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Hospital patient notations. If you need to go to one have a family member check, at the very least, for spelling and punctuation. (See 2 below.)
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More White House obfuscation and distortions regarding Berwick's recess appointment. Is this what Obama meant by having an open administration and healing wounds? (See 3 below.)
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Henninger suggests Mount Obama is spewing cash and making everyone ashen. Democrats claim Republicans are guilty of being obstructionists, ie. - unwilling to continue belching more money fumes.
Pelosi says unemployment creates jobs because the government mails out checks. Now that is one bright woman. Bright because the sun shines right through her empty head.
Obama is misunderstood. He actually loves business and Wall Street almost as much as he loves Israel this week.(See 4,4a and 4b below.)
Another op ed writer finds Obama getting to be boring and trite. (See 4c below.)
Less and less want to hear Obama in this country so he is now trying to put the Israelis to sleep with his cadenced, empty rhetoric. (See 4d below.)
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Obama is always running away from something. Strassel writes it might be that Chicago Gang he cannot remember he used to associate with when he was a young aspiring candidate. (See 5 below.)
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'Bubble bubble toil and trouble' and knitting the nation back after Obamism dies a natural death as all radical revolutionary religions have and will continue to do.
(See 6 below.)
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Sent to me by a friend, fellow conservative who poses: if we are bent on electing a resume maybe the wrong guy resigned. (See 7 below.)
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September seems the date. Russia and Iran concur. (See 8 below.)
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John Fund writes about Pelosi Democrats being lame and ducking. (See 9 below.)
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Dick
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1)Stunning......
There are very few of us who know just what all the CZAR's do up in D.C.................Here are their names and job descriptions.......should be educational to ALL AMERICANS............no matter what your political agenda.......if you resent this list, then get angry at the one who put these characters on the payroll. And not at the one who mailed it......
OBAMA'S "CZARS"-- Read who they are and realize what they want to do.
CZAR Czar Position Summary:
Richard Holbrooke Afghanistan Czar Ultra liberal anti gun former Gov. Of New Mexico. Pro Abortion and legal drug use. Dissolve the 2nd Amendment
Ed Montgomery Auto recovery Czar Black radical anti business activist. Affirmative Action and Job Preference for blacks. Univ of Maryland Business School Dean teaches US business has caused world poverty. ACORN board member. Communist DuBois Club member.
Jeffrey Crowley AIDS Czar Radical Homosexual.. A Gay Rights activist. Believes in Gay Marriage and especially, a Special Status for homosexuals only, including complete free health care for gays.
Alan Bersin Border Czar The former failed superintendent of San Diego . Ultra Liberal friend of Hilary Clinton. Served as Border Czar under Janet Reno - to keep borders open to illegals without interference from US
David J. Hayes California Water Czar Sr. Fellow of radical environmentalist group, "Progress Policy". No training or experience in water management whatsoever.
Ron Bloom Car Czar Auto Union worker. Anti business & anti nuclear. Has worked hard to force US auto makers out of business. Sits on the Board of Chrysler which is now Auto Union owned. How did this happen?
Dennis Ross Central Region Czar Believes US policy has caused Mid East wars. Obama apologist to the world. Anti gun and completely pro abortion.
Lynn Rosenthal Domestic Violence Czar Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Vicious anti male feminist. Supported male castration.Imagine?
Gil Kerlikowske Drug Czar devoted lobbyist for every restrictive gun law proposal, Former Chief of Police in Liberal Seattle. Believes no American should own a firearm. Supports legalization of all drugs
Paul Volcker E conomic Czar Head of Fed Reserve under Jimmy Carter when US economy nearly failed. Obama appointed head of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board which engineered the Obama economic disaster to US economy. Member of anti business "Progressive Policy" organization
Carol Brower Energy and Environment Czar Political Radical Former head of EPA - known for anti-business activism. Strong anti-gun ownership.
Joshua DuBois Faith Based Czar Political Black activist-Degree in Black Nationalism. Anti gun ownership lobbyist.
Cameron Davis Great LakesCzar Chicago radical anti business environmentalist. Blames George Bush for "Poisoning the water that minorities have to drink." No experience or training in water management. Former ACORN Board member (what does that tell us?)
Van Jones Green Jobs Czar (since resigned).. Black activist Member of American communist Party and San Francisco Communist Party who said Geo Bush caused the 911 attack and wanted Bush investigated by the World Court for war crimes. Black activist with strong anti-white views.
Daniel Fried Guantanamo Closure Czar Human Rights activist for Foreign Terrorists. Believes America has caused the war on terrorism. Believes terrorists have rights above and beyond Americans.
Nancy-Ann DeParle. Health Czar Former head of Medicare / Medicaid. Strong Health Care Rationing proponent. She is married to a reporter for The New York Times.
Vivek Kundra Information Czar Born in New Delhi , India . Controls all public information, including labels and news releases. Monitors all private Internet emails. (hello?)
Todd Stern International Climate Czar Anti business former White House chief of Staff- Strong supportrer of the Kyoto Accord. Pushing hard for Cap and Trade. Blames US business for Global warming. Anti- US business prosperity.
Dennis Blair Intelligence Czar Ret. Navy. Stopped US guided missile program as "provocative". Chair of ultra liberal "Council on Foreign Relations" which blames American organizations for regional wars.
George Mitchell Mideast Peace Czar Fmr. Sen from Maine Left wing radical. Has said Israel should be split up into "2 or 3 " smaller more manageable plots". (God forbid) A true Anti-nuclear anti-gun & pro homosexual "special rights" advocate
Kenneth Feinberg Pay Czar Chief of Staff to TED KENNEDY. Lawyer who got rich off the 911 victims payoffs. (horribly true)
Cass Sunstein Regulatory Czar Liberal activist judge believes free speech needs to be limited for the "common good". Essentially against 1st amendment. Rules against personal freedoms many times -like private gun ownership and right to free speech.
