The US Fifth Fleet and US aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower in the Gulf of Oman were not allowed to shoot at an Iranian Fokker F27 aircraft which on April 21 hovered for 20 minutes 900 meters over the carrier and no more than 250 meters away, even though they saw its flight crew gathering intelligence on the Eisenhower and its warship escorts.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that the US Persian Gulf command went public on the incident on April 28, a whole week later, only after Gulf military circles, amazed at the American naval and air units' passivity in the face of hostile surveillance, threatened to break the story to local media.
This striking restraint indicates that the US Gulf and Arabian fleets are under orders to take no action - certainly not to open fire - against Iranian naval or air units, with first obtaining permission directly from Washington.
Military, naval and aviation sources told DEBKA-Net-Weekly that the Iranian spy plane was 10 second away from flying directly over the Eisenhower and could easily have been shot down.
To try and explain this incident away, US naval sources Wednesday, April 28, claimed the Iranian plane was unarmed and its encounter with the US carrier was not of a threatening nature, although irregular.
Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations, tried to play down the importance of the incident by saying: "The Iranians (pilots) were not provocative or threatening. As long as they are professional and not threatening or reckless, it's international space."
But officials of the Gulf emirate navies think otherwise. They say it was the first time that an Iranian spy plane ventured so close to an American aircraft carrier and the US non-response will encourage Tehran to go for bolder and more provocative actions.
Of late, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, especially Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have become extra-sensitive of late to the raised US response threshold to threatening moves by Iran, after witnessing the sinking of a South Korean warship and the handling of the case by Washington.
The South Korean Cheonan, a 1,200-ton corvette, was sunk on March 26, apparently by a naval mine that was planted by the North Korean navy in the Baengnyeong Island area, whose sovereignty is in dispute between Seoul and Pyongyang. Right after the incident, in which 46 South Korean sailors were lost, the Obama administration hastened to issue a statement denying evidence of North Korean involvement - even though South Korean intelligence demonstrated that a North Korean mine, or midget submarine of a type of in the possession of the Iranian Navy, was responsible for sinking the corvette.
Undersecretary of State James Steinberg, who deals with Iranian affairs, said on March 29 that he had heard nothing to implicate any other country in the tragedy.
This was taken in Gulf capitals to show the Obama administration was ready to lean backwards to avoid military action against North Korea - even on the part of the injured party, South Korea. They see a close correlation between the provocative tactics employed by Pyongyang and Tehran, whose nuclear and missile programs are likewise coordinated. These Gulf sources, talking to debkafile, wondered out loud if the United States would also turn a blind eye to an Iranian attack that cause the sinking of a Saudi, UAE or Israeli ship sailing in the Gulf.
And another parallel is worth noting: Just as the two Koreas are at odds over the Baengnyeong Islands, so too the UAE claims the owners of three islands near the Straits of Hormuz – Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa - accusing Tehran of seizing them by force for the use of Revolutionary Guard naval bases.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources say that the Iranian spy plane that flew over the USS Eisenhower on April 21 apparently took off from an Iranian military airfield on the island of Abu Musa.
Far from giving up their claim to the three islands, on April 20, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan said there is no difference between the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, South Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, and Iranian occupation of these islands.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
HHS Withheld Obamacare Document
Thursday, 29 Apr 2010 10:18 AM Article Font Size
By: John Rossomando
A published report saying the Obama administration knew that its healthcare proposal would increase costs instead of reducing them is “troubling,” according to a senior House Republican leader.
Administration officials from the president downward used claims that the legislation would reduce healthcare costs to get the votes of wavering members of Congress.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius knew about a report from Medicare’s Office of the Actuary prior to the House’s March 22 vote, indicating the bill would increase healthcare costs, according to an April 26 report appearing in The American Spectator’s Washington Prowler blog.
The bill passed by a 219-212 margin with several self-proclaimed fiscally conservative Democrats voting in favor, believing it would reduce costs.
But an HHS source said Sebelius’ staff refused to examine the document before the vote was taken to keep from negatively influencing the results. The administration waited until last week to make the report public.
“The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote,” the HHS source said. “Which is actually the point of having a review, you would think. We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff, and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted.
“Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report.”
House Republican Study Committee chairman Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., who has been a key GOP point man on healthcare reform, tells Newsmax this revelation further undermines the administration’s popular credibility.
“There seems to be an increasing credibility gap between what the administration says and what the facts are — whether it’s in the area of unemployment or energy, or stimulus, or the higher cost of healthcare,” Price said.
“I think this is directly acceding into a remarkable lack of trust the American people have in this administration, and the president repeatedly reinforces that lack of trust by continuing to repeat things that just aren’t accurate.”
Price said he hopes this will raise a popular uproar because those who voted for the healthcare reform law placed the interests of their party’s leadership over those of their constituents.
“They said the law would bring down costs, but it is quite the opposite,” Price said. “So it’s a stunning incoordination with the truth, and that’s very, very concerning and I think terribly troubling for the entire nation.”
Other conservative leaders had equally strong words for the revelation.
Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, said if the administration intentionally suppressed information contradicting its public claims about its healthcare reform proposal, it would reflect a Chicago-style way of doing things.
“If true, this is one more confirmation of the Obama administration’s lack of integrity in promoting the healthcare bill,” Hanna said. “It makes a mockery of the president’s claims of transparency.”
The report makes it obvious Sebelius’ office used its influence to keep an independently verified report showing the president’s healthcare reform package would increase costs to ensure the legislation passed and fence-sitting Democrats were kept in line, according to Ryan Ellis, Americans for Tax Reform’s tax policy director.
“It would have been nice to know there was independent verification that this bill was going to cost a lot more than people were saying,” Ellis said. “It would have been nice to know that Obama’s own CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) was giving independent verification that the accounting gimmicks were there and the double-counting was there, and that it wouldn’t do anything to bend the cost curve.”
Ellis, who has read the report in detail, tells Newsmax it predicts healthcare will substantially grow as part of the overall economy over the next decade, compared with current numbers.
“If you are going to bend the cost curve, at the very least it shouldn’t be growing as a percentage of the economy,” Ellis said. “It’s about 16 percent of the economy today, and it will grow to about 21 percent of the economy in 10 years. That’s not bending the cost curve; if anything you are accelerating it.”
The report also noted the administration’s accounting excluded the so-called “doc fix,” which would increase Medicare reimbursement rates. Some estimate this could cost several trillion dollars over the next decade should Congress pass it in the future.
“They are claiming all this new revenue going into the Medicare Part A trust fund . . . the Medicare program doesn’t make a lot of sense when you are then raiding that trust fund in order to pay for some of the subsidies that are part of this healthcare bill,” Ellis said. “You can’t do both. You can’t use a dollar to extend Medicare and then use that same dollar to spend it today in order to pay for Obamacare.
“You can’t use the same dollar twice. What the CMS report is saying is there is a lot of accounting gimmicks in there that are understating the cost to the taxpayers.”
Ellis said those Blue Dog Democrats who voted for the bill should especially be upset because the administration lied to get their votes.
By: John Rossomando
A published report saying the Obama administration knew that its healthcare proposal would increase costs instead of reducing them is “troubling,” according to a senior House Republican leader.
Administration officials from the president downward used claims that the legislation would reduce healthcare costs to get the votes of wavering members of Congress.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius knew about a report from Medicare’s Office of the Actuary prior to the House’s March 22 vote, indicating the bill would increase healthcare costs, according to an April 26 report appearing in The American Spectator’s Washington Prowler blog.
The bill passed by a 219-212 margin with several self-proclaimed fiscally conservative Democrats voting in favor, believing it would reduce costs.
But an HHS source said Sebelius’ staff refused to examine the document before the vote was taken to keep from negatively influencing the results. The administration waited until last week to make the report public.
“The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote,” the HHS source said. “Which is actually the point of having a review, you would think. We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff, and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted.
“Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report.”
House Republican Study Committee chairman Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., who has been a key GOP point man on healthcare reform, tells Newsmax this revelation further undermines the administration’s popular credibility.
“There seems to be an increasing credibility gap between what the administration says and what the facts are — whether it’s in the area of unemployment or energy, or stimulus, or the higher cost of healthcare,” Price said.
“I think this is directly acceding into a remarkable lack of trust the American people have in this administration, and the president repeatedly reinforces that lack of trust by continuing to repeat things that just aren’t accurate.”
Price said he hopes this will raise a popular uproar because those who voted for the healthcare reform law placed the interests of their party’s leadership over those of their constituents.
“They said the law would bring down costs, but it is quite the opposite,” Price said. “So it’s a stunning incoordination with the truth, and that’s very, very concerning and I think terribly troubling for the entire nation.”
Other conservative leaders had equally strong words for the revelation.
Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, said if the administration intentionally suppressed information contradicting its public claims about its healthcare reform proposal, it would reflect a Chicago-style way of doing things.
“If true, this is one more confirmation of the Obama administration’s lack of integrity in promoting the healthcare bill,” Hanna said. “It makes a mockery of the president’s claims of transparency.”
The report makes it obvious Sebelius’ office used its influence to keep an independently verified report showing the president’s healthcare reform package would increase costs to ensure the legislation passed and fence-sitting Democrats were kept in line, according to Ryan Ellis, Americans for Tax Reform’s tax policy director.
“It would have been nice to know there was independent verification that this bill was going to cost a lot more than people were saying,” Ellis said. “It would have been nice to know that Obama’s own CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) was giving independent verification that the accounting gimmicks were there and the double-counting was there, and that it wouldn’t do anything to bend the cost curve.”
Ellis, who has read the report in detail, tells Newsmax it predicts healthcare will substantially grow as part of the overall economy over the next decade, compared with current numbers.
“If you are going to bend the cost curve, at the very least it shouldn’t be growing as a percentage of the economy,” Ellis said. “It’s about 16 percent of the economy today, and it will grow to about 21 percent of the economy in 10 years. That’s not bending the cost curve; if anything you are accelerating it.”
The report also noted the administration’s accounting excluded the so-called “doc fix,” which would increase Medicare reimbursement rates. Some estimate this could cost several trillion dollars over the next decade should Congress pass it in the future.
“They are claiming all this new revenue going into the Medicare Part A trust fund . . . the Medicare program doesn’t make a lot of sense when you are then raiding that trust fund in order to pay for some of the subsidies that are part of this healthcare bill,” Ellis said. “You can’t do both. You can’t use a dollar to extend Medicare and then use that same dollar to spend it today in order to pay for Obamacare.
“You can’t use the same dollar twice. What the CMS report is saying is there is a lot of accounting gimmicks in there that are understating the cost to the taxpayers.”
Ellis said those Blue Dog Democrats who voted for the bill should especially be upset because the administration lied to get their votes.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Iran, Syria, Hizballah gear up to provoke summer war
US defense secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday night, April 27: "Hizballah has far more rockets and missile than most governments in the world." He and Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak were talking to reporters after their talks in the Pentagon. Military sources did not see his as high commendation for Barak's achievements as defense minister. All he had to contribute on this occasion was: "We do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon or with Syria, but are watching closely these developments."
Gates went on to accuse Syria and Iran of "providing Hizballah with rockets of ever-increasing capability," adding, "This is obviously destabilizing for the whole region and we're watching it very carefully.
Both defense chiefs seemed to think that careful watching would somehow erase the hostile buildup of deadly hardware. In fact, Barak's comment told Iran, Syria and Hizballah they had nothing to fear from continuing their "carefully watched" buildup, even though Syria took it a step forward this month. As debkafile's military sources reported last week, Syrian instructors have trained two Hizballah brigades in the use of mobile Scud missiles which carry one-ton warheads. It does not matter if those missiles are moved physically across the border to Lebanon, because those brigades can operate them against Israel at short notice from either side of the border.
Our Washington sources report that Syrian president Bashar Assad, under heavy pressure from Washington to keep the Scuds out of Hizballah's hands, explained to the Obama administration through diplomatic channels that as long as they were kept inside Syria, the Scuds must be seen as a defensive and deterrent weapon against a possible Israeli attack on Lebanon and Syria. He thus placed on Israel the onus for any future outbreak of hostilities.
Gates' accusation of Iran and Syria Tuesday was the administration's way of telling Damascus that it does not buy that message.
Unlike the United States, Israel has a ringside seat for watching the rockets and missiles pile up just across its 70-kilometer long border with Lebanon. Gates' comment - and even more Barak's assurance - gave Syria and the Hizballah space to carry on building a mighty arsenal, which is aimed at only one country, Israel.
Barak as defense minister, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel's security chiefs need to explain how Hizballah was allowed in the four years since the 2006 war to pile up tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, which in volume and sophistication have already overtaken the weaponry that battered northern Israel then and which have extended their reach to all parts of Israel.
"Careful watch" - without corresponding action to interrupt the massive flow of weapons shipments constantly smuggled in from Syria to Hizballah - is a repeat of the misplaced self-restraint which invited the Hizballah to launch the last Lebanon conflict in the summer of 2006. Dragging Israeli and its homeland into war in the summer of 2010 would serve the political and military interests of Iran, Syria and Hizballah well. It would generate a Middle East crisis overwhelming enough to focus international efforts on calming the situation, so distracting the world's attention Iran's arrival at the critical stages of its nuclear bomb program and its drive for sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Gates went on to accuse Syria and Iran of "providing Hizballah with rockets of ever-increasing capability," adding, "This is obviously destabilizing for the whole region and we're watching it very carefully.
Both defense chiefs seemed to think that careful watching would somehow erase the hostile buildup of deadly hardware. In fact, Barak's comment told Iran, Syria and Hizballah they had nothing to fear from continuing their "carefully watched" buildup, even though Syria took it a step forward this month. As debkafile's military sources reported last week, Syrian instructors have trained two Hizballah brigades in the use of mobile Scud missiles which carry one-ton warheads. It does not matter if those missiles are moved physically across the border to Lebanon, because those brigades can operate them against Israel at short notice from either side of the border.
Our Washington sources report that Syrian president Bashar Assad, under heavy pressure from Washington to keep the Scuds out of Hizballah's hands, explained to the Obama administration through diplomatic channels that as long as they were kept inside Syria, the Scuds must be seen as a defensive and deterrent weapon against a possible Israeli attack on Lebanon and Syria. He thus placed on Israel the onus for any future outbreak of hostilities.
Gates' accusation of Iran and Syria Tuesday was the administration's way of telling Damascus that it does not buy that message.
Unlike the United States, Israel has a ringside seat for watching the rockets and missiles pile up just across its 70-kilometer long border with Lebanon. Gates' comment - and even more Barak's assurance - gave Syria and the Hizballah space to carry on building a mighty arsenal, which is aimed at only one country, Israel.
Barak as defense minister, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel's security chiefs need to explain how Hizballah was allowed in the four years since the 2006 war to pile up tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, which in volume and sophistication have already overtaken the weaponry that battered northern Israel then and which have extended their reach to all parts of Israel.
"Careful watch" - without corresponding action to interrupt the massive flow of weapons shipments constantly smuggled in from Syria to Hizballah - is a repeat of the misplaced self-restraint which invited the Hizballah to launch the last Lebanon conflict in the summer of 2006. Dragging Israeli and its homeland into war in the summer of 2010 would serve the political and military interests of Iran, Syria and Hizballah well. It would generate a Middle East crisis overwhelming enough to focus international efforts on calming the situation, so distracting the world's attention Iran's arrival at the critical stages of its nuclear bomb program and its drive for sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Can American Jews be loyal to both U.S. and Israel?
Dual loyalty is an old and nefarious accusation. It has dogged Jews for centuries in any land where they settled and began to feel comfortable - the allegation that their allegiance is to their tribe first and not to their nation.
America has been a haven precisely because the moments when this fear has swelled up have been few and far between. Even the existence of Israel, a country with its own set of national interests and its own wars and ways of dealing with them, has not created much of an issue for those American Jews who see themselves as both Zionists and patriots.
So totally aligned have the United States and Israeli governments been for most of the past 20 years that American Jews have not been forced to seriously consider that these two identities could be in conflict.
But this might be changing.
Since a vice presidential trip to Israel in early March to restart peace talks was spoiled by the unexpected announcement that new housing units were to be built in East Jerusalem, the tension between the two countries has been ratcheting up. The last time anyone can remember it getting this heated was in the early 1990s, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, when loan guarantees to Israel were made contingent on a settlement freeze.
What most defines this current friction, according to observers, is an explicit link made by President Obama and other high officials, like U.S. Army general David Petraeus, that earlier administrations were reluctant to make: The continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict undermines American national interests and creates problems for America's expanded presence in the Middle East.
In a speech April 13, Obama said that solving the conflict was in the "vital national security interest of the United States" and that such conflicts in fact end up "costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure." It's not a new position for him. As a candidate, he told journalist and blogger Jeffrey Goldberg two years ago that he saw the conflict as a "constant wound," a "constant sore" that "does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this."
This formulation has opened the door to worries about dual loyalty for the first time in a long time, although the anxieties associated with this accusation might have more to do with the dramatic political changes in both the United States and Israel over the past year.
The worried reaction can be seen among a wide swath of Jewish groups. A press release from leaders of The Jewish Federations of North America announced a rare mass visit to Washington in May "to convey concerns about U.S.-Israel relations." A recent public letter by the respected Holocaust survivor and Noble laureate Elie Wiesel expressed fear for the future of Jerusalem and subtly criticized Obama, stating, "Pressure will not produce a solution."
And then there are actual accusations of dual loyalty, such as the anonymous administration official who told blogger Laura Rozen that Dennis Ross, the longtime diplomat and Middle East negotiator and now a special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, "seems to be far more sensitive to [Benjamin] Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests." Though the quote was anonymous and was denounced by many commentators, it got the attention of some in the Jewish community.
This dual loyalty suspicion was then taken up by Stephen Walt, the Harvard professor who was the co-author of the controversial paper and book "The Israel Lobby," which alleged undue Jewish influence in American foreign policy. Walt extended the accusation beyond Ross and to any other government officials with any kind of attachment to Israel, a position that one of his detractors, Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called "McCarthyite."
