obama's priorities-protecting our fiscal future while investing in growth-stand in strong contrast to the priorities of Republicans. Their spending bill for the rest of this fiscal year would make indiscriminate and short-sighted cuts to the investments our economy needs to stay competitive. I hope that Republicans will, instead, work with President Obama to reduce our deficit without sacrificing America's competitive edge." Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): "The President has put forth a budget that reduces our deficit, while also investing in our future. Two years after the President inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and a structural deficit that came from years of fiscal irresponsibility, we have made progress. But we must do more to invest in job creation and economic growth in the short-term, as well as get our nation on a long-term, responsible path to fiscal sustainability. This budget makes an important step towards both those goals. "There is no question President Obama has made some tough decisions. But this budget also keeps in mind that we need to make smart choices that will create more jobs, lift up middle-class families, and keep our economy growing. While I don't agree with everything in this budget, it is a responsible place to start. It prioritizes national investments that will help our economy continue to recover and keep America competitive, focusing on important investments in things like infrastructure, education, and research. It also extends tax cuts for the middle class, while rejecting tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent. And it represents an important down payment on getting our fiscal house in order. "The President's budget stands in sharp contrast to the House Republicans' proposed funding bill for the remainder of the year. We need to get serious about debts and deficits in this country - but while Democrats propose smart, precise cuts, the GOP wants to blindly slash in the short-term and has no plan for long-term fiscal sustainability. The President's budget is a responsible proposal that will help America move forward, while the reckless Republican bill will cost jobs and hurt the economy."

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HomeU.N. Pushes West Bank Settlement 'Probe' NewsU.N. Pushes West Bank Settlement 'Probe' Nathan GuttmanApril 5, 2012Washingtongetty images A United Nations group’s decision to probe settlement activity on the West Bank has raised the specter of a new feud between Israel and the world body — and created a fresh headache for the White House. Israel quickly denounced the Human Rights Council’s resolution, which calls for a fact-finding commission to investigate the “implications” of the settlements for Palestinians. The Jewish state also severed all ties with the council. Jewish groups blasted the March 19 vote — in which the United States cast the only “no” vote — as anti-Israel grandstanding. They believe it will likely lead to a seriously flawed report along the lines of the much criticized U.N. report on the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which was written by Judge Richard Goldstone. “The report is already written,” said Daniel Mariaschin, B’nai B’rith International’s executive vice president. The Anti-Defamation League took a tougher stance, calling on the United States to quit the Human Rights Council altogether. Even harsh critics of Israel’s settlements took a dim view of the planned fact-finding mission. “The Israeli government’s refusal to cooperate with a body that has [disproportionately] and unfairly focused on Israel is understandable,” said Ori Nir, a spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, adding that the group wants to see an independent Israeli probe of the settlements. Besides creating a nasty new stand-off between Israel and the U.N., the resolution could mushroom into a big diplomatic headache for the Obama administration, which has sought to rebuild its ties with the international body after years of discord. The effort of the United States to work closer with the U.N. and its agencies has taken a hit each time the issue of Israel has come up, forcing the United States to choose between standing up for Israel or seeking to enhance its international image. Usually, supporting Israel has won out. “The basic instinct of the administration was, ‘The more U.N., the merrier,’” said Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. “And then you get the Israel issue and it forces itself on the U.S.” “The administration shifted its position largely… to defend the U.S. interests in Israel,” added Telhami, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. The March 19 decision was one of five recent resolutions critical of Israel, all of which the Human Rights Council adopted by overwhelming majorities. The settlements investigation was approved by a 36–1 vote, with 10 abstentions. Western European allies were split, with Spain and Italy abstaining and Norway and Belgium voting in favor of the measure. Britain, France and Germany are not members of the council. The controversial decision is only the latest dust-up involving the Human Rights Council, which in 2006 replaced the Commission on Human Rights. The Obama administration, which overturned a decision by Bush to boycott the council, pinned high hopes on reforming the institution and turning its attention to other human rights hotspots across the world. But in reality, little has changed, at least where Israel is concerned. In 2009, the council launched its first fact-finding mission to the region, now widely known as the Goldstone Commission aimed at investigating Israel’s siege on Gaza. The report issued by the committee accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes. Although the chair, Goldstone, later retracted the claim about Israel, it remained an open sore in the already troubled relations between Israel and the Human Rights Council. Mariaschin tried to lobby member states against voting for the settlements probe, but he admitted that it was an uphill struggle. He said that although the United States has maintained a strong voice for Israel within the Human Rights Council, its hopes to reform the body seem to have failed. “Clearly, I don’t think this turned out the way people expected,” he said. Mariaschin did not call for the United States to quit the council, but the ADL has made that call. “It is high time for the U.S. to pull out of the international body,” said ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman, who noted that 39 of the council’s 91 resolutions were aimed at Israel. The Obama administration has responded to the settlement probe decision with tough language, but it has shown no signs of second thoughts about its decision to rejoin the council. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stressed on March 26 that “the record of the Human Rights Council on this part of the world is very negative, very one-sided.” At the same time, she praised the council’s work in other regions as being constructive. In practical terms, it is still not clear if the new fact-finding mission will have the same negative impact that the Goldstone Commission had on Israel. On the one hand, the uproar following the Goldstone Report could cause the new delegation to carefully consider the language it uses before issuing a report. On the other hand, while the Goldstone Report focused on the Gaza military action in which Israel’s actions were supported by the United States, the current mission will investigate Israel’s settlement activity, an issue clearly at odds with the administration’s policy. “It will be another Goldstone-type conclusion,” said Richard Schifter, a former ambassador who represented the United States in many U.N. bodies. Schifter, now board chairman of the American Jewish International Relations Institute, a group devoted to fighting anti-Israel bias in the U.N., said that whatever the fact-finding mission comes up with, it will be up to the Security Council to take action based on the results. That is Israel’s ace in the hole, because its opponents regularly fail to garner the needed nine votes to pass a Security Council resolution. And even if they do obtain those votes, the U.S. would surely veto it. “If this settlement inquiry gets to the Security Council,” Schifter said, “this will be the case again.” Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com U.N. Pushes West Bank Settlement 'Probe'

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Conservative priorities prompted growth in PS numbers, top PCO official says Written by Elizabeth Thompson Thursday, December 1st, 2011 Written by Elizabeth Thompson Thursday, December 1st, 2011 Facebook The sharp increase in the size of the public service in recent years is largely the result of the priority the Conservative government has put on defence and border security, a top Privy Council official told hundreds of top public service executives Wednesday. “The Canadian Forces has grown, DND has grown,” William Pentney, deputy secretary to the cabinet for plans and consultation, told a seminar in Gatineau attended by more than 1,200 top public service executives. “DND is running a bigger budget than anyone ever in the history of DND, or the military has ever run — ever, ever, ever,” said Pentney, a former associate deputy minister for defence. “(There’s) the border services agency. So a number of areas of growth are related simply to investments in government priorities.” Pentney’s comment came in response to a question from the floor about why the public service had grown so much during the past five years. Documents obtained recently by Postmedia put the rise in the public service during the past decade at 34 per cent. Pentney said a second factor in the growth is the government’s failure to keep up with the private sector when it comes to technology. “We do a number of things, as the military would say, ‘handraulically’ that people in the private sector no longer do ‘handraulically.’ So one of the reasons we had to grow was just more people, more things, more transactions processed manually instead of with the latest in technology.” Pentney admitted the government has had a bad track record getting major IT projects off the ground, but he said that is changing. “We have made some important breakthroughs in technology and Shared Services Canada could represent the next stage in that evolution in a very important way.” The third element is the cost of monitoring the government’s many grants and contributions, Pentney said. “With every dollar comes a small army of auditors to follow it — a lot of process, a lot of followup.” Pentney’s comments came as top public servants gathered in Gatineau Wednesday for a “special executive seminar” organized by the Canada School of Public Service on how to deal with the government’s deficit reduction action plan, also known as the strategic and operating review, or SOR. The multibillion-dollar, belt-tightening exercise is designed to help the Conservative government eliminate the federal deficit. Departments were asked to submit proposals for five- and 10-per-cent reductions to their budgets and those proposals are being assessed and weighed. The results of the exercise are to be announced in the 2012 federal budget. However, unions are bracing for cuts to the number of public service jobs and management is preparing for the task of carrying them out. Pentney said one of the challenges is that nobody knows what exactly will be cut because the strategic and operating review cabinet committee (SORC) is still evaluating departmental proposals and top public servants don’t necessarily know what their ministers are taking to those meetings. “SORC-apalooza 2011 is still going on right now,” said Pentney. “The committee met last night, it’s meeting tonight, it’s meeting tomorrow night, they’ve got all-day meetings planned for early January.” Pentney said speculation about what will be cut is useless but one thing that is known is how much the government wants to save. “We’re going to find at least $4 billion through this process. That’s a certainty and it’s coming out of your budget. There will be less public servants. Some of them are going to retire, some of them are going to leave for other jobs and some of them are going to be laid off.” However, the exercise is also an opportunity for innovation and a chance to leave a better public service for the future, he said. “It’s not going to be easy, but it is a really, really important leadership opportunity.” Overall, the tone of the seminar was constructive — from the need for public service executives to put themselves in the shoes of those who risk losing their jobs to strategies to minimize the impact on their departments. Diane Lorenzato, assistant deputy minister, human resources branch, for Public Works and Government Services Canada, recommended departments avoid filling vacant positions in the lead up to the next budget so they will have more leeway to move public servants who are cut into vacant jobs. “I don’t have a choice about strategic review. I do have a choice about how it is implemented,” said Danl Loewen who has managed to find new jobs for almost all his Public Works employees after his department was cut as part of the 2010 strategic review. While unions and management often find themselves on opposite sides of the table, Wednesday, Marc-Arthur Hyppolite assistant deputy minister for Treasury Board was sitting around the same table on stage with John Gordon, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. All three underlined the importance of being familiar with the government’s Work Force Adjustment agreement and of setting up workforce adjustment committees early to deal with the coming cuts. Corbett and Gordon also offered to work with managers to mitigate the impact of the cuts on public servants.

