More proof why Israel should not trust Obama. Hagel is the perfect foil for Obama's manipulations of the truth and/or former commitments (See 1a below.)
More proof why Americans should not believe Obama. (See 1b below.)
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Are we entering a currency war. When The Fed issues reams of dollars the dollar should weaken not strengthen. (See 2 below.)
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This supports my often stated view:
| WHAT'S NEW ON PJTV | |
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Almost half of Americans are working in jobs that don’t require a college degree. Tuition costs are inching higher while the government continues to dole out education subsidies. Has the government actually worsened things for the nation’s students? Michelle Fields talks with Terry Jones of Investor’s Business Daily and Lt. Col. Allen B. West about the current state of U.S. education.
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Star Wars is not around the corner it may be here:
IS STAR WARS HERE ALREADY???
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1)President Obama in Israel: Symbolism over substance
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Politico.com, 3/18/13 4:36 AM EDT
President Barack Obama spent his first term dismissing the idea of a symbolic visit to Israel: He didn’t want to go there unless he had something concrete to accomplish.
But his four-day trip that begins Tuesday night is symbolism on steroids.
The Israeli government was just finalized Saturday night. The peace process is frozen. And Obama has a complicated relationship with both the nation and its prime minister.
Indeed, the White House seems to have concluded that expectations are now so low that it’s the perfect time for Obama to make the trip. He has a chance to mollify some of his domestic critics and improve his standing with Israelis, all without the pressure of achieving a breakthrough on peace.
There are no plans or hopes even of making any significant announcements on the peace process or other major issues. Instead, the White House is celebrating the photo ops and the speechifying that will dominate Obama’s stops through Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.
“His visit is not about trying to lay down a new initiative or complete our work on a particular issue,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters last week. “Frankly, there’s value in traveling precisely at a time when there is a new government in Israel and a new government in the United States and just having a broad strategic conversation.”
That’s sounds exactly like what Obama said he didn’t want a trip to Israel to be last year.
“When I go to Israel,” Obama told NBC in an interview last October, “I want to make sure that we are actually moving something forward.”
He plans to lay a wreath at the grave of the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, visit the Dead Sea Scrolls underscoring Jews historic ties to the Holy Land, and make a stop in Bethlehem to highlight the plight of Christians in the upheaval caused by the Arab Spring.
“Every piece of the trip seems to have in it some piece of symbolism,” said James Zogby of the Arab American Institute.
According to the White House, the centerpiece of the trip is not planned talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but a speech Obama plans to deliver to an audience of Israeli youth. While Obama’s two predecessors spoke to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Obama opted against an address to political leaders in that venue and will speak instead to college and university students at a convention center in Jerusalem.
“This really is the true purpose of the visit: an ability for the president to speak directly to the Israeli people about the future that we want to build together,” Rhodes said in a White House Web video previewing the trip.
The professed lack of diplomatic substance in the president’s trip has led some commentators to dismiss it as little more than presidential sightseeing.
“Mr. Obama could be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Israel as a tourist,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman scoffed last week.
Of course, it’s possible that the White House has a significant policy initiative up its sleeve and is engaged in an unusually intense effort to lower expectations, aware that any American president’s trip to the region causes the hopes and fevered imaginations of some to run wild.
“There is an expectations game being played,” former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said Friday at a Brookings Institution roundtable. “The president of the United States cannot go to Israel without raising huge expectations — especially this president. … The fear that the press is going to write ‘failure’ on any visit is a daunting one.”
There is one strong indication that the White House isn’t bluffing when it says no major achievements or deliverables are on tap: The new coalition government Netanyahu just assembled following elections in January will have been sworn in for all of about 48 hours before Obama touches down in Israel on Wednesday morning. Under those circumstances, it’s difficult to see how there could be much new on the Middle East peace process that Israel might have quietly given the nod to.
Indeed, even Israeli officials say it remains unclear to them how the unusual coalition Netanyahu has formed — without the presence of ultraorthodox parties, and competing views of how to relate to the Palestinians — will approach the issues involving Jewish settlements and territorial concessions considered key to a peace deal.
“There’s more uncertainty here on a presidential trip with respect to the government the president is going to confront than at any time I can remember,” former U.S. Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller said.
Indyk said the murkiness makes it virtually impossible for the president to press for a resumption of peace talks or even significant steps by either side that could help ease the way back to the negotiating table.
“There’s been no government in Israel, so there’s been no time to prepare that. If they were going to do that, the president should have gone nine months from now — not now,” the former ambassador said.
But that low might prove perfect for the White House — both for the politics and the possibility of something more substantive later in his second term.