"American Jews are happiest when American interests and Jewish interests are fully compatible," wrote Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, in an e-mail to the Forward. "World War II or the Iraq war are examples of moments when this seemed to be the case. Whenever there seems to be dissonance between Jewish and American interests (such as during the Suez war or Saudi Arabia arms deal) American Jews grow uncomfortable. Though it happens rarely."
But Sarna and others point out that a more generalized accusation of dual loyalty seems unlikely to catch on, since American Jews themselves are so divided over the conflict, with a sizable number favoring the president?s position.
"President Obama seems to be following the J Street playbook," Sarna wrote, referring to the new, left-of-center Israel lobby. "They have long called for an imposed settlement and stronger U.S. engagement. This, of course, makes dual loyalty claims unlikely. But everything will depend on the care the president takes with his rhetoric. The slightest misstep will have serious repercussions."
Other observers agree that the issue is not so much a conflict between the interests of Jews and those of Americans as a matter of left versus right.
Shaul Kelner, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University, said that since 1977, when the Likud party came to power in Israel, the picture has been more complex. Before then, with one party ruling Israel since its founding, it was possible, Kelner said, "to say that what was good for the party was good for Israel. But since then, the government in Israel has been flipping back and forth between these two camps that have opposing views of what's in Israel?s best interest."
The phrase "dual loyalty," though salient for Jews because of their history, is, according to Kelner, not appropriate to the current situation.
"I would argue that this is a case in which the history is not giving us the language that is appropriate for making sense of what's going on," Kelner said. "Because it is not a question of loyalty to a unitary American government or a unitary government in Israel. It's about partisanship in Israel. It's about partisanship in the United States. It's about partisanship within the American Jewish community."
In fact, those American Jews who view Obama's push toward a settlement of the conflict as progress express no fears of being accused of dual loyalty. On the contrary, they feel their interests are now aligned with the administration's, if not with the current Israeli government.
"I admit that there is anxiety," said Robert Wexler, the former Florida congressman who is now the president of the Center for Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation, a Washington-based think tank. "There are some actors in the political process that make it their business to question the motives of those who seek to end the conflict. And I think that's a misplaced effort. A continuation of the conflict does not help Israel. Fighting two wars every three years, facing an enemy that is better armed and better equipped each time, that does not help Israel."
The feeling of anxiety might then be more a result of a shift in orientation to left from right in the American government. While the Bush administration supported a status quo in which the Israelis did not actively pursue negotiations with the Palestinians, Obama has expressed his determination to be more activist in his approach. For those on the American Jewish right, this is bound to cause dismay. Those on the left will look at it as refreshing.
Goldberg said he didn't think the crisis was as deep as some of the hand-wringing would indicate. But he did say that any charges of dual loyalty, as misguided as they might be, had to be seen as antisemitic because they singled out Jews for holding a position on Israel that is shared by a majority of Americans.
"If Ron Lauder is being accused of dual loyalty but Lindsey Graham isn?t, then the accusation is antisemitic," Goldberg said, referring respectively to the president of the World Jewish Congress and the South Carolina senator, who have equally hawkish views on Israel. "Lindsey Graham has the same position. John McCain has the same position. Countless Democratic politicians have the same position. But they are not accused of being treasonous for America."
But Goldberg also looked beyond this most recent dustup between America and Israel and toward what he thought should be an even bigger cause of concern for American Jews and Israelis. The only reason that dual loyalty can emerge as an issue is because the attachment that American Jews feel for the Jewish state is assumed as a given, whether it lands on the left or the right. Goldberg wondered if this fundamental loyalty is reaching an expiration date.
"I don't believe that time is on Israel's side in the American Jewish community," he said. "I think the average 55-year-old American Jew thinks something very, very different about Israel than the average 25-year-old American Jew. Just think of a kid today at Berkeley or Yale. Do they seem like the natural constituency for AIPAC?"
America has been a haven precisely because the moments when this fear has swelled up have been few and far between. Even the existence of Israel, a country with its own set of national interests and its own wars and ways of dealing with them, has not created much of an issue for those American Jews who see themselves as both Zionists and patriots.
So totally aligned have the United States and Israeli governments been for most of the past 20 years that American Jews have not been forced to seriously consider that these two identities could be in conflict.
But this might be changing.
Since a vice presidential trip to Israel in early March to restart peace talks was spoiled by the unexpected announcement that new housing units were to be built in East Jerusalem, the tension between the two countries has been ratcheting up. The last time anyone can remember it getting this heated was in the early 1990s, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, when loan guarantees to Israel were made contingent on a settlement freeze.
What most defines this current friction, according to observers, is an explicit link made by President Obama and other high officials, like U.S. Army general David Petraeus, that earlier administrations were reluctant to make: The continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict undermines American national interests and creates problems for America's expanded presence in the Middle East.
In a speech April 13, Obama said that solving the conflict was in the "vital national security interest of the United States" and that such conflicts in fact end up "costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure." It's not a new position for him. As a candidate, he told journalist and blogger Jeffrey Goldberg two years ago that he saw the conflict as a "constant wound," a "constant sore" that "does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this."
This formulation has opened the door to worries about dual loyalty for the first time in a long time, although the anxieties associated with this accusation might have more to do with the dramatic political changes in both the United States and Israel over the past year.
The worried reaction can be seen among a wide swath of Jewish groups. A press release from leaders of The Jewish Federations of North America announced a rare mass visit to Washington in May "to convey concerns about U.S.-Israel relations." A recent public letter by the respected Holocaust survivor and Noble laureate Elie Wiesel expressed fear for the future of Jerusalem and subtly criticized Obama, stating, "Pressure will not produce a solution."
And then there are actual accusations of dual loyalty, such as the anonymous administration official who told blogger Laura Rozen that Dennis Ross, the longtime diplomat and Middle East negotiator and now a special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, "seems to be far more sensitive to [Benjamin] Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests." Though the quote was anonymous and was denounced by many commentators, it got the attention of some in the Jewish community.
This dual loyalty suspicion was then taken up by Stephen Walt, the Harvard professor who was the co-author of the controversial paper and book "The Israel Lobby," which alleged undue Jewish influence in American foreign policy. Walt extended the accusation beyond Ross and to any other government officials with any kind of attachment to Israel, a position that one of his detractors, Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called "McCarthyite."
"American Jews are happiest when American interests and Jewish interests are fully compatible," wrote Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, in an e-mail to the Forward. "World War II or the Iraq war are examples of moments when this seemed to be the case. Whenever there seems to be dissonance between Jewish and American interests (such as during the Suez war or Saudi Arabia arms deal) American Jews grow uncomfortable. Though it happens rarely."
But Sarna and others point out that a more generalized accusation of dual loyalty seems unlikely to catch on, since American Jews themselves are so divided over the conflict, with a sizable number favoring the president?s position.
"President Obama seems to be following the J Street playbook," Sarna wrote, referring to the new, left-of-center Israel lobby. "They have long called for an imposed settlement and stronger U.S. engagement. This, of course, makes dual loyalty claims unlikely. But everything will depend on the care the president takes with his rhetoric. The slightest misstep will have serious repercussions."
Other observers agree that the issue is not so much a conflict between the interests of Jews and those of Americans as a matter of left versus right.
Shaul Kelner, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University, said that since 1977, when the Likud party came to power in Israel, the picture has been more complex. Before then, with one party ruling Israel since its founding, it was possible, Kelner said, "to say that what was good for the party was good for Israel. But since then, the government in Israel has been flipping back and forth between these two camps that have opposing views of what's in Israel?s best interest."
The phrase "dual loyalty," though salient for Jews because of their history, is, according to Kelner, not appropriate to the current situation.
"I would argue that this is a case in which the history is not giving us the language that is appropriate for making sense of what's going on," Kelner said. "Because it is not a question of loyalty to a unitary American government or a unitary government in Israel. It's about partisanship in Israel. It's about partisanship in the United States. It's about partisanship within the American Jewish community."
In fact, those American Jews who view Obama's push toward a settlement of the conflict as progress express no fears of being accused of dual loyalty. On the contrary, they feel their interests are now aligned with the administration's, if not with the current Israeli government.
"I admit that there is anxiety," said Robert Wexler, the former Florida congressman who is now the president of the Center for Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation, a Washington-based think tank. "There are some actors in the political process that make it their business to question the motives of those who seek to end the conflict. And I think that's a misplaced effort. A continuation of the conflict does not help Israel. Fighting two wars every three years, facing an enemy that is better armed and better equipped each time, that does not help Israel."
The feeling of anxiety might then be more a result of a shift in orientation to left from right in the American government. While the Bush administration supported a status quo in which the Israelis did not actively pursue negotiations with the Palestinians, Obama has expressed his determination to be more activist in his approach. For those on the American Jewish right, this is bound to cause dismay. Those on the left will look at it as refreshing.
Goldberg said he didn't think the crisis was as deep as some of the hand-wringing would indicate. But he did say that any charges of dual loyalty, as misguided as they might be, had to be seen as antisemitic because they singled out Jews for holding a position on Israel that is shared by a majority of Americans.
"If Ron Lauder is being accused of dual loyalty but Lindsey Graham isn?t, then the accusation is antisemitic," Goldberg said, referring respectively to the president of the World Jewish Congress and the South Carolina senator, who have equally hawkish views on Israel. "Lindsey Graham has the same position. John McCain has the same position. Countless Democratic politicians have the same position. But they are not accused of being treasonous for America."
But Goldberg also looked beyond this most recent dustup between America and Israel and toward what he thought should be an even bigger cause of concern for American Jews and Israelis. The only reason that dual loyalty can emerge as an issue is because the attachment that American Jews feel for the Jewish state is assumed as a given, whether it lands on the left or the right. Goldberg wondered if this fundamental loyalty is reaching an expiration date.
"I don't believe that time is on Israel's side in the American Jewish community," he said. "I think the average 55-year-old American Jew thinks something very, very different about Israel than the average 25-year-old American Jew. Just think of a kid today at Berkeley or Yale. Do they seem like the natural constituency for AIPAC?"
U.S. 'slap in the face' won't stop Jerusalem building
Mayor Nir Barkat said that construction in East Jerusalem will continue, despite the "slap in the face" Israel received from the United States over the matter, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.
While meeting with reporters in Washington, Barkat also denied reports that a de facto building freeze is in effect, after two Jerusalem officials said on Monday that Israel has ceased new construction in the city's disputed eastern sector - despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declarations to the contrary.
Barkat also told the reporters it is impossible to prevent a vibrant city such as Jerusalem from growing.
Construction in East Jerusalem has been a major sticking point between Israel and the U.S. since Israel infuriated Washington last month by announcing a major new East Jerusalem housing development during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem, the site of sacred shrines holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, after capturing it in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Some 180,000 Israelis now live in Jewish neighborhoods built there in the past four decades, and about 2,000 more live in the heart of traditionally Arab neighborhoods.
The Palestinians, the U.S. and the rest of the international community do not recognize the annexation.
Netanyahu, however, has said repeatedly that East Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal, a position the Palestinians reject.
P
While meeting with reporters in Washington, Barkat also denied reports that a de facto building freeze is in effect, after two Jerusalem officials said on Monday that Israel has ceased new construction in the city's disputed eastern sector - despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declarations to the contrary.
Barkat also told the reporters it is impossible to prevent a vibrant city such as Jerusalem from growing.
Construction in East Jerusalem has been a major sticking point between Israel and the U.S. since Israel infuriated Washington last month by announcing a major new East Jerusalem housing development during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem, the site of sacred shrines holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, after capturing it in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Some 180,000 Israelis now live in Jewish neighborhoods built there in the past four decades, and about 2,000 more live in the heart of traditionally Arab neighborhoods.
The Palestinians, the U.S. and the rest of the international community do not recognize the annexation.
Netanyahu, however, has said repeatedly that East Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal, a position the Palestinians reject.
P
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Israel refuses to sell Turkey advanced naval Barak-8 interceptor
Israel has turned down several Turkish requests for advanced military hardware, according to Israeli and Western intelligence sources. Sources in Ankara say that the impact from Prime minister Tayyep Recep Erdogan's alignment with Syria and Iran and poisonous attacks on Israel is beginning to cut into the Turkish army's operational capabilities. In recent weeks, Turkish naval chiefs tried to find out in particular if Israel would be willing to sell the Barak 8 missile interceptor, whose radar provides 360-degree coverage against incoming missiles or air attack, and which was developed in partnership with India.
Security sources told debkafile that it was decided in Jerusalem not to sell, in case Erdogan decided to allow Iranian military intelligence experts to study the Barak-8 and analyze its technology. This interceptor is a key defensive component for the Israeli missile and warships patrolling the Persian Gulf seas opposite Iran, the Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean opposite Syrian and Lebanese shores.
As debkafile revealed exclusively last November, the Turkish Prime minister and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a secret military pact on Oct. 28, 2009, requiring Turkey's military intelligence, its air force and navy to help Iran repel a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. It included a provision for the sharing of any data and technology on Israeli weapons systems in Turkish possession, which the IDF might use for a potential strike. Since that pact was signed, Israel has cut off all advanced weapons supplies to the Turkish armed forces. India too is flatly against letting Turkey getting hold of the Barak 8, in whose development the Indian Navy has invested $330 million since the program began in 2004. New Delhi fears that from Turkey, the technology might leak to Tehran, which India fears is capable of trading its secrets with Islamabad for Pakistani nuclear and missile technology.
Six months ago, India and Israel signed a $1.1 billion contract for the purchase of the interceptor and its installation on most of its navy's warships. The system, complete with launchers, radar and installation sells for $24 million.
The Barak 8 provides warships with all-weather, day-and-night, 360 degrees coverage and is capable of intercepting incoming missiles when they are no more than 500 meters away from target.
Security sources told debkafile that it was decided in Jerusalem not to sell, in case Erdogan decided to allow Iranian military intelligence experts to study the Barak-8 and analyze its technology. This interceptor is a key defensive component for the Israeli missile and warships patrolling the Persian Gulf seas opposite Iran, the Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean opposite Syrian and Lebanese shores.
As debkafile revealed exclusively last November, the Turkish Prime minister and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a secret military pact on Oct. 28, 2009, requiring Turkey's military intelligence, its air force and navy to help Iran repel a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. It included a provision for the sharing of any data and technology on Israeli weapons systems in Turkish possession, which the IDF might use for a potential strike. Since that pact was signed, Israel has cut off all advanced weapons supplies to the Turkish armed forces. India too is flatly against letting Turkey getting hold of the Barak 8, in whose development the Indian Navy has invested $330 million since the program began in 2004. New Delhi fears that from Turkey, the technology might leak to Tehran, which India fears is capable of trading its secrets with Islamabad for Pakistani nuclear and missile technology.
Six months ago, India and Israel signed a $1.1 billion contract for the purchase of the interceptor and its installation on most of its navy's warships. The system, complete with launchers, radar and installation sells for $24 million.
The Barak 8 provides warships with all-weather, day-and-night, 360 degrees coverage and is capable of intercepting incoming missiles when they are no more than 500 meters away from target.
African-Americans, Latinos and women,stand together once again
President Obama's tricky, midterm election strategy relies on luring back the first-time voters who supported him in 2008 plus re-engaging women, blacks, young voters and Hispanics.
In a video message emailed to more than 13 million supporters, Obama said Democrats need a 2008 repeat.
"It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008, stand together once again," Obama said. "It will be up to each of you to keep our nation moving forward."
Conservatives said the move was racially divisive -- asking rhetorically what would happen if a president called for unity among white voters to win an election. But the strategy reflects political reality. Polls show Obama's support among white males has dropped off -- in large part over economic issues and his health-care plan.
"I think a lot of white men, a few Republicans but mostly independents, are the people leaving Obama in droves," said Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida. "Realistically the Democrats don't think they have a chance of getting them back between now and November."
Exit polls from the 2008 election showed Obama fared relatively well with white male voters, garnering 41 percent of white men and 43 percent of the white voters overall.
By contrast, John Kerry in 2004 won 37 percent of white male voters and 41 percent of all white voters. Al Gore in 2000 picked up 35 percent of the white male vote and 42 percent of the total white vote.
But with polls showing Obama's job approval among men lagging women by 10 points and by a similar margin among white voters compared to the electorate, the Obama White House is looking elsewhere for votes.
"It's always a tough race if you're the incumbent in this kind of economic environment," Obama said.
And without Obama on the ballot in November, persuading his 2008 supporters back to the polls will prove a major challenge for the Democratic Party, particularly among the 2008 first-time voters and young voters.
Exit polls in New Jersey and Virginia statewide races last year showed a significant drop-off among younger voters compared with 2008. Just nine percent of voters under 30 turned out in New Jersey, compared with 17 percent in 2008.
To that end, the White House is pushing climate legislation and immigration reform -- keyed to specific special interests -- as another way to drum up support in the fall.
How far the administration is willing to push on either issue remains an open question. The long-awaited climate legislation fell apart over the weekend, after Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key backer, dropped his support over a concurrent push for immigration reform.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to say which measure Obama would prefer to see completed first, saying the administration would like to see progress on both fronts.
Republican strategist Alex Conant noted the White House has yet to offer any policy draft on immigration reform, suggesting the administration wants to use the issue in the campaign without officially tackling it.
"This is an extremely political White House and no doubt the president's advisors view immigration within the political context of dividing Republicans and picking up some votes while publicly pushing it," Conant said.
jmason@washingtonexaminer.com
More from Julie Mason
•Yankee, go home!
•Obama's election year pitch leaves out white males
•Climate bill: Never mind
•Political tensions could lead to court fight
•Cornyn presses Obama on Mexico
Topics
Washington Examiner
Why Graham balked; can Dems win by losing on climate AND immigration?
Obama's credibility crisis
Did an Obama national security advisor make an anti-Semitic joke? (UPDATE: Video!)