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HomeSearch�����Board & Mission StatementWhy IAM?About UsArticles by IAM AssociatesBen-Gurion UniversityHebrew University University of HaifaTel Aviv UniversityOther InstitutionsBoycott Calls Against IsraelIsraelis in Non-Israeli UniversitiesAnti-Israel Petitions Supported by Israeli AcademicsGeneral ArticlesAnti-Israel ConferencesLawfareAnti-Israel Academic ResolutionsLectures InterruptedActivists ProfilesReaders ForumOn the Brighter SidePhotographsHow can I complain?Contact Us / SubscribeDonateNumber of visitors to IAMBen-Gurion UniversityMeretz USA member and editor: Neve Gordon writes from a gratuitously anti-Zionist perspective http://meretzusa.blogspot.com/2008/02/from-colonialism-to-separation.html From ‘colonialism’ to ‘separation’ Neve Gordon, an assistant professor of political science at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva is a friend of Meretz USA’s founding first couple (to coin an expression), Harold and Myra Shapiro. They are old friends of his father, who convinced Harold to become a supporter of Ratz, the civic rights party of Shulamit Aloni, which later merged with the socialist-Zionist Mapam to form Meretz. Prof. Gordon, currently on sabbatical at the University of Michigan, is a frequent contributor to "In These Times" magazine, a publication that I have also contributed to recently, after a ten-year hiatus. (In recent months, fellow Meretz USA activist Ken Brociner has become a presence at ITT, both online and in print.) Gordon’s articles are difficult reading for Zionists, even a progressive Zionist such as myself. It’s not that he’s wrong in most of his facts regarding inequities in the Jewish State and injustices in the Palestinian territories, but he writes from a gratuitously anti-Zionist perspective. His most recent article, "Outsourcing Zionism," is a case in point. We know of the injustices visited upon the Negev Bedouin, not to mention what’s going on in the territories; we’ve highlighted the shame of the Negev situation in a lead article in the current issue of our publication, ISRAEL HORIZONS. The problem with Gordon, symbolized in the harsh choice of title for that ITT article, is his ideology. The fact that we as progressive Zionists deplore the treatment of the Bedouin and work for an equitable two-state solution with the Palestinians should prove that "Zionism" as such is not the issue. Besides, it’s hardly unique to Israel that an indigenous minority is mistreated by the majority. (To his credit, Gordon has been forthright in his writings and in his talk that Israel is far from the world’s worst violator of human rights; this is hardly a matter of pride for any supporter of Israel, but it’s an important point to make.) The Shapiros and I attended a lecture he gave at Columbia on Feb. 5. He's written a political science analysis of the occupation that will be published by the University of California Press in the fall. It posits that Israel has gone from a "colonialist" model of governing the West Bank and Gaza to one of "separation." The colonialist period ended with the first Intifada, when Israel realized that it could no longer control the territories in this way. It involved a certain amount of improvement in the standard of living for Palestinians (e.g., infant mortality dropped significantly) in return for Israel exploiting Palestinian land and water resources, cheap labor and the development of settlements. There was a great deal of interaction between Israelis and Palestinians during this period. With Oslo, Israel embarked upon a solution of separation that meant very few Palestinians working in Israel and very little interaction between Israelis and Palestinians. He implies that this framework also has resulted in many more Palestinian deaths at Israeli hands because now Palestinian lives "have no value" for Israel. (One questioner pointed out that the great increase of Palestinian deaths reflected the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000.) This is not the case in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed soon after the Six Day War; the annexation explains why Israel would never use air power against Palestinians in East The main criticism voiced at his presentation was that his analysis did not track closely with historical events. In response, Gordon says that he knows that events create facts, but he is also arguing that "structures" create facts. As a political scientist, it is structures that interest him. I argued with him that it's unfair to regard Oslo as negatively as he does because it ended mid-way, with Rabin's assassination and Peres's defeat by Netanyahu. And even when the peace camp was nominally returned to power, its new defacto leader, Ehud Barak, rejected Oslo’s incremental logic. Gordon insisted that the problem was Oslo in the first place; he admitted that if Rabin had lived or if Peres had defeated Netanyahu that something might have been successfully negotiated, but he insisted on saying that this would not have been Oslo. I was too flummoxed by the boldness of his assertion to respond that he's confusing the very limited control that the Palestinians had when the Oslo process was frozen in its tracks in 1996 with the ultimate intention of the Labor-Meretz government that had initiated Oslo. To him, Oslo meant the facts on the ground at the time it was aborted. To me, the essence of Oslo was its gradualist nature. Prof. Gordon said that he still doesn't rule out the possibility of a two-state solution, but it would have to be something very different than Oslo. (Perhaps we can both agree that a Geneva-like agreement would be such an approach.) Interestingly, one of his hosts sitting at the seminar table, Prof. Rashid Khalidi, had exactly his perspective in coming to oppose Oslo in the mid-‘90s, after the pro-Oslo forces were defeated by episodes of extremist Israeli and Palestinian violence that precipitated an unfortunate election result. When someone else in the audience suggested that Camp David had represented a good approach, with something like 95 percent of the West Bank offered as going to the Palestinians, Gordon said that the percentage is hard to gauge because it wasn't clear how Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem were being counted. If the Jewish areas of East Jerusalem (built beyond the 1949 armistice lines) were included, this 95 percent figure was actually more like 85 percent. But Gordon indicated that what was really bad was that Camp David was portrayed as a failure— even though it had produced unprecedented moves on the Israeli side and negotiations did not end there. This representation of the process as a failure was largely the fault of Barak. On this, I agree with Gordon. But it's unfortunate that Gordon's grand theorizing implies that Israel has never been sincere in trying to make a practical solution to the problem of the territories— not even during the peace process of the 1990s. posted by Ralph Seliger @ 8:32 AM Back to "Ben-Gurion University"Send Response Top PageYour Responses1. The following is a mild version of From IB, Sent in 28-02-2008 Developed by Sitebank & Powered by Blueweb Internet ServicesVisitors: 148904071Send to FriendAdd To FavoritesMake It HomepagePrint version

