Shaggy dog humor:A man goes into the doctors feeling a little ill
The doctor checks him over and says, Sorry, I have some bad news,
you have Yellow 24, a really nasty virus.
It's called Yellow 24 because it turns your blood yellow and you usually
only have 24 hours to live.
There's no known cure so just go home and enjoy your final precious
moments on earth..'
So he trudges home to his wife and breaks the news.
Distraught, she asks him to go to the bingo with her that evening as he's
never been there with her before.
They arrive at the bingo and with his first card he gets four corners and
wins £35.
Then, with the same card, he gets a line and wins £320.
Then he gets the full house and wins £1000.
Then the National Game comes up and he wins that too getting £380,000.
The bingo caller gets him up on stage and says,
'Son, I've been here 20 years and I've never seen anyone win four corners,
a line, the full-house and the national game on the same card.
You must be the luckiest man on Earth!'
'Lucky?' he screamed. 'Lucky? I'll have you know I've got Yellow 24 .'
'F*** me,' says the bingo caller.
'You've won the raffle as well
===
First cripple it then rock the cradle. (See 1 and 1a below.)
===
Sabotage continues . (See 2 below.)
===
Obama's health care numbers are making Democrats sick according to this Democrat Pollster. (See 3 below.)
===
Ouch!!! (See 4 below)
The CIA was involved in fomenting the Ukraine uprising and when it happened and accomplished the goal of ousting the former head of state, Obama was completely unprepared because he had no "what then " strategy.
Maybe The First Lady can get through to her husband and explain what an abject embarrassment and weakling he is. But then maybe she resides in lah lah land also!
Our affirmative action president has proven to be the personification of "The Peter Principle.."
When I began the JEA Speaker Series, one of my guest speakers was a dear friend and my former College Fraternity Big Brother - Marshall Goldman.
Marshall taught both at Wellsley and Harvard and is an expert on Russia as is his wife, Merl, on China.
At the time Marshal spoke, he had just published "Petrostate" and though he did not predict what is happening in Crimea and Ukraine he warned the audience Putin was in a position to use Russia's energy abundance for nefarious purposes and would, if push came to shove. He also warned of Europe's dependency on Russia and that it could/would effect Europe's foreign policy.
If you have not read "Petrostate" I re-commend it to you.
No one knows where all this leads but I would not be surprised if Putin decides to invade all of Ukraine and restitch it back to Russia. (See 4a below)
Meanwhile, will Obama's feckless behaviour drive Russia and Iran closer and closer? (See 4b below.)
===
Two professors write a book which sets the record straight and corrects fallacies and misinformation. (See 5 below.)
===
If at first you don't succeed keep on trying and then quit. (See 6 below.)
===
Dick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Obama and The Democrats Plot To Control America
Barack Obama’s presidency will come to an end. The legacy of pain he will leave behind will not -- at least for years to come. He and his fellow Democrats plan to keep their grip on the levers of power-even if they lose control of Congress and the White House. And they will do so with “invisible hands” gone but not forgotten.
Every first-term president has a single compelling desire: to win a second term. But for Obama and his liberal allies to accomplish a second major goal, to “fundamentally transform America,” requires more than two terms. Their agenda depends on fundamentally transforming ourgovernment and how its vast powers will be deployed.
How was this done?
The trillion-dollar so called “stimulus” bill was the first major step to vastly increase our spending and deficits. It was a sign of things to come. Budget-breaking binges have followed with no serious efforts to control our massive federal debt. The Democrats have run up more red ink than all previous administrations combined.
The entitlement crisis has been a crisis that has not been allowed to go to waste. Under Obama’s feeble economy and sputtering “recovery” (the weakest in modern history), spending on welfare, food stamps, and disability payments have soared. Hooking people onto the government IV line is an excellent way to increase dependency and the number of future dependable Democrats. It is also an excellent way to bankrupt America.
The sequester was a mere Band-Aid that has recently been ripped off.
The wound remains unhealed as interest payments on the debt will come to dwarf spending on other priorities. As interest rates rise from the abnormally low current levels, the problem will worsen. This will limit the ability of future presidents and Congresses to change spending priorities. For example, interest payments are on track to exceed defense spending. Will a future president be able to ramp up defense spending in the face of a massive constituency addicted to entitlements? Already our defense budget is being slashed (the Army drops to a pre-World War Two level; The Navy is shrinking to fit a bathtub -- or thereabouts) while our adversaries are boosting their militaries, the Russian bear emerges from hibernation and runs rampant, and Iran is on the path to get the Bomb. Such are the fruits of flexibility. At least Obama kept one promise -- too bad it was to Putin.
Since Obama and many of his fellow Democrats (now that Blue Dog Democrats have gone the way of the Dodo bird) consider defense spending as some sort of pagan ritual or so “19th Century” as Secretary of State John Kerry might phrase it, they can then consider their mission accomplished: the permanent weakening of America.
Obama and Congressional Democrats have handcuffed all future presidents and endangered Americans yet to be born.
They can move onto what they consider the most dire threat in the world -- climate change -- and commence ladling out taxpayer money to their cronies behind green schemes.