“This is doomed to succeed,” Miller said. “Because there are no expectations, he may well have the chance to reshape his relationship with the Israeli public and maybe, just maybe, he can create a different sort of basis to work with Netanyahu … A trip completely and utterly devoid of any possible concrete achievement suddenly becomes quite useful.”
“Above the waterline, you have an empty trip, but I’d argue as a sort of deposit or down-payment trip, it can pay off,” Miller added.
“A cynic would say that this is exactly the point of low expectations, because nothing can be done with a brand new, two-day-old government,” said Natan Sachs of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “The best case scenario is it’s setting the stage for Secretary [of State John] Kerry to take the baton and move forward.”
Kerry, who put off a visit to Israel while the Cabinet there was being formed, will be on this week’s presidential trip and is likely to announce a trip of his own to the region soon, a source briefed on the administration’s plans told POLITICO.
It’s also the case that while the floundering Israeli-Palestinian peace process was the key factor in Obama’s first-term decisions not to go to Israel, those considerations are now viewed as less urgent than the nuclear threat from Iran and the possibility Israel might respond to it with a military strike, which U.S. officials fear could unleash violence across the region.
”The reason for not going in the first term was the dead freeze in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. … Now, that’s not the central matter,” said Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as a deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush. “There are two huge issues to talk about with the Israelis: one being Iran and the other being the effect of the Arab Spring in the neighborhood. Those two alone are plenty worth the trip.”
Abrams notes that the personnel reshuffle is not simply on the Israeli side. A key U.S. post for dealing with the region, assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, has no permanent appointee and is filled now on an acting bases by Beth Jones. It’s thought that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the slot open in order to let Kerry select someone of his choosing. The White House’s top National Security Council post devoted to the Middle East was filled just last week by Phil Gordon, a veteran diplomat who previously served as assistant secretary of state for Europe.
Speaking at the United Nations last September, Netanyahu predicted that Iran would move to the final stage of its nuclear development program by spring or summer of this year.
Israel’s military intelligence chief may have stretched that timeline out a bit last week when he said: “Iran’s nuclear program is progressing slower than planned, but it is advancing.”
Obama told Israel’s Channel 2 TV last week that “right now, we think that it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon, but obviously, we don’t want to cut it too close.”
In response, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren said: “The United States and Israel see many of the same facts about the Iranian nuclear program and draw many similar conclusions. I’ll just recall what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly last September — the key question is not when Iran will have a bomb but only when we can no longer prevent Iran from having a bomb.”
And Director of National Intelligence James Clapper seemed to hint last week at possible new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program when he told a Senate hearing that “publicly, overtly” Iran hasn’t changed its nuclear program in response to the increasing bite of sanctions but that he wanted to inform senators “in a closed setting about some indications that I think would be of interest to you” on that point.
With the United States and Israel already in close consultation on the intelligence, Obama’s visit is aimed in part at reassuring the Israeli public that there is no need for imminent action against Iran by Israel because the U.S. will take action eventually if sanctions and diplomatic pressure don’t persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.
“I expect the president to use some of the language that the Israelis do about the dire threat of Iran,” Sachs said. “Part of the point of his visit is to impress upon the Israeli public that he is serious — that all of the things he said last year: ‘I do not bluff as a president, everything is on the table, prevention not containment’ — all these things, that he means it truly.”
Still, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process remains one of the three major issues on the official agenda, along with Iran and the possibility that Syria could disintegrate as a result of its ongoing civil war.
Zogby says Obama’s plans for the trip signal a realization, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring, that the U.S. has relied too much on leaders in the region to move toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and has not paid enough attention to bringing Arabs, Israelis and even Americans into the fold.
“He’s now realizing that politics is essential to making this work — politics here and politics there,” Zogby said. “It’s a recognition that you’ve got to do the politics if you want to change the dynamic. On both sides, there’s been a downward trajectory. You’ve got to arrest that and get it moving back in a positive way.”
Zogby, who attended a pre-trip outreach meeting the president held with Arab-American leaders last week, said that despite the emphatically low-key approach the White House is taking on the peace issue at the moment, he believes Obama and his aides are still committed to making a major push on the issue in his second term.
“If Obama comes back, gives a speech and drops it, I’ll say this was just a checking-the-box trip,” Zogby said. “I have to believe they’re more aware of the importance of this; otherwise, the trip wouldn’t be structured [this] way … Why do all these things if you’re not trying to send a message and change people’s minds?”