John Holdren Science Czar Fierce ideological environmentalist, Sierra Club, Anti business activist. Claims US business has caused world poverty. No Science training.
Earl Devaney Stimulus Accountability Czar Spent career trying to take guns away from American citizens. Believes in Open Borders to Mexico . Author of statement blaming US gun stores for drug war in Mexico ..
J. Scott Gration Sudan Czar Native of Democratic Republic of Congo . Believes US does little to help Third World countries. Council of foreign relations, asking for higher US taxes to support United Nations
Herb Allison TARP Czar Fannie Mae CEO responsible for the US recession by using real estate mortgages to back up the US stock market. Caused millions of people to lose their life savings.
John Brennan Terrorism Czar Anti CIA activist. No training in diplomatic or gov. affairs. Believes Open Borders to Mexico and a dialog with terrorists and has suggested Obama disband US military
Aneesh Chopra Technology Czar No Technology training. Worked for the Advisory Board Company, a health care think tank for hospitals. Anti doctor activist. Supports Obama Health care Rationing and salaried doctors working exclusively for the Gov. health care plan
Adolfo Carrion Jr.. Urban Affairs Czar Puerto Rican born Anti American activist and leftist group member in Latin America . Millionaire "slum lord" of the Bronx , NY. Owns many lavish homes and condos which he got from "sweetheart" deals with labor unions. Wants higher taxes on middle class to pay for minority housing and health care
Ashton Carter Weapons Czar Leftist. Wants all private weapons in US destroyed. Supports UN ban on firearms ownership in America .. No Other "policy"
Gary Samore WMD Policy Czar Former US Communist. Wants US to destroy all WMD unilaterally as a show of good faith. Has no other "policy".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) These are sentences actually typed by Medical secretaries in NHS Greater
Glasgow
> > 1. The patient has no previous history of suicides.
> >
> > 2. Patient has left her white blood cells at another hospital.
> >
> > 3. Patient's medical history has been remarkably insignificant with
> > only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
> >
> > 4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was
> > very hot in bed last night.
> >
> > 5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
> >
> > 6. On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it
> > disappeared.
> >
> > 7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to
> > be depressed.
> >
> > 8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
> >
> > 9. Discharge status:- Alive, but without my permission.
> >
> > 10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert, but
> > forgetful.
> >
> > 11. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
> >
> > 12. She is numb from her toes down.
> >
> > 13. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.
> >
> > 14. The skin was moist and dry.
> >
> > 15. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.
> >
> > 16. Patient was alert and unresponsive.
> >
> > 17. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid.
> >
> > 18. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life
> > until she got a divorce.
> >
> > 19. I saw your patient today, who is still under our care for physical
> > therapy.
> >
> > 20. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
> >
> > 21 Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
> >
> > 22. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
> >
> > 23. Skin: somewhat pale, but present.
> >
> > 24. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.
> >
> > 25. Large brown stool ambulating in the hall.
> >
> > 26. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities
> >
> > 27. When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.
> >
> > 28. The patient was in his usual state of good health until his
> > airplane ran out of fuel and crashed.
> >
> > 29. Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant.
> >
> > 30. She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate
> > directions in early December.
> >
> > 31. Patient was seen in consultation by Dr. Smith, who felt we should
> > sit on the abdomen and I agree.
> >
> > 32. The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job
> > as a stock broker instead.
> >
> > 33. By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he
> > was feeling better.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)President Obama Attacks Congress for Delaying His Nominees -- Is He Right?
By Jaek Taper
In announcing the recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- and two other nominees -- today President Obama said in a statement that “It’s unfortunate that at a time when our nation is facing enormous challenges, many in Congress have decided to delay critical nominations for political purposes.”
That claim is reasonably true for the other two nominees given recess appointments today.
Republicans long objected to the nomination of Philip Coyle, now the associate director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, because of Coyle's opposition to missile defense.
The nomination of Joshua Gotbaum, now the director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, had also been held up.
Unmentioned by the president: the senator who had put a hold on Gotbaum’s nomination was Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who put a hold on Gotbaum’s nomination in May because of the way Gotbaum’s former employer Delphi Corp. dealt with pensioned former employees.
But it’s not the case with Berwick, whose recess appointment is getting most of the attention.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., echoed the president's suggestion, saying that “Republican lockstep stalling of Don’s nomination was a case study in cynicism and one awful example of how not to govern.”
But Republicans were not delaying or stalling Berwick’s nomination.
Indeed, they were eager for his hearing, hoping to assail Berwick’s past statements about health care rationing and his praise for the British health care system.
“The nomination hasn’t been held up by Republicans in Congress and to say otherwise is misleading,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which would have held Berwick’s hearing.
Grassley said that he “requested that a hearing take place two weeks ago, before this recess.”
Berwick’s nomination was sent to the Senate in April, and his hearing had not been scheduled because he was participating in the “standard vetting process,” a Democratic aide on the Senate Finance Committee told ABC News.
But speaking not for attribution, Democratic officials say that neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., nor Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, were eager for an ugly confirmation fight four months before the midterm elections.
White House officials and Senate Democrats argue that Republicans weren’t acting in good faith, that they were hoping to use Berwick’s nomination to demagogue the career of a widely-respected pediatrician praised by myriad medical organizations as well as President George W. Bush’s CMS administrators. Democrats say that the GOP was planning to use this confirmation fight to re-litigate the health care legislation battle, a fight they lost.
Is the desire to avoid that debate enough of a justification for a recess appointment?
Does using the Constitutional recess appointment prerogative so as to avoid having to expend political energy and capital on a fight one doesn't want to wage – does that live up to the president’s stated promise of transparency?