One-sixth of the economy has been victimized by the wizards of Washington, and America will never be the same. Opponents should not be too sanguine about ObamaCare’s repeal. As websites are fixed, as more and more people latch onto subsidies, as Obama uses taxpayer money to bail our insurance companies, and people with preexisting conditions gain coverage, a larger constituency to keep the ACA in operation is developing. The result: worse medical care and higher premiums for many Americans. Medicare is being gutted to expand Medicaid, fewer medical advances as the economics dissuade companies from pursuing them courtesy of the medical device tax, and fewer doctors as the current ones leave the profession and potential ones decide government-run healthcare creates a hostile workplace environment.
But it gets worse.
The ACA relies on the Independent Payment Advisory Board (“IPAB”)to take medical decision-making away from doctors and patients to curb Medicare spending. The Democrats endowed this 15-member board with vast powers and, unusually, shielded it from control by future Congresses and presidents. AsKristin Leighty writes for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons website:
The IPAB will have authority to make direct modifications to the Medicare program unless Congress overrides its proposed changes. In addition, a super majority would be required in the Senate to overturn the IPAB’s recommendations.Although the IPAB’s proposals are technically presented to Congress, the Board retains extensive control. PPACA “fast-tracks” the recommendations, forcing Congress to consider them quickly and to match any proposed cuts with equivalent reductions elsewhere in the federal budget. (snip)If the panel cannot come to a decision on spending, its power is automatically transferred to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who is still required to make the cuts necessary to meet the mandated spending targets. The Secretary’s proposal must then be implemented unless Congress takes action under the expedited procedure set forth in the law. Therefore, prior proposals to simply defund IPAB will not prevent reductions from occurring.In an article featured in Politico Pro last month, Rep. Roe echoed his belief that “the House should not give up its constitutional authority to control these things” while also noting that the public has no avenue to dispute IPAB decisions.
It will be very challenging for a super-majority (67 Senators) to be reached in the Senate to override any decisions this panel makes. Furthermore, the ability to “fast track” their decisions means Congress will have a very limited time period to overrule the IPAB’s decisions. As Congressman Poe notes, the public will have no role (of course). The party of the people would not deign to take their views into account.
These “death panels” will be very hard to kill.
As our great modern sage, Ronald Reagan, declared, “a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.” And this is exactly what Obama and the Democrats in Congress planned all along. They will exert their power long after they have left office.
Optimists think that the same tools Obama used to force the ACA onto America can be used to de facto repeal many of its measures (see Brian Callanan’s “A Legal Poison Pill for ObamaCare”) as well as other executive actions he has taken, such as hikes in minimum wage and new overtime pay rules.
Perhaps…but it would be far truer to conservative principles to repeal the law, and that would clearly require a sweep of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Also, as Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote (“How Hard Will We Be On A Future Post-Obama President”), a Republican president using the same tools to kill the ACA that Obama used to keep it alive, if not thriving, will be excoriated. And, as previously noted, there may be a large enough constituency in favor of the ACA and other executive actions -- and enough major changes made in our institutions -- to make repealing it very challenging. Will any President be strong enough to take increased pay away from voters?
It is a frightening prospect but America may be stuck with this “reform” for many years to come.
The Democrats planned it to be this way and they may well succeed.
Harry Reid and the Death of the Filibuster
Democrats who are unconcerned with an Iranian nuclear weapon also were blissful when Senate Majority Leader trigged his own “nuclear option” abolishing the filibuster in most appointments. As Paul Kane wrote in the Washington Post:
Democrats used a rare parliamentary move to change the rules so that federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments can advance to confirmation votes by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that has been the standard for nearly four decades.
Of course, when a Republican was president Harry Reid, Barack Obama and many other Democrats who applauded Reid’s maneuver spoke reverentially about how important the filibuster was for democracy.
That was then and this is now. All history began anew when Obama ascended to the Oval Office. Besides, hypocrisy among Democratic politicians is almost a job requirement (book recommendation: Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy).
To further control America’s future, the Democrats need to control the third branch of government: the judiciary. Checks and balances to them may vaguely refer to that pleather thing stuck in a drawer somewhere, not principles enshrined in our Constitution that brave people have died defending.
Now Obama will have his radical appointees to important posts in government easily confirmed (history shows most Democrat Senators are invertebrate when it comes to obeying Obama). A future Republican president -- if we will ever see one again -- will have quite the Augean Stables to clean upon assuming office.
However, the real import of this action by Reid, is to allow Federal judges of Obama’s own choosing to be confirmed. The first goal was to take over the key U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- the court that reviews many cases related to federal law and regulations. But it won’t end there.
Decisions handed down have very long lifespans as the principle of stare decisisand the power of precedent limit the chance to overturn them. This is particularly true if other federal courts become stacked with Obama nominees. And they will be.
These are lifetime appointments and they will be responsible for interpreting the law and respecting the Constitution. Anyone think the federal courts won’t be stuck for years with lawyers in Obama’s image?