1a)Obama's Missile-Defense Reversal
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel chose Friday afternoon to announce one of the biggest switcheroos of the Obama Presidency: The Pentagon now plans to fortify America's homeland defenses against missile attack, reversing a 2009 decision that was part of President Obama's fantasy of a world without nuclear weapons.
Mr. Hagel said the U.S. will add 14 ground-based long-range missile interceptors by 2017 to the 30 already deployed at sites in Alaska and California. "The United States has missile-defense systems in place to protect us from limited ICBM attacks," said the new Defense chief, "but North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities and is engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations."
2)Dollar Strengthens Despite Fed Easing, Talk of Currency War
The dollar has scored hefty gains since the beginning of February, even as the Federal Reserve sustains its massive easing program and talk intensifies of a currency war.
Investors’ sunny view of the U.S. economy is what’s pushing the greenback upward, according to The Wall Street Journal.
That sounds a bit fishy, given that the consensus forecast for U.S. economic growth this year is only about 2 percent. And the automatic spending cuts might trim even that modest estimate.
But that would still be better than Japan and Europe, The Journal story points out.
The International Monetary Fund predicts growth of only 1.2 percent in Japan and 1 percent in the United Kingdom this year. And it sees a 0.2 percent contraction in the euro zone.
The Dollar Index, which measures the greenback’s strength against six major currencies, has jumped 4.6 percent since Feb. 1 and stands near a 2 ½-year high.
A rising dollar is good for U.S. imports, bad for U.S. exports, and good for U.S. citizens traveling abroad. It’s good for imports, because it means lower prices in dollar terms. And it’s bad for exports, because it means higher prices in foreign currency terms.
It’s good for U.S. tourists, because they can now buy more foreign currency for the same amount of dollars.
As for the foreign exchange market’s view toward the U.S. currency, "It is all about broad dollar strength," Peter Kinsella, a currency strategist at Commerzbank, tells Reuters. “We have seen a breakdown in the correlation that good U.S. data is bad for the dollar."
1a)Obama's Missile-Defense Reversal
A tacit admission that the U.S. will soon be vulnerable to attack.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel chose Friday afternoon to announce one of the biggest switcheroos of the Obama Presidency: The Pentagon now plans to fortify America's homeland defenses against missile attack, reversing a 2009 decision that was part of President Obama's fantasy of a world without nuclear weapons.
Mr. Hagel said the U.S. will add 14 ground-based long-range missile interceptors by 2017 to the 30 already deployed at sites in Alaska and California. "The United States has missile-defense systems in place to protect us from limited ICBM attacks," said the new Defense chief, "but North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities and is engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations."
That's for sure. The Pentagon believes North Korean missiles can already reach Alaska and Hawaii, and it's only a matter of time before they are nuclear-tipped and can hit Seattle or San Diego. The Pyongyang regime has recently promised to attack the U.S. and turn South Korea into a "sea of fire." It's nice to see the Obama Administration finally admitting reality.
The shame is that the U.S. could already have those 14 extra interceptors in place, plus another 10 in Europe next year. Those plans from the Bush Administration were well along when Mr. Obama pulled the plug in 2009. He also mothballed or killed several promising missile-defense development programs, such as the airborne laser.
The decision to stop deploying interceptors and a radar to Poland and the Czech Republic was meant to promote the Administration's "reset" in relations with Russia, which even the White House now privately admits was a failure. The cuts to West Coast defenses reflected the Democratic Party's long aversion to any kind of missile defense. Seven years before winning the White House, Mr. Obama told a Chicago TV station that "I don't agree with a missile defense system."
In 2009 the Administration proposed a shorter-range antimissile substitute for Europe that at the time was more palatable to Moscow. But Vladimir Putin has since moved the goal posts again and now opposes even these defenses.
Mr. Hagel also announced on Friday that the U.S. is cancelling plans to deploy defenses against ICBMs in Europe within the next decade, and the suspicion is that Mr. Obama is offering them as a bargaining chip in his next arms-control deal with the Russians. Recall that Mr. Obama was overheard last year telling then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he'd have "more flexibility" after his re-election.
The Senate should tell Mr. Obama this is a nonstarter, but the growing nuclear and missile threats are also an argument for building a third antimissile site on the U.S. East Coast. A September report from the National Research Council noted U.S. antimissile shortcomings and specifically recommended an East Coast site to guard against an Iranian strike.
The Obama Administration's modified European plan may eventually protect our European allies against short- or medium-range strikes. But the East Coast of the U.S. also needs protection against an ICBM threat, sooner rather than later.