Hold the VAT -- taxpayers may prefer spending cuts
Rx on Obamacare: Don't get sick
An Earth Day tradition: George Carlin on the intellectual bankruptcy of "saving the planet"
Public unions make a private sector power grab
Rahm in the denim tuxedo
A carefully crafted immigration law in Arizona
Morning Must Reads -- Reid cracks up under pressure
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/white-house/Obama_s-election-year-pitch-leaves-out-white-males-92135609.html#ixzz0mIWQfMNl
In a video message emailed to more than 13 million supporters, Obama said Democrats need a 2008 repeat.
"It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008, stand together once again," Obama said. "It will be up to each of you to keep our nation moving forward."
Conservatives said the move was racially divisive -- asking rhetorically what would happen if a president called for unity among white voters to win an election. But the strategy reflects political reality. Polls show Obama's support among white males has dropped off -- in large part over economic issues and his health-care plan.
"I think a lot of white men, a few Republicans but mostly independents, are the people leaving Obama in droves," said Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida. "Realistically the Democrats don't think they have a chance of getting them back between now and November."
Exit polls from the 2008 election showed Obama fared relatively well with white male voters, garnering 41 percent of white men and 43 percent of the white voters overall.
By contrast, John Kerry in 2004 won 37 percent of white male voters and 41 percent of all white voters. Al Gore in 2000 picked up 35 percent of the white male vote and 42 percent of the total white vote.
But with polls showing Obama's job approval among men lagging women by 10 points and by a similar margin among white voters compared to the electorate, the Obama White House is looking elsewhere for votes.
"It's always a tough race if you're the incumbent in this kind of economic environment," Obama said.
And without Obama on the ballot in November, persuading his 2008 supporters back to the polls will prove a major challenge for the Democratic Party, particularly among the 2008 first-time voters and young voters.
Exit polls in New Jersey and Virginia statewide races last year showed a significant drop-off among younger voters compared with 2008. Just nine percent of voters under 30 turned out in New Jersey, compared with 17 percent in 2008.
To that end, the White House is pushing climate legislation and immigration reform -- keyed to specific special interests -- as another way to drum up support in the fall.
How far the administration is willing to push on either issue remains an open question. The long-awaited climate legislation fell apart over the weekend, after Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key backer, dropped his support over a concurrent push for immigration reform.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to say which measure Obama would prefer to see completed first, saying the administration would like to see progress on both fronts.
Republican strategist Alex Conant noted the White House has yet to offer any policy draft on immigration reform, suggesting the administration wants to use the issue in the campaign without officially tackling it.
"This is an extremely political White House and no doubt the president's advisors view immigration within the political context of dividing Republicans and picking up some votes while publicly pushing it," Conant said.
jmason@washingtonexaminer.com
More from Julie Mason
•Yankee, go home!
•Obama's election year pitch leaves out white males
•Climate bill: Never mind
•Political tensions could lead to court fight
•Cornyn presses Obama on Mexico
Topics
Washington Examiner
Why Graham balked; can Dems win by losing on climate AND immigration?
Obama's credibility crisis
Did an Obama national security advisor make an anti-Semitic joke? (UPDATE: Video!)
Hold the VAT -- taxpayers may prefer spending cuts
Rx on Obamacare: Don't get sick
An Earth Day tradition: George Carlin on the intellectual bankruptcy of "saving the planet"
Public unions make a private sector power grab
Rahm in the denim tuxedo
A carefully crafted immigration law in Arizona
Morning Must Reads -- Reid cracks up under pressure
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/white-house/Obama_s-election-year-pitch-leaves-out-white-males-92135609.html#ixzz0mIWQfMNl
Powerful Rationing Panel (Not Doctors) Will Control Health Care Levels
http://www.breitbart.tv/obamas-budget-director-powerful-rationing-panel-not-doctors-will-control-health-care-levels/
Monday, April 26, 2010
Pirated Apple iPads Show Up in China
Just three weeks after the global launch, bootleg versions of Apple's[AAPL 270.83 4.3605 (+1.64%) ] hot-selling iPad tablet PCs have begun showing up on the shelves of online and real-world shops in piracy-prone China.
Apple recently delayed the iPad's international launch after huge demand in the United States caught the maker of trendy iPhones and MacBooks off guard. But Chinese consumers looking for knock-offs of the company's latest must-have product need look no further than this teeming electronics mall in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese boomtown near the border with Hong Kong.
RELATED LINKS
Current DateTime: 01:06:01 26 Apr 2010
LinksList Documentid: 36772988
Twitter Hacker Did It for ThrillsPiracy Attacks Down a Third in Q1 2010
Here, tiny shops are stuffed with pirated versions of everything: from Microsoft's newest Windows 7 operating system, a steal at $2 each, to a range of Apple products, from iPhones to MacBooks and the lightweight MacBook Air.
After extensive queries with multiple shopkeepers, one surnamed Lin offered the sought-after item in a dark backroom on the market's fifth floor away from the hustle and bustle.
Hefty and thickset with three USB ports and a more rectangular shape than the original, this knock-off with iPad aspirations, which runs a Windows operating system, looks more like a giant iPhone. It costs 2,800 yuan ($410), making it slightly cheaper than the iPad's $499-$699 price tag.
"This is just the first rough version," says Lin a crew-cut agent speaking in bursts of quick-fire Cantonese, the native language of the area.
"While the shape isn't quite the same, the external appearance is very similar to the iPad, so we don't think it will affect our sales that much," he added, explaining the difference was due to the difficulty sourcing matching parts because of the quick two-month turnaround time for the first version's development.
Getty Images
Apple iPad
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard-working Chinese bootleggers are rushing to fill a vacuum that won't last for long, created by unexpectedly strong demand for the iPad in its first weeks on the market.
The 10-inch entertainment device, on which one can read books, play music and videos and surf the Internet, sold more than 500,000 in its first week alone, and continued strong U.S. demand has led Apple to delay the product's international launch to the end of April.
Chinese counterfeiters have rushed to fill the iPad gap.
Taobao, China's largest online marketplace, contains hundreds of listings for the coveted product, many real but some dubiously labelled as "China goods", with claims to have even better features than the real deal.
Like the models in the Shenzhen market, these fake iPads also retail for around 2800 yuan each, compared with 4,000-6,000 yuan for those marketed as real.
Analysts and gadget fanatics expect the iPad to do well in Asia given Apple's strong branding and the rising number of affluent middle class consumers. But few are surprised by the quick appearance of a counterfeit version in a country where pirated movies often appear in markets in the same week of their theatrical release.
"China is basically a market that has the ability to clone everything, so it's really not surprising," said Edward Yu, chief executive of Beijing-based researcher Analysys International. "I don't think piracy is a bad thing for the iPad given that China has a huge population, maybe the clone iPads will give more of the potential users a look and feel."
Back in Shenzhen, Lin said factories around China's Pearl River Delta -- the country's biggest export manufacturing hub -- were working hard on an updated version of the pirated iPads to feed strong demand.
"This is just the first rough version," Lin said. "Eventually, the factories will be able to make a much better copy."
Apple recently delayed the iPad's international launch after huge demand in the United States caught the maker of trendy iPhones and MacBooks off guard. But Chinese consumers looking for knock-offs of the company's latest must-have product need look no further than this teeming electronics mall in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese boomtown near the border with Hong Kong.
RELATED LINKS
Current DateTime: 01:06:01 26 Apr 2010
LinksList Documentid: 36772988
Twitter Hacker Did It for ThrillsPiracy Attacks Down a Third in Q1 2010
Here, tiny shops are stuffed with pirated versions of everything: from Microsoft's newest Windows 7 operating system, a steal at $2 each, to a range of Apple products, from iPhones to MacBooks and the lightweight MacBook Air.
After extensive queries with multiple shopkeepers, one surnamed Lin offered the sought-after item in a dark backroom on the market's fifth floor away from the hustle and bustle.
Hefty and thickset with three USB ports and a more rectangular shape than the original, this knock-off with iPad aspirations, which runs a Windows operating system, looks more like a giant iPhone. It costs 2,800 yuan ($410), making it slightly cheaper than the iPad's $499-$699 price tag.
"This is just the first rough version," says Lin a crew-cut agent speaking in bursts of quick-fire Cantonese, the native language of the area.
"While the shape isn't quite the same, the external appearance is very similar to the iPad, so we don't think it will affect our sales that much," he added, explaining the difference was due to the difficulty sourcing matching parts because of the quick two-month turnaround time for the first version's development.
Getty Images
Apple iPad
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard-working Chinese bootleggers are rushing to fill a vacuum that won't last for long, created by unexpectedly strong demand for the iPad in its first weeks on the market.
The 10-inch entertainment device, on which one can read books, play music and videos and surf the Internet, sold more than 500,000 in its first week alone, and continued strong U.S. demand has led Apple to delay the product's international launch to the end of April.
Chinese counterfeiters have rushed to fill the iPad gap.
Taobao, China's largest online marketplace, contains hundreds of listings for the coveted product, many real but some dubiously labelled as "China goods", with claims to have even better features than the real deal.
Like the models in the Shenzhen market, these fake iPads also retail for around 2800 yuan each, compared with 4,000-6,000 yuan for those marketed as real.
Analysts and gadget fanatics expect the iPad to do well in Asia given Apple's strong branding and the rising number of affluent middle class consumers. But few are surprised by the quick appearance of a counterfeit version in a country where pirated movies often appear in markets in the same week of their theatrical release.
"China is basically a market that has the ability to clone everything, so it's really not surprising," said Edward Yu, chief executive of Beijing-based researcher Analysys International. "I don't think piracy is a bad thing for the iPad given that China has a huge population, maybe the clone iPads will give more of the potential users a look and feel."
Back in Shenzhen, Lin said factories around China's Pearl River Delta -- the country's biggest export manufacturing hub -- were working hard on an updated version of the pirated iPads to feed strong demand.
"This is just the first rough version," Lin said. "Eventually, the factories will be able to make a much better copy."
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Obama's credibility crisis
Hard on the heels of that shocking Pew Research Center survey finding that four out of five Americans don't trust government comes a blitz of new revelations about the Obama administration that amount to a full-fledged credibility crisis. The latest disclosures are especially damaging because they concern President Obama's possible misrepresentation of his relationships with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and convicted felon Tony Rezko, his administration's misleading statements about Obamacare costs, and questions about improper manipulation of government-owned General Motors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Blagojevich revelations were no less serious for being accidental. Blagojevich's defense attorneys filed a federal court motion to subpoena Obama concerning charges that the former governor tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat formerly occupied by the chief executive. Improper formatting of the heavily redacted public version of the motion contained evidence that Obama spoke to Blagojevich about the Senate appointment a week before telling White House reporters that he had not done so. The document also revealed that federal prosecutors are withholding from Blagojevich's attorneys documents describing what Obama told investigators about conversations with Rezko on the appointment or his financial ties to the Chicago developer who was one of his key fundraisers.
On Obamacare, the president and his appointees said repeatedly over the last year that it would reduce government health care spending. Yet now comes Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's Department of Health and Human Services secretary, confessing that "We don't know how much it's going to cost." Why is Sebelius only now saying this when her own department just made public a report obviously months in preparation that projected government health care costs overall will go up, not down? That same HHS report also said Obamacare's Medicare cuts could put 15 percent of all hospitals out of business, making treatment harder to get and more expensive, especially for seniors.
Finally, General Motors claimed in national advertisements this week that it repaid its Troubled Asset Relief Program loans, plus interest, five years early. But the TARP inspector general said GM used other TARP funds to repay its original TARP loans, so the ads were fundamentally dishonest. Recall here that White House adviser Carol Browner told GM and other automakers to "write nothing down" about their dealings last year with administration officials on fuel economy standards. So it seems entirely appropriate to ask if GM's repayment claims were "suggested" by somebody in the Obama White House. That would be the same White House that is also now suspected of improperly influencing the SEC to file fraud charges against Goldman Sachs just as Congress debates Obama's financial reform proposal. As the Obama administration will learn, plummeting public trust eats away at the fundamental credibility of government and undermines its ability to carry out even its most basic duties.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama_s-credibility-crisis-91958294.html#ixzz0m8tUYLKf
The Blagojevich revelations were no less serious for being accidental. Blagojevich's defense attorneys filed a federal court motion to subpoena Obama concerning charges that the former governor tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat formerly occupied by the chief executive. Improper formatting of the heavily redacted public version of the motion contained evidence that Obama spoke to Blagojevich about the Senate appointment a week before telling White House reporters that he had not done so. The document also revealed that federal prosecutors are withholding from Blagojevich's attorneys documents describing what Obama told investigators about conversations with Rezko on the appointment or his financial ties to the Chicago developer who was one of his key fundraisers.
On Obamacare, the president and his appointees said repeatedly over the last year that it would reduce government health care spending. Yet now comes Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's Department of Health and Human Services secretary, confessing that "We don't know how much it's going to cost." Why is Sebelius only now saying this when her own department just made public a report obviously months in preparation that projected government health care costs overall will go up, not down? That same HHS report also said Obamacare's Medicare cuts could put 15 percent of all hospitals out of business, making treatment harder to get and more expensive, especially for seniors.
Finally, General Motors claimed in national advertisements this week that it repaid its Troubled Asset Relief Program loans, plus interest, five years early. But the TARP inspector general said GM used other TARP funds to repay its original TARP loans, so the ads were fundamentally dishonest. Recall here that White House adviser Carol Browner told GM and other automakers to "write nothing down" about their dealings last year with administration officials on fuel economy standards. So it seems entirely appropriate to ask if GM's repayment claims were "suggested" by somebody in the Obama White House. That would be the same White House that is also now suspected of improperly influencing the SEC to file fraud charges against Goldman Sachs just as Congress debates Obama's financial reform proposal. As the Obama administration will learn, plummeting public trust eats away at the fundamental credibility of government and undermines its ability to carry out even its most basic duties.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama_s-credibility-crisis-91958294.html#ixzz0m8tUYLKf
The national debt and Washington's deficit of will
Bill Gross is used to buying bonds in multibillion-dollar batches. But when it comes to U.S. Treasury bills, he's getting nervous. Gross, a founder of the investment giant Pimco, is so concerned about America's national debt that he has started unloading some of his holdings of U.S. government bonds in favor of bonds from such countries as Germany, Canada and France.
Gross is a bottom-line kind of guy; he doesn't seem to care if the debt is the fault of Republicans or Democrats, the Bush tax cuts or the Obama stimulus. He's simply worried that Washington's habit of spending today the money it hopes to collect tomorrow is getting worse and worse. It even has elements of a Ponzi scheme, Gross told me.
"In order to pay the interest and the bill when it comes due, we'll simply have to issue more IOUs. That, to me, is Ponzi-like," Gross said. "It's a game that can never be finished."
The national debt -- which totaled $8,370,635,856,604.98 as of a few days ago, not even counting the trillions owed by the government to Social Security and other pilfered trust funds -- is rapidly becoming a dominant political issue in Washington and across the country, and not just among the "tea party" crowd. President Obama is feeling the pressure, and on Tuesday he will open the first session of a high-level bipartisan commission that will look for ways to reduce deficits and put the country on a sustainable fiscal path.
It's a tough task. The short term looks awful, and the long term looks hideous. Under any likely scenario, the federal debt will continue to balloon in the years to come. The Congressional Budget Office expects it to reach $20 trillion over the next decade -- and that assumes no new recessions, no new wars and no new financial crises. In the doomsday scenario, foreign investors get spooked and demand higher interest rates to continue bankrolling American profligacy. As rates shoot up, the United States has to borrow more and more simply to pay the interest on its debt, and soon the economy is in a downward spiral.
Of course, at least in theory, this problem can be fixed. Unlike a real Ponzi scheme, which collapses when no new suckers offer money that can be used to pay off earlier investors, the government can restore fiscal sanity whenever our leaders decide to do so.
But that premise is what has people like Gross worried. In addition to running a budget deficit, Washington for years has had a massive deficit of political will.
Over the past decade, lawmakers have avoided the kind of unpopular decisions -- tax increases, spending cuts or some combination -- needed to keep the debt under control. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified recently that, for investors, the underlying problem with the debt isn't economic. "At some point, the markets will make a judgment about, really, not our economic capacity but our political ability, our political will, to achieve longer-term sustainability," he said.
The economic recovery has been picking up steam in recent weeks -- "America's Back!" trumpets Newsweek -- but the political recovery has been feeble. Whether on taxes, entitlements, military retooling, financial reform, energy policy or climate change, Washington is mired in a political enmity that makes tough decisions nearly impossible.
In the fiscal debate, the default position, as it were, is to do nothing. Debt is the grease of Washington legislation; for short-sighted leaders, it is less a political problem than a political solution. As long as the government can continue borrowing at reasonable rates, citizens can have their tax cuts and government services, and eventually the growing debt becomes someone else's problem.
"This is all an exercise in current generations shifting burdens on future generations," Brookings Institution economist William Gale says. "Future generations don't vote, of course."
Many careers in Washington have come to an end as casualties of the long battle to restore fiscal balance. President George H.W. Bush in 1990 went back on his "no new taxes" pledge and lost much of his political base. By the narrowest of margins -- with Vice President Al Gore breaking a tied vote in the Senate -- President Bill Clinton raised taxes again in 1993, and House Democrats were pummeled in the following year's midterm elections, giving up control of the chamber to the GOP for the first time in 40 years.
But then, after two decades of deficits, the fiscal picture brightened unexpectedly. The peace dividend at the end of the Cold War combined with the booming economy of the 1990s (and some tech-bubble tax receipts) to create an unexpected dilemma in 2000: what to do with the budget surpluses that were forecast for years to come? One obvious idea was to pay down the existing publicly held debt, then hovering around $3.4 trillion.
But a decade later, we're back in debt madness. The causes of this reversal are not a mystery: tax cuts, two wars, a new Medicare drug benefit, two recessions, massive bailouts and a huge stimulus package -- very little of it paid for in any conventional sense. Obama never misses a chance to remind the public that he inherited an enormous deficit, but as a purely political matter he still needs to persuade the public that he's a prudent fiscal steward.