For many Democrats, the answer is yes. They argue that GOP obstructionism and the desire of certain Republican senators to unfairly assail Berwick as a sort of death panel advocate drove the President to make the recess appointment.
Baucus, publicly at least, seemed to take issue with the president’s decision, issuing a public statement saying, “I'm troubled that, rather than going through the standard nomination process, Dr. Berwick was recess appointed. Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects Montanans and all Americans by ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee – and answered.”
President Obama said today that his “recess appointments will allow three extremely qualified candidates to get to work on behalf of the American people right away. With more than 180 nominees still pending before the Senate, it’s my hope that my colleagues in Congress will agree to put politics aside and move forward on these vitally important positions.”
That backdrop – unprecedented obstructionism, Democrats say – is important, they maintain.
You can argue – and White House officials and Senate Democrats are, in fact, doing so – that Democrats were delaying Berwick’s hearing and the vote on his nomination because Republicans were going to play politics with it.
But a) that’s not the same as Republicans delaying or obstructing his nomination and b) some might argue that there’s also something to be said about combating policy arguments with better policy arguments.
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4)Obama and the Spending Volcano An eruption of public spending from Mount Obama has caused deep anxieties among the voters in America's villages.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
The Democrats in Washington are beginning to look like a tribe of volcano worshipers, living in the ever-present shadow of Mount Obama, which has been spewing federal spending into the American atmosphere nonstop for nearly two years. Its ash covers everything.
This ancient Democratic tribe, whose number is 255, live in a rambling, run-down temple called the House of Representatives. They share the House with a sporadically hostile tribe called the Republicans, whose population has dwindled to 178. Every few years the tribes engage in an arcane martial-arts contest known as "the elections." Some of the members do not survive.
The Democrats have long believed that Mount Obama's lava field of inert dollars is the staff of life and will save them from extinction. But recent field work by independent ethnographic analysts suggests that the Democrats' years of living off the land of the spending volcano is probably toxic, and could result in at least 50 of them dying in the forthcoming elections.
Still, there exists inside the Democratic tribe a powerful group of priests who practice an abstruse discipline known as Keynesian volcanism. Their belief, in sum, comes down to: The bigger the better. For them, the eruption of Mount Obama was the opportunity of a lifetime.
The February 2009 eruption of Mount Obama, called "The Stimulus" by the Keynesian volcanists, sent some $862 billion cascading across the American landmass. Then came a $1 trillion eruption, which an ecstatic Democratic tribe chanted would provide "health care for all." The volcano's eruptions spread far and eventually covered the fertile fields of the entire nation.
But contrary to what the Democrats had been led to believe by the parchments of the spending priests, very little grew out of Mount Obama's lava field of public dollars. Instead, it produced a virus known as "long-term unemployment."
The volcanic Keynesians screamed and scribbled that the spending eruptions and the 9.5% unemployment rate were a coincidence, and that what the barren and struggling fields needed was another, thicker layer of dollar lava.
As our fable ends, the Democratic tribespeople were heading out of their Beltway enclave to visit long-abandoned ancestral lands. But the most progressive volcano worshipers stayed behind, shrieking at the now-dormant Mount Obama to produce a spending plume with greater volume and mass, and begging the great mountain's god to bring forth one more "multi-trillion-dollar" eruption.
***
Daniel Henninger says that an eruption of public spending from Mount Obama has caused deep anxieties among the voters in America's villages.
.Podcast: Listen to the audio of Wonder Land here. .But seriously, folks: What were they thinking?
It may be true that American politics in our time has begun to divide along tribal lines—Democrats, Republicans and Independents. But you don't need to be a partisan to see that the Beltway Democrats' nearly two-year mania of public spending has produced anxiety in the American electorate.
There are indeed matters of policy, substance and belief that can define one as a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. But I think more than this, voters are going to sweep Democrats out of office simply to make them stop spending.
Consider the context in which the average voter has experienced this unprecedented public spending. The September 2008 financial crisis—Lehman Brothers bankrupt, Merrill Lynch sold off, Fannie and Freddie seized—was followed by the collapse in value of 401(k) savings accounts. That steep dollar loss in life savings focused everyone, every day, on the big outlay numbers now in play.
The historic 2009 run-up in stock values ultimately has become the most stomach-churning equities roller coaster in anyone's experience. This is high anxiety. Anxiety is bad for incumbents.
But there's more. An alerted electorate is also aware of what spending did to the fiscal health of California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Not one person in a thousand knew what sovereign debt was; now everyone does.
This volcano of public spending and its smothering ash, by governments at every level, is what has upset people living in America's towns and villages. It's too much. It has depressed people.
Outside of San Francisco and other gerrymandered House seats, is any Democratic candidate trying to tell people what great future goods will flow from the new health-care entitlement? No, because even that political win was swamped and suffocated by the nonstop roar of the raw spending numbers.
The Democratic election narrative now is that the Republicans were "obstructionist." Obstructionist? What they stopped was next to nothing. Volcanoes can't be capped.
A serious school of thought holds that the U.S. spending volcano—fed by the three famous entitlements plus Mr. Obama's new one—can't be effectively capped. This suggests that the legacy of the Obama presidency is likely to be that it left U.S. voters in a state of permanent, structural anxiety. The new taxes Mr. Obama and others are intimating will reduce incomes and increase anxieties. That means voters are likely to punish elected politicians for years. Amid the clouds of ash, we have this silver lining.
4a) Unemployment Benefits Aren't Stimulus Let's not reduce the incentive to find work. A federal tax holiday is a better way to cut the high jobless rate
By ARTHUR B. LAFFER
The current debate over extending and increasing federal unemployment benefits encapsulates the disagreement between the Democrats in power in Washington and their Republican opponents. What the consequences will be of raising unemployment benefits in today's depressed economy is at issue.
The most obvious argument against extending or raising unemployment benefits is that it will make being unemployed either more attractive or less unattractive, and thereby lead to higher unemployment. Empirical research supports this view.