All of this vindicates those who have fought for missile defenses since Ronald Reagan first aroused liberal ire with his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. Among his more vociferous critics was a Senator named Joe Biden. U.S. defenses have continued to advance despite Democratic hostility, though much of the technology dates to the 1980s. Meanwhile, Israel has shown what modern defenses can do, reducing the damage from Hamas's Iran-supplied missile attacks last year with a 90% hit rate.
Retired Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, who ran the Missile Defense Agency from 2004-2009, recommends that the U.S. catch up by launching a new "multiple kill vehicle" program. Shut down in 2009 by Mr. Obama, the MKV uses many small warheads on a single interceptor, which can handle decoys and has a better chance of success. The U.S. has also lost time developing technology to strike missiles in their early or "boost" phase, and space weapons have been neglected.
Even as Mr. Obama claims that stopping nuclear proliferation is a priority, the world is on the edge of a new and dangerous nuclear breakout. North Korea continues to expand its nuclear arsenal while Iran is ever-closer to having its own. Nations from South Korea to Saudi Arabia are now debating whether they need their own nuclear deterrent. If Mr. Obama won't prevent this proliferation, others should continue to press him to at least protect America from attack.
1b)Morning Jolt – March 18, 2013
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1b)Morning Jolt – March 18, 2013
By Jim Geraghty
Here's your Monday Morning Jolt.
Enjoy!
Between the St. Patrick's Day hangovers and the bracket-filling for March Madness, this is not likely to be a productive day for the American economy.
Obamacare Is Coming — and It's Gonna Be a Pain in the . . .
At one point during my conference with chief human-resource officers in Orlando Friday, our host and moderator shifted to the topic of Obamacare, and said, "I think we all have a feeling that there may be some challenges in implementing it," and the audience laughed, quite knowingly. Folks, as bad as Obamacare's complicated rules and regulations sound to us laymen, it sounds worse when you listen to the professionals who have to try to make it work.
Inc., which bills itself as "The Magazine for Growing Companies," is not a political magazine, but their article this month on "What's Your Obamacare Strategy?" makes an awfully effective (and probably unintended) political argument. They look at how companies are preparing for the law, and spotlight the real-world consequences -- and in the process, confirm the central points of the Republican objections to Obamacare.
"How will it affect your company? Good question. Like Tolstoy's unhappy families, every company will be made unhappy in a different way by the new law. Or maybe not; for smaller companies, it could mean subsidies that make offering health benefits more affordable. Companies with 50 or more full-time employees, on the other hand, could face a range of penalties for failing to offer affordable coverage."
The magazine goes on to profile four companies: an Indianapolis brewery that expects to have 60 full-time employees by 2014 and that does not currently offer health insurance, which faces the choice of paying a penalty of about $60,000, or providing health insurance, which will cost $150,000 to $200,000. The co-owner/vice president laments that he could buy a lot more equipment and supplies with either sum.
Here's the deal: For most companies, offering health insurance will cost a lot more than $3,000 per employee -- particularly when insurers have to cover all preexisting conditions. The so-called "Affordable Care Act" has actually given companies a greater incentive to drop their health-insurance plans and just pay the fine, letting their employees try their luck in these "exchanges," which no one thinks will be ready on time.
The cheeriest firm is a small digital advertising shop with eleven employees (average age, 25). They're happy; some of their youngest employees went back onto their parents' coverage because Obamacare requires employer health plans to cover adult children up to age 26.
Hardest hit is Oren Elliot products of Edgerton, Ohio, a manufacturing firm with 43 employees that is unlikely to expand anytime soon. Elliot tells the magazine, "Now we're forced to remain under 50 employees or pay a penalty for not offering insurance. We'll have to change our entire philosophy." Finally, a large staffing firm based out of Orlando thinks the changes under the law will be manageable but worries about premium hikes; the managing partner declares, "We may have to tighten our belts."
Folks, the chief human resource officers seem like really nice people, so try not to yell at them too much when they tell you that your premiums are going up.
The Inc. article concludes, "Yes, it's a lot to take in. But you really do not have any choice. And remember: the clock is ticking."
Elsewhere, the editors of the Indianapolis Star find one broken promise after another:
The president made many promises before the federal health reform bill became law. He said, "If you like your plan, you can keep it." He said the cost of a family insurance policy would drop by $2,500 in his first term. He said everyone would be covered. In short, he said, "Fear not."But reality has arrived. Family premiums have increased by $3,065 over the past four years. Experts say more sticker shock is coming this summer when insurers release their Obamacare-priced premiums. This could be as early as July. By 2014, many American families will know the president's promises were nothing but political hot air.A proposed federal rule brings broken promises to a new and disturbing level. As U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, says, millions of spouses and children will be stuck in a "no man's land" without insurance.