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Ahmadinejad cites the promotion of Holocaust denial as one his major achievements Some highlights from Ahmadinejad's farewell speech reflecting on his time as President of Iran: Outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a farewell ceremony that publicizing his Holocaust denial was a major achievement of his presidency. “That was a taboo topic that no one in the West allowed to be heard,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech Sunday, according to the Iranian Fars news agency. “We put it forward at the global level. That broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime.” What's the connection between promoting Holocaust denial and crippling western capitalism? I have some suspicions about the causal logic that Ahmadinejad may have in mind here, but we will have to leave a closer analysis to people who read or heard the whole speech, and who know Farsi. Ahmadinejad’s remarks on the Holocaust appeared on the Fars news site in Arabic, but not on its English website, which covered other aspects of the speech. [....] President-elect Hassan Rohani described Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel remarks as “hate rhetoric” that had brought the country to the brink of war, the German news agency dpa reported That criticism sounds refreshingly honest and straightforward—in contrast to the disingenuous evasions and strained apologetics that have marked a lot of western commentary about Ahmadinejad over the past decade, including bogus claims that his most appalling and inflammatory statements were being misquoted and/or misunderstood. (I name no names, but the apologists who spread that kind of misinformation, or otherwise made indefensible excuses for Ahmadinejad, included some people who really should have known better.) So if Rohani really said that, it might be a promising sign. Again, I'd be curious to hear more details from analysts who have seen Rohani's remarks in context and in Farsi. => According to another article drawing on the DPA report: Ahmadinejad also said in a Tehran ceremony organized by the government in his honor that "the name Ahmadinejad is now popular throughout the world." This was not only a success for Iranian foreign policy, he said, but had also improved Iran's image. I wonder whether he really believes that. If so, he's pretty much the only one who does. (A recent Pew Research survey found that attitudes toward Iran around the world are overwhelmingly negative, with the exception of just a few anomalous countries.) Then again, the human capacity for self-deception knows no bounds. "I had two missions: to build up Iran and to improve the world," he said, adding that the two goals were "inseparable." During Ahmadinejad's eight years in office, Iran was isolated not only from the West but also from most of the neighbouring Arab world. His uncompromising nuclear policy, which other governments feared was being used to produce atomic weapons, led to financial sanctions and an economic crisis that has gripped the country for more than a year. All six candidates in this year's presidential election and especially Rohani said during the campaign that Ahmadinejad's policies were the direct cause of the crisis. Of course, the candidates who said that were being a little disingenuous, since everyone knew that many of those policies were not really Ahmadinejad's but Khamenei's—and Khamenei is still ultimately in control. Furthermore, Ahmadinejad was undoubtedly right to claim that his anti-semitic and anti-Zionist ravings helped increase his popularity in the region, even if other factors canceled out any public-relations benefits he derived that way. At all events, I think it's safe to say that few people, inside or outside Iran, will miss him much. However, the regime he was part of is still there. An Egyptian 12-year-old offers his analysis of Egy... Adam Smith's conceptual sleight-of-hand on exchang... Some remaining points of consensus across the poli... Adam Garfinkle ponders some continuities and disco... Matthew McNaught reconsiders his microbus map of D... Egypt's protests seen from space The backlash against Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood an... Claude Fischer reminds us that revolutionary waves... Claire Berlinski fills in the socio-historical bac... Images from Afghanistan in the 1950s & 1960s

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Pyongyang To Cut North-South Hotline, Cancel Nonaggression Pact By Scott Neuman Mar 8, 2013 ShareTwitter Facebook Google+ Email A North Korean soldier reacts as he patrols along the Yalu River near the Chinese border last month. Mark Ralston Originally published on March 8, 2013 9:22 am North Korea responded to new U.N. sanctions aimed at starving its nuclear program by vowing to cut a Cold War-style hotline and scrap a nonaggression pact with the South. State-run media said North Korea "abrogates all agreements on nonaggression reached between the North and the South ... and also notifies the South side that it will immediately cut off the North-South hotline." Pyongyang's statement appears to refer to the bilateral pact signed in 1991 that endorses the peaceful settlement of disputes and the prevention of accidental military clashes. However, earlier this week the North also reiterated threats to walk away from the 1953 armistice that technically ended the Korean War. Also this week, Pyongyang threatened to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. and its allies. (As Reuters notes, while the threat of a strike against the U.S. is "a hollow one," South Korea and Japan are in easy range of the North's short- and medium-range missiles.) The stepped up rhetoric from Pyongyang is the latest in a week of bellicose posturing in the lead-up to the United Nations Security Council's unanimous approval on Thursday of sanctions to tighten trade and financial restrictions on the North in an effort to force it to halt its nuclear weapons program. Even so, as The Associated Press points out, sanctions have done little to deter Pyongyang thus far: "Since 2006, North Korea has launched long-range rockets, tested a variety of missiles and conducted three underground nuclear explosions, the most recent on Feb. 12. Through it all, Pyongyang was undeterred by a raft of sanctions — both multilateral penalties from the United Nations and national sanctions from Washington, Tokyo and others — meant to punish the government and sidetrack its nuclear ambitions." The war of words is testing South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, who campaigned on a promise to remain vigilant while keeping the door open for the possibility of ending the long conflict on the peninsula. Speaking at a graduation ceremony for South Korean military cadets on Friday, Park promised to "deal strongly with North Korea's provocations." The early days of Park's administration could prove dangerous, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A CSIS analysis suggests a causal link between a change in South Korean leadership and "a military provocation of some form within weeks."Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. View the discussion thread. © 2016 KALW

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Crossroads decision for Japan: back US on Iran, make sacrifices By Takashi Oka, Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor / Japan faces a watershed in its foreign policy over Iran and Afghanistan. "For the first time," says a government policymaker, "we have had to make a decision on a matter of principle -- respect for international law -- at the cost of immediate and substantial economic losses."He was referring to the Japanese government's decision to impose economic sanctions on Iran over the American hostages issue. Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira is expected to announce the decision in a policy speech to the Diet (parliament) Jan. 25. The exact content of the sanctions has not yet been worked out, but there is no question that sanctions will be imposed -- despite the opposition of powerful business interests in this country. Tokyo's attitude toward the Soviet Union is more cautious. Mr. Ohira told a National Press Club audience Jan. 22 that he was studying "what we can to do show our displeasure" over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "The government is still undecided" as to whether to boycott the Moscow Olympics, he said.Nevertheless, there is no question that, in this situation as well, Japan will take action paralleling that of the West European countries and the United States.There is a clear recognition here that the Soviet move into Afghanistan threatens to destabilize the global balance of power between Washington and Moscow. Japan is as vitally concerned in the maintenance of this balance as any of the West European allies, and realizes that effective action must be taken in concert to prevent any new Afghanistans.What is new about the Japanese attitude is not the analysis as such, but acceptance of the proposition that Japan cannot hide behind American skirts or cower in the background while others take the necessary action.Thirty years after World War II, the finite nature of American power finally has hit the Japanese. So has the importance of concerted action to preserve an orderly, rule-abiding global community -- a community without which a Japan lacking resources or markets would have no room to breathe and no opportunity to prosper.What is also new is the concomitant of this recognition, that action requires real sacrifice. This understanding already has permeated the highest levels of government. In a democratic and consensual society such as Japan, however, an enormous effort of persuasion in required to convince those who must bear the brunt of the sacrifices. Japan's economic ties with Iran have been much larger than American ties with that country. "Why me?" asks the businessman with a joint venture in Iran. "Did the United States consult me when it allowed the Shah into New York?"More generally, the public at large is inclined to ask why Japan must do without Iranian oil (11 percent of Japan's oil comes from Iran) for the sake of what many still see as an abstract principle.Yet Mr. Ohira is determined to proceed, both on Iranian sanctions and on his "expression of displeasure" with the Soviet Union. Government officials are arguing that this is not a question of choosing between the United States and Iran, or even the United States and Soviet Union. It is Japan looking at its own national interests in a much broader and all- encompassing light than it has in 30 years.It is Japan weighing its own interest in world peace and order and deciding what action within its own proper is appropriate and effective under the circumstances.That is the watershed Japan faces, and if there is still hesitation over the exact details, the decision to do it is not in doubt. EU approves embargo on Iranian oil, despite economic concerns Iranian oil sanctions: US exempts 11 nations Iran currency plummets: A sign US sanctions are taking hold?

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UN to end observer mission in Syria Conditions for possibly extending the United Nations' military observer mission – reduction of violence and no use of heavy weapons – had not been met, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud announced. The current president of the Security Council said the mandate would end Sunday. By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press / Members of the United Nations observers mission in Syria walk at a hotel in Damascus last month. On Sunday they will walk out of Syria as the U.N. announced to end the mission. Khaled al-Hariri The Security Council agreed Thursday to end the United Nations' military observer mission in Syria in the face of an escalating civil war and back a new liaison office in Damascus to support UN and Arab League efforts to end the country's 18-month conflict.France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud, the current Security Council president, said members who have been deeply divided on tackling the conflict were united behind UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's proposal to replace the 300 unarmed observers with a small group of military advisers and political, human rights and civil affairs experts. No reduction in violenceAraud said the council agreed that conditions set for possibly extending the observer mission — a significant reduction in violence and an end to the Syrian government's use of heavy weapons — had not been met and the mission's mandate would end Sunday. Recommended:Four things Syria must do after Bashar al-Assad The mission has been severely limited in its work by the violence in Syria, and members have been mainly confined to their hotels since June 15.Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country is the most important ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, invited UN ambassadors from key nations and regional and international organizations who agreed in June in Geneva on guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition to a meeting Friday at UN headquarters in New York.Churkin told reporters he wants the Geneva action group — along with "important actors" Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are not members — to make "a joint or parallel appeal to all the parties of the Syrian conflict that they end violence as soon as possible by a certain point in time."Churkin said the appeal should also urge the government and opposition to appoint representatives "to negotiate towards a political solution, and in particular towards the establishment of a transitional governing body as provided for in the Geneva document."Support for Arab LeagueIn a letter to the council last Friday, Ban said the conditions for extending the observer mission had not been met, but he added that "it is imperative for the United Nations to have a presence in Syria" aside from its humanitarian operation in order to support UN and Arab League efforts "in mediating and facilitating a peaceful resolution to the crisis."The Security Council initially authorized the 300-strong observer mission to deploy to Syria for 90 days to monitor implementation of a six-point peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. The plan was to start with a cease-fire and withdrawal of the government's heavy weapons and culminate with Syrian-led political talks. Assad's government and opposition forces agreed to the plan, but it was never implemented.Because of the worsening bloodshed and insecurity, the observer mission has been cut by about two-thirds.101 observersUN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet told reporters after briefing the council behind closed doors that the observer mission "will come to an end at midnight Sunday."There are currently 101 observers and 72 civilian staff members in Syria, he said. In order to have an orderly departure, the last observers will leave Aug. 24, but they will not do any work after Sunday.Mulet said discussions are under way on the new UN liaison office, which he said has been approved by the Syrian government and will have about 20-30 staff members.Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed Security Council resolutions that would have stepped up pressure especially against the Syrian government by threatening sanctions if the fighting didn't stop.Frustrated at the escalating conflict and the failure of the Security Council to unite to stop the chaos, Annan announced last month that he was resigning effective Aug. 31.Replacement for AnnanMulet said he expected an announcement of a replacement for Annan "very soon."On Tuesday, a spokesman for Annan said Syrian authorities have backed former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran UN troubleshooter in hotspots including Afghanistan and Iraq, as his successor, but it was unclear whether Brahimi had accepted the post.Several UN diplomats, speaking on condition of a anonymity because no announcement has been made, said Brahimi wants a signal of support from the council. Four things Syria must do after Bashar al-Assad Airstrikes kills over 40 in northern Syria, watchdog group says Kidnappings tied to Syria threaten Lebanon's fragile peace (+video) Five things international community must give Syria after Bashar al-Assad