The Democratic retort is that the economy today is so different from the past that we have to suspend our traditional understanding of economics. With five job seekers for every job opening, the unemployed are desperate for work and increasing unemployment benefits will have very little if any disincentive effect. This view hinges on a total change in employee behavior from "normal" times to the current period of "the Great Recession."
On the face of it, the idea that higher unemployment benefits won't lead to more unemployment doesn't make much sense. Imagine what the unemployment rate would look like if unemployment benefits were universally $150,000 per year. My guess is we'd have a heck of a lot more unemployment. Common sense and personal experience indicate higher unemployment benefits will make unemployment less unattractive and thereby increase unemployment even in the Great Recession. As the chart nearby clearly shows, since the 1970s there's been a close correlation between increased unemployment benefits and an increase in the unemployment rate. Those who argue that things are different today don't have the data to back up their claims.
The Democratic argument also ignores the impact of unemployment benefits on employer costs. Employers don't usually hire people to assuage their consciences. They hire people to make after-tax profits. And if workers require more pay because of higher unemployment benefits, employers will hire fewer employees. Whether increased unemployment benefits incentivize workers to work less or disincentivize employers from hiring more workers, the effect will be the same—higher unemployment.
The second point made by the Obama administration is that unemployment benefits are a great way to stimulate demand. Increased unemployment benefits operate quickly and the recipients spend what they get, which makes these stimulus funds the best bang for the buck.
Here again the facts are in dispute. Studies have shown that previous stimulus spending—much of which was also targeted for the poor and unemployed—was to a large extent saved and not spent. But I'm not going to rest my case on the obvious failure of Washington's prior stimulus packages. Based upon the above logic (as described in the January 2009 white paper co-authored by White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein) the administration forecast that the unemployment rate would be a little above 7.3% in the third quarter of this year. That isn't going to happen.
The flaw in their logic is that when it comes to higher unemployment benefits or any other stimulus spending, the resources given to the unemployed have to be taken from someone else. There isn't a "tooth fairy," or as my former colleague Milton Friedman repeated time and again, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." The government doesn't create resources. It redistributes them. For everyone who is given something there is someone who has that something taken away.
While the unemployed may spend more as a result of higher unemployment benefits, those people from whom the resources are taken will spend less. In an economy, the income effects from a transfer payment always sum to zero. Quite simply, there is no stimulus from higher unemployment benefits.
To see this, imagine an economy that produces 100 apples. If 10 of those apples are given to the unemployed, then people who otherwise would have had those 10 apples now won't. The stimulus of 10 apples for the unemployed is exactly offset by the destimulus of 10 apples for those people from whom the 10 apples were taken.
Given the massive inefficiencies the government creates in securing resources from the private sector, there may also be a large negative income effect over wide ranges of stimulus spending. This is the proverbial "toll for the troll." These massive inefficiencies could lead to lower output.
To see these effects clearly, imagine a two person economy in which one of the two people is paid for being unemployed. From whom do you think the unemployment benefits are taken? The other person obviously. While the one person who is unemployed may "buy" more as a result of unemployment benefits, the other person from whom the unemployment sums are taken will "buy" less. There is no stimulus for the economy.
But it doesn't stop there. While the income effects sum to zero, the substitution effects aggregate. The person from whom the unemployment funds are taken will find work less rewarding and will work less. The person who is given the unemployment benefits will also find work relatively less rewarding and will therefore work less. Both people in this two-person economy will be incentivized to work less. There will be less work and more unemployment.
Not only will increased unemployment benefits not stimulate the economy, they will at the same time lower the incentives for people to work by reducing the amount people are paid for working and increasing the amount people are paid for not working. It's pretty basic economics.
No one opposes unemployment benefits as a transition aid for people to get back on their feet and find a new job. Unemployment benefits are a safeguard for individuals down on their luck. But to argue that unemployment benefits actually reduce unemployment is disingenuous at best, and could induce our government to enact policies that have the effect of destroying our nation's production base from whence all benefits ultimately flow.
Any government program that would reduce unemployment has to make working more attractive for both employer and employee. Since late 2007 the federal government has spent somewhere around $3.6 trillion to stimulate the economy. That is a lot of money.
My suggestion would have been to take all $3.6 trillion and declare a federal tax holiday for 18 months. No income tax, no corporate profits tax, no capital gains tax, no estate tax, no payroll tax (FICA) either employee or employer, no Medicare or Medicaid taxes, no federal excise taxes, no tariffs, no federal taxes at all, which would have reduced federal revenues by $2.4 trillion annually. Can you imagine where employment would be today? How does a 2.5% unemployment rate sound?
Mr. Laffer is the chairman of Laffer Associates and co-author of "The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy—If We Let It Happen" (Threshold, 2008).
4b)Our Pro-Business President. The White House says he's misunderstood
The big political news out of Washington yesterday is that the White House wants you to know that President Obama is not antibusiness. That reassuring word comes in a dispatch from Politico.com quoting senior White House aides that they have launched "a coordinated campaign to push back against the perception" that its agenda is hostile to business.
How in the world did anyone get that idea? Perhaps the feeling set in sometime between the President's public trashing of the Chrysler bond holders and his use of the insurer Wellpoint as a piñata to pass ObamaCare. Or maybe it was sometime after his Administration's fifth or sixth tax increase proposal, its disdain until recently for trade promotion, and its unleashing of new regulations across any industry you want to name.
For a summary of the Administration's antibusiness agenda, consult the Business Roundtable's recent 54-page compendium. But don't read it before you go to bed because you'll wake up with nightmares if you're an employer.
Our guess is that the timing of this White House campaign has a lot to do with the Roundtable's broadside, which has shaken even some of the President's media friends. When even Newsweek columnists and The Atlantic start to turn on this Administration, you know things are bad.