As lawyers are wont to say, “res ipsa loquitur” (the “thing speaks for itself”).
Liberals are already pushing the idea that older liberal Supreme Court Justices should retire (“ageism” is fine as long as liberals do it) so Obama and Reid can replace them with younger and presumably even more liberal ones,and thus keep the Obama era alive for decades to come.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was one of the craftiest if not most subversive action Democrats took when they controlled Congress. The CFPB is responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. That sounds benign but the agency is running wild, using -- in a widely criticized way -- vague disparate impact “analysis” to coerce businesses to extend credit to less than creditworthy customers, auto dealers to sell cars to people who may not be able to afford the payments on them, and the like.
Can this agency be reined in? No -- or certainly not easily.
Usually Congress can use the power of the purse when an agency has “gone rogue.” However, in an unprecedented way, the funding for the CFPB comes not from Congress but from the Federal Reserve, and its amount is determined by a fixed formula. The Federal Reserve cannot turn down requests from the CFPB for funds -- it’s “guaranteed.” Similar to the IPAB, CFPB is designed to withstand future Republican Congresses and Presidents.
America can expect to bear the brunt of this guaranteed freedom from oversight for years to come. The two main politicians who crafted this legislation (Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank) have retired; they, along with Obama, Reid, and Nancy Pelosi will serenely watch their handiwork wreak havoc for years to come -- political Typhoid Marys.
There are myriad ways the Democrats have abused their power that will impact all of us in the decades ahead. The above examples are hardly exhaustive. One could add the ruining of alliances, the betrayals of friends, the possible closing of Guantanamo Bay by executive order (the prison there, because of the unique legal status of the land it sits on, offers singular advantages for America); the move to ask the Senate to approve military strikes in Syria -- a precedent that may hamstring future presidents who actually take their Commander-in-Chief duties seriously; dramatic actions to legalize millions of illegal immigrants with the ultimate goal of granting them citizenship and voting rights (thereby making a permanent Democratic majority a serious possibility-demographics is destiny); thebankruptcy of the coal industry; and the expected explosion of federal land being forever placed off limits for energy exploration and development via the largest federal land grab in history as Obama ”cements” his legacy.
One could expect the political equivalent of a fireworks show to commence after the midterm elections when Obama can indulge his wish to “go Bulworth” in his second term with a cavalcade of executive orders, waivers, delays, enforcement discretion, regulations -- call it Obamageddon.
When Obama leaves the Oval Office and is free to enjoy many years of fame and fortune, he will have taken many steps that will harm Americans long afterwards. These actions will fulfill his boast that he would “fundamentally transform America” -- probably the only promise he will have not broken.
The worst is yet to come.
1a) How 'My Brother's Keeper' Stands to Destroy Already Bad Schools
Though the Obama presidency has years to go, he has already initiated his legacy project. It’s called My Brother’s Keeper and attempts to help “at risk” young men of color – those prone to crime, mayhem, drug addiction, and fathering illegitimate children. Clearly a worthy cause, and it has already attracted $150 million in private support. The goal also seems reasonable, since unruly young men (regardless of color) have long troubled society and cures abound thanks to eons of experience.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that Obama’s putative cure is a modern-day Progressive nightmare. It will fail while further generating government make-work jobs, and most importantly, it will hurt the education of millions of minority children.
This awaiting nightmare is hardly hidden, and tellingly, everything starts with more government jobs.
The task is huge. In the 1980s, it was estimated that the federal criminal code itself, just one part of all federal statutes, consumed 23,000 pages, and nobody knows how many other laws and regulations exist. State/local laws and regulations may double or triple this number. Perhaps all the at-risk young men should receive intensive legal training and told to mine the thousands of statutes and regulations looking for solutions to their personal tribulations.
The Department of Education will then have a “what works” website to disseminate these uncovered solutions. Best practices in hand, this Task Force will then coordinate efforts with myriad government and private officials to help implement recommendations.
But, lofty intentions aside, how does one determine whether a specific law negatively impacts young men of color and how it should be altered? Months could be spent debating the impact of minimum wage requirements on employment or whether draconian anti-discrimination laws hurt intended beneficiaries. These are only two of myriad quandaries to be settled, and keep in mind that professional economists who have long studied these issues often disagree.
Oddly, President Obama insists that this labor-intensive exegesis is cost-free. He conceivably believes that future saving from lower incarceration rates, etc., etc. will offset today’s expenditures, but the calculations behind these beliefs have gone unmentioned.
Scrutinizing statutes is not the place to find solutions. The historical record suggests far easier-to-implement remedies: tougher punishment for misbehavior (including corporal punishment), public shame and humiliation, letting teachers exert greater authority (and immunity from lawsuits), hiring more police, exiling troublemakers to reform or military schools, and even mandatory energy-draining forced labor (“boot camps”). But punitive measures are unspeakable. In fact, punishment is now denigrated as “negative reinforcement.”
Religious groups also have stellar records for rescuing youngsters from crime and depravity (see here). For decades, discipline-minded inner-city Catholic schools performed wonders with sassy youngsters more inclined to pick fights than learn Latin. What about hiring ex-military drill instructors as teachers to crack the whip? None of this quite reasonable menu is part of My Brother’s Keeper.