To that end, the president has proposed a freeze on most nonmilitary discretionary spending. Obama also insisted that the health-care overhaul not add to the deficit, and it won't, according to the CBO. But no one would confuse the health-care law with a deficit-reduction package. Critics say the law worsens the fiscal outlook because its spending cuts and new taxes could have been used to reduce the deficit -- which may run at about $1.3 trillion for 2010 -- instead of being an offset for an entitlement expansion.
Beyond the simplicity of the problem -- the Treasury spends more than it collects -- is a thorny mess of policy options. Conservatives fear that liberals want to expand government by imposing a European-style value-added tax, in which the government sips revenue at multiple stages in the production and sale of goods and services. But a VAT is regressive, would hit the middle class in the teeth and is probably too politically radical to survive beyond the haven of a few Washington think tanks.
Obama's vow not to raise taxes on the middle class -- meaning he's extending George W. Bush's tax cuts for everyone except the most affluent -- eliminates a lot of revenue options. "The Republican view is no new taxes, and the Democratic view is no new taxes on 95 percent of the population. Both of those are so far from reasonable starting points that it's astonishing," Gale argues.
Obama and his fellow Democrats may also be shy of substantial Pentagon cuts, lest they be pegged as weak-kneed liberals. Some of the easiest Medicare cuts have already been made. That leaves Social Security, and such options as postponing the retirement age or means-testing benefits. But recipients figure they paid into Social Security and it's their money, not to be taken away. And they vote -- and live by the millions in swing states such as Florida.
With so many unpleasant options, everyone is looking to Obama's new bipartisan commission for some kind of miracle solution. The 18-member panel, headed by former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and retired Republican senator Alan Simpson, is charged with producing recommendations by Dec. 1, after the midterm elections. Congressional leaders say they'll vote on the recommendations, but the commission has no real clout. A panel proposed by Senate colleagues Kent Conrad (N.D.), a Democrat, and Judd Gregg (N.H.), a Republican, would have had more teeth, but the idea died in the ideological crossfire early this year.
Even before the commission's first meeting, the body is already in the thick of the political battle, with antitax advocate Grover Norquist suggesting that Simpson has a history as a tax hiker. The retired senator struck back in a statement: "This 'Mr. Tax Hike' business is garbage, and is intended to terrify people and at the same time make money for the groups who babble it."
In an interview, Simpson said the capital has an aversion to dealing with debt. "It makes all sorts of sense if you're worshiping the great god hiding behind the screen, which is called reelection," he told me.
The latest news from the Treasury is hopeful: Tax revenues are slightly higher than anticipated so far this year. The TARP program to bail out financial firms has proved far less costly than expected. Investors from around the world still eagerly bid on Treasury notes at auction. During this global recession, the U.S. Treasury has been a safe port in the storm.
When I spoke to Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, he expressed optimism that the administration can balance the primary budget -- not including interest payments -- by 2015. The longer-term deficits are his bigger worry. Asked if the political process in Washington is broken, he answered: "I think it's too soon to know whether the system's broken. The problem is not what happened last year or this year. The real issue is when we move forward in time, something has to give."
The danger is that what "gives" will be investors' confidence in the United States. Bill Gross told me that Pimco still has $150 billion in Treasuries, but that's seriously "underweight" given that the company controls $1 trillion in assets.
"It's becoming immediately apparent that some countries will not do especially well and may not escape the debt trap from the recent financial crisis, Greece and Iceland being the most prominent cases," Gross said. "But now investors are even looking at the best of the best, including the United States."
That's also the concern of Michael Burry, the investment guru who predicted Wall Street's meltdown and made millions by placing bets against (or "shorting") the financial sector. Burry, one of the protagonists in Michael Lewis's account of the financial crisis, "The Big Short," believes the federal government is behaving like the companies that lost billions in mortgage-backed securities. He told me he sees the common mistake of focusing on short-term benefits -- whether quarterly earnings or the next election.
The world doesn't want America to go broke, he points out. Americans are the planet's greatest consumers. But if this is a bubble, it will burst with little warning, Burry said.
"Strictly looking at the monthly Treasury statement of receipts and outlays," Burry said, "as an 'investor,' you see a company you might want to short."
Joel Achenbach is a reporter and blogger on the national staff of The Washington Post. He will be online on Monday, April 26, to chat with readers at 11 a.m. Submit your questions or comments before or during the discussion.
Gross is a bottom-line kind of guy; he doesn't seem to care if the debt is the fault of Republicans or Democrats, the Bush tax cuts or the Obama stimulus. He's simply worried that Washington's habit of spending today the money it hopes to collect tomorrow is getting worse and worse. It even has elements of a Ponzi scheme, Gross told me.
"In order to pay the interest and the bill when it comes due, we'll simply have to issue more IOUs. That, to me, is Ponzi-like," Gross said. "It's a game that can never be finished."
The national debt -- which totaled $8,370,635,856,604.98 as of a few days ago, not even counting the trillions owed by the government to Social Security and other pilfered trust funds -- is rapidly becoming a dominant political issue in Washington and across the country, and not just among the "tea party" crowd. President Obama is feeling the pressure, and on Tuesday he will open the first session of a high-level bipartisan commission that will look for ways to reduce deficits and put the country on a sustainable fiscal path.
It's a tough task. The short term looks awful, and the long term looks hideous. Under any likely scenario, the federal debt will continue to balloon in the years to come. The Congressional Budget Office expects it to reach $20 trillion over the next decade -- and that assumes no new recessions, no new wars and no new financial crises. In the doomsday scenario, foreign investors get spooked and demand higher interest rates to continue bankrolling American profligacy. As rates shoot up, the United States has to borrow more and more simply to pay the interest on its debt, and soon the economy is in a downward spiral.
Of course, at least in theory, this problem can be fixed. Unlike a real Ponzi scheme, which collapses when no new suckers offer money that can be used to pay off earlier investors, the government can restore fiscal sanity whenever our leaders decide to do so.
But that premise is what has people like Gross worried. In addition to running a budget deficit, Washington for years has had a massive deficit of political will.
Over the past decade, lawmakers have avoided the kind of unpopular decisions -- tax increases, spending cuts or some combination -- needed to keep the debt under control. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified recently that, for investors, the underlying problem with the debt isn't economic. "At some point, the markets will make a judgment about, really, not our economic capacity but our political ability, our political will, to achieve longer-term sustainability," he said.
The economic recovery has been picking up steam in recent weeks -- "America's Back!" trumpets Newsweek -- but the political recovery has been feeble. Whether on taxes, entitlements, military retooling, financial reform, energy policy or climate change, Washington is mired in a political enmity that makes tough decisions nearly impossible.
In the fiscal debate, the default position, as it were, is to do nothing. Debt is the grease of Washington legislation; for short-sighted leaders, it is less a political problem than a political solution. As long as the government can continue borrowing at reasonable rates, citizens can have their tax cuts and government services, and eventually the growing debt becomes someone else's problem.
"This is all an exercise in current generations shifting burdens on future generations," Brookings Institution economist William Gale says. "Future generations don't vote, of course."
Many careers in Washington have come to an end as casualties of the long battle to restore fiscal balance. President George H.W. Bush in 1990 went back on his "no new taxes" pledge and lost much of his political base. By the narrowest of margins -- with Vice President Al Gore breaking a tied vote in the Senate -- President Bill Clinton raised taxes again in 1993, and House Democrats were pummeled in the following year's midterm elections, giving up control of the chamber to the GOP for the first time in 40 years.
But then, after two decades of deficits, the fiscal picture brightened unexpectedly. The peace dividend at the end of the Cold War combined with the booming economy of the 1990s (and some tech-bubble tax receipts) to create an unexpected dilemma in 2000: what to do with the budget surpluses that were forecast for years to come? One obvious idea was to pay down the existing publicly held debt, then hovering around $3.4 trillion.
But a decade later, we're back in debt madness. The causes of this reversal are not a mystery: tax cuts, two wars, a new Medicare drug benefit, two recessions, massive bailouts and a huge stimulus package -- very little of it paid for in any conventional sense. Obama never misses a chance to remind the public that he inherited an enormous deficit, but as a purely political matter he still needs to persuade the public that he's a prudent fiscal steward.
To that end, the president has proposed a freeze on most nonmilitary discretionary spending. Obama also insisted that the health-care overhaul not add to the deficit, and it won't, according to the CBO. But no one would confuse the health-care law with a deficit-reduction package. Critics say the law worsens the fiscal outlook because its spending cuts and new taxes could have been used to reduce the deficit -- which may run at about $1.3 trillion for 2010 -- instead of being an offset for an entitlement expansion.
Beyond the simplicity of the problem -- the Treasury spends more than it collects -- is a thorny mess of policy options. Conservatives fear that liberals want to expand government by imposing a European-style value-added tax, in which the government sips revenue at multiple stages in the production and sale of goods and services. But a VAT is regressive, would hit the middle class in the teeth and is probably too politically radical to survive beyond the haven of a few Washington think tanks.
Obama's vow not to raise taxes on the middle class -- meaning he's extending George W. Bush's tax cuts for everyone except the most affluent -- eliminates a lot of revenue options. "The Republican view is no new taxes, and the Democratic view is no new taxes on 95 percent of the population. Both of those are so far from reasonable starting points that it's astonishing," Gale argues.
Obama and his fellow Democrats may also be shy of substantial Pentagon cuts, lest they be pegged as weak-kneed liberals. Some of the easiest Medicare cuts have already been made. That leaves Social Security, and such options as postponing the retirement age or means-testing benefits. But recipients figure they paid into Social Security and it's their money, not to be taken away. And they vote -- and live by the millions in swing states such as Florida.
With so many unpleasant options, everyone is looking to Obama's new bipartisan commission for some kind of miracle solution. The 18-member panel, headed by former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and retired Republican senator Alan Simpson, is charged with producing recommendations by Dec. 1, after the midterm elections. Congressional leaders say they'll vote on the recommendations, but the commission has no real clout. A panel proposed by Senate colleagues Kent Conrad (N.D.), a Democrat, and Judd Gregg (N.H.), a Republican, would have had more teeth, but the idea died in the ideological crossfire early this year.
Even before the commission's first meeting, the body is already in the thick of the political battle, with antitax advocate Grover Norquist suggesting that Simpson has a history as a tax hiker. The retired senator struck back in a statement: "This 'Mr. Tax Hike' business is garbage, and is intended to terrify people and at the same time make money for the groups who babble it."
In an interview, Simpson said the capital has an aversion to dealing with debt. "It makes all sorts of sense if you're worshiping the great god hiding behind the screen, which is called reelection," he told me.
The latest news from the Treasury is hopeful: Tax revenues are slightly higher than anticipated so far this year. The TARP program to bail out financial firms has proved far less costly than expected. Investors from around the world still eagerly bid on Treasury notes at auction. During this global recession, the U.S. Treasury has been a safe port in the storm.
When I spoke to Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, he expressed optimism that the administration can balance the primary budget -- not including interest payments -- by 2015. The longer-term deficits are his bigger worry. Asked if the political process in Washington is broken, he answered: "I think it's too soon to know whether the system's broken. The problem is not what happened last year or this year. The real issue is when we move forward in time, something has to give."
The danger is that what "gives" will be investors' confidence in the United States. Bill Gross told me that Pimco still has $150 billion in Treasuries, but that's seriously "underweight" given that the company controls $1 trillion in assets.
"It's becoming immediately apparent that some countries will not do especially well and may not escape the debt trap from the recent financial crisis, Greece and Iceland being the most prominent cases," Gross said. "But now investors are even looking at the best of the best, including the United States."
That's also the concern of Michael Burry, the investment guru who predicted Wall Street's meltdown and made millions by placing bets against (or "shorting") the financial sector. Burry, one of the protagonists in Michael Lewis's account of the financial crisis, "The Big Short," believes the federal government is behaving like the companies that lost billions in mortgage-backed securities. He told me he sees the common mistake of focusing on short-term benefits -- whether quarterly earnings or the next election.
The world doesn't want America to go broke, he points out. Americans are the planet's greatest consumers. But if this is a bubble, it will burst with little warning, Burry said.
"Strictly looking at the monthly Treasury statement of receipts and outlays," Burry said, "as an 'investor,' you see a company you might want to short."
Joel Achenbach is a reporter and blogger on the national staff of The Washington Post. He will be online on Monday, April 26, to chat with readers at 11 a.m. Submit your questions or comments before or during the discussion.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Syria sends Hizballah Scuds in disassembled batches
Syria has smuggled three consignments of disassembled Scud A ground missile components across the border to the Lebanese Hizballah, debkafile disclose from Middle East intelligence and military sources Friday, April 23. They do not add up to a complete set of parts for an operational Scud missile. However, another five shipments, awaiting handover at Syrian border bases will provide the missing elements for complete weapons.
Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak disclosed Friday night that Syria had transferred "Scud missile parts" to Lebanon, refusing to elaborate. But he accused Syria of providing Hizballah with game-changing weapons which jeopardized regional stability.
According to Western intelligence sources, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put in an urgent phone call to Syrian president Bashar Assad Thursday, April 22, to urge Assad to make as many Scud transfers to Lebanon as possible and enable Hizballah to deploy them opposite Israel without delay. He implied that speed was necessary because Iran is preparing to strike out against US Middle East interests and he wants Iran's Lebanese proxy to be ready for all possible eventualities. The Iranian president dismissed Israel as a declining force with its political and military strength in a state of paralysis.
The two presidents speculated about the source of the leak to the media about the Scuds for Hizballah. Ahmadinejad said Iranian intelligence had turned up a source in the Syrian military who was probably a mole and offered to help hunt him down.
Friday night too, the Obama administration stamped down harder on Damascus, warning Syria that providing Hizballah "a wider array" of missiles" carried serious consequences. The diplomat, who declined to be named, said: We are concerned with the broadening nature of cooperation between Syria and Hizballah." He stopped short of accusing Syria of arming Hizballah with Scud missiles: "… we have no evidence of Scuds crossing into Lebanon, that's something… to watch," he said.
Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State Jerry Feldman told members of Congress that the administration condemns in the strongest terms Syria's "provocative" behavior in transferring arms to Hizballah. On April 21, a senior Syrian diplomat was summoned to the state department for the fourth strong dressing-down.
Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak disclosed Friday night that Syria had transferred "Scud missile parts" to Lebanon, refusing to elaborate. But he accused Syria of providing Hizballah with game-changing weapons which jeopardized regional stability.
According to Western intelligence sources, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put in an urgent phone call to Syrian president Bashar Assad Thursday, April 22, to urge Assad to make as many Scud transfers to Lebanon as possible and enable Hizballah to deploy them opposite Israel without delay. He implied that speed was necessary because Iran is preparing to strike out against US Middle East interests and he wants Iran's Lebanese proxy to be ready for all possible eventualities. The Iranian president dismissed Israel as a declining force with its political and military strength in a state of paralysis.
The two presidents speculated about the source of the leak to the media about the Scuds for Hizballah. Ahmadinejad said Iranian intelligence had turned up a source in the Syrian military who was probably a mole and offered to help hunt him down.
Friday night too, the Obama administration stamped down harder on Damascus, warning Syria that providing Hizballah "a wider array" of missiles" carried serious consequences. The diplomat, who declined to be named, said: We are concerned with the broadening nature of cooperation between Syria and Hizballah." He stopped short of accusing Syria of arming Hizballah with Scud missiles: "… we have no evidence of Scuds crossing into Lebanon, that's something… to watch," he said.
Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State Jerry Feldman told members of Congress that the administration condemns in the strongest terms Syria's "provocative" behavior in transferring arms to Hizballah. On April 21, a senior Syrian diplomat was summoned to the state department for the fourth strong dressing-down.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Governments Will 'Bankrupt Us': Marc Faber
Current economic policies are not sustainable and the world faces doom because "the governments are taking over", said Marc Faber, editor & publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.
"They will all bankrupt us and expropriate us, but it may not happen tomorrow. They'll give us something to play with, until the whole system breaks down...they'll just print money and print more money," he said on CNBC Thursday.
"What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', (is that) they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it."
Faber warned that the "ultimate armageddon" would be much worse the next time around, as "governments will go bust", which would lead them to print more money.
He also warned that China's growth was "completely unsustainable in the long run," highlighting the red-hot property sector.
Goldman Sachs an 'Honest Firm'
Faber said the SEC's charges against Goldman Sachs were merely an excuse to print more money.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I think Goldman Sachs is a very honest firm. They have a very strict compliance department compared to the others — they're like an angel. But they targeted Goldman as it stands as a symbol of Wall Street," Faber said.
With U.S. President Obama's ratings sliding due to the health care reforms, the government was going after the investment bank to distract the attention of the people, he claimed.
"Maybe the intention is not to hurt Goldman Sachs, but just to gain popularity with the middle class and the lower class of America, so they will perceive Mr. Obama to have done something against the evil of Wall Street."
Cash Will be 'A Disaster', Accumulate Gold
World Faces 'Sovereign DisCredit': EconomistsBear Market Rally Is Near Its Top: StrategistSovereign Debt Crisis Likely to Spread: Roubini
In light of the current economic environment, investors should not own cash as it is going to be 'a disaster', said Faber.
"If you print money like in Zimbabwe... the purchasing power of money goes down, and the standards of living go down, and eventually, you have a civil war," he added.
Faber warned that the mood has turned very very negative among certain groups of society.
Instead of holding cash, Faber, commonly referred to as 'Dr Gloom', advised investors to "gradually accumulate physical gold and silver" while those who want exposure to shares of gold exploration companies should buy them from time-to-time when they become cheap.
"Some of them still have reasonably good value at the present time. This is a long-term strategy because in an environment where governments will print money — and I'm convinced they're gong to bailout Greece, which means you transfer essentially bad assets on to the balance sheet on the government," he said.
When that happens, Faber warned the purchasing power of paper money will go down, rather than an appreciation of precious metal prices.
"Paper money (will go) down relative to precious metals. So in that environment, I think you...should all accumulate some gold."