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Debate In Fla. Governor’s Race Already Getting Talk Filed Under: David Armstrong, Debate, Florida, Florida Press Association, Governor's Race, Gubernatorial Election, Leadership Florida, Politics, Rick Scott, Wendy Abberger (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) — Florida’s 2014 gubernatorial election is still more than a year away. The Democratic candidate is still a matter of speculation. But two groups are already making plans to bring together the Republican and Democratic nominees in a statewide televised debate in mid-October 2014, a time when voters will be making up their minds and preparing to cast ballots. Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association, which have teamed up in the past to host debates, announced the plans Tuesday. While the exact date and location are still undecided, the groups said they expect the debate to be televised on network affiliates in all of the state’s TV markets. “This promises to be a high point in what could be an historic election,” said David Armstrong, chairman of the non-partisan Leadership Florida and president of Broward College. Leadership Florida President Wendy Abberger said the groups wanted to make the announcement early, as other potential sponsors — such as television stations or universities — also might look at hosting debates. Barring something unexpected, it appears all but certain that Gov. Rick Scott will be the Republican candidate. But the Democratic field remains unsettled, as former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has not announced whether he will run as a Democrat. The only prominent Democrat who has declared for the race is former Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich of Weston. The debate, which could be held at a college or university, likely will be limited to the Republican and Democratic candidates. To qualify, candidates will have to receive at least 15 percent support in a poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. “The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.”

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More Democrats Can't Accept the Trade Off of a Job-Killing Minimum Wage posted by Kristen Soltis Anderson When it comes to President Obama’s proposed increase in the minimum wage, the White House would like to have its cake, eat it too, and claim that the cake has zero calories. Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of The White House’s proposed $10.10 federal minimum wage, giving credence to Republican claims that the hike might have a negative effect on employment by costing 500,000 jobs. The CBO also estimates $10.10 would lift 900,000 families out of poverty and increase the incomes of more than 16 million low-wage workers. As with most policy proposals, there are some people who benefit and some who will be harmed by an increase in the minimum wage, and the CBO report seemed to find just that. The New York Times reported that: “Republicans contended the policy would be a job-killer, while Democrats asserted it would help alleviate poverty. Economists said both might be right.
And the White House, in an unusual twist, openly disputed the budget office’s math.” An unusual twist, but not necessarily a surprising one. One doesn’t have to look hard for headlines from the past, declaring “White House Touts CBO Report” on any number of topics. “White House Touts CBO Immigration Report,” said one. “CBO: President’s Budget Will Bring Down The Deficit,” declares a White House press release from 2012 and shortly thereafter, the President’s budget would go down with zero “yes” votes in Congress from either party. When it is convenient, the CBO is the Nonpartisan Arbiter of Absolute Truth. When inconvenient, CBO is—well—pay no attention to that report they just released. Inconsistency in Washington politics today is the rule, not the exception, and it goes far beyond bill scoring. A filibuster is awful obstructionism, until it is used to stop a bill your side thinks is bad. “Dark shadowy money buying elections” is another person’s “important voter education campaign on a key issue.” When it’s a conservative group spreading the word about the downsides of the Affordable Care Act or the perils of our massive national debt, it’s bashed as a perversion of democracy; when the content changes to talking to the public about climate change, suddenly it seems to some like a great act of service to educate the voting public. Dem’s the Breaks: GOP Investigation Gives the Left Another Reason to Point Fingers Obama Administration Stiffs Chemical Survivors on New Claim Wall Street Wolves Want to Bring their Big Bucks to the GOP Party

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Share this:FacebookTwitterGoogleWhatsAppEmailCopy Envy of the Arabs? By Amir Taheri View author archive March 17, 2012 | 4:00am The safest Arab land? A model wears fashion inspired by Iraqi folklore during Baghdad’s celebration of International Women’s Day last week. Photo: AFP/Getty Images The hot game in Baghdad teahouses these days is called “Guess who’s coming to the banquet?” The banquet in question is the Arab League summit scheduled for March 29 in the Iraqi capital. The guests who may or may not turn up are the 21 kings, emirs, sultans and presidents who rule more than 300 million Arabs from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. For the past 40 years, Iraq has dreamt of hosting such a do; each time, there was a hitch in the form of the wars provoked by Saddam Hussein. After liberation in 2003, the new Iraq — trying to accommodate the US presence while fighting various terrorist groups — couldn’t even think of a summit. Iraqis have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new conference hall and sumptuous villas to house the guests. They have mobilized 100,000 troops to protect the center of Baghdad, the former Green Zone, where the summit is to be held. A two-day holiday will allow Iraqis to watch the proceedings live on TV. Until the Arab Spring changed the political landscape, Arab leaders were reluctant to improve relations with Iraq. The oil-rich states of the Gulf were concerned about the spread of the democratic contagion from Iraq. Jealous of Iraq as a rival for Arab leadership, Egypt was equally cool. Syria, where the Ba’ath Party is in power, did all it could to destabilize new Iraq. Now the wheel of fortune has turned. Long the land of suicide-attacks and sectarian killings, Iraq has suddenly become the only major Arab country with a modicum of stability. In Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, new governments led by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists are groping in the dark. In Algeria, the general election in May could trigger a new crisis. And Jordan’s tottering monarchy is in no position to host a summit. Syria, meanwhile, is in the midst of a revolution, while Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon is a no-go area for Arab leaders. Thus has Iraq ended up as the least-worst of several bad options. It’s looking like a curious summit in many ways. For the first time, an ethnic Kurd, Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, would be in the chair with a Shiite-led government playing the host. Another ethnic Kurd, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, is writing the agenda. Iraqi leaders hope that the summit will mark the end of Arabs’ undeclared boycott of the new Iraq. They hope to reassure the Gulf states that Iraq has abandoned old claims against Kuwait and will do nothing to destabilize the region’s petro-monarchies. Iraq is also addressing the concerns of Sunni-dominated Arab states about what they see as the Iranian attempt to create a “Shi’ite Crescent” including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The Iraqis have rejected a demand from Iran (not an Arab nation and thus not a member of the Arab League) to be invited as an observer. Tehran is sore that Iraq has invited other observers, including the UN secretary-general, the secretary-general of the Islamic Conference Organization and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. More important: Despite pressure from Tehran, Iraq has refused to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to Iraq’s Zebari, Syria is to dominate the agenda. The idea is to develop a broad Arab consensus for a transfer of power to an interim leadership. Iraq would also consider creating a “zone of reception and support” for Syrian refugees. Although it marks de facto recognition of Iraq as a regional player, the summit is unlikely to end inter-Arab hostility. Nor is it certain it will help Iraq solve its domestic problems. The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could be brought down with the loss of a few seats in the National Assembly. Angered by Maliki’s “authoritarianism,” some Sunni leaders are playing the autonomy card to weaken the central government. The Kurds, secure in their three autonomous provinces, are trying to butter their bread on both sides. Indeed, some Arab commentators claim that Iraq’s stability is nothing but a mirage. I think they are wrong. New Iraq is no bed of roses. But Iraqis seem to have forged a consensus that eludes most other Arabs. Regardless of sectarian and partisan divisions, a majority of Iraqis seem to agree that government should be based on the will of the people as expressed through free elections. Today, Iraq is the Arab country that comes closest to being a democracy, albeit an imperfect and messy one. That in itself is an achievement enough. How the prez bought labor’s favor Read Next How the prez bought labor’s favor Share Selection