And then they'll get to pay the extra tax for not having health insurance!
This weekend, liberals scoffed at Paul Ryan's declaration that Obamacare will ultimately destroy the existing American health-care system. Apparently they haven't been paying attention.
"We believe that young people, seniors, families, businesses are in for a very rude awakening as Obamacare is rolled out," Ryan said in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It still has nearly two years to go before it's fully implemented and we're showing that there's a better way of going and this is a better plan to balance the budget."When asked by "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer if including the repeal in the House budget was a waste of time since there would not be enough votes to do so, Ryan said no."I really believe it's going to destroy the healthcare plan, the healthcare system in America. We believe the law will collapse under its own weight and that people will be eager for alternatives, as the gory details unfold in the future with its implementation," Ryan said.
The RNC Prescription for 2016: Fewer Primary Debates and an Earlier Convention
The Republican National Committee's panel focusing on reform efforts -- the Growth and Opportunity Project -- turned in their report last week, and this morning -- probably as you're reading this -- RNC chairman Reince Priebus will unveil them at the National Press Club.
This weekend, he previewed them a bit, including an effort to cut down on the number of primary debates in the 2016 cycle and to hold the convention earlier:
"I'm calling for a convention in June or July," Priebus said on CBS News's "Face The Nation. "We are going to set up a commission that's going to make that decision. I'm going to be a part of that, I'm going to chair that commission. But no more August conventions."The RNC chairman argued that Mitt Romney's inability to use funds slated for after he was nominated left him vulnerable to Democratic attacks in 2012, in the lead-up to the late August convention.Priebus also urged other changes in the presidential nominating process, including reducing the number of GOP primary debates and shrinking the primary season."I would limit the [GOP primary] debates to a reasonable amount -- I don't know, maybe seven or eight, but not 23, Bob. It's ridiculous," Priebus said.
Priebus was actually beating this drum back in December, telling me in an interview:
One of the major topics that people discuss is the debate issue -- controlling the debates and tying the nomination process to the debate calendar is something we're going to look at. Now, we didn't have that opportunity two years ago; there is no mechanism to tie the nomination process to the debate calendar. But we have that opportunity now. We can do that with a three-quarters vote of the Republican National Committee. Here's a hypothetical. The RNC could hypothetically say, "Look, here's the debate calendar. Here are the moderators. We're going to have one debate a month starting on this day." And adherence to the calendar will be a requirement to achieving the nomination to the presidency -- either through bonus delegates or penalties of delegates subtracted. There is one major reason that a presidential candidate needs the Republican party: To get on the ballot in November, a presidential candidate must get a majority of delegates at a national convention to vote for him or her. If the presidential candidate can't make that happen, he or she is not on the ballot. So that is one idea that we will be looking at.If you have ten presidential candidates, and seven out of ten or eight out of ten will take whatever two-hour slot that is open to them, then you end up with a debate any time some cable network decides to hold one. You can't control that situation. Our endeavor is to come up with some idea that helps us control that situation.
Also, I came across this hard-to-believe quote this weekend:
2)Dollar Strengthens Despite Fed Easing, Talk of Currency War
By Dan Weil
The dollar has scored hefty gains since the beginning of February, even as the Federal Reserve sustains its massive easing program and talk intensifies of a currency war.
Investors’ sunny view of the U.S. economy is what’s pushing the greenback upward, according to The Wall Street Journal.
That sounds a bit fishy, given that the consensus forecast for U.S. economic growth this year is only about 2 percent. And the automatic spending cuts might trim even that modest estimate.
But that would still be better than Japan and Europe, The Journal story points out.
The International Monetary Fund predicts growth of only 1.2 percent in Japan and 1 percent in the United Kingdom this year. And it sees a 0.2 percent contraction in the euro zone.
The Dollar Index, which measures the greenback’s strength against six major currencies, has jumped 4.6 percent since Feb. 1 and stands near a 2 ½-year high.
A rising dollar is good for U.S. imports, bad for U.S. exports, and good for U.S. citizens traveling abroad. It’s good for imports, because it means lower prices in dollar terms. And it’s bad for exports, because it means higher prices in foreign currency terms.
It’s good for U.S. tourists, because they can now buy more foreign currency for the same amount of dollars.
As for the foreign exchange market’s view toward the U.S. currency, "It is all about broad dollar strength," Peter Kinsella, a currency strategist at Commerzbank, tells Reuters. “We have seen a breakdown in the correlation that good U.S. data is bad for the dollar."
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