This Kafkaesque tale now grows worse. Surely one might consult untold parents and schoolteachers who have succeeded in reforming delinquent teenagers. What about coaches who know a thing or two about getting troublemakers to shape up? Not on Obama’s menu. Instead, the president will meet with such “experts” on adolescent discipline as Magic Johnson; Adam Silver of the NBA; Thomas Tull of Legendary Entertainment ( a black-themed video company); Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel; former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; General Colin Powell; Don Thompson, CEO of McDonalds; and Ken Chenault, Chairman of American Express, plus multiple other high-profile notables, none of whom claims any special expertise in dealing with out-of-control young men of color.
The damage is far greater than yet again wasting millions of taxpayer money. This Progressive fantasy is a cure a hundred times worse than the disease.
Paralleling the “best practices” quest is a campaign to help keep these miscreants in school despite their unruly behavior. Yes, Junior may disrupt the class, terrify his teacher, and otherwise prevent classmates from learning, but everything possible should be done to keep him marching toward graduation. Diploma in hand, he will – supposedly – join the workforce, eschew criminality, and pay his taxes. A diploma is now a magic piece of paper.
To this end, the Obama administration (particularly the DOJ) is doing everything possible to lighten the punishment of young men of color. Obama himself hascalled for ending the “zero tolerance” policy common in many schools since blacks disproportionately are guilty of infractions. Similarly, the Justice Department now regularly sues school districts over racial inequalities in suspensions, expulsions, and other disciplinary measures. It just assumes that all groups commit offenses in equal proportions, so disparities merely reflect racial discrimination. The attorney general has also called for de-criminalizing low-level nonviolent active drug dealings.
Easing up on discipline and substituting social work-like measures will, almost guaranteed, make already troubled schools even worse. It is bizarre to insist, as areport from the Atlantic Philanthropies argues, that keeping miscreants in school will narrow the black/white achievement gap (the report calls for building more “trusting, supportive relationships between students and educators” to cut school anarchy). More likely, social promotions will soar, and academics will suffer, so as not to discourage those disinclined to learn. Teachers will spend even more time struggling to maintain order, well-mannered students will receive minimal instruction, better teachers will flee to safer settings, and whole neighborhoods will deteriorate as schools become centers for delinquent behavior. And closing “bad schools” will only relocate the mayhem elsewhere. In sum, this “help” will be a gigantic step backward, especially for decent, impoverished students trapped in inner-city schools.
Who could possibly support such a costly doomed-to-fail measure that undermines the education of countless poor blacks and Hispanics? The answer is several elite philanthropic foundations – notably the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The California Endowment, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Open Society Foundations, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and The Kapor Center for Social Impact. This will also, obviously, be a bonanza for civil service unions – hardly a surprise.
Why all the misguided support? Over and above generic foolishness, let me suggest that foundations' officials are basically political animals, who know that enlisting in the president’s program is good politics regardless of outcome or cost. The IRS does not care about whether a foundation spends wisely – only whether it adheres to the tax code. Surely no philanthropists will personally suffer financially or have their children attend violence-infested schools. It’s all about keeping Obama happy, and who cares about the millions of poor inner-city kids who will learn even less, thanks to job-creation masquerading as helping the “at-risk”?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Official Reveals New Details of Sabotage Acts against Iran's N. Facilities
The Iranian security forces have discovered new acts of
sabotage in the IR40 Heavy Reactor in Khondab, 40 kilometers far from Arak city in Central Iran, a senior official of the Atomic Energy Organization of
Iran (AEOI) announced on Monday.
“Intelligence inspections of the nuclear facilities indicated that some
pumps of the second circuitry of Arak’s IR40 project had undergone
mechanical operations in a bid to disrupt the routine work of the power
plant,” AEOI’s Deputy Chief for Nuclear Protection and Security Asqar Zare’an
said, revealing further details about the revelations that he first made on
Saturday.
On Saturday, Zare’an announced that the Iranian security forces have
identified and defused several enemy plots and acts of sabotage against the
country’s industrial sector, specially at the nuclear facilities, in recent
months.
“Some acts of sabotage in the industrial sector have been identified and
foiled in the last few months through cooperation between the intelligence
ministry and other security bodies,” he said.
He said that sabotage acts against the IR40 Heavy Water Nuclear Reactor were
among those foiled by the swift reaction of the Iranian security forces.
Zare’an said the AEOI has launched special laboratories for defusing
industrial acts of sabotage in a ceremony attended by AEOI Chief Ali Akbar
Salehi.
In relevant remarks in October, Salehi called on the country's security
forces to be watchful of possible terrorist attacks on the country's nuclear
centers, and said several such acts of sabotage have been defused and a
number of spies had been arrested in the last few days.
"I urge the security forces to watch the country's borders vigilantly since
there is a possibility of acts of sabotage in the country," Salehi said in
Tehran.