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- Pacific.scoop.co.nz - http://pacific.scoop.co.nz - World union bodies slam latest Fiji military manoeuvre Posted By admin On January 27, 2013 @ 12:06 pm In Pacific Press Releases | Comments Disabled Press Release – International Transport Workers’ Federation The ITF and its fellow global unions, along with the ITUC have united to condemn the latest undemocratic and anti-union tactic by Fijis illegal military government.World union bodies slam latest Fiji military manoeuvre The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) and its fellow global unions, along with the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) have united to condemn the latest undemocratic and anti-union tactic by Fiji’s illegal military government. The global union federations and ITUC have denounced the Fiji Political Parties Decree (Decree 4 of 2013), issued on January 15, 2013. They state that the decree, issued right after the military regime had discarded a new draft constitution, which was the product of a popular, consultative process, is the most recent affront to democratic principles and trade union rights. The purpose of this decree could not be clearer – to eliminate existing opposition political parties and to prevent new ones from being registered. Most troubling, they note, is that Article 14 of the decree excludes all public officers from applying for, being a member of, or holding office in a political party. Article 14.2(d) defines ‘public officer’ to include any elected or appointed trade union officer. It is no coincidence that the decree was issued just days after the Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) held a special delegates’ meeting to launch a new opposition political party that would include trade unions. Incredibly, under Article 14.1(c), a trade union official cannot even express support for a political party. If a trade union leader does become an applicant for or member or officer of a party, they will be deemed as having resigned from their trade union office. Anyone defying this decree faces a $50,000 fine, five years imprisonment or both. Sharan Burrow, ITUC general secretary, explained: “The regime is once again attempting to silence the largest civil society organisation and opposition force in the country – the trade union movement. The international community needs to recognise that the promise of elections in 2014 will be meaningless if all Fijian citizenscannot fully participate in the political process. This decree should removeany doubt that the regime is seeking to have itself elected in 2014 by any and all means necessary.” The decree alsoappears to seek to eliminate many existing parties. Parties will have less than one month from the issuance of the decree to demonstrate a minimum membership of 5,000 members (up from 128), which must come from all four divisions of the country, and to pay a $5,005 fee. The decree even regulates the length of the name and prohibits any party name in the indigenous language of the country. Those parties that do not comply within this timeframe will have all of their assets seized by the regime. If they continue to act as a political party despite failing to meet the new criteria, party officials will face a $50,000 fine, five years imprisonment or both. “The decree clearly violates principles of freedom of association by prohibiting unions from engaging in political activities for the promotion of their trade union objectives. All individuals and groups that wish to form a political party should be able to do so, based on the principle of equal treatment before the law. This decree obviously fails this test,” stated Ambet Yuson, chair of the Council of Global Unions, which brings together the global union federations, ITUC and TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Committee). Paddy Crumlin, ITF president and national secretary of the MUA (Maritime Union of Australia), commented: “What we’re seeing now is the regime making it very clear that it pretty much intends to do what it wants without any sanction by the people of Fiji. It is of great concern that the regime’s own proposed constitution will ratify repression of workers’ rights, repression that the military regime has regularly meted out against workers. “The rejection of the constitution and new decree by the government means that the Fijian people will continue to suffer under the controlling and repressive military regime. The MUA and ITF will be calling on the Australian government and other governments around the globe to reassess their diplomatic relationship with the Bainimarama military regime,” He concluded: “The MUA and ITF stands in solidarity with the Fijian workers and union leaders who are determined to take back democratic rights and freedoms.” Article printed from Pacific.scoop.co.nz: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz URL to article: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2013/01/world-union-bodies-slam-latest-fiji-military-manoeuvre/ URLs in this post:[1] scoop.co.nz: http://www.scoop.co.nz/[2] Original url: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO201301/S00215.htm Click here to print. Copyright © 2009 pacific. All rights reserved.

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Will Congress' budget battles kill immigration reform and gun control? Spaeth Protesters call for gun control in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 21. AP Photo/Cliff Owen Amidst the eleventh-hour drama surrounding the fiscal cliff, every other issue facing the country was shunted to the side. The deal to allow tax rates to rise on the wealthiest Americans was so bruising that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) tabled a bill that would have asked the House GOP to sign off on $60 billion in federal aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy, earning Boehner a humiliating dressing-down from his fellow Republicans in New Jersey and New York. And Sandy wasn't the only issue to get lost in the mix. As Slate's Dave Weigel put it: Hey, remember when we were talking about new gun control legislation? That was a wild six minutes. — daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 2, 2013 Congress' budget battles are only expected to get gorier over the next couple of months, as Republicans and Democrats try to reach a deal that would prevent $1.2 trillion in crippling spending cuts, a U.S. debt default, and a government shutdown. However, the White House insists that President Obama "is planning to move full steam ahead with the rest of his domestic policy agenda," say Elise Foley and Sam Stein at The Huffington Post. Immigration reform and gun control are at the top of the list, but the chances of their quick passage seem slim given the heated atmosphere in Congress. "The negative effect of this fiscal cliff fiasco is that every time we become engaged in one of these fights, there's no oxygen for anything else," an unidentified Senate Democratic aide told HuffPo. "It's not like you can be multi-tasking — with something like this, Congress just comes to a complete standstill." The key to congressional action is to strike when the iron is hot. In the case of immigration reform, the GOP has to feel the sting of Mitt Romney's defeat as if it were yesterday. Supporters of gun control, an issue that had been all but abandoned before the school shooting in Connecticut, say Obama must act while public opinion is on their side. As time passes, it's only logical to assume that a sense of urgency will give way to the gravitational pull of preserving the status quo. And, of course, there is the boulder-sized obstacle known as the GOP-controlled House, which has proven time and again that it has no interest in compromising with Democrats on pretty much anything. In addition to keeping immigration and gun control in the spotlight, the Obama administration may have to adopt the same strategy it used (or stumbled upon) in the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans, which involved securing strong Republican support in the Senate. On immigration, at least, GOP party leaders are reportedly eager to reach a deal in order to give Republicans a better shot at wooing Latino voters. As Karen Tumulty and Peter Wallsten write at The Washington Post: White House aides are debating whether they should take the unusual step of drafting an immigration bill or instead lay out principles that could serve as a rallying point. Pro-immigration Republicans will be recruited to help, among them evangelical pastors and small-business owners. Said one outside strategist who is familiar with White House thinking but who discussed the strategy on the condition of anonymity: "The second term rests on the hypothesis that the House Republicans can be broken." More from Ryu Spaeth A day at the DMZ: The political theater at the heart of the Korean conflict Ryu Spaeth The Trump Show: How Donald Trump won the GOP debate and stole the presidential election The Gawker meltdown and the Vox-ification of the news media 11 upstart religions rooted in pop culture

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The End of Pax Americana? 10/7/2011 12:01:00 AM - Pat Buchanan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Observing the correlation of forces in this city and the intensity of conviction in the base of each party, the outcome of the ongoing fiscal fight between Barack Obama and the Tea Party Republicans seems preordained. Deadlock. There will be no big jobs-for-taxes deal. The can will be kicked down the road into the next administration. A second truth is emerging. When the cutting comes, as it shall, the Pentagon will be first to ascend the scaffold. Why so? Consider. The Republican House cannot agree to tax increases without risking retribution from the base and repudiation by its presidential candidates. All have pledged to oppose even a dollar in tax hikes for 10 dollars in spending cuts. For his part, Obama has refused to lay out any significant cuts in the big Democratic entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare. As for the hundreds of billions in Great Society spending for Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start, earned income tax credits, aid to education, Pell grants and housing subsidies, neither Harry Reid's Senate nor Obama, in trouble with his African-American base, will permit significant cuts. That leaves two large items of a budget approaching $4 trillion: interest on the debt, which must be paid, and national defense. Pentagon chief Leon Panetta can see the writing on the wall. Defense is already scheduled for $350 billion in cuts over the decade. If the super-committee fails to come up with $1.2 trillion in specified new cuts, an automatic slicer chops another $600 billion from defense. House Armed Services Committee Chair Buck McKeon has issued an analysis of what that would mean: a U.S. Army and Marine Corps reduction of 150,000 troops, retirement of two carrier battle groups, loss of one-third of Air Force fighter planes and a "hollow force" unable to meet America's commitments. Also on the chopping block would be the Navy and Marine Corps versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If the super-committee trigger has to be pulled, says Panetta, "we'd be shooting ourselves in the head." That half defense-half domestic formula for automatic budget cuts was programmed into the slicer to force Republicans to put tax hikes on the table. They will refuse. For tax hikes would do more damage to the party than the slicing would the Pentagon.Thus America approaches her moment of truth. Thanks to the irresponsibility of both parties, of the Bush as well as Obama administrations, we are facing unavoidable and painful choices. We are going to have to reduce the benefits and raise the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. Cut and cap Great Society programs. Downsize the military, close bases and transfer to allies responsibility for their own defense. Or we are going to have to raise taxes -- and not just on millionaires and billionaires, but Middle America. And if our leaders cannot impose these sacrifices, the markets will, as we see in Europe, where the day of reckoning is at hand. Ours is next. But if defense cuts are unavoidable, where should they come? What should our future defense posture be? Which principles should apply? Clearly, the first principle should be that the United States must retain a sufficiency, indeed, a surplus of power to defend all of its vital interests and vital allies, though the defense of those allies must be first and foremost their own responsibility. They have to replace U.S. troops as first responders. During the Cold War, America was committed to go to war on behalf of a dozen NATO nations from Norway to Turkey. Eastern Europe under Moscow's boot was not considered vital. Thus we resisted the Berlin Blockade, but peacefully. We did nothing to rescue the Hungarian revolution in 1956, or the Prague Spring in 1968, or the Polish Solidarity movement in 1981, when all three were crushed. Now that the Red Army has gone home, Eastern Europe is free, and the Soviet Union no longer exists, what is the argument for maintaining U.S. Air Force, Army and naval bases and thousands of U.S. troops in Europe? Close the bases, and bring the troops home.The same with South Korea and Japan. Now that Mao is dead and gone and China is capitalist, Seoul and Tokyo trade more with Beijing than they do with us. South Korea has 40 times the economy and twice the population of North Korea. Japan's economy is almost as large as China's. Why cannot these two powerful and prosperous nations provide the troops, planes, ships and missiles to defend themselves? We can sell them whatever they need. Why is their defense still our responsibility? In the Persian Gulf we have a strategic interest: oil. But the oil-rich nations of the region have an even greater interest in selling their oil than we do in buying it. For, without oil sales, the Gulf has little the world needs or wants. Let the world look out for itself for a while. Time to start looking out for America and Americans first. For if we don't, who will?