"They will all bankrupt us and expropriate us, but it may not happen tomorrow. They'll give us something to play with, until the whole system breaks down...they'll just print money and print more money," he said on CNBC Thursday.
"What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', (is that) they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it."
Faber warned that the "ultimate armageddon" would be much worse the next time around, as "governments will go bust", which would lead them to print more money.
He also warned that China's growth was "completely unsustainable in the long run," highlighting the red-hot property sector.
Goldman Sachs an 'Honest Firm'
Faber said the SEC's charges against Goldman Sachs were merely an excuse to print more money.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I think Goldman Sachs is a very honest firm. They have a very strict compliance department compared to the others — they're like an angel. But they targeted Goldman as it stands as a symbol of Wall Street," Faber said.
With U.S. President Obama's ratings sliding due to the health care reforms, the government was going after the investment bank to distract the attention of the people, he claimed.
"Maybe the intention is not to hurt Goldman Sachs, but just to gain popularity with the middle class and the lower class of America, so they will perceive Mr. Obama to have done something against the evil of Wall Street."
Cash Will be 'A Disaster', Accumulate Gold
World Faces 'Sovereign DisCredit': EconomistsBear Market Rally Is Near Its Top: StrategistSovereign Debt Crisis Likely to Spread: Roubini
In light of the current economic environment, investors should not own cash as it is going to be 'a disaster', said Faber.
"If you print money like in Zimbabwe... the purchasing power of money goes down, and the standards of living go down, and eventually, you have a civil war," he added.
Faber warned that the mood has turned very very negative among certain groups of society.
Instead of holding cash, Faber, commonly referred to as 'Dr Gloom', advised investors to "gradually accumulate physical gold and silver" while those who want exposure to shares of gold exploration companies should buy them from time-to-time when they become cheap.
"Some of them still have reasonably good value at the present time. This is a long-term strategy because in an environment where governments will print money — and I'm convinced they're gong to bailout Greece, which means you transfer essentially bad assets on to the balance sheet on the government," he said.
When that happens, Faber warned the purchasing power of paper money will go down, rather than an appreciation of precious metal prices.
"Paper money (will go) down relative to precious metals. So in that environment, I think you...should all accumulate some gold."
Verizon earnings fall 75%, largely on health costs
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Verizon Communications Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!vz/quotes/nls/vz (VZ 29.29, -0.27, -0.91%) on Thursday reported a 75% drop in first-quarter earnings, mostly owing to a large onetime charge for retiree-health care costs. The New York-based company said net income attributable to shareholders fell to $409 million, or 14 cents a share, from $1.65 billion, or 58 cents, a year earlier. Revenue climbed 1.2% to $26.91 billion. Excluding onetime costs, Verizon would have earned 56 cents a share, matching Wall Street's consensus. The nation's largest wireless operator gained a net 1.5 million customers, though only 423,000 fell into the most valuable postpaid category. Verizon also added 168,000 FiOS television customers.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Why Apple Gets a Sell Rating
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Apple(AAPL) reported revenue and earnings of $13.5 billion and $3.33 per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 (TRG estimates: $12.02 billion and $2.44 per share).
On the surface this looks like a blowout quarter. Top and bottom-line growth totaled 49% and 86%, both well ahead of expectations. A look behind the numbers suggests otherwise.
Aggressive earnings management comes as no surprise. As noted in previous reports, accounting concerns emerged in fiscal 2009 and accelerated in F1Q10. What does surprise us is the fact that smart money does not appear to be seeing through the trickery. Shares are up sharply in initial after hours trading - misguided bullishness in our view.
Revenue Recognition
Signs of backlog reduction were again apparent. Deferred revenue was reduced 75% year on year and also moved lower on a sequential basis. The decline over the preceding quarter would seem plausible given lower volume (sales down 14% vs. F1Q10). In the previous year, however, revenue deferrals nearly tripled amid 48% sequential sales decline. A reversal of historical tendencies in this latest quarter aggravates the measurable year on year reduction and should raise a red flag.
Earnings Quality
If we normalize reduced R&D expenses (year on year basis, as a % of revenue) and a lenient tax rate, earnings fall to $2.93 per share in sustainable operating terms (12% below reported levels). Precise tax deferrals won't be known until the 10-Q is filed, but we note that corresponding line items on the balance sheet were down roughly 25% year on year (thus pointing to some degree of earnings management). Similarly, we'll have to wait for the 10-Q to assess discretionary expense capitalization and product warranty accounting - both of which were sources of non-operational income in previous quarters. If recent trends hold, sustainable operating earnings will fall even further after factoring in these items.
R&D spending not only raises suspicion in terms of a year on year decline, but the problem becomes even more acute on a comparable basis. Competitor Research In Motion(RIMM), rated sell, spent 6.50% of revenue on product development in its latest quarter as compared to only 3.16% for Apple.
The iPhone is immensely popular and regarded as superior in terms of multimedia applications (i.e., as an entertainment device). Consumer reviews, however, favor the Blackberry when it comes to call clarity, email functionality, and camera quality. Tightfisted R&D expenditures may explain why.
Valuation & Recommendation
Shares are up 15% year to date and valued at 24 times trailing earnings. Chief competitor in the personal computing space Microsoft(MSFT), rated sell, trades at 17 times.
More on AAPL
Stocks Close Flat; Market Digests EarningsWells Fargo, Morgan Stanley: Hot TrendsSell PALM! Against the GrainMarket Activity
Microsoft Corporation| MSFT Apple Incorporated| AAPL Research In Motion Limited| RIMM Mobile communications device comparable Research In Motion also trades at 17 times. Microsoft has its share of P&L and earnings quality concerns and has also resorted to cost containment measures to stabilize expense levels. Apple's recent results have not included restructuring or impairment charges. Research In Motion missed estimates in its latest quarter and also has various operational challenges. Earnings management, however, has not been as flagrant as Apple.
Market appraisals for both Microsoft and Research In Motion already discount some of the abovementioned irregularities. Apple may look cheap if recent results are taken at face value. Valuation looks far less attractive without benefit from questionable P&L quality. We reiterate a sell rating and $228 price objective on Apple (target multiple goes to 19 times revised 2010 EPS estimate from 25 times).
--- Written by Chris Bulkey in Narberth, PA
On the surface this looks like a blowout quarter. Top and bottom-line growth totaled 49% and 86%, both well ahead of expectations. A look behind the numbers suggests otherwise.
Aggressive earnings management comes as no surprise. As noted in previous reports, accounting concerns emerged in fiscal 2009 and accelerated in F1Q10. What does surprise us is the fact that smart money does not appear to be seeing through the trickery. Shares are up sharply in initial after hours trading - misguided bullishness in our view.
Revenue Recognition
Signs of backlog reduction were again apparent. Deferred revenue was reduced 75% year on year and also moved lower on a sequential basis. The decline over the preceding quarter would seem plausible given lower volume (sales down 14% vs. F1Q10). In the previous year, however, revenue deferrals nearly tripled amid 48% sequential sales decline. A reversal of historical tendencies in this latest quarter aggravates the measurable year on year reduction and should raise a red flag.
Earnings Quality
If we normalize reduced R&D expenses (year on year basis, as a % of revenue) and a lenient tax rate, earnings fall to $2.93 per share in sustainable operating terms (12% below reported levels). Precise tax deferrals won't be known until the 10-Q is filed, but we note that corresponding line items on the balance sheet were down roughly 25% year on year (thus pointing to some degree of earnings management). Similarly, we'll have to wait for the 10-Q to assess discretionary expense capitalization and product warranty accounting - both of which were sources of non-operational income in previous quarters. If recent trends hold, sustainable operating earnings will fall even further after factoring in these items.
R&D spending not only raises suspicion in terms of a year on year decline, but the problem becomes even more acute on a comparable basis. Competitor Research In Motion(RIMM), rated sell, spent 6.50% of revenue on product development in its latest quarter as compared to only 3.16% for Apple.
The iPhone is immensely popular and regarded as superior in terms of multimedia applications (i.e., as an entertainment device). Consumer reviews, however, favor the Blackberry when it comes to call clarity, email functionality, and camera quality. Tightfisted R&D expenditures may explain why.
Valuation & Recommendation
Shares are up 15% year to date and valued at 24 times trailing earnings. Chief competitor in the personal computing space Microsoft(MSFT), rated sell, trades at 17 times.
More on AAPL
Stocks Close Flat; Market Digests EarningsWells Fargo, Morgan Stanley: Hot TrendsSell PALM! Against the GrainMarket Activity
Microsoft Corporation| MSFT Apple Incorporated| AAPL Research In Motion Limited| RIMM Mobile communications device comparable Research In Motion also trades at 17 times. Microsoft has its share of P&L and earnings quality concerns and has also resorted to cost containment measures to stabilize expense levels. Apple's recent results have not included restructuring or impairment charges. Research In Motion missed estimates in its latest quarter and also has various operational challenges. Earnings management, however, has not been as flagrant as Apple.
Market appraisals for both Microsoft and Research In Motion already discount some of the abovementioned irregularities. Apple may look cheap if recent results are taken at face value. Valuation looks far less attractive without benefit from questionable P&L quality. We reiterate a sell rating and $228 price objective on Apple (target multiple goes to 19 times revised 2010 EPS estimate from 25 times).
--- Written by Chris Bulkey in Narberth, PA
Why the U.S. Can't Inflate Its Way Out of Debt
This country is in piles of debt. Projections for how much more we could load on in the coming decades are downright nightmarish. You think it's bad now? Just wait.
It's obvious that big changes are in store, but progress (or even the hope of it) is painfully absent. Eventually, Stein's law -- if something can't go on forever, it won't -- will prevail, and we'll be forced to fix the problem.
How we'll do so is the trillion-dollar question. There are only three ways to end runaway deficits: cut spending, raise taxes, or allow deliberate inflation.
The easy way out
The third option is often cited as the "tried and true" method, and not in a good way. Indebted countries habitually ask their reserve banks to run the printing presses at full bore. Governments can then pay their bills with the newly printed money, at the cost of inflation. This eliminates debt without forcing politicians to make unpopular decisions on spending and taxation, which is why it's so prevalent.
But the idea also has a growing chorus of nonpolitical supporters. As an MSN Money article published on Wednesday titled, "Why Inflation Would Be Good For Us," declares:
… a quick bout of higher-than-normal inflation would lower the nation's debt in real dollars, bailing the government out of the debt threat. That means we could avoid Draconian tax increases or big spending cuts, both of which would be politically unpopular and could scuttle the economic recovery.
Sounds neat! Too bad it's fantasy thinking.
The timing of this article was unfortunate. Just 18 hours after it was published, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke sat before the Joint Economic Committee, which asked him point blank about inflating away debt. His answer gets to the heart of the matter: "Given the structure of our debt, [inflation] wouldn't even help reduce the debt ... given that so many of our obligations are indexed."
Bingo. Inflating away debt only works when the obligations are in fixed dollar amounts, like a mortgage. But essentially, all of our long-term fiscal problems are entitlement commitments that grow (are "indexed") with inflation. When inflation rises, spending on Social Security and Medicare rise at the same rate. So the debt-inflation relationship is the opposite of the get-out-of-jail-free card some envision. Debt still goes up in real dollar terms, creating even more of a death spiral.
Problems that won't go away
And I really do mean that "essentially all" of our problems are entitlement commitments. This chart, from the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) 2008 Budget and Economic Outlook, tells the story (the y-axis is spending as a percentage of GDP):
These projections are more than two years old, and they've undoubtedly grown uglier since. In a more recent report, the CBO notes, "Almost all of the projected growth in federal spending other than interest payments on the debt comes from growth in spending on the three largest entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security."
And all three of these programs grow with (or cause) inflation. Inflation in medical costs, in fact, has historically been one of the big drivers of overall inflation. That largely explains Medicare's surging burden, not to mention why premiums at much-maligned megainsurers WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) and Cigna (NYSE: CI) have plowed skyward. For Social Security, inflation measured by the consumer price index (where medical costs are also a component) fuels so-called cost-of-living adjustments, which push entitled benefits higher. When Ida May Fuller received the first Social Security check in 1940, she got $22.54. Today, the average disbursement is $1,066.60. Ponder why this inflation has yet to solve our debt problems, and you'll see how faulty the inflate-ourselves-to-freedom argument is.
What now?
If inflation isn't the answer, then cutting spending and raising taxes are. But doing this scares the everliving mess out of politicians, because it rankles the people who vote for them. Even those who talk tough about spending cuts ultimately cave. A good example came in January, when President Obama proposed creating a deficit reduction committee. The Senate immediately voted 97-0 (a rare show of unanimity) that the commission would be banned from touching Social Security benefits. We've become a morbidly obese country on a mission to outlaw diet and exercise. Good luck with that.
Overhauling entitlement spending is the way out of our long-term debt mess. I just wonder how feasible that is, especially in a proactive way. For now, we'll just wait for Stein's law to kick in.
B
It's obvious that big changes are in store, but progress (or even the hope of it) is painfully absent. Eventually, Stein's law -- if something can't go on forever, it won't -- will prevail, and we'll be forced to fix the problem.
How we'll do so is the trillion-dollar question. There are only three ways to end runaway deficits: cut spending, raise taxes, or allow deliberate inflation.
The easy way out
The third option is often cited as the "tried and true" method, and not in a good way. Indebted countries habitually ask their reserve banks to run the printing presses at full bore. Governments can then pay their bills with the newly printed money, at the cost of inflation. This eliminates debt without forcing politicians to make unpopular decisions on spending and taxation, which is why it's so prevalent.
But the idea also has a growing chorus of nonpolitical supporters. As an MSN Money article published on Wednesday titled, "Why Inflation Would Be Good For Us," declares:
… a quick bout of higher-than-normal inflation would lower the nation's debt in real dollars, bailing the government out of the debt threat. That means we could avoid Draconian tax increases or big spending cuts, both of which would be politically unpopular and could scuttle the economic recovery.
Sounds neat! Too bad it's fantasy thinking.
The timing of this article was unfortunate. Just 18 hours after it was published, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke sat before the Joint Economic Committee, which asked him point blank about inflating away debt. His answer gets to the heart of the matter: "Given the structure of our debt, [inflation] wouldn't even help reduce the debt ... given that so many of our obligations are indexed."
Bingo. Inflating away debt only works when the obligations are in fixed dollar amounts, like a mortgage. But essentially, all of our long-term fiscal problems are entitlement commitments that grow (are "indexed") with inflation. When inflation rises, spending on Social Security and Medicare rise at the same rate. So the debt-inflation relationship is the opposite of the get-out-of-jail-free card some envision. Debt still goes up in real dollar terms, creating even more of a death spiral.
Problems that won't go away
And I really do mean that "essentially all" of our problems are entitlement commitments. This chart, from the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) 2008 Budget and Economic Outlook, tells the story (the y-axis is spending as a percentage of GDP):
These projections are more than two years old, and they've undoubtedly grown uglier since. In a more recent report, the CBO notes, "Almost all of the projected growth in federal spending other than interest payments on the debt comes from growth in spending on the three largest entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security."
And all three of these programs grow with (or cause) inflation. Inflation in medical costs, in fact, has historically been one of the big drivers of overall inflation. That largely explains Medicare's surging burden, not to mention why premiums at much-maligned megainsurers WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) and Cigna (NYSE: CI) have plowed skyward. For Social Security, inflation measured by the consumer price index (where medical costs are also a component) fuels so-called cost-of-living adjustments, which push entitled benefits higher. When Ida May Fuller received the first Social Security check in 1940, she got $22.54. Today, the average disbursement is $1,066.60. Ponder why this inflation has yet to solve our debt problems, and you'll see how faulty the inflate-ourselves-to-freedom argument is.
What now?
If inflation isn't the answer, then cutting spending and raising taxes are. But doing this scares the everliving mess out of politicians, because it rankles the people who vote for them. Even those who talk tough about spending cuts ultimately cave. A good example came in January, when President Obama proposed creating a deficit reduction committee. The Senate immediately voted 97-0 (a rare show of unanimity) that the commission would be banned from touching Social Security benefits. We've become a morbidly obese country on a mission to outlaw diet and exercise. Good luck with that.
Overhauling entitlement spending is the way out of our long-term debt mess. I just wonder how feasible that is, especially in a proactive way. For now, we'll just wait for Stein's law to kick in.
B
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Ariz House: Check Obama's Citizenship
PHOENIX -- The Arizona House on Monday voted for a provision that would require President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate if he hopes to be on the state's ballot when he runs for reelection.
The House voted 31-22 to add the provision to a separate bill. The measure still faces a formal vote.
It would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president.
Phoenix Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema said the bill is one of several measures that are making Arizona "the laughing stock of the nation."
Mesa Republican Rep. Cecil Ash said he has no reason to doubt Obama's citizenship but supports the measure because it could help end doubt.
The House voted 31-22 to add the provision to a separate bill. The measure still faces a formal vote.
It would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president.
Phoenix Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema said the bill is one of several measures that are making Arizona "the laughing stock of the nation."
Mesa Republican Rep. Cecil Ash said he has no reason to doubt Obama's citizenship but supports the measure because it could help end doubt.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The "New Hizballah" built by Syria sparks ME summer war fear
debkafile's military sources disclose a master-plan charted in Tehran and Damascus for transforming the 25,000-strong Hizballah terrorist militia into an organized, mobile army with a whole range of sophisticated missiles and other weapons. The new Hizballah is being trained to carry out such offensive operations as capturing parts of Israel's Galilee and equipped with the hardware for knocking out warplanes, warships and armored strength. Deliveries have begun.
Gates: US has no policy for stalling Iran's nuclear drive
The New York Times Sunday, April 18, reveals a secret memo from US Defense Security Robert Gates determining that the White House has no effective policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress towards nuclear capability. This confirms what debkafile has been saying for more than a year, while also exposing the hollowness of the assurances of Israeli leaders - current and past - that it was safe to line up behind US strategy for preventing Iran obtaining nuclear weapons..