He said that the Iranian security forces have foiled several plots against
the country's nuclear installations in recent days, and said, "The enemy
always seeks to strike a blow at the country's nuclear installations and
therefore, the AEOI's guard units bear a highly heavy responsibility."
Salehi also announced the identification and arrest of four spies in the
AEOI in October, and said they are being interrogated now and the details of
the case will be announced later.
Iran has repeatedly complained of the enemies' hostile efforts against its
civilian nuclear program. Tehran says the enemies' campaign includes the
abduction of scientists, the sale of faulty equipment and the planting of
destructive computer worms, including Stuxnet, which sought to disrupt
Iran's uranium enrichment activity in 2010.
In 2012, former Head of the AEOI Fereidoun Abbasi Davani announced that
separate attacks on Iran's centrifuges - through tiny explosives meant to
disable key parts of the machines - were discovered before the blasts could
go off on timers.
Over the past few years Iran has been the target of numerous cyber attacks
carried out to disrupt the country's industrial systems, but Iranian experts
have managed to find and defuse such highly dangerous plots.
Abbasi also told the UN nuclear agency in Vienna that "terrorists and
saboteurs" might have infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency,
after the watchdog's inspectors arrived at the Fordo underground enrichment
facility shortly after power lines were blown up through sabotage on August
17, 2012.
Iran has several times complained that the IAEA is sending spies in the
guise of inspectors to collect information about its nuclear activities,
pointing to leaks of information by inspectors to US and other officials.
In May 2012, Iran announced that its cyber experts detected and contained a
complicated Israeli spy virus known as "Flame".
The head of Information Technology Organization of Iran, Ali Hakim Javadi,
said earlier that the country's experts had managed to produce anti-virus
software that could spot and remove the detected computer virus "Flame".
Javadi said that the indigenous anti-virus software had been capable of
detecting the virus and cleaning up the infected computers.
He said that the malware was different from other viruses and was more
destructive than Stuxnet.
On April 24, 2012, an Iranian oil official said the country's experts had
contained cyber attacks against the country's Oil Ministry.
Hamdollah Mohammadnejad, deputy minister in engineering affairs, said
"Recently, a few number of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) servers were
attacked by a malware, but the cyber security experts of oil industry
contained it immediately."
In October 2010, former Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi
announced that Iran had detected and thwarted a virus aimed at infecting the
country's nuclear plant system.
Iran said the computer worm, Stuxnet, had infected some IP addresses in
Iran, including the personal computers of the staff at the country's first
nuclear power plant in Bushehr. Tehran said Israel and the US were behind
the infection of its industrial sites.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) The Health Care Numbers Are Stacked Against Democrats
From its inception, everything about President Barack Obama’s health care law has been controversial.
The latest controversy came with the government release of new numbers. Through February, 4.2 million Americans had signed up for health insurance on the government exchanges. Supporters believe that while the numbers are lower than they’d hoped, the problem was simply a poor website rollout.
Critics contended that perhaps a million of those who enrolled shouldn’t be counted because they haven’t paid their premiums. That means the official numbers are overstated and will almost certainly be revised downward by a wide margin. Additionally, it appears that the vast majority of those signing up had insurance before the president’s law was passed. Only about a million were previously uninsured.
Both sides are so busy arguing the details that they’ve missed the larger picture. It’s not how they spin the numbers that matters; it’s the reality of how the numbers affect the American people. From that perspective, the numbers are far more troubling for Obama’s team.
While political insiders debate the significance of the 4.2 million people that enrolled through the exchanges, 10 times as many have either been forced into a new plan or been notified that their plans will have to change. That number is certain to grow. Some will find comparable plans, and some won’t. All are nervous.
Obama supporters dismiss these concerns because they believe the new insurance coverage will be superior. In some cases, they will be right. But they seem to think that having the government mandate a product that is better for some is more important than letting individuals choose their own insurance plans. A recent New York Times column, written by an Obama adviser involved in designing the law, went so far as to say, “In health care, choice is overrated.”
That attitude is the heart of the problems facing the health care law in the real world. Americans are used to making such choices on their own. If, for example, people had a choice between paying a lower premium and having to switch doctors, many people would select that option. Others would choose to keep their doctors and pay more. Being able to decide is more important than the end result.
And the vast majority of Americans believe they have the right to do so. Another New York Times column, by David Brooks, correctly noted that “millions of Americans — and not just Tea Party types — do not accept the legitimacy of the government to overrule individual decisions, even on something like health insurance.”
The political problems for Democrats are compounded by a reality that every retailer knows. Disgruntled customers are nine times as likely to talk about their experiences as happy customers. For the president’s law, that means most Americans are far more likely to hear of unhappy encounters with the new health care law than anything else. Personal testimonies of troubles will be seen as far more credible than media coverage or political rhetoric.
Obama’s law has upset tens of millions of Americans by eliminating their right to choose while providing insurance for perhaps a million previously uninsured Americans. Those are the numbers that spell trouble for the Democrats in November.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Russian Deputy PM Laughs at Obama’s Sanctions
By Kirit Radia
Russia’s deputy prime minister laughed off President Obama’s sanction against him today asking “Comrade @BarackObama” if “some prankster” came up with the list.