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FARC cease-fire lapses, deemed success 1/21/2013 12:04:07 AM - AP News BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A unilateral cease-fire by Colombia's main leftist rebel group that ended at midnight Sunday was deemed largely successful by analysts, who say it showed that divisions in the insurgency's ranks are relatively minor.The rebels' main negotiator in peace talks taking place in Cuba, Ivan Marquez, offered Sunday to extend the two-month cease-fire if the government would agree to embrace it.An alternative, Marquez told reporters in Havana as he headed into peace talks centering on agrarian reform, could be to "regularize the war" by obtaining promises from the government that it would stop placing military bases in population centers.There was no immediate response from Colombia's government, though President Juan Manuel Santos has refused to halt hostilities during peace talks that formally began in Havana in November after six months of secret negotiations.In a communique published Sunday, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said it had not mounted "even a single attack on bases or fixed installations of the armed forces, nor on police barracks or posts."It said that any casualties suffered by Colombia's security forces were dealt in self-defense. The FARC said that during the same period a year earlier it had killed at least 284 security force members and wounded 278.The rebels did not say how many casualties it had suffered during the unilateral cease-fire but at least 33 were killed in at least two major aerial bombardments on rebel camps.There were sporadic guerrilla attacks but analyst Jorge Restrepo of the independent CERAC think tank said they exhibited "relatively minor divisions within the FARC" about whether a unilateral cease-fire was appropriate.The Nuevo Arco Iris think tank said guerrilla actions during the period were down 87 percent from the year-before two-month period, according to its director, Leon Valencia.He said it counted nine hostile offensive actions out of a total of 41, with the rest being defensive or resulting from unintentional contact with security forces.Military officials said they were prohibited from providing numbers on combat or casualties during the two months.The national ombudsman, Jorge Armando Otalora, said in a report Friday that there had been 57 attacks by rebels against civilians or security forces, an average of one per day.One of them was an attack on a police post in the municipality of Guapi on Dec. 31 in which two police and four civilians were wounded.The FARC is believed to number about 8,000 fighters, down from about twice that amount a decade ago. Colombia's U.S.-backed military dealt it a series of withering blows during that time, including killing three members of its ruling Secretariat.Colombia's nearly half-century-old conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, most of them civilians.___Associated Press Writer Anne-Marie Garcia contributed to this report from Havana.

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Opposition swaps 48 Iranians for 2,000 prisoners, including women and children, in Syria TOPSHOTS A Syrian refugee child helps a man to collect wood at a refugee camp in Bab al-Salam on the Syria-Turkey border, on January 9, 2013. The internally displaced Syrians faced further misery due to increasing shortage of supplies as heavy rain was followed by a drop in temperatures. TOPSHOTS/AFP PHOTO/ZAC BAILLIEZAC BAILLIE/AFP/Getty ImagesPhoto by AFP/Getty Images | Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013, 9:28 p.m. DAMASCUS — Rebels freed 48 Iranians on Wednesday in exchange for more than 2,000 prisoners, including women and children, held by Syrian authorities — a deal struck after rare negotiations involving regional powers Turkey, Qatar and Iran. It was the first major prisoner swap since the uprising began against President Bashar Assad nearly 22 months ago. Iran is one of Assad's main allies, and the Iranians, who were seized outside Damascus in August, were a major bargaining chip for factions trying to bring down his regime in the civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people. The exchange also highlighted the plight of tens of thousands of detainees languishing in Syrian prisons, many of whom were picked up at street protests and have not been heard of since. The group of 48 Iranians arrived Wednesday at the Sheraton hotel in several vans escorted by Syrian security forces. Looking disheveled but healthy, they were greeted by Iran's ambassador in Damascus, Mohammad Riza Shibani, and several Iranian clerics who distributed a white flower to each of the men, some of whom broke down in tears. “The conditions placed (by the captives) were difficult, but with much work ... we succeeded in securing this release,” Shibani told reporters. “I hope such tragedies will not be repeated.” He said their release was a result of elaborate and “tough” negotiations, but did not elaborate. The Syrian government, which rarely gives details on security-related matters, had no official comment and it was not clear what prompted the exchange. Rebels claimed the captives were linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, but Tehran has denied that, saying the men were pilgrims visiting Shiite religious sites in Syria. But U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland described most of the Iranians as “members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” calling it “just another example of how Iran continues to provide guidance, expertise, personnel, technical capabilities to the Syrian regime.” The rebels had threatened to kill the captives unless the Assad regime halted military operations against the opposition. More World

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More Ways to LISTEN By Attacking The Media, Gingrich Built A Following By David Folkenflik Nov 17, 2011 ShareTwitter Facebook Google+ Email Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has relished attacking the journalists questioning him during the GOP debates. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was once written off as a footnote in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries. But, for the moment, polls now show him among the leaders. Gingrich may have found his voice, in part, by turning the tables on the political press. Republicans have been doing this for decades — quite explicitly at least since Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew in 1968. In Gingrich's case, it was a strategy masquerading as a tactic — one that he adopted over the summer at a time of desperation. "The first time I think he did it was at the Iowa straw poll debate — and it got a huge roar," says former Gingrich aide Rich Galen. Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel walked right into Gingrich's plan. "They said that you were undisciplined in campaigning and fundraising, and at last report, you're a million dollars in debt. How do you respond to people who say that your campaign has been a mess so far?" Wallace asked. Gingrich responded: "Well, let me say, first of all, Chris, that I took seriously [Fox News anchor] Bret [Baier]'s injunction to put aside the talking points, and I wish you would put aside the gotcha questions." The crowd applauded wildly. Soon enough Gingrich took another swipe: "I'd love to see the rest of tonight's debate asking us about what we would do to lead an America whose president has failed to lead, instead of playing Mickey Mouse games." The crowd applauded again. "That is probably the single most important reason that he has been able to restart his campaign," says Galen, who was a top communications and message official for Gingrich in the 1990s and now writes an online column at mullings.com. "He was able to get the crowd behind him in the arena — get the crowd behind him in living rooms around the country — you can't go very wrong attacking the media in front of a Republican audience whether it's true or not," Galen says. Sure enough, donors sent checks that revived his campaign. And so, during an MSNBC/Politico debate in September, Gingrich gave Politico editor in chief John Harris another dose of backtalk. "Speaker Gingrich, it sounds like we have a genuine philosophical disagreement," Harris said. He was trying to draw him into a dispute between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry on health care reform. "In Massachusetts, a mandate, almost no one uninsured — in Texas, a more limited approach, about a quarter uninsured. Who's got the better end of this argument?" Harris asked. Gingrich refused to play. "Well, I'm frankly not interested in your effort to get Republicans fighting each other," he said, to laughter and applause from the crowd. Shot at media? Check. Deflecting the pointed question? Yup. Disarming his rivals with praise? Sure thing. Answering the broader question that he would have preferred? Got that, too. Then Gingrich, a former professor of history, lectured Harris once again. "I hope all of my friends up here are going to repudiate every effort of the news media to get Republicans to fight each other to protect Barack Obama — who deserves to be defeated — and all of us are committed as a team — whoever the nominee is — we are for defeating Barack Obama," Gingrich said. The crowd ate it up again. Never mind that such debates are worthwhile precisely because they can help primary voters make distinctions among various candidates. Harris says he didn't make much of the exchange in the moment. "When I got off the stage people were like, 'Whoa — you and Gingrich really got into it.' I do think there is something about the setting that makes things seem more dramatic than maybe they feel," he says. The fireworks, of course, are the point of the exercise. "That's a pretty good assigned role for somebody who at the time he started this was at the back of the back," says Harris. "I'm not so sure that it's so good when he's at the front of the pack and wants to emerge — as I'm sure he does — as the chief alternative to Mitt Romney." By his own admission, Gingrich was a rhetorical bomb-thrower in his early pursuit of power as a House Republicans two decades ago. Now he wants to be seen as the grown-up in the room — a big thinker — and so last week, in a debate sponsored by CNBC, Gingrich once again cast about for a familiar target — in this case moderator Maria Bartiromo. "I just want to point out my colleagues have done a terrific job of answering an absurd question," he said. "It's sad that the news media doesn't report accurately how the economy works." So Gingrich has all the moves of the fourth-estate two-step down. Now, Galen says, Gingrich needs to convince Republican voters they like the answers they hear — and not just the fancy footwork they see.Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. View the discussion thread. © 2016 WKAR