Gates confirmed that there was no strategy to line up behind.
Even so, in the last couple of weeks, President Shimon Peres, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense ministry Ehud Barak and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi have still not abandoned their mantra: It is not up to Israel to address the Iranian nuclear issue, but "the free world," starting with the United States. This is strange, since in all their long conversations with the US defense secretary in recent weeks, they must have discovered that the Obama administration was out of options for Iran. So why have the prime minister and defense minister not switched course and developed an independent position on Israel's vital security concerns before it is too late - or at least stopped deceiving the public with false comfort?
According to debkafile's Washington sources, the Gates memo, filed in January to National Security Adviser James Jones, was leaked now, even though it demonstrates the US president's standard rhetoric on Iran was without substance, in order to bring out the fact that the Obama administration has become reconciled to the reality of an Islamic Republic capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons.
The memo stressed a variety concerns "including the absence of an effective strategy should Iran choose the course that many government and outside analysts consider likely: Iran could assemble all the major parts it needs for a nuclear weapon - fuel, designs and detonators - but just stop short of assembling a fully operational weapon." Gates also calls for "new thinking about how the United States might contain Iran's power if it decided to produce a weapon, and how to deal with the possibility that fuel or weapons could be obtained by one of the terrorist groups Iran supports."
In the light of the memo, administration officials began issuing ambiguous statements in firm tones.
Friday, April 16, Jones insisted: "the fact that we don't announce publicly our entire strategy… doesn't mean we don't have a strategy… we do." Another administration official said last week that the US would ensure that Iran would not "acquire a nuclear capability. That includes the ability to have a breakout."
Regarding this "breakout," Gates expressed concern in his memo that intelligence agencies might miss signals that Iran was taking the final steps towards producing a weapon. He admitted in an interview that it might not be possible to verify that Iran had gone past the threshold to actually assembly a weapon.
Some sources are quoted by the NYT as calling the US defense secretary's memo a wakeup call.
Now that Israel's reliance on Washington has proved badly misplaced, debkafile urges its leaders to treat the memo in the same light and finally get their act together.
Gates confirmed that there was no strategy to line up behind.
Even so, in the last couple of weeks, President Shimon Peres, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense ministry Ehud Barak and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi have still not abandoned their mantra: It is not up to Israel to address the Iranian nuclear issue, but "the free world," starting with the United States. This is strange, since in all their long conversations with the US defense secretary in recent weeks, they must have discovered that the Obama administration was out of options for Iran. So why have the prime minister and defense minister not switched course and developed an independent position on Israel's vital security concerns before it is too late - or at least stopped deceiving the public with false comfort?
According to debkafile's Washington sources, the Gates memo, filed in January to National Security Adviser James Jones, was leaked now, even though it demonstrates the US president's standard rhetoric on Iran was without substance, in order to bring out the fact that the Obama administration has become reconciled to the reality of an Islamic Republic capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons.
The memo stressed a variety concerns "including the absence of an effective strategy should Iran choose the course that many government and outside analysts consider likely: Iran could assemble all the major parts it needs for a nuclear weapon - fuel, designs and detonators - but just stop short of assembling a fully operational weapon." Gates also calls for "new thinking about how the United States might contain Iran's power if it decided to produce a weapon, and how to deal with the possibility that fuel or weapons could be obtained by one of the terrorist groups Iran supports."
In the light of the memo, administration officials began issuing ambiguous statements in firm tones.
Friday, April 16, Jones insisted: "the fact that we don't announce publicly our entire strategy… doesn't mean we don't have a strategy… we do." Another administration official said last week that the US would ensure that Iran would not "acquire a nuclear capability. That includes the ability to have a breakout."
Regarding this "breakout," Gates expressed concern in his memo that intelligence agencies might miss signals that Iran was taking the final steps towards producing a weapon. He admitted in an interview that it might not be possible to verify that Iran had gone past the threshold to actually assembly a weapon.
Some sources are quoted by the NYT as calling the US defense secretary's memo a wakeup call.
Now that Israel's reliance on Washington has proved badly misplaced, debkafile urges its leaders to treat the memo in the same light and finally get their act together.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Apple Lets Opera Browser Use Own Software on iPhone
The Norwegian company that makes the Opera Internet browser said on Tuesday that its software had been approved for use on the iPhone, making it the first browser that competes with Apple’s own software to gain full access to the device.
The Opera Mini browser will be available as a free download for the iPhone and the iPod Touch by Wednesday.
The software, which promotes faster browsing by compressing Internet data before displaying it on a mobile device, will be available on the iPhone and iPod Touch by Wednesday.
In the United States, the Opera Mini browser is primarily found on the BlackBerry. Opera, which said it had 50 million users of its mobile browser before the announcement, planned to give away the Opera Mini at Apple’s application store.
The distribution through Apple would help Opera generate more revenue from the advertising and search engines that the company builds into its browser.
“This is certainly good news for us and this will help us expand tremendously in the United States,” said Tor Odland, a spokesman for Opera, a company that was created in 1995 and has 800 employees. “We are basically on every other type of device in the world and this covers a big hole for us.”
Apple already offers several browsers, like Incognito, Aquari and Shaking Web, besides its own Safari browser at the iPhone app store. But all of those use Safari’s own software rendering engine or other Apple components.
Opera Mini is the first browser, Mr. Odland said, that has been approved to use its own software engine and components on the iPhone.
The approval came after Opera spent several months in negotiations with Apple. It submitted a formal application to Apple a few weeks ago, Mr. Odland said.
Although sales have been rising, Opera has been struggling to maintain profit as it seeks distribution deals with the world’s big mobile phone and computer makers.
The Norwegian company filed an antitrust complaint in December 2007 with the European Commission challenging Microsoft’s practice of bundling its Internet Explorer browser into its Windows operating system.
The commission upheld Opera’s complaint, and Microsoft agreed to distribute the browsers of its rivals, including Opera, through Windows starting this year in Europe.
But the legal victory has not compensated for the effects of the economic slowdown in Europe and Asia, which, with rising operating costs, have weighed on Opera’s financial results.
The company’s net profit fell 88 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, the latest results reported by Opera, to 4 million kroner ($680,000) from 31.1 million kroner a year earlier.
For all of 2009, Opera’s profit fell 65 percent, to 30.9 million kroner, even as revenue rose 59 percent, to 184.9 million kroner. Shares of Opera, which is based in Oslo, rose 3.6 percent Tuesday.
“The Apple announcement is good news for Opera, but I don’t think it will be a game-changer,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst in London for the research firm Gartner. “The browser experience with Safari on the iPhone is fine. That is partly why the iPhone is so popular. That will be tough competition for Opera and the other rival browsers.”
A version of this article appeared in pri
The Opera Mini browser will be available as a free download for the iPhone and the iPod Touch by Wednesday.
The software, which promotes faster browsing by compressing Internet data before displaying it on a mobile device, will be available on the iPhone and iPod Touch by Wednesday.
In the United States, the Opera Mini browser is primarily found on the BlackBerry. Opera, which said it had 50 million users of its mobile browser before the announcement, planned to give away the Opera Mini at Apple’s application store.
The distribution through Apple would help Opera generate more revenue from the advertising and search engines that the company builds into its browser.
“This is certainly good news for us and this will help us expand tremendously in the United States,” said Tor Odland, a spokesman for Opera, a company that was created in 1995 and has 800 employees. “We are basically on every other type of device in the world and this covers a big hole for us.”
Apple already offers several browsers, like Incognito, Aquari and Shaking Web, besides its own Safari browser at the iPhone app store. But all of those use Safari’s own software rendering engine or other Apple components.
Opera Mini is the first browser, Mr. Odland said, that has been approved to use its own software engine and components on the iPhone.
The approval came after Opera spent several months in negotiations with Apple. It submitted a formal application to Apple a few weeks ago, Mr. Odland said.
Although sales have been rising, Opera has been struggling to maintain profit as it seeks distribution deals with the world’s big mobile phone and computer makers.
The Norwegian company filed an antitrust complaint in December 2007 with the European Commission challenging Microsoft’s practice of bundling its Internet Explorer browser into its Windows operating system.
The commission upheld Opera’s complaint, and Microsoft agreed to distribute the browsers of its rivals, including Opera, through Windows starting this year in Europe.
But the legal victory has not compensated for the effects of the economic slowdown in Europe and Asia, which, with rising operating costs, have weighed on Opera’s financial results.
The company’s net profit fell 88 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, the latest results reported by Opera, to 4 million kroner ($680,000) from 31.1 million kroner a year earlier.
For all of 2009, Opera’s profit fell 65 percent, to 30.9 million kroner, even as revenue rose 59 percent, to 184.9 million kroner. Shares of Opera, which is based in Oslo, rose 3.6 percent Tuesday.
“The Apple announcement is good news for Opera, but I don’t think it will be a game-changer,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst in London for the research firm Gartner. “The browser experience with Safari on the iPhone is fine. That is partly why the iPhone is so popular. That will be tough competition for Opera and the other rival browsers.”
A version of this article appeared in pri
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tehran: If Iran is attacked, nuclear devices will go off in American cities
This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world's nuclear club within a month, struck at the heart of President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit which opened Tuesday, April 13. The statement run by the Iranian publication Kayhan said: "If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America's main cities."
debkafile: It was the first time Tehran had threatened America with nuclear terror.
debkafile: It was the first time Tehran had threatened America with nuclear terror.
Did FDR End the Depression?
'He got us out of the Great Depression." That's probably the most frequent comment made about President Franklin Roosevelt, who died 65 years ago today. Every Democratic president from Truman to Obama has believed it, and each has used FDR's New Deal as a model for expanding the government.
It's a myth. FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression—not during the 1930s, and only in a limited sense during World War II.
Let's start with the New Deal. Its various alphabet-soup agencies—the WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)—failed to create sustainable jobs. In May 1939, U.S. unemployment still exceeded 20%. European countries, according to a League of Nations survey, averaged only about 12% in 1938. The New Deal, by forcing taxes up and discouraging entrepreneurs from investing, probably did more harm than good.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Franklin D. Roosevelt
.What about World War II? We need to understand that the near-full employment during the conflict was temporary. Ten million to 12 million soldiers overseas and another 10 million to 15 million people making tanks, bullets and war materiel do not a lasting recovery make. The country essentially traded temporary jobs for a skyrocketing national debt. Many of those jobs had little or no value after the war.
No one knew this more than FDR himself. His key advisers were frantic at the possibility of the Great Depression's return when the war ended and the soldiers came home. The president believed a New Deal revival was the answer—and on Oct. 28, 1944, about six months before his death, he spelled out his vision for a postwar America. It included government-subsidized housing, federal involvement in health care, more TVA projects, and the "right to a useful and remunerative job" provided by the federal government if necessary.
Roosevelt died before the war ended and before he could implement his New Deal revival. His successor, Harry Truman, in a 16,000 word message on Sept. 6, 1945, urged Congress to enact FDR's ideas as the best way to achieve full employment after the war.
Also in OpinionJournal:
Shultz: From Reagan to Obama
Wolfowitz: What About Iran and North Korea?
Schlesinger: The Policy Is Better Than the Rhetoric
Perle: A Dangerous, Short-Sighted Policy
Iklé: Numbers Aren't the Key Issue
Burt: The Goal Remains Nuclear 'Zero'
.Congress—both chambers with Democratic majorities—responded by just saying "no." No to the whole New Deal revival: no federal program for health care, no full-employment act, only limited federal housing, and no increase in minimum wage or Social Security benefits.
Instead, Congress reduced taxes. Income tax rates were cut across the board. FDR's top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%. The lowest rate was cut to 19% from 23%, and with a change in the amount of income exempt from taxation an estimated 12 million Americans were eliminated from the tax rolls entirely.
Corporate tax rates were trimmed and FDR's "excess profits" tax was repealed, which meant that top marginal corporate tax rates effectively went to 38% from 90% after 1945.
Georgia Sen. Walter George, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, defended the Revenue Act of 1945 with arguments that today we would call "supply-side economics." If the tax bill "has the effect which it is hoped it will have," George said, "it will so stimulate the expansion of business as to bring in a greater total revenue."
He was prophetic. By the late 1940s, a revived economy was generating more annual federal revenue than the U.S. had received during the war years, when tax rates were higher. Price controls from the war were also eliminated by the end of 1946. The U.S. began running budget surpluses.
Congress substituted the tonic of freedom for FDR's New Deal revival and the American economy recovered well. Unemployment, which had been in double digits throughout the 1930s, was only 3.9% in 1946 and, except for a couple of short recessions, remained in that range for the next decade.
The Great Depression was over, no thanks to FDR. Yet the myth of his New Deal lives on. With the current effort by President Obama to emulate some of FDR's programs to get us out of the recent deep recession, this myth should be laid to rest.
Mr. Folsom, a professor of history at Hillsdale College, is the author of "New Deal or Raw Deal?" (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Mrs. Folsom is director of Hillsdale College's annual Free Market Forum.
It's a myth. FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression—not during the 1930s, and only in a limited sense during World War II.
Let's start with the New Deal. Its various alphabet-soup agencies—the WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)—failed to create sustainable jobs. In May 1939, U.S. unemployment still exceeded 20%. European countries, according to a League of Nations survey, averaged only about 12% in 1938. The New Deal, by forcing taxes up and discouraging entrepreneurs from investing, probably did more harm than good.
View Full Image
Associated Press
Franklin D. Roosevelt
.What about World War II? We need to understand that the near-full employment during the conflict was temporary. Ten million to 12 million soldiers overseas and another 10 million to 15 million people making tanks, bullets and war materiel do not a lasting recovery make. The country essentially traded temporary jobs for a skyrocketing national debt. Many of those jobs had little or no value after the war.
No one knew this more than FDR himself. His key advisers were frantic at the possibility of the Great Depression's return when the war ended and the soldiers came home. The president believed a New Deal revival was the answer—and on Oct. 28, 1944, about six months before his death, he spelled out his vision for a postwar America. It included government-subsidized housing, federal involvement in health care, more TVA projects, and the "right to a useful and remunerative job" provided by the federal government if necessary.
Roosevelt died before the war ended and before he could implement his New Deal revival. His successor, Harry Truman, in a 16,000 word message on Sept. 6, 1945, urged Congress to enact FDR's ideas as the best way to achieve full employment after the war.
Also in OpinionJournal:
Shultz: From Reagan to Obama
Wolfowitz: What About Iran and North Korea?
Schlesinger: The Policy Is Better Than the Rhetoric
Perle: A Dangerous, Short-Sighted Policy
Iklé: Numbers Aren't the Key Issue
Burt: The Goal Remains Nuclear 'Zero'
.Congress—both chambers with Democratic majorities—responded by just saying "no." No to the whole New Deal revival: no federal program for health care, no full-employment act, only limited federal housing, and no increase in minimum wage or Social Security benefits.
Instead, Congress reduced taxes. Income tax rates were cut across the board. FDR's top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%. The lowest rate was cut to 19% from 23%, and with a change in the amount of income exempt from taxation an estimated 12 million Americans were eliminated from the tax rolls entirely.
Corporate tax rates were trimmed and FDR's "excess profits" tax was repealed, which meant that top marginal corporate tax rates effectively went to 38% from 90% after 1945.
Georgia Sen. Walter George, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, defended the Revenue Act of 1945 with arguments that today we would call "supply-side economics." If the tax bill "has the effect which it is hoped it will have," George said, "it will so stimulate the expansion of business as to bring in a greater total revenue."
He was prophetic. By the late 1940s, a revived economy was generating more annual federal revenue than the U.S. had received during the war years, when tax rates were higher. Price controls from the war were also eliminated by the end of 1946. The U.S. began running budget surpluses.
Congress substituted the tonic of freedom for FDR's New Deal revival and the American economy recovered well. Unemployment, which had been in double digits throughout the 1930s, was only 3.9% in 1946 and, except for a couple of short recessions, remained in that range for the next decade.
The Great Depression was over, no thanks to FDR. Yet the myth of his New Deal lives on. With the current effort by President Obama to emulate some of FDR's programs to get us out of the recent deep recession, this myth should be laid to rest.
Mr. Folsom, a professor of history at Hillsdale College, is the author of "New Deal or Raw Deal?" (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Mrs. Folsom is director of Hillsdale College's annual Free Market Forum.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Union Memo Hints At Gov.'s Death
HACKENSACK, N.J. (CBS) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1
NJ Governor Chris Christie delivers the state budget address on March 16, 2010.
CBS
Close
numSlides of totalImages Related Slideshows Celebs Who Lean To The Right 2010 Celebrity Deaths Shocking Celebrity Suicides Celebrities In Playboy Best Picture Blunders Celebrity Real Names...Revealed! Hottest Celebrity Moms Megan Fox -- Then & Now World's Most Useless Facts Who Is My Celebrity Parent? Related StoriesPrivatization Effort Advancing In NJ
(4/6/2010)
Some NJ School Bosses Sharing Pain Of Aid Cuts
(4/4/2010)
N.J. Power Brokers Rip Obama Drilling Plan
(4/1/2010)
Christie Goes To War With NJ Teachers Over Wages
(3/31/2010)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn't laughing about a teachers union's memo that hints of his death.
The memo is the latest salvo in a war of words between Christie and the union over wage and benefits concessions.
The Record of Bergen County obtained the Bergen County Education Association memo that includes a closing prayer:
"Dear Lord this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governorAssociation president Joe Coppola says the "prayer" was a joke and was never meant to be made public.
Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak says there's nothing professional about the group.
Meanwhile, Drewniak says the governor is also considering reopening union contracts to try to get salary concessions at the institutes of higher learning.
Unionized employees at the schools deferred a 3.5 percent increase last year when former Gov. Jon Corzine reopened their contracts.
College and university officials are considering cuts to staff and programs to offset a $173 million cut to higher education in Christie's proposed budget.
On Tuesday, Christie extended a deadline for school districts to receive additional state aide in exchange for teachers agreeing to wage freezes.