Another motivator must be this week's Washington Post story detailing that Wall Street and the financial industry have stopped writing as many checks to Democratic House and Senate candidates after two years of White House banker bashing. Big Labor can't pay for every TV ad, and nothing concentrates the political mind so much as the lack of campaign cash.
However, our favorite line from yesterday's Politico.com story is this one: "And it is more than just politics: Obama's aides believe confidence in the general direction of White House policy has an effect on the willingness of corporations to hire, invest and push the economy toward a more solid recovery." You think?
However late the revelation, we suppose it's progress if Democrats are figuring out that business confidence is crucial to nurturing a fragile economic recovery into a durable expansion. U.S. companies have an estimated $2 trillion in cash that they could deploy to create new jobs or buy equipment, but they aren't about to do so until they know what their costs will be. We warned the White House about this early on when we wrote about the dangers of a "capital strike."
The problem for Mr. Obama at this stage is that business will need more than words to conclude there's been a real political change. He'll have to make some major policy shifts, such as calling off next year's big tax increase. More important still, no one in business will trust any of this as long as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid run Congress.
4c)Boring Barry
By Bruce Walker
I wrote recently about the political dangers to President Obama when people stop liking him. Many of us, me included, found it impossible to like Obama as soon as it became clear that he was a disciple of prophets of evil like Saul Alinksy. Many Americans (too many, in fact) are mesmerized by television. Good-looking, relaxed, well-spoken people have a big advantage in national politics.
This does not mean that the leftist establishment media does not create false images which enhance the likability of leftist politicians. Camera angles, editing, selection of questions asked, choice of news covered, and a dozen other tricks can make a candidate more likable. Magazine covers treat Obama like a rock star and show adoring photos of his wife and children. Marvel Comics, Tiger Beat, Vanity Fair, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Vogue are magazines supposedly not connected with partisan politics, but Barack and his family find their photographs in good poses, smiling amiably at readers of those magazines.
Conservatives know how politicized all of American life has become. The propagation of leftism in America means that Obama is never shown in unattractive poses or losing his temper at underlings. He answers few questions, and when he deigns to talk to his subjects, it is always through a safe, politically correct organization. A fair and objective media would have pulled Obama's likability down long ago, but even with fawning coverage, nearly all polls show a steady erosion of personal support for Obama, artificially obstructed by the leftist establishment.
Obama will become unlikable as people tire of fluff news stories or smiling photos of Barack and Michelle on the cover of Vogue. Much worse for Obama than becoming unlikeable is becoming boring -- and he will become more and more boring every day. Why? Marxists like Obama have nothing new to say. The whole sum of human problems, according to the goateed gurus of radical socialism on college campuses, is the unfair distribution of wealth, and the only solution to this "problem" is coercive redistribution.
It is hard to overestimate just how dull, dumb, and monotonous radical socialism is to people who are forced to listen to it all the time. The Marxist-Leninist paradise of Soviet Russia died of poverty, of party privilege, of suppression of nationalities, of many things -- but perhaps the most underrated cause of its implosion was sheer, mind-numbing boredom. No one, from the members of the Politburo to the local party bosses, actually believed the drivel of capitalist exploitation. Slavish, ritual expressions of the brilliance of Marx were simply a way of culling out honest and interesting people and insuring that only power-hungry hacks ever had any power in the Soviet Union.
The grotesque curiosity of living Marxism on American campuses will inspire future historians to compare these mad and malicious men to Nazi racial theorists or Hindus who compelled widows to immolate themselves or Aztec priests building mountains of human hearts to appease savage gods. It is no coincidence that both Nazism and Fascism, so different in other ways, both were conscious derivatives of Marxism. This evil, stupid doctrine seems to be the sole catechism of Obama.
That dooms Obama to descend into uninteresting, unhip, and utterly predictable rhetoric. Already we see signs of this slow political death. People are simply not watching his television addresses as much these days. A story of Obama sitting down with Medvedev to eat a hamburger is no longer thrilling or even interesting. Americans are not so much angry at Obama as indifferent to him. Most presidents have had a grand objective to their administration. Eisenhower wanted the interstate highway system. JFK wanted a man on the moon. Nixon wanted realpolitik engagement of China and Russia. Reagan sought to win the Cold War. George W. Bush tried to bring democracy to West Asia. These may not all have been good ideas, but they were at least novel ideas.
Obama seeks nothing more ordinary than an acceleration of Fabian Socialism long after most socialists had given up on their hoary doctrine. He has all the originality of a Young Communist reciting a lecture on the brilliance of Lenin to his fellow communists. He has all the glamour of Brezhnev reading the next Five-Year Plan to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He has all the stirring insight of aging leftists in Hollywood pontificating about the evil of the land they choose to live and to prosper in.
The worst curse in modern politics is the yawns of voters. When no one wants to watch you, when no one really listens to you, and when most people do not even bother to dislike you anymore, then you (and your party) face a case of slow, terminal consumption. Obama is a fast-fading comet, and his party, having foolishly linked its fate to such an anachronism, may face with him extinction. Barry is becoming boring.
Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
4d) Why is Obama suddenly speaking to Israeli media?
There was never a period where Obama could feel comfortable talking about relations with Israel without difficult questions on his level of trust in Netanyahu, the settlements, and the stalled negotiations with Iran.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
A U.S. president is a very busy man. But considering the degree of U.S. involvement in the peace process since President Barack Obama took office, all his talk about the strategic importance to the United States of resolving the Middle East conflict, and the suspicions that the Israeli public has developed about the president's intentions, the absence of direct communication with the Israeli public over the past year and a half stuck out.
Though the White House and the State Department issued statements, responses and background briefings, and the president, his vice president, members of his cabinet and his advisors all answered many questions about Israel and its neighbors for the American media, requests by the Israeli media for interviews were mostly turned down or left unanswered, along with a pile of requests by other foreign media outlets.