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Ron Johnson Explains Vote Against Syria Military Action Home » Here and Now » All Episodes » Ron Johnson Explains Vote Against Syria Military Action Ron Johnson Explains Vote Against Syria Military Action Premiere Date: September 6, 2013 U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson explains his "no" vote on Syria military action this week. Episode Links: Senate panel approves Syria measure Episode Transcript: Frederica Freyberg: But first, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved military action in Syria on Wednesday on a 10-7 vote. The approved resolution prohibits the use of US ground troops. It gives a maximum time line of 90 days. The full senate has to approve the resolution, as does the House, where hearings started midweek. President Obama has said he is still able to use military force even without congressional approval. The senate committee approval follows an alleged chemical attack from the Syrian government that US officials estimate killed more than 1,400 people. The original proposal only sought to prevent future use of chemical weapons by limiting the Syrian regime’s capabilities, but an amendment from Senator John McCain added another goal to the resolution. The new goal reads, quote, "It is the policy of the United States to change the momentum on the battlefield in Syria so as to create favorable conditions for a negotiated settlement that ends the conflict and leads to a democratic government in Syria." Nobody on Wisconsin's congressional delegation has so far declared his or her support for the proposed strike. Senator Ron Johnson sits on the senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he voted against the authorization to strike. He joins us now from Milwaukee to talk about his vote, and, Senator, thanks very much for doing so. Ron Johnson: Hello, Frederica, how you doing? Frederica Freyberg: Very well. We want to ask, first, why did you vote no on authorizing military force against Syria? Well, there are a host of reasons. First of all, I have so many questions that remain unanswered. You know, we actually were forced to vote 25 hours after, really, debate commenced, the hearings on Syria, you know, first started. And that's simply not enough time to gather the information, and really deliberate and contemplate, really, probably the most serious vote that any member of congress is ever asked to take a vote on, is whether or not we're going to initiate military action, put the finest among us at risk. So it was an inappropriately rushed process and there remained far too many unanswered questions. I want to get to the questions part, but I do want to confirm that you were one of the people that was in the closed, kind of, intelligence briefings, and still that wasn't enough? No. And, again, the public hearing ran three, 3.5 hours. The closed briefing was probably about two hours' worth. But the problem here, Frederica, is it's extremely difficult to get the information. Even the administration, I'm not convinced, has the type of information they need to really carry out this military strike. I don't believe they are seriously thinking about what the repercussions are. You know, my problem is, I'm afraid that an ineffective strike-- And let's face it, we've lost the element of surprise here. Because we've signaled our intentions, Bashar Assad has been able to, basically, disperse those assets. So I think an ineffective strike is actually worse than no strike at all, because it allows Assad to emerge from his hiding and basically say, well, I survived, claim victory and move on with impunity. So I think there are actually better strategies. I think we really ought to be working hard to develop that coalition of willing to shame anybody, that includes Russia, might include China, anybody that would support these crimes against humanity. I think that would be a better course of action without putting at risk our standing in the world. And that's part of the problem here, is if we conduct military exercise, the focus of the world rather than being on the war crime of Bashar Assad will shift and give our foes ammunition to criticize our military, let’s face it, almost unilateral, military action. I don't think that's just a very wise course of action. I know that during that open hearing your questions to the Secretary of State and others, you suggested that targeted strikes would not be robust enough. So would you like to see bigger action than, kind of, targeted strikes? And would that allow you to vote yes? Ron Johnson: Well, during the hearing I was just asking questions. President Obama, very early in the conflict said, Assad must go. Secretary Kerry basically confirmed that that is the policy of the United States. So I was just asking the question, if the policy is to replace Assad, if we're going to take military action, why wouldn't we target or tailor that military action toward achieving that goal? It makes no sense to me to just do a shot across the bow that leaves Assad in place and, again, gives him the talking point of saying, I survived, and basically laugh at America. So I'm highly concerned about the credibility of this nation. I'm highly concerned, by the way, of the real national security interest at stake here. It's the fact that there are 2 million pounds of chemical weapons and their precursors that are now in the hands of the Assad regime. But let’s face it, we have elements of al-Qaeda infiltrating the rebels. We have Hezbollah working with the Assad regime. I'm highly concerned about those chemical weapons falling in the hands of our enemies, people dedicated to killing Americans. To me, that is the national security interest here at stake. The administration is barely even mentioning that point. So are these some of the kinds of things that you need to have resolved for yourself before going forward and making any kind of definitive decision on this? Ron Johnson: I need to understand, what is the strategy? What is the goal? I mean, really what is the goal? What does success look like? And, by the way, at this moment, because President Obama was not decisive. He didn't act when he still had the element of surprise. He's come before congress, which I think at this point is appropriate, but even more important, he has to convince the American public. If you're going to commit to military action, you must be committed to success. You have to be able to have a long-term commitment. And if you don't have the backing of the American people, you cannot maintain the commitment that you need to the level of success you need to achieve. So at this point in time it's the job of the president and members of his administration to convince the American people to be in support of this. And he is a long way from gaining that support. You know, interestingly, it seems to me that earlier on you were kind of suggesting that the president should have been more decisive, which says to me, should have acted more quickly. But now you need to kind of slow the process down and get support from the public, as well as from people like yourself. Ron Johnson: If you're going to have an effective military strike, you had to be decisive, you had to take action when you still had some element of surprise so it could be effective, so it actually could achieve the goals. At this point, because this president hasn't acted decisively, because now weeks have gone by. And basically those assets are dispersed in population areas, now you go, what's the point of military action? Again, I’ll come back to the point. What we don't want to do is defect world attention, world outrage, away from the heinous crimes against humanity of the Assad regime and toward unilateral military action. Again, it's all about how these events unfold. We’re talking about how you make decisions at a particular point in time based on what's already happened. Now, President Obama, as we mentioned in our introduction, has said that he can still act to strike Syria even without congressional authorization. What's your response to that? Ron Johnson: I believe he does have that authority. I believe it would be unwise at this point in time. Again, it is not wise for an American president to take America into war without the backing of the American public. Now, if you do it before you’ve even announced it to the American people. Generally, Americans rally behind their president. When they believe the president has taken actions in the best interest of America, they will rally behind him. But because he didn't take that decisive action, now he's got to explain it and get the American people on his side. Frederica Freyberg: Americans, I think it’s very fair to say, are war-weary at this point. What concerns do you have about potential repercussions of a US strike against Syria? Well, again, if we give our foes the ammunition to criticize our unilateral military action when we should focusing on the chemical weapons used against the Assad regime. I think that's a real problem. As well as, I don't know how Russia is going to respond. I mean, they have military personnel there. We know some of these assets have been moved into Russian-- in some of their military bases there. What is going to be the Assad regime's reaction? Could they potentially give those chemical weapons to Hezbollah to be used against Israel? Could– Who knows? Who knows exactly what the repercussions are going to be of this? And Frederica, during the hearings when I asked the Secretary of Defense, what is the troop strength of the rebels? What is the composition? He couldn't answer the question. I asked the chairman of the joint chiefs, General Dempsey, do you know the troop strength? He couldn't answer the question. To me, that does not give me the level of confidence that this administration has planned this thing through, and that they have the information they need to actually initiate military action. Now, here's a political question. It appears that some Tea Party senators oppose this Syrian strike, as do you so far. Can you explain what might be the common thread, or the politics, of Tea Party opposition to such action? Ron Johnson: No. I mean, every member is going to have to speak for himself. I really do believe in the Foreign Relations Committee. I think that vote was very nonpartisan. I really do believe that every member in a moment of such gravity, of such importance, really do search your own soul, your own conscience. And I don't believe there's much politics being played here whatsoever. I think what you're seeing, though, because this president has not been making the case for the last two and a half years of why Syria– the events in Syria do pose a national security threat to this nation, American is not convinced. It's incumbent on the president, his administration, to convince Americans. And the fact that that hasn’t happened– Frederica, in my office, 98% of the calls coming in are opposed to military action. Now, I've never had an issue where that is the level of public opposition to something. And let's face it, in the end, I will vote based on what I think is in the best interest of America. But you also have to understand that constituents-- You've been hired by them to represent them, and you cannot ignore that level of lack of support. Senator Ron Johnson, thank you very much for joining us on this. Thank you. Contact Us We’d love to hear from you. Please send us your comment or story suggestion. WisContext More Here and Now coverage available from WPT, WPR and UW Cooperative Extension’s multimedia news and information collaborative service. Wisconsin Vote Find information on elections and candidates and connect to coverage from Wisconsin Public Television and Radio. Here and Now anchor Frederica Freyberg and reporter Zac Schultz WPT Policies Ethics for Editorial and Executive Staff Editorial Practices for Ensuring Fairness and Accuracy WPT News Editorial Policy (from RTNDA) WPT Candidate Inclusion Policy 2016 WPT-WPR Debate Candidate Inclusion Policy ©2016 All rights reserved.SUPPORTDonate | Major Gifts | Wills & Estate Giving | Business Sponsorship | VolunteerABOUT WPTEmployment | Kids | Outreach | Pressroom | Privacy policy | Public inspection files