NJ Governor Chris Christie delivers the state budget address on March 16, 2010.
CBS
Close
numSlides of totalImages Related Slideshows Celebs Who Lean To The Right 2010 Celebrity Deaths Shocking Celebrity Suicides Celebrities In Playboy Best Picture Blunders Celebrity Real Names...Revealed! Hottest Celebrity Moms Megan Fox -- Then & Now World's Most Useless Facts Who Is My Celebrity Parent? Related StoriesPrivatization Effort Advancing In NJ
(4/6/2010)
Some NJ School Bosses Sharing Pain Of Aid Cuts
(4/4/2010)
N.J. Power Brokers Rip Obama Drilling Plan
(4/1/2010)
Christie Goes To War With NJ Teachers Over Wages
(3/31/2010)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn't laughing about a teachers union's memo that hints of his death.
The memo is the latest salvo in a war of words between Christie and the union over wage and benefits concessions.
The Record of Bergen County obtained the Bergen County Education Association memo that includes a closing prayer:
"Dear Lord this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governorAssociation president Joe Coppola says the "prayer" was a joke and was never meant to be made public.
Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak says there's nothing professional about the group.
Meanwhile, Drewniak says the governor is also considering reopening union contracts to try to get salary concessions at the institutes of higher learning.
Unionized employees at the schools deferred a 3.5 percent increase last year when former Gov. Jon Corzine reopened their contracts.
College and university officials are considering cuts to staff and programs to offset a $173 million cut to higher education in Christie's proposed budget.
On Tuesday, Christie extended a deadline for school districts to receive additional state aide in exchange for teachers agreeing to wage freezes.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Ala. Dental Spat May Foreshadow Obama Plan Effects
Alone in a meeting room, trustees of the Alabama Dental Association complained about Sarrell Dental Center, a nonprofit corporation that treats thousands of needy children on Medicaid.
In a rambling exchange, leaders of the 1,800-member professional organization said they were concerned about Sarrell's quality of care, and they lamented that for-profit dentists face tough business demands. Something needed to be done, they agreed.
The comments — made public after Sarrell Dental obtained a transcript of the session — helped blow the lid off a simmering dispute between the nonprofit chain of clinics and Alabama's traditional dentists. Sarrell Dental has since filed a slander lawsuit against one of the board members, and the state's only dental school this week pulled its students out of two Sarrell clinics where they saw patients.
The acrimony is similar to turf battles in other states as companies, rather than private dentists, step in to care for young people covered by Medicaid. The private offices typically take Medicaid patients, but advocates say there simply aren't enough dentists to treat the needy across the country.
The conflicts, which have been brewing over a decade, could become more common with the passage of President Barack Obama's health care bill, which includes mandatory dental coverage for kids, said Meg Booth of the Washington-based advocacy group Children's Dental Health Project.
"The safety net is not large enough to absorb the number of children who are not able to get into private dental care," Booth said. "This is very much because of the lack of access to dental care."
Nationally, some 26 million children lack dental insurance coverage. But only 37 percent of the children eligible for Medicaid-funded dental care visit a dentist at least once a year, according to a report released last year by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
The interim executive director of the Alabama Dental Association, Dr. Zack Studstill, doesn't deny there's a problem with needy children getting adequate dental treatment in the state. But the idea of a corporation or nonprofit organization owning dental clinics is new in Alabama, and established dentists aren't sure what it will mean in the long-term, he said.
Sarrell Dental counters that Alabama's dental establishment is endangering care for thousands of poor children by trying to limit the growth of corporate and nonprofit chains.
To illustrate what it called attack by the state dental association, Sarrell Dental released a transcript of the Jan. 31 trustees meeting to the public. Comments from the meeting are part of the lawsuit filed by Sarrell in March against one of the participants, Dr. Steve Mitchell, who teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
This week, UAB said its dental students no longer would work at Sarrell clinics, where they have treated patients under a $400,000 contract. Sarrell's chief marketing officer, Brandi Mangum Parris, said the school acted under pressure from alumni and private dentists.
University spokeswoman Dale Turnbough said students and dental residents have to receive constant supervision by credentialed teachers.
"We could not determine a mutually agreeable approach to this with Sarrell clinics," she said.
During the trustees meeting, participants spoke of the lack of a level playing field between the nonprofits and private dentists, who typically buy or lease their own offices and face business pressures aside from fixing teeth. There was discussion of legislation to control nonprofits.
Mitchell noted that local leaders are happy someone is treating the poor, who can receive services from cleanings to fillings at Sarrell clinics.
"And you need to be very careful you don't give the impression that we're just trying to protect our turf if we try to do something about this," added Mitchell, who is in charge of undergraduate pediatric dentistry at UAB.
Studstill, in an interview and statement, said the trustees debated how Sarrell clinics operated because dental students were working there outside the auspices of their school.
The nonprofit has treated 130,000 patients since its founding in 2005 and has eight clinics statewide. A huge lack of access to dental care for the needy has fueled its growth, and the state's dental establishment is simply intimidated, said Parris.
"I think it is that growth that scares them," she said. "They don't understand it."
Mitchell worked at a Sarrell Dental clinic until recently, according to the suit, and he helped line up students to help treat kids.
But Mitchell's tone changed, the suit claims, and he has gone down a road of "malicious conduct" by accusing the company of providing substandard care and of letting students treat patients without the supervision that is required by law. Parris said Sarrell has 23 staff dentists who help supervise students.
Mitchell didn't return messages seeking comment.
The friction isn't confined to Alabama. Dentists complained when three private companies opened clinics to treat Medicaid patients in Massachusetts five or six years ago, said Mary E. Foley, who was in charge of the state's Medicaid dental program at the time.
"I was getting calls from all over. It was, `Who are these people, and what are they doing?'" said Foley, now executive director of the Medicaid/SCHIP Dental Association, composed of state officials dealing with Medicaid dental care.
Similar questions arose across New England and in Western states including Arizona and Colorado, she said.
While as many as 70 percent of Alabama's dentists accept Medicaid, there still aren't enough to treat those most at risk for serious problems with their teeth: Children under 2 years of age living in poverty.
"The dental associations are right in ensuring quality of care," said Booth, from the Children's Dental Health Project. "At the same time, I would hate to see a state where the dental association doesn't have a strong participation in Medicaid and also doesn't want others to see those kids."
In a rambling exchange, leaders of the 1,800-member professional organization said they were concerned about Sarrell's quality of care, and they lamented that for-profit dentists face tough business demands. Something needed to be done, they agreed.
The comments — made public after Sarrell Dental obtained a transcript of the session — helped blow the lid off a simmering dispute between the nonprofit chain of clinics and Alabama's traditional dentists. Sarrell Dental has since filed a slander lawsuit against one of the board members, and the state's only dental school this week pulled its students out of two Sarrell clinics where they saw patients.
The acrimony is similar to turf battles in other states as companies, rather than private dentists, step in to care for young people covered by Medicaid. The private offices typically take Medicaid patients, but advocates say there simply aren't enough dentists to treat the needy across the country.
The conflicts, which have been brewing over a decade, could become more common with the passage of President Barack Obama's health care bill, which includes mandatory dental coverage for kids, said Meg Booth of the Washington-based advocacy group Children's Dental Health Project.
"The safety net is not large enough to absorb the number of children who are not able to get into private dental care," Booth said. "This is very much because of the lack of access to dental care."
Nationally, some 26 million children lack dental insurance coverage. But only 37 percent of the children eligible for Medicaid-funded dental care visit a dentist at least once a year, according to a report released last year by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
The interim executive director of the Alabama Dental Association, Dr. Zack Studstill, doesn't deny there's a problem with needy children getting adequate dental treatment in the state. But the idea of a corporation or nonprofit organization owning dental clinics is new in Alabama, and established dentists aren't sure what it will mean in the long-term, he said.
Sarrell Dental counters that Alabama's dental establishment is endangering care for thousands of poor children by trying to limit the growth of corporate and nonprofit chains.
To illustrate what it called attack by the state dental association, Sarrell Dental released a transcript of the Jan. 31 trustees meeting to the public. Comments from the meeting are part of the lawsuit filed by Sarrell in March against one of the participants, Dr. Steve Mitchell, who teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
This week, UAB said its dental students no longer would work at Sarrell clinics, where they have treated patients under a $400,000 contract. Sarrell's chief marketing officer, Brandi Mangum Parris, said the school acted under pressure from alumni and private dentists.
University spokeswoman Dale Turnbough said students and dental residents have to receive constant supervision by credentialed teachers.
"We could not determine a mutually agreeable approach to this with Sarrell clinics," she said.
During the trustees meeting, participants spoke of the lack of a level playing field between the nonprofits and private dentists, who typically buy or lease their own offices and face business pressures aside from fixing teeth. There was discussion of legislation to control nonprofits.
Mitchell noted that local leaders are happy someone is treating the poor, who can receive services from cleanings to fillings at Sarrell clinics.
"And you need to be very careful you don't give the impression that we're just trying to protect our turf if we try to do something about this," added Mitchell, who is in charge of undergraduate pediatric dentistry at UAB.
Studstill, in an interview and statement, said the trustees debated how Sarrell clinics operated because dental students were working there outside the auspices of their school.
The nonprofit has treated 130,000 patients since its founding in 2005 and has eight clinics statewide. A huge lack of access to dental care for the needy has fueled its growth, and the state's dental establishment is simply intimidated, said Parris.
"I think it is that growth that scares them," she said. "They don't understand it."
Mitchell worked at a Sarrell Dental clinic until recently, according to the suit, and he helped line up students to help treat kids.
But Mitchell's tone changed, the suit claims, and he has gone down a road of "malicious conduct" by accusing the company of providing substandard care and of letting students treat patients without the supervision that is required by law. Parris said Sarrell has 23 staff dentists who help supervise students.
Mitchell didn't return messages seeking comment.
The friction isn't confined to Alabama. Dentists complained when three private companies opened clinics to treat Medicaid patients in Massachusetts five or six years ago, said Mary E. Foley, who was in charge of the state's Medicaid dental program at the time.
"I was getting calls from all over. It was, `Who are these people, and what are they doing?'" said Foley, now executive director of the Medicaid/SCHIP Dental Association, composed of state officials dealing with Medicaid dental care.
Similar questions arose across New England and in Western states including Arizona and Colorado, she said.
While as many as 70 percent of Alabama's dentists accept Medicaid, there still aren't enough to treat those most at risk for serious problems with their teeth: Children under 2 years of age living in poverty.
"The dental associations are right in ensuring quality of care," said Booth, from the Children's Dental Health Project. "At the same time, I would hate to see a state where the dental association doesn't have a strong participation in Medicaid and also doesn't want others to see those kids."
Florida poised to become Vegas of Southeast...
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist, the Seminole tribe of Florida and once-reluctant lawmakers have signed off on a gambling deal guaranteed to bring at least $1 billion to the state over the next five years.
And after that, Florida would be poised to become the Las Vegas of the Southeastern United States, according to the House's chief gambling negotiator Bill Galvano.
"That's a very real probability. Yes," Galvano, R-Bradenton said. Galvano, Sen. Dennis Jones and representatives of the governor's office and the tribe hashed out final details of the agreement on Good Friday and announced with little notice this morning that they had a deal.
The lynchpin of the deal is the five-year agreement with the Seminoles giving them the exclusive rights to run banked card games, including blackjack, at five of their seven facilities, including their lucrative Tampa Hard Rock casino that brings in at least half of all the tribe's Florida gambling revenue, according to Galvano.
Most important for the tribe is the prohibition against any of the state's pari-mutuels outside of Broward and Miami-Dade counties to run the card games.
"When the tribe is committing this type of money, it's important to know the scope of gaming that we're dealing with and what kind of competition or exclusivity you have," said Jim Allen, chief of the tribe's gambling operations.
The third time could be the charm for the Seminoles' gambling agreement — lawmakers twice before rejected compacts struck between the tribe and Crist.
Galvano had steadfastly refused to allow the tribe to operate the banked card games, although the Seminoles began running them without authorization from the state for at least a year. Federal authorities had repeatedly threatened to intervene and make up their own rules for the games if the state and the tribe did not come to an agreement.
The latest arrangement, which Crist is expected to sign as soon as Wednesday, gives the Seminoles five years to ramp up operations while the state considers opening the doors to the European and Las Vegas-based casinos that have come courting.
That's why the new deal requires that the Seminoles keep paying the state even if another deal is struck with one of the gambling operations.
The five year term also gives the state "an opportunity to catch our breath," Galvano said. "At that point we know what the deal is and we have the ability to decide if banked card games is something we want in our borders."
Under the first two compacts signed by Crist, the money from the tribe would have been earmarked for education. But the new deal allows lawmakers to spend the $1 billion anywhere they want.
"This really bodes well for the future of Florida," Crist, flanked by representatives of the tribe including chairman Mitchell Cypress and a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers, said at a press conference this morning. "The compact will help improve the quality of life for all Floridians and it could benefit the tribe and all our entire state."
The Senate could pass the agreement Thursday, the same day Galvano's Select Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review is expected to approve it.
"This cleans up and resolves a controversy that has been festering for the last two decades," Galvano said.
Palm Beach Kennel Club owner Pat Rooney Jr. was disappointed with the latest negotiations, however.
He and pari-mutuel owners in Tampa Bay and elsewhere in the state had hoped lawmakers would allow them to operate video slot machines, or "slots-lite" to boost their revenue and compete with the nearby Seminole casinos.
"Just from an economic standpoint, we're at a disadvantage with the product they have," said Rooney, who is running for state House.
Rooney's lobbyists have been walking the Capitol halls for more than a year to drum up support for their issue. Rooney said he's at the mercy of the legislature.
"Sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree. On this one, obviously we feel like if we were given the opportunity to compete we could. They're essentially making the decision that they're not going to allow us to do that," he said.
The Senate's head gambling negotiator Dennis Jones said lawmakers considered PBKC and the Tampa Bay tracks but left them out because "we didn't feel it was a big enough issue to take all the other positions and put them at risk."
Rooney concluded with a statement regarding the Seminole compact and other deals that rang throughout the Capitol on Tuesday: "It is what it is."
"We'll keep fighting. You can fight as long as you want. But at some point it is what it is," he said.
dara_kam@pbpost.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And after that, Florida would be poised to become the Las Vegas of the Southeastern United States, according to the House's chief gambling negotiator Bill Galvano.
"That's a very real probability. Yes," Galvano, R-Bradenton said. Galvano, Sen. Dennis Jones and representatives of the governor's office and the tribe hashed out final details of the agreement on Good Friday and announced with little notice this morning that they had a deal.
The lynchpin of the deal is the five-year agreement with the Seminoles giving them the exclusive rights to run banked card games, including blackjack, at five of their seven facilities, including their lucrative Tampa Hard Rock casino that brings in at least half of all the tribe's Florida gambling revenue, according to Galvano.
Most important for the tribe is the prohibition against any of the state's pari-mutuels outside of Broward and Miami-Dade counties to run the card games.
"When the tribe is committing this type of money, it's important to know the scope of gaming that we're dealing with and what kind of competition or exclusivity you have," said Jim Allen, chief of the tribe's gambling operations.
The third time could be the charm for the Seminoles' gambling agreement — lawmakers twice before rejected compacts struck between the tribe and Crist.
Galvano had steadfastly refused to allow the tribe to operate the banked card games, although the Seminoles began running them without authorization from the state for at least a year. Federal authorities had repeatedly threatened to intervene and make up their own rules for the games if the state and the tribe did not come to an agreement.
The latest arrangement, which Crist is expected to sign as soon as Wednesday, gives the Seminoles five years to ramp up operations while the state considers opening the doors to the European and Las Vegas-based casinos that have come courting.
That's why the new deal requires that the Seminoles keep paying the state even if another deal is struck with one of the gambling operations.
The five year term also gives the state "an opportunity to catch our breath," Galvano said. "At that point we know what the deal is and we have the ability to decide if banked card games is something we want in our borders."
Under the first two compacts signed by Crist, the money from the tribe would have been earmarked for education. But the new deal allows lawmakers to spend the $1 billion anywhere they want.
"This really bodes well for the future of Florida," Crist, flanked by representatives of the tribe including chairman Mitchell Cypress and a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers, said at a press conference this morning. "The compact will help improve the quality of life for all Floridians and it could benefit the tribe and all our entire state."
The Senate could pass the agreement Thursday, the same day Galvano's Select Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review is expected to approve it.
"This cleans up and resolves a controversy that has been festering for the last two decades," Galvano said.
Palm Beach Kennel Club owner Pat Rooney Jr. was disappointed with the latest negotiations, however.
He and pari-mutuel owners in Tampa Bay and elsewhere in the state had hoped lawmakers would allow them to operate video slot machines, or "slots-lite" to boost their revenue and compete with the nearby Seminole casinos.
"Just from an economic standpoint, we're at a disadvantage with the product they have," said Rooney, who is running for state House.
Rooney's lobbyists have been walking the Capitol halls for more than a year to drum up support for their issue. Rooney said he's at the mercy of the legislature.
"Sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree. On this one, obviously we feel like if we were given the opportunity to compete we could. They're essentially making the decision that they're not going to allow us to do that," he said.
The Senate's head gambling negotiator Dennis Jones said lawmakers considered PBKC and the Tampa Bay tracks but left them out because "we didn't feel it was a big enough issue to take all the other positions and put them at risk."
Rooney concluded with a statement regarding the Seminole compact and other deals that rang throughout the Capitol on Tuesday: "It is what it is."
"We'll keep fighting. You can fight as long as you want. But at some point it is what it is," he said.
dara_kam@pbpost.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, April 5, 2010
Bowing to Tehran
There are words for national leaders who attempt to appease their enemies while at the same time shaming and humiliating their friends. One of the kindest of the words is "naive."
This comes to mind because of President Obama's recent overtures to the terrorist state of Iran, while shaming Israel.