The Obama administration hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions today as punishment for Russia’s support of Crimea’s referendum. Among them: aides to President Vladimir Putin, a top government official, senior lawmakers, Crimean officials, the ousted president of Ukraine, and a Ukrainian politician and businessman allegedly tied to violence against protesters in Kiev.
It remains to be seen whether the sanctions will dissuade Russia from annexing Crimea, but one an early clue that they will not be effective came just hours later when President Putin signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state, perhaps an early step towards annexation.
U.S. official have warned of additional sanctions for Russian action, hoping it will deter Russia from any further aggression towards Ukraine, but it didn’t appear to upset the often outspoke Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is seen in this July 17, 2012 file photo during a meeting with Indian Minister for External Affairs, S.M. Krishna in New Delhi. Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images
Rogozin, a friend of actor Steven Seagal, took to Twitter to tweak Obama, tweeting he thinks “some prankster” came up with the sanctions list
In a later tweet addressed to “Comrade @BarackObama,” he asked, “what should do those who have neither accounts nor property abroad? Or U didn’t think about it?”
Another Russian on the sanctions list, Vladislav Surkov, also seemed unconcerned.
Surkov, a top Putin ideologue often called the Kremlin’s grey cardinal, reportedly told a Russian newspaper, “It’s a big honor for me. I don’t have accounts abroad. The only things that interest me in the U.S. are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work. I lose nothing.”
Here’s who gets hit with the sanctions:
U.S. officials said that, among the sanctioned individuals were the “key ideologists and architects” of Russia’s Ukraine policy, while adding that some of the Russian officials were included in the list for their role in curbing “human rights and liberties” in Russia.
The sanctions freeze any assets under American jurisdiction and prevent American banks from doing business with the named individual, essentially freezing them out of the international banking system. The sanctions also impose a ban on their travel to the United States. Separately, but in coordination with the White House, the European Union announced sanctions today on 21 individuals that it plans to name later. U.S. officials told reporters that the American and European lists “overlapped” in some area, but declined to say how.
While some of the sanctioned officials are bold faced names, the White House move is unlikely to affect Russia’s decision making with regard to Crimea’s bid to join the Russian Federation. Russia’s stock market actually improved on the news that so few officials were included on the list. U.S. officials warned that, if Russia does go ahead with annexation of Crimea, additional penalties will follow, with more, harsher measures to come if Russia attempts to enter eastern Ukraine.
Kremlin aides
Vladislav Surkov – An aide to President Vladimir Putin, he was once considered one of Russia’s most powerful men. He has been called the Kremlin’s “gray cardinal” for his role as a power broker behind the scenes. He’s also credited the architect of Russia’s political system, with power concentrated in the presidency. In the past he was credited with shaping the ideology of the ruling United Russia party. He has also written rock music lyrics and is rumored to have authored a book.
Sergei Glazyev – An economic aide to Putin who oversaw relations with Ukraine. He frequently blasted the protest movement in Kiev and was outspoken in his criticism of American and European support for the protests.
Top government official
Dmitry Rogozin – An outspoken, hawkish Deputy Prime Minister, he’s known to have a close friendship with Hollywood actor Steven Seagal. As a member of Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev’s government, Rogozin is responsible for the armed forces and arms industry.
Russian lawmakers
Elena Mizulina – A senior lawmaker, she is considered one of the Kremlin’s morality enforcers in the parliament. She is perhaps best known as the co-author of last year’s homosexual “propaganda” law which sparked outrage overseas. She also proposed a measure to give Ukrainians Russian passports.
Leonid Slutsky – A lawmaker in the lower house of Parliament. He is the chair of the Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration, and Relations with Compatriots. He was one of the Russian observers attending Sunday’s referendum in Crimea.
Andrei Klishas – A member of the upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council, who proposed retaliatory action in case of Western sanctions on Russia. He is chairman of the Federation Council Committee of Constitutional Law, Judicial, and Legal Affairs, and the Development of Civil Society.
Valentina Matviyenko – The head of the Federation Council, she is the most senior lawmaker on the sanctions list.
Crimean officials
Sergey Aksyonov – Once an obscure pro-Russian politician in Crimea, he has now been declared the prime minister.
Vladimir Konstantinov – The newly declared speaker of Crimea’s parliament.
Ukrainian officials
Viktor Medvedchuk – A pro-Russian politician, he is being sanctioned for having “materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support” to impeached President Viktor Yanukovich. Ukraine’s opposition has accused him of orchestrating or aiding a crackdown on protesters and opposition.
Viktor Yanukovich – The ousted president of Ukraine. He was elected in 2010 but was chased from office by protests last month.
4a) Russia Examines Its Options for Responding to Ukraine
The fall of the Ukrainian government and its replacement with one that appears to be oriented toward the West represents a major defeat for the Russian Federation. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia accepted the reality that the former Eastern European satellite states would be absorbed into the Western economic and political systems. Moscow claims to have been assured that former Soviet republics would be left as a neutral buffer zone and not absorbed. Washington and others have disputed that this was promised. In any case, it was rendered meaningless when the Baltic states were admitted to NATO and the European Union. The result was that NATO, which had been almost 1,000 miles from St. Petersburg, was now less than approximately 100 miles away.