U.S. President Barack Obama. “It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon,” he said in an interview with Channel 2.
Though no official explanation was given, in view of the series of crises, big and small, that have plagued the relationship between the Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu's government, one can assume that there was never a period of calm in which the president both had a reason for giving an interview and could feel comfortable talking about relations with Israel without difficult questions regarding his level of trust in Netanyahu, the settlements, and the stalled negotiations with Iran.
Obama had several meetings with Netanyahu that produced nothing pleasant to talk about. He also had a series of domestic problems to deal with. And before the proximity talks began in May, he had few successes to show on the peace front.
But beyond this, the Israeli public should not have taken the matter personally. Several months ago, White House reporters complained to Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, that for an administration that had promised transparency, and for a president who often appears in public, Obama participated in very few press conferences.
It is not clear whether this interview - coming so soon after Netanyahu's visit, whose success was preordained - will have a follow-up anytime soon, unless there is progress in the peace negotiations. It is also not unlikely that in order to balance this gesture to Israel, Obama will make a similar gesture to the Arab world. As one reporter asked in an official briefing, if Obama accepts Netanyahu's invitation to visit Israel, will he also pass through some Arab capital to maintain the balance?
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5)Obama and the Chicago Machine Testimony in the Blagojevich trial shows the White House in an unflattering light.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Since that February 2007 day when a young U.S. senator announced an inspiring presidential run, Barack Obama has been on the lam. He's been running from that Chicago machine that gave birth to his political career, but later became a liability to his reformist message. It's dogging him still.
Consider the trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, which is sucking in most of the president's Chicago intimates. The threat to the White House isn't that Mr. Obama will be accused of wrongdoing. The threat is that the trial offers evidence for a growing view that Mr. Obama isn't so much "new politics" as a typical Chicago pol.
We've already seen a hint of the threat. Among the many accusations against Mr. Blagojevich is that he sought to sell Mr. Obama's old Senate seat. Mr. Blagojevich appeared particularly interested in naming Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett in return for a cabinet post or a union job.
When the scandal broke after the 2008 election, the incoming administration scrambled to distance itself from its old Chicago crew. Greg Craig, future White House counsel, was tasked with an internal investigation and dutifully reported that "The President-Elect had no contact or communication with Governor Blagojevich or members of his staff about the Senate seat." Moreover, the president-elect "did not actively seek" to put Mrs. Jarrett in that post. Nothing to see here, folks.
Nothing to see save top union official Tom Balanoff, who last week took the stand in Chicago. Mr. Balanoff testified under oath that the night prior to the election, he was called by Mr. Obama. "Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat," said the future president. According to Mr. Balanoff's testimony, Mr. Obama laid out two criteria for who he'd like to see get the post—good for Illinois, electable in 2010—and then noted that Mrs. Jarrett certainly met those two criteria. Mr. Balanoff testified that he then assured Mr. Obama he'd "reach out to Gov. Blagojevich."
This is a Barack Obama the White House would prefer the public not see. The conversation suggests a president who (like any good Chicago politician) knows the feds have half the city wiretapped, and so resorts to the wink-and-nod tactics of sending an emissary. It suggests a president whose first call on a big political issue was to a union boss. It suggests a president willing to elide the truth in an official report. It may be technically accurate that the president didn't directly speak to Mr. Blagojevich—and didn't directly demand Mrs. Jarrett—but that wasn't really the point, was it?
The Balanoff testimony was a hint of what may come. Illinois Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias has been subpoenaed over his role in setting up a meeting between Mrs. Jarrett and Mr. Balanoff. The trial thrusts back into the spotlight convicted Chicago felon and Obama booster Tony Rezko. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin was subpoenaed over his own call with Mr. Blagojevich about the seat. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett (a former aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley) has been subpoenaed. So has White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has become entangled (though not charged) in a separate accusation that Mr. Blagojevich sought to trade favors with him when he was a Chicago congressman. Don't you just love this city?
One big White House worry is that most subpoenas have come from the defense. Mr. Blagojevich is fighting, and part of his strategy is convincing the jury that his actions did not fall outside the norm, that everybody was in on the Chicago games. His lawyers, unlike federal prosecutors, are only too happy to drag in the president. Mr. Blagojevich in fact attempted to subpoena Mr. Obama.
The White House, trying to tamp down a scandal, has flatly refused to discuss contradictions between the Balanoff testimony and the Craig report. Its bigger concern should be that the trial begins to cast a new and unflattering light on this administration.
Viewed through the Chicago-Blago-Balanoff lens, after all, the White House's backroom job offers to Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Andrew Romanoff (D., Colo.) suddenly make more sense. So too does the fact that Mr. Obama's political director was a top Service Employees International Union official, and that SEIU chief Andy Stern practically lived in the White House. The threats against business, the health-care buyoffs, the extralegal actions against BP, and the attempted political assassinations of promising Republicans also come into clearer focus. This isn't hope and change. It's how you do business in Chicago.
One remarkable aspect of 2008 is that Mr. Obama emerged from the Chicago machine relatively untainted—the press more than willing to allow him to run from Rezko, his political ties, his years in the state legislature. The Blagojevich trial is a second look. It might not prove so inspiring.
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6)After Obama: Forgiveness?
By Christopher Chantrill
The great religious movements of the 20th century, Communism and Fascism, liked to think that they toiled in the wilderness against a corrupt political and religious establishment. In fact, of course, they always obtained support from young fashionables in the educated elite, and their ideas leaked quickly into the political mainstream.
The current rising world religious movement of leftist radicals is no exception. If you peruse Ernest Sternberg's analysis in Orbis, "Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For (pdf)," thoughtfully reviewed at NRO by David Pipes, you keep encountering notions that the Obama administration is implementing or would like to. But the Obama's are doing it within the current power structure. That's what you get to do when you win a couple of elections.