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Amendment sets up Republican Senate showdown between Schodorf and Landwehr TOPEKA — The Senate has redrawn its members’ districts, including an amendment that sets up a primary election showdown between two popular Wichita Republicans, Sen. Jean Schodorf and Rep. Brenda Landwehr. That particular corner of the electoral map has been one of the epicenters in a series of charges and counter-charges that legislative factions are playing politics with district lines, to try to either protect or make it easier to defeat moderate incumbent senators. After three hours of debate and two amendments that put conservative challengers in districts now held by moderate senators, the Senate passed the map on a 21-19 vote, the bare majority. That map passed after the Senate rejected a more conservative-friendly map put forward by Sen. Steve Abrams, R-Arkansas City, by 19-21. It was the second time Abrams had brought forward a map that was narrowly defeated. Charges of “conniving,” “blackmail” and “gerrymandering” flew back and forth as the Senators worked out details of the legislative lines, which have to be redrawn by the Legislature and governor every 10 years to reflect new Census numbers and assure equality of representation. Seeking to head off the issue, Schodorf proposed an amendment on the Senate floor that would put her and Landwehr up for election in the same Senate district, the 25th. Schodorf accused Gov. Sam Brownback and conservative elements in the House of obstructing important work on taxes, the budget, school finance, public employees’ retirement and other issues in order to pressure the Senate to pass a map favorable to conservative Senate challengers. “All of these issues are being held on the south side (the House side of the Capitol) and the second floor (the governor’s floor) until the Senate passes a map,” Schodorf said. She said her amendment “would draw my potential opponent into the district” and could “help us get back to work on issues of major concern to Kansas.” Landwehr, who has already announced she’ll challenge Schodorf for the Republican nomination, attended the Senate’s redistricting meeting. She sat at the side of the Senate chamber, a few feet behind Schodorf and next to Schodorf’s daughter, Kelly. Later, she said she thanks and applauds Schodorf for stepping forward and amending her into the district. But she said the same map had been debated and Schodorf supported it before the Legislature’s spring break. She said if the changes had been made then, the Legislature could have avoided “all the political games” since and spent its attention on issues such as the budget, tax reform and school finance. “I believe we need proactive public servants like myself who are more concerned about helping the people find a job than a senator trying to keep her own job,” Landwehr said. In a preview of election issues to come, Schodorf sent out a press release quoting Landwehr as saying she wanted to be included in a district “where primarily Caucasian voters reside in homes that are upward of $800,000.” “While I can’t respect Ms. Landwehr’s disregard for the hard-working people who live in my district, I do respect her right to run in this election,” Schodorf said in the statement. “The 25th District is a community of working families from all economic backgrounds who care about having job opportunities, strong schools and state roads. I invite Ms. Landwehr to get to know the people of the 25th District and the issues that matter most to our community.” Landwehr acknowledged that Schodorf had accurately quoted her testimony to the Senate Redistricting Committee, but said the statement was in reaction to a now-rejected map that she felt would have diluted minority and low-income representation by moving some of those voters into a more affluent district. “I’m not a snob,” she said. “I grew up in that (25th) district, I was born and raised in that district and I know what it’s like to be poor.” Minutes after the Schodorf amendment passed on a voice vote, the Senate passed a second amendment by Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park and chairman of the Senate Redistricting Committee, to draw his opponent, Rep. Greg Smith, R-Overland Park, into his district. But in proposing the amendment, Owens addressed the “800-pound gorilla in the room,” which he called “planning and conniving” by conservative House leadership and the governor to replace moderate Republican senators with conservative ones. “They don’t like the fact that this body has had the ability to moderate many of the things that are going on,” he said. “There has been a lot of discussion that has gone on behind the scenes, a lot of planning and conniving … so that you can change the way things are done in Kansas.” Owens said he personally opposed drawing district lines based on who wants to run against whom, and that the only reason he proposed amending Smith into his district was an agreement by Senate leaders to get House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, to acquiesce to the Senate map. Owens said Senate leaders have told him O’Neal agreed not to challenge the Senate map if Landwehr and Smith were drawn into the districts they wanted. “I want it clearly understood that House Speaker O’Neal promised the leadership in this body that he would support the maps that we sent over if we put the two people into the map that were allegedly drawn out,” Owens said. “I am going to hold him to that promise and I hope the people of the state will hold him to that promise.” He said if the House passes a different map, he will oppose it at the House-Senate conference committee that would result. O’Neal dropped by the Senate and said that there was no deal struck of the type that Owens outlined. “I don’t appreciate being misrepresented on the floor of the Senate,” O’Neal said. He said that he had personally indicated to the Senate leaders that he had a problem with drawing potential challengers out of incumbents’ districts. And that moving Landwehr and Smith was not enough to alleviate that concern. He said he also had concerns about the potential matchup between Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, and businessman Gary Mason, who wants to challenge her. Mason is currently out of McGinn’s district but has said he’ll move if necessary to run against her. “Should a known candidate have to move when the Senate intentionally draws them out?” O’Neal said. Following the meeting, Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, confirmed that he and Senate Majority Leader Jay Emler, R-Emporia, had met twice with the governor, O’Neal and House Majority Leader Arlen Siegfreid, R-Olathe. Morris said the senators felt like they had reached agreement with O’Neal about including challengers in incumbents’ districts and thought they had met his concerns. “He specifically talked about Smith and Landwehr,” Morris said. “I’m disappointed,” Morris said of O’Neal’s comments. “Hopefully he will look at our agreement and honor it.” Rep. Jo Ann Pottorff announces retirement; conservative teacher files to run for seat May 1, 201211:01 a.m. Pottorff TOPEKA — After 27 years in office, the longest-serving woman in the state Legislature, Jo Ann Pottorff, is calling it a career. Pottorff, 76, has served in the House of Representatives since 1985; before that, she was an eight-year member of the Wichita school board. “I’ve been in office a long time,” Pottorff said. “It’s time to winter someplace besides Topeka.” Pottorff said she does not plan to seek any other political office, but plans to travel with her husband, Gary, who also served on the Wichita school board, for 12 years. Pottorff said the biggest change she’s noticed during her 27 years is in the Legislature’s attitude toward schools, amidst the rise of “outside groups” that are highly critical of public education and spending. “I don’t think I’ve changed, but I think the Legislature has changed through the years, the elected officials have,” Pottorff said. “It used to be people cared more about education, public education, than they do now … It’s not the same atmosphere.” Pottorff’s retirement coincides with the announcement that her neighbor, Wichita Collegiate high school debate coach Rodney Wren, has filed to run for the 83rd District seat. In the past two years, Wren has become prominent in free-market-conservative Republican politics, serving in 2010 as a speechwriter for Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita. Wren was selected to speak on behalf of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at this year’s Republican presidential caucus in Sedgwick County. Despite the timing, Pottorff said her decision was unrelated to Wren’s decision to challenge in the Republican primary. She said she decided two years ago that this would be her final term, although she waited to make the announcement because she didn’t want to serve as a lame duck. She said she decided to announce her retirement now, before the end of the session, because “I don’t like people who go down to the last minute” before announcing they’re leaving. “If there are other people who want to run for the 83rd district, this gives them the opportunity,” she said. The district is one of Wichita’s more upscale political venues. It runs from the College Hill neighborhood through the city of Eastborough and into affluent areas of East Wichita out to Webb Road. “I have everything from Charles Koch to Jill Docking in the district,” Pottorff said.

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