This left Belarus and Ukraine as buffers. Ukraine is about 300 miles from Moscow at its closest point. Were Belarus and Ukraine both admitted to NATO, the city of Smolensk, which had been deep inside the Soviet Union, would have become a border town. Russia has historically protected itself with its depth. It moved its borders as far west as possible, and that depth deterred adventurers -- or, as it did with Hitler and Napoleon, destroyed them. The loss of Ukraine as a buffer to the West leaves Russia without that depth and hostage to the intentions and capabilities of Europe and the United States.
There are those in the West who dismiss Russia's fears as archaic. No one wishes to invade Russia, and no one can invade Russia. Such views appear sophisticated but are in fact simplistic. Intent means relatively little in terms of assessing threats. They can change very fast. So too can capabilities. The American performance in World War I and the German performance in the 1930s show how quickly threats and capabilities shift. In 1932, Germany was a shambles economically and militarily. By 1938, it was the dominant economic and military power on the European Peninsula. In 1941, it was at the gates of Moscow. In 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ran a sincere anti-war campaign in a country with hardly any army. In 1917, he deployed more than a million American soldiers to Europe.
Russia's viewpoint is appropriately pessimistic. If Russia loses Belarus or Ukraine, it loses its strategic depth, which accounts for much of its ability to defend the Russian heartland. If the intention of the West is not hostile, then why is it so eager to see the regime in Ukraine transformed? It may be a profound love of liberal democracy, but from Moscow's perspective, Russia must assume more sinister motives.
Quite apart from the question of invasion, which is obviously a distant one, Russia is concerned about the consequences of Ukraine's joining the West and the potential for contagion in parts of Russia itself. During the 1990s, there were several secessionist movements in Russia. The Chechens became violent, and the rest of their secession story is well known. But there also was talk of secession in Karelia, in Russia's northwest, and in the Pacific Maritime region.
What was conceivable under Boris Yeltsin was made inconceivable under Vladimir Putin. The strategy Putin adopted was to increase Russia's strength moderately but systematically, to make that modest increase appear disproportionately large. Russia could not afford to remain on the defensive; the forces around it were too powerful. Putin had to magnify Russia's strength, and he did. Using energy exports, the weakness of Europe and the United States' distraction in the Middle East, he created a sense of growing Russian power. Putin ended talk of secession in the Russian Federation. He worked to create regimes in Belarus and Ukraine that retained a great deal of domestic autonomy but operated within a foreign policy framework acceptable to Russia. Moscow went further, projecting its power into the Middle East and, in the Syrian civil war, appearing to force the United States to back out of its strategy.
It is not clear what happened in Kiev. There were of course many organizations funded by American and European money that were committed to a reform government. It is irrelevant whether, as the Russians charge, these organizations planned and fomented the uprising against former President Viktor Yanukovich's regime or whether that uprising was part of a more powerful indigenous movement that drew these groups along. The fact was that Yanukovich refused to sign an agreement moving Ukraine closer to the European Union, the demonstrations took place, there was violence, and an openly pro-Western Ukrainian government was put in place.
The Russians cannot simply allow this to stand. Not only does it create a new geopolitical reality, but in the longer term it also gives the appearance inside Russia that Putin is weaker than he seems and opens the door to instability and even fragmentation. Therefore, the Russians must respond. The issue is how.
There are those in the West who dismiss Russia's fears as archaic. No one wishes to invade Russia, and no one can invade Russia. Such views appear sophisticated but are in fact simplistic. Intent means relatively little in terms of assessing threats. They can change very fast. So too can capabilities. The American performance in World War I and the German performance in the 1930s show how quickly threats and capabilities shift. In 1932, Germany was a shambles economically and militarily. By 1938, it was the dominant economic and military power on the European Peninsula. In 1941, it was at the gates of Moscow. In 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ran a sincere anti-war campaign in a country with hardly any army. In 1917, he deployed more than a million American soldiers to Europe.
Russia's viewpoint is appropriately pessimistic. If Russia loses Belarus or Ukraine, it loses its strategic depth, which accounts for much of its ability to defend the Russian heartland. If the intention of the West is not hostile, then why is it so eager to see the regime in Ukraine transformed? It may be a profound love of liberal democracy, but from Moscow's perspective, Russia must assume more sinister motives.
Quite apart from the question of invasion, which is obviously a distant one, Russia is concerned about the consequences of Ukraine's joining the West and the potential for contagion in parts of Russia itself. During the 1990s, there were several secessionist movements in Russia. The Chechens became violent, and the rest of their secession story is well known. But there also was talk of secession in Karelia, in Russia's northwest, and in the Pacific Maritime region.