Here is what the new radicals want:
The earth will be protected, justice will reign, economies will be sustainable, and energy will be renewable. Diverse communities will celebrate other communities, with the only proviso that they accede to doctrine. Far purer than democracies of the past, this future regime will operate through grassroots participatory meetings in which all communities are empowered.
Really, what could any of our liberal friends, a full 20 percent of Americans, find to argue with?
The great gift of the Obama administration is that its muddle of terror-state appeasement, green energy, domestic political bullying, and incompetent execution will end up discrediting the world radical agenda, maybe even before the next presidential election.
When it's all over, we will have our Founding Fathers to thank, because it is their separation of powers that slows down the radical impetus so that it can only damage, not destroy. Pity the unhappy Venezuelans, already enjoying the benefit of 12,000"communal councils" busily creating "grassroots democracy."
But when it's all over, we conservatives will have a big job to do. No, I'm not talking about runaway debt and unsustainable entitlements. I'm talking about bringing the nation back together. I'm talking about national reconciliation after the most divisive president in our lifetime.
The problem with religious movements, and modern secular religious movements in particular, is that the agenda of salvation or purification always requires a dividing line between us and them, between good and evil. Our modern radicals rather neatly call their campaign of hate and violence against Empire, the "world-controlling state-military-corporate-legal-educational-media complex," as mere "resistance." But resistance apparently includes suicide belts and terror attacks on the United States. After all, what else is appropriate in dealing with the Great Satan?
Charles Taylor has fingered the problem with all good vs. evil movements. They lead to the torture chamber, the killing field, and the death camp. In contrast, all religions and political movements worthy of the name understand the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation. Even the hunter-gatherers structured their all-night dance-and-drum rituals to create a palpable feeling of community that could dissolve festering quarrels.
The great challenge for conservatives after the great victories of 2010 and 2012 will be to resist the temptation of triumphalism and remember the advice of Winston Churchill: in victory, magnanimity.
But I have to be honest. I don't know what a conservative-led movement of national reconciliation would look like.
In many ways, a conservative-led America would lead to a lower conflict society. The way you increase conflict is to politicize things. Have the government run health care and have Americans have to fight each other to see the doctor. Get the government to run education and parents to fight each other for their kids to get a decent education. The conservative program of privatization will reduce conflict, for Americans will get the material things they need without constant resort to political power and clientage.
In conservative America, we will get genuine separation of church and state. In liberal America, secular-religious movements are continually blurring the line between religious faith and political power. In the new-world radicalism described by Ernest Sternberg, we have a movement that clearly melts millennial faith and political revolution into a single totalitarian mold.
One test will come on the day that conservatives get a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. Will Republicans jam through their partisan wish list on party-line votes and accuse the Democrats of being the Party of No? Or will they resist the nuclear option and pass legislation that Democrats, or at least conservative Democrats, can vote for?
Every political movement stands for peace and justice, even as its functionaries light the fires to stamp out heresy. Reformers of Christianity in the last millennium burned heretics in their thousands. But reforming secularists shot them and gassed them and starved them in their tens of millions.
The question for conservatives, as we dream of a conservative America, is: Can we do better?
Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his roadtothemiddleclass.com and usgovernmentspending.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.
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7) General McChrystal Biography
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/
Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan
United States Army
SOURCE OF COMMISSIONED SERVICE: USMA EDUCATIONAL DEGREES
United States Military Academy - BS - No Major
United States Naval War College - MA - National Security and Strategic Studies
Salve Regina University - MS - International Relations
MILITARY SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses
United States Naval Command and Staff College
Senior Service College Fellowship Harvard University
FOREIGN LANGUAGES:
Spanish
PROMOTIONS DATE OF APPOINTMENT:
2LT 2 Jun 76
1LT 2 Jun 78
CPT 1 Aug 80
MAJ 1 Jul 87
LTC 1 Sep 92
COL 1 Sep 96
BG 1 Jan 01
MG 1 May 04
LTG 16 Feb 06
GEN 11 Jun 09
FROM TO ASSIGNMENT:
Nov 76 Feb 78 Weapons Platoon Leader, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Feb 78 Jul 78 Rifle Platoon Leader, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Jul 78 Nov 78 Executive Officer, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Nov 78 Apr 79 Student, Special Forces Officer Course, Special Forces School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Apr 79 Jun 80 Commander, Detachment A, A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Jun 80 Feb 81 Student, Infantry Officer Advanced Course, United States Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia
Feb 81 Mar 82 S2/S3 (Intelligence/Operations), United Nations Command Support Group Joint Security Area, Korea
Mar 82 Nov 82 Training Officer, Directorate of Plans and Training, A Company, Headquarters Command, Fort Stewart, Georgia
Nov 82 Sep 84 Commander, A Company, 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Georgia
Sep 84 Sep 85 S3 (Operations), 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Georgia
Sep 85 Jan 86 Liaison Officer, 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Jan 86 May 87 Commander, A Company, 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
May 87 Apr 88 Liaison Officer, 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Apr 88 Jun 89 S3 (Operations), 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Jun 89 Jun 90 Student, Command and Staff Course, United States Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
Jun 90 Apr 93 Army Special Operations Action Officer, J3, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD/STORM, Saudi Arabia
Apr 93 Nov 94 Commander, 2d Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Nov 94 Jun 96 Commander, 2d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Lewis, Washington
Jun 96 Jun 97 Senior Service College Fellowship, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Jun 97 Aug 99 Commander, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Aug 99 Jun 00 Military Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, New York
Jun 00 Jun 01 Assistant Division Commander (Operations), 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina to include duty as Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Kuwait, Camp Doha, Kuwait
Jun 01 Jul 02 Chief of Staff, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, Fort Bragg, North Carolina to include duty as Chief of Staff, Combined Joint Task Force180, OPERATION ENDURING
FREEDOM, Afghanistan
Jul 02 Sep 03 Vice Director for Operations, J3, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC
Sep 03 Feb 06 Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Feb 06 Jun 08 Commander, Joint Special Operations Command/Commander, Joint Special Operations Command Forward, United States Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Aug 08 Jun 09 Director, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC
Jun 09 Present Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan
SUMMARY OF JOINT ASSIGNMENTS:
S2/S3 (Intelligence/Operations), United Nations Command Support Group Joint Security Area, Korea (Feb 81-Mar 82, Captain)
Army Special Operations Action Officer, J3, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD/STORM, Saudi Arabia Jun 90-Apr 93 Major/Lieutenant Colonel)
Chief of Staff, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, Fort Bragg, North Carolina to include duty as Chief of Staff, Combined Joint Task Force180, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (Jun 01-Jul 02, Brigadier General)
Vice Director for Operations, J3, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC (Jul 02-Sep 03, Brigadier General)
Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Sep 03-Feb 06, Brigadier General/Major General)
Commander, Joint Special Operations Command/Commander, Joint Special Operations
Command Forward, United States Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Feb 06-Jun 08, Major General/Lieutenant General)
Director, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC (Aug 08-Jun 09, Lieutenant General)
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (Jun 09-Present, General)
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS ASSIGNMENTS DATE GRADE
Army Special Operations Action Officer, J3, Joint Special Operations Command, OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD/STORM, Saudi Arabia (Jun 90-Mar 91, Major)
Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Kuwait, Camp Doha, Kuwait (Apr 01-Jun 01, Brigadier General)
Chief of Staff, Combined Joint Task Force180, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (May 02-Jul 02, Brigadier General)
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (Jun 09- Present, General)
US DECORATIONS AND BADGES:
Defense Distinguished Service Medal
Defense Superior Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster)
Legion of Merit (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Bronze Star Medal
Defense Meritorious Service Medal
Meritorious Service Medal (with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Army Commendation Medal
Army Achievement Medal
Expert Infantryman Badge
Master Parachutist Badge
Ranger Tab
Special Forces Tab
Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge
_________________________________________________________________
Obama Biography:
Birthplace: Location remains questionable. Proof of United States Citizenship hasn't been provided.
Education: Columbia University, Harvard Law School. Records never produced, attendance remains questionable.
Military Career: None
Business Career: None
Political Career: Community organizer, Chicago, 1983-86; civil rights attorney, Chicago, 1991-96;
University of Chicago, lecturer, early 1990s-2004; Illinois State Senator, 1996-2005; U.S. Senator, 2005-2008; President 2008-.
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8)Moscow to have Iran's Bushehr reactor running by September
Moscow and Tehran have announced that the nuclear reactor Russia is building Iran at Bushehr - its first - has completed all its test-runs and will be up and running in early September - ahead of schedule.
Military sources reported several times in recent months that the Iranian reactor at Bushehr is not just a power plant but also has military applications. Chief among them is the reuse of its fuel rods to produce plutonium as atomic weapon fuel.
Wednesday, July 7, Ali Akbar Salehi, chairman of the Iranian Atomic Energy Commission, said: "Today we passed the hot water test, one of the Bushehr power plant's most important and final tests before its inauguration."
He admitted UN, US and European sanctions would slow the pace of the Iranian nuclear program - but not affect the activation of the Bushehr reactor.
Thursday, July 8, Atomstroyexport, the Russian company building the Iranian reactor, confirmed this: "Efficiency tests of the reactor equipment and supporting technological systems were held," said the firm's spokesman in Moscow. "We finished the so-called hot operational testing that was the final stage before launch."
The Russian company did not mention when the reactor would go on stream, but back on March 18, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a summit of senior Russian officials in southern Russia: "The first reactor at Iran's nuclear power plant in Bushehr is to be launched already in the summer."
Since he made this remark while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Moscow, it was taken as a Russian signal to Washington that while willing to support expanded UN sanctions, Russia had no intention of abandoning its nuclear cooperation with Tehran.
Clinton's response was: "In the absence of those reassurances (from Iran regarding the nature of its nuclear program), we (the Americans) think it would be premature to go forward with any project at this time."
And indeed, on June 9, Russia voted with 11 UN Security Council members in favor of the US motion to expand sanctions against Iran for failing to comply with international obligations on its nuclear program.
At the same time, Moscow remained opposed to unilateral sanctions outside the world body.
This was stated by special emissary to Tehran, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, after the European Union and the United States imposed their own sanctions, including President Barack Obama's signature on an embargo on refined fuel products and a ban on business with Iranian banks.
Thursday, July 8, Moscow then leaned further in Tehran's favor, calling for the world powers to consider Iran's proposals for a compromise on their nuclear controversy, not just their own, when negotiations are resumed.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that the negotiations can only begin in September.
It would therefore seem that the concatenation of the two events - diplomacy and the launching of the Bushehr reactor - points to Russia's new emphasis on improving its relations with Iran and willingness to take its side in the forthcoming nuclear dialogue.
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9)The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy
Union 'card-check,' cap and trade, and so much more
By JOHN FUND
Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they're leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won't return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal's Charlie Cook, the Beltway's leading political handicapper, predicted last month "the House is gone," meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.
The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That's why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.
"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.
In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like "card check"—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—"the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.
Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.
Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.
Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. "Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session," Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.
It's been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn't faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.
Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate "Blue Dogs" in the House would support on the campaign trail. "We have a lot of wiggle room in conference," a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month.
Many Democrats insist there will be no dramatic lame-duck agenda. But a few months ago they also insisted the extraordinary maneuvers used to pass health care wouldn't be used. Desperate times may be seen as calling for desperate measures, and this November the election results may well make Democrats desperate.
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