In recent months and days, President Obama has, once again, reached out a supplicating hand to The Islamic Republic of Iran, only to be met by mockery, sarcasm, and rebuff. He has also agreed to only the most modest of sanctions against the Tehran regime to induce it to abandon its nuclear weapons program -- a program which Tehran's Ahmadinejad has said he will not abandon no matter what the rest of the world does.
These love notes go out to a nation that has brutally repressed its own people, is training our vicious Taliban enemies in Afghanistan, has long been aiding factions killing Americans in Iraq…the same nation that killed 244 American Marines and other fighting men in the Beirut bombing of 1983 and seized the U.S. Embassy and kept our Foreign Service personnel hostage there for over 400 days.
These roses are going out to a nation which has shown absolutely zero interest in making peace with the United States.
At the same time, Mr. Obama has done all he could to humiliate Benjamin Netanyahu, Premier of Israel, because Israel wants to build 1600 apartments for its citizens in Jerusalem. This is in Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Not a settlement. The capital of a sovereign state.
The humiliation included personal insults and slights to Mr. Netanyahu, who had flown to Washington to plead with Mr. Obama to understand why Israel is doing what it's doing. Just by the way, I do not see Ahmadinejad flying to D.C. to speak to Mr. Obama at all. In a nutshell, Barack Obama is more concerned about Jews building homes in Jerusalem than about Iran building a nuclear weapon. This is almost unbelievable.
I guess the idea is that if the U.S. treats Israel badly, the Moslems and Arabs will like the U.S. better. Why don't we tell that to the Russians, who were Israel's sworn foe and against whom the Moslems fought desperately in Afghanistan -- with our help. Is Israel the reason Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq by drilling holes into each other with electric drills? Does President Obama really believe that making Israel give up building on a few acres in Jerusalem will change the mood of a terrorist state pledged to annihilate all of Israel -- and to do whatever it can to bring down "the Great Satan…" The United States of America?
Western nations have tried bowing down to aggressive dictatorships before. It was called appeasement in the 1930s and it led to World War II. There is absolutely no sign it will work any better this time. Dictators do not respect weakness. Israel knows it. Mr. Obama doesn't, but let's hope he will learn.
This comes to mind because of President Obama's recent overtures to the terrorist state of Iran, while shaming Israel.
In recent months and days, President Obama has, once again, reached out a supplicating hand to The Islamic Republic of Iran, only to be met by mockery, sarcasm, and rebuff. He has also agreed to only the most modest of sanctions against the Tehran regime to induce it to abandon its nuclear weapons program -- a program which Tehran's Ahmadinejad has said he will not abandon no matter what the rest of the world does.
These love notes go out to a nation that has brutally repressed its own people, is training our vicious Taliban enemies in Afghanistan, has long been aiding factions killing Americans in Iraq…the same nation that killed 244 American Marines and other fighting men in the Beirut bombing of 1983 and seized the U.S. Embassy and kept our Foreign Service personnel hostage there for over 400 days.
These roses are going out to a nation which has shown absolutely zero interest in making peace with the United States.
At the same time, Mr. Obama has done all he could to humiliate Benjamin Netanyahu, Premier of Israel, because Israel wants to build 1600 apartments for its citizens in Jerusalem. This is in Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Not a settlement. The capital of a sovereign state.
The humiliation included personal insults and slights to Mr. Netanyahu, who had flown to Washington to plead with Mr. Obama to understand why Israel is doing what it's doing. Just by the way, I do not see Ahmadinejad flying to D.C. to speak to Mr. Obama at all. In a nutshell, Barack Obama is more concerned about Jews building homes in Jerusalem than about Iran building a nuclear weapon. This is almost unbelievable.
I guess the idea is that if the U.S. treats Israel badly, the Moslems and Arabs will like the U.S. better. Why don't we tell that to the Russians, who were Israel's sworn foe and against whom the Moslems fought desperately in Afghanistan -- with our help. Is Israel the reason Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq by drilling holes into each other with electric drills? Does President Obama really believe that making Israel give up building on a few acres in Jerusalem will change the mood of a terrorist state pledged to annihilate all of Israel -- and to do whatever it can to bring down "the Great Satan…" The United States of America?
Western nations have tried bowing down to aggressive dictatorships before. It was called appeasement in the 1930s and it led to World War II. There is absolutely no sign it will work any better this time. Dictators do not respect weakness. Israel knows it. Mr. Obama doesn't, but let's hope he will learn.
Issa aims to unmask health care deals
A top House Republican is investigating the legislative deals the White House and Democratic leadership cut with special interest groups while crafting the new health care reform law. And California Rep. Darrell Issa is not happy with the American Medical Association’s terse response to his questions.
Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, sent letters to five special interest groups, most of which supported reform and cut deals with the Democrats.
“Contrary to the president’s oft-stated goal of transparency, the rank-and-file members of the Democratic Caucus and the entire Republican Conference have not had the opportunity to participate in the negotiations between the Democratic leadership, the White House and health care stakeholders. This is troubling to members of Congress who value transparency in government,” Issa wrote to the AMA, AFSCME, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Hospital Association and PhRMA.
Issa asked the groups to detail the health care meetings they had with White House and Democratic congressional leadership officials, what benefits they won from the negotiations and what they were required to provide in return.
PhRMA, the drug industry’s powerful Washington lobbying group, cut a $90 billion deal with the White House and Senate Democrats. The AHA and the hospital industry cut a $155 billion deal with Democrats to help pay for reform. The union AFSCME successfully lobbied the White House to soften the tax on high-end insurance plans. The Chamber had multiple meetings with White House and congressional staffers, but ultimately opposed the legislation.
The AMA, one of the nation’s most prominent doctors’ groups, was a big supporter of reform even though its No. 1 priority — a permanent solution to looming annual cuts to doctors’ Medicare reimbursements — was eventually stripped from the legislation. The so-called doc fix was stripped from the bill because of its expense, but Democrats have repeatedly promised to address the problem this year.
The doc fix’s unfinished status may help explain AMA’s two-paragraph response to Issa’s questions. AMA president James Rohack told Issa his group lobbied, but not much else.
“Such advocacy has always been in the constitutionally protected tradition of petitioning government and elected representatives for redress and has not resulted in any ‘pre-arranged deal or agreement’ or other inappropriate quid pro quo,” Rohack wrote to Issa.
Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella blasted the AMA’s response calling it “totally unacceptable” and “incomplete.”
“If everything that happened is justifiable and defendable, they really should have no issue in providing us with answers,” Bardella said. “One way or the other, we’re going to get answers to these questions.”
Issa will send another letter to the AMA asking for more complete answers. And if need be, Bardella said, Issa will explore deposing or subpoenaing the AMA or any other group that does not provide sufficient answers.
An AMA spokeswoman fired back, saying, “We’re troubled that this comment came via a reporter and not directly from the congressman’s office, and, while we stand by our letter, we would be pleased to continue our ongoing dialogue with Rep. Issa.”
The group supported health reform because it improved the system, but she said the AMA is still working for a permanent doc fix.
Of the five groups, the AMA and the Chamber have responded to the committee, Bardella said.
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35413.html#ixzz0kHf9JCII
Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, sent letters to five special interest groups, most of which supported reform and cut deals with the Democrats.
“Contrary to the president’s oft-stated goal of transparency, the rank-and-file members of the Democratic Caucus and the entire Republican Conference have not had the opportunity to participate in the negotiations between the Democratic leadership, the White House and health care stakeholders. This is troubling to members of Congress who value transparency in government,” Issa wrote to the AMA, AFSCME, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Hospital Association and PhRMA.
Issa asked the groups to detail the health care meetings they had with White House and Democratic congressional leadership officials, what benefits they won from the negotiations and what they were required to provide in return.
PhRMA, the drug industry’s powerful Washington lobbying group, cut a $90 billion deal with the White House and Senate Democrats. The AHA and the hospital industry cut a $155 billion deal with Democrats to help pay for reform. The union AFSCME successfully lobbied the White House to soften the tax on high-end insurance plans. The Chamber had multiple meetings with White House and congressional staffers, but ultimately opposed the legislation.
The AMA, one of the nation’s most prominent doctors’ groups, was a big supporter of reform even though its No. 1 priority — a permanent solution to looming annual cuts to doctors’ Medicare reimbursements — was eventually stripped from the legislation. The so-called doc fix was stripped from the bill because of its expense, but Democrats have repeatedly promised to address the problem this year.
The doc fix’s unfinished status may help explain AMA’s two-paragraph response to Issa’s questions. AMA president James Rohack told Issa his group lobbied, but not much else.
“Such advocacy has always been in the constitutionally protected tradition of petitioning government and elected representatives for redress and has not resulted in any ‘pre-arranged deal or agreement’ or other inappropriate quid pro quo,” Rohack wrote to Issa.
Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella blasted the AMA’s response calling it “totally unacceptable” and “incomplete.”
“If everything that happened is justifiable and defendable, they really should have no issue in providing us with answers,” Bardella said. “One way or the other, we’re going to get answers to these questions.”
Issa will send another letter to the AMA asking for more complete answers. And if need be, Bardella said, Issa will explore deposing or subpoenaing the AMA or any other group that does not provide sufficient answers.
An AMA spokeswoman fired back, saying, “We’re troubled that this comment came via a reporter and not directly from the congressman’s office, and, while we stand by our letter, we would be pleased to continue our ongoing dialogue with Rep. Issa.”
The group supported health reform because it improved the system, but she said the AMA is still working for a permanent doc fix.
Of the five groups, the AMA and the Chamber have responded to the committee, Bardella said.
Back to top
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35413.html#ixzz0kHf9JCII
Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms
President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons, even in self-defense.
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Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama discussing on Monday his new nuclear strategy, which would limit the conditions for using such weapons.
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But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.
Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.
Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.
It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.
Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.
White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.
Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”
The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.
The most immediate test of the new strategy is likely to be in dealing with Iran, which has defied the international community by developing a nuclear program that it insists is peaceful but that the United States and its allies say is a precursor to weapons. Asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, Mr. Obama said he was now convinced that “the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.
He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a “nuclear capable” Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.
“I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House at a daylong Easter egg roll. But he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office.
“I think it’s safe to say that there was a time when North Korea was said to be simply a nuclear-capable state until it kicked out the I.A.E.A. and become a self-professed nuclear state,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “And so rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability.”
Mr. Obama said he wanted a new United Nations sanctions resolution against Iran “that has bite,” but he would not embrace the phrase “crippling sanctions” once used by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And he acknowledged the limitations of United Nations action. “We’re not naïve that any single set of sanctions automatically is going to change Iranian behavior,” he said, adding “there’s no light switch in this process.”
In the year since Mr. Obama gave a speech in Prague declaring that he would shift the policy of the United States toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, his staff has been meeting — and arguing — over how to turn that commitment into a workable policy, without undermining the credibility of the country’s nuclear deterrent.
The strategy to be released on Tuesday is months late, partly because Mr. Obama had to adjudicate among advisers who feared he was not changing American policy significantly enough, and those who feared that anything too precipitous could embolden potential adversaries. One senior official said that the new strategy was the product of 150 meetings, including 30 convened by the White House National Security Council, and that even then Mr. Obama had to step in to order rewrites.
He ended up with a document that differed considerably from the one President George W. Bush published in early 2002, just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush, too, argued for a post-cold-war rethinking of nuclear deterrence, reducing American reliance on those weapons.
But Mr. Bush’s document also reserved the right to use nuclear weapons “to deter a wide range of threats,” including banned chemical and biological weapons and large-scale conventional attacks. Mr. Obama’s strategy abandons that option — except if the attack is by a nuclear state, or a nonsignatory or violator of the nonproliferation treaty.
The document to be released Tuesday after months of study led by the Defense Department will declare that “the fundamental role” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, allies or partners, a narrower presumption than the past. But Mr. Obama rejected the formulation sought by arms control advocates to declare that the “sole role” of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack.
There are five declared nuclear states — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Three states with nuclear weapons have refused to sign — India, Pakistan and Israel — and North Korea renounced the treaty in 2003. Iran remains a signatory, but the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly found it in violation of its obligations, because it has hidden nuclear plants and refused to answer questions about evidence it was working on a warhead.
In shifting the nuclear deterrent toward combating proliferation and the sale or transfer of nuclear material to terrorists or nonnuclear states, Mr. Obama seized on language developed in the last years of the Bush administration. It had warned North Korea that it would be held “fully accountable” for any transfer of weapons or technology. But the next year, North Korea was caught aiding Syria in building a nuclear reactor but suffered no specific consequence.
Mr. Obama was asked whether the American failure to make North Korea pay a heavy price for the aid to Syria undercut Washington’s credibility.
“I don’t think countries around the world are interested in testing our credibility when it comes to these issues,” he said. He said such activity would leave a country vulnerable to a nuclear strike, and added, “We take that very seriously because we think that set of threats present the most serious security challenge to the United States.”
He indicated that he hoped to use this week’s treaty signing with Russia as a stepping stone toward more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals down the road, but suggested that would have to extend beyond the old paradigm of Russian-American relations.
“We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with NATO as a whole,” he said.
An obvious such issue would be the estimated 200 tactical nuclear weapons the United States still has stationed in Western Europe. Russia has called for their removal, and there is growing interest among European nations in such a move as well. But Mr. Obama said he wanted to consult with NATO allies before making such a commitment.
The summit meeting that opens next week in Washington will bring together nearly four dozen world leaders, the largest such gathering by an American president since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago. Mr. Obama said he hoped to use the session to lay down tangible commitments by individual countries toward his goal of securing the world’s nuclear material so it does not fall into the hands of terrorists or dangerous states.
“Our expectation is not that there’s just some vague, gauzy statement about us not wanting to see loose nuclear materials,” he said. “We anticipate a communiqué that spells out very clearly, here’s how we’re going to achieve locking down all the nuclear materials over the next four years.”
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President Obama discussing on Monday his new nuclear strategy, which would limit the conditions for using such weapons.
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But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.
Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.
Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.
It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.
Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.
White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.
Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”
The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.
The most immediate test of the new strategy is likely to be in dealing with Iran, which has defied the international community by developing a nuclear program that it insists is peaceful but that the United States and its allies say is a precursor to weapons. Asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, Mr. Obama said he was now convinced that “the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.
He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a “nuclear capable” Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.
“I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House at a daylong Easter egg roll. But he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office.
“I think it’s safe to say that there was a time when North Korea was said to be simply a nuclear-capable state until it kicked out the I.A.E.A. and become a self-professed nuclear state,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “And so rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability.”
Mr. Obama said he wanted a new United Nations sanctions resolution against Iran “that has bite,” but he would not embrace the phrase “crippling sanctions” once used by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And he acknowledged the limitations of United Nations action. “We’re not naïve that any single set of sanctions automatically is going to change Iranian behavior,” he said, adding “there’s no light switch in this process.”
In the year since Mr. Obama gave a speech in Prague declaring that he would shift the policy of the United States toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, his staff has been meeting — and arguing — over how to turn that commitment into a workable policy, without undermining the credibility of the country’s nuclear deterrent.
The strategy to be released on Tuesday is months late, partly because Mr. Obama had to adjudicate among advisers who feared he was not changing American policy significantly enough, and those who feared that anything too precipitous could embolden potential adversaries. One senior official said that the new strategy was the product of 150 meetings, including 30 convened by the White House National Security Council, and that even then Mr. Obama had to step in to order rewrites.
He ended up with a document that differed considerably from the one President George W. Bush published in early 2002, just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush, too, argued for a post-cold-war rethinking of nuclear deterrence, reducing American reliance on those weapons.
But Mr. Bush’s document also reserved the right to use nuclear weapons “to deter a wide range of threats,” including banned chemical and biological weapons and large-scale conventional attacks. Mr. Obama’s strategy abandons that option — except if the attack is by a nuclear state, or a nonsignatory or violator of the nonproliferation treaty.
The document to be released Tuesday after months of study led by the Defense Department will declare that “the fundamental role” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, allies or partners, a narrower presumption than the past. But Mr. Obama rejected the formulation sought by arms control advocates to declare that the “sole role” of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack.
There are five declared nuclear states — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Three states with nuclear weapons have refused to sign — India, Pakistan and Israel — and North Korea renounced the treaty in 2003. Iran remains a signatory, but the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly found it in violation of its obligations, because it has hidden nuclear plants and refused to answer questions about evidence it was working on a warhead.
In shifting the nuclear deterrent toward combating proliferation and the sale or transfer of nuclear material to terrorists or nonnuclear states, Mr. Obama seized on language developed in the last years of the Bush administration. It had warned North Korea that it would be held “fully accountable” for any transfer of weapons or technology. But the next year, North Korea was caught aiding Syria in building a nuclear reactor but suffered no specific consequence.
Mr. Obama was asked whether the American failure to make North Korea pay a heavy price for the aid to Syria undercut Washington’s credibility.
“I don’t think countries around the world are interested in testing our credibility when it comes to these issues,” he said. He said such activity would leave a country vulnerable to a nuclear strike, and added, “We take that very seriously because we think that set of threats present the most serious security challenge to the United States.”
He indicated that he hoped to use this week’s treaty signing with Russia as a stepping stone toward more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals down the road, but suggested that would have to extend beyond the old paradigm of Russian-American relations.
“We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with NATO as a whole,” he said.
An obvious such issue would be the estimated 200 tactical nuclear weapons the United States still has stationed in Western Europe. Russia has called for their removal, and there is growing interest among European nations in such a move as well. But Mr. Obama said he wanted to consult with NATO allies before making such a commitment.
The summit meeting that opens next week in Washington will bring together nearly four dozen world leaders, the largest such gathering by an American president since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago. Mr. Obama said he hoped to use the session to lay down tangible commitments by individual countries toward his goal of securing the world’s nuclear material so it does not fall into the hands of terrorists or dangerous states.
“Our expectation is not that there’s just some vague, gauzy statement about us not wanting to see loose nuclear materials,” he said. “We anticipate a communiqué that spells out very clearly, here’s how we’re going to achieve locking down all the nuclear materials over the next four years.”
A version of this article appe
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