What was conceivable under Boris Yeltsin was made inconceivable under Vladimir Putin. The strategy Putin adopted was to increase Russia's strength moderately but systematically, to make that modest increase appear disproportionately large. Russia could not afford to remain on the defensive; the forces around it were too powerful. Putin had to magnify Russia's strength, and he did. Using energy exports, the weakness of Europe and the United States' distraction in the Middle East, he created a sense of growing Russian power. Putin ended talk of secession in the Russian Federation. He worked to create regimes in Belarus and Ukraine that retained a great deal of domestic autonomy but operated within a foreign policy framework acceptable to Russia. Moscow went further, projecting its power into the Middle East and, in the Syrian civil war, appearing to force the United States to back out of its strategy.
It is not clear what happened in Kiev. There were of course many organizations funded by American and European money that were committed to a reform government. It is irrelevant whether, as the Russians charge, these organizations planned and fomented the uprising against former President Viktor Yanukovich's regime or whether that uprising was part of a more powerful indigenous movement that drew these groups along. The fact was that Yanukovich refused to sign an agreement moving Ukraine closer to the European Union, the demonstrations took place, there was violence, and an openly pro-Western Ukrainian government was put in place.
The Russians cannot simply allow this to stand. Not only does it create a new geopolitical reality, but in the longer term it also gives the appearance inside Russia that Putin is weaker than he seems and opens the door to instability and even fragmentation. Therefore, the Russians must respond. The issue is how.
Russia's Potential Responses
The first step was simply making official what has been a reality. Crimea is within the Russian sphere of influence, and the military force Moscow has based in Crimea under treaties could assert control whenever it wished. That Sevastopol is a critical Russian naval base for operations in the Black and Mediterranean seas was not the key. A treaty protected that. But intervention in Crimea was a low-risk, low-cost action that would halt the appearance that Russia was hemorrhaging power. It made Russia appear as a bully in the West and a victor at home. That was precisely the image it wanted to project to compensate for its defeat.
Several options are now available to Russia.
Several options are now available to Russia.
First, it can do nothing. The government in Kiev is highly fractious, and given the pro-Russian factions' hostility toward moving closer to the West, the probability of paralysis is high. In due course, Russian influence, money and covert activities can recreate the prior neutrality in Ukraine in the form of a stalemate. This was the game Russia played after the 2004 Orange Revolution. The problem with this strategy is that it requires patience at a time when the Russian government must demonstrate its power to its citizens and the world. Moreover, if Crimea does leave Ukraine, it will weaken the pro-Russian bloc in Kiev and remove a large number of ethnic Tartars from Ukraine's political morass. It could be enough of a loss to allow the pro-Russian bloc to lose what electoral power it previously had (Yanukovich beat Yulia Timoshenko by fewer than a million votes in 2010). Thus, by supporting Crimea's independence -- and raising the specter of an aggressive Russia that could bind the other anti-Russian factions together -- Putin could be helping to ensure that a pro-Western Ukraine persists.
Second, it can invade mainland Ukraine. There are three problems with this. First, Ukraine is a large area to seize and pacify. Russia does not need an insurgency on its border, and it cannot guarantee that it wouldn't get one, especially since a significant portion of the population in western Ukraine is pro-West. Second, in order for an invasion of Ukraine to be geopolitically significant, all of Ukraine west of the Dnieper River must be taken. Otherwise, the frontier with Russia remains open, and there would be no anchor to the Russian position. However, this would bring Russian forces to the bank opposite Kiev and create a direct border with NATO and EU members. Finally, if the Russians wish to pursue the first option, pulling eastern Ukrainian voters out of the Ukrainian electoral process would increase the likelihood of an effective anti-Russian government.
Third, it can act along its periphery. In 2008, Russia announced its power with authority by invading Georgia. This changed calculations in Kiev and other capitals in the region by reminding them of two realities. First, Russian power is near. Second, the Europeans have no power, and the Americans are far away. There are three major points where the Russians could apply pressure: the Caucasus countries, Moldova and the Baltics. By using large Russian minority populations within NATO countries, the Russians might be able to create unrest there, driving home the limits of NATO's power.
Fourth, it can offer incentives in Eastern and Central Europe. Eastern and Central European countries, from Poland to Bulgaria, are increasingly aware that they may have to hedge their bets on Europe and the West. The European economic crisis now affects politico-military relations. The sheer fragmentation of European nations makes a coherent response beyond proclamations impossible. Massive cuts in military spending remove most military options. The Central Europeans feel economically and strategically uneasy, particularly as the European crisis is making the European Union's largest political powers focus on the problems of the eurozone, of which most of these countries are not members. The Russians have been conducting what we call commercial imperialism, particularly south of Poland, entering into business dealings that have increased their influence and solved some economic problems. The Russians have sufficient financial reserves to neutralize Central European countries.
Last, it can bring pressure to bear on the United States by creating problems in critical areas. An obvious place is Iran. In recent weeks, the Russians have offered to build two new, non-military reactors for the Iranians. Quietly providing technological support for military nuclear programs could cause the Iranians to end negotiations with the United States and would certainly be detected by U.S. intelligence. The United States has invested a great deal of effort and political capital in its relations with the Iranians. The Russians are in a position to damage them, especially as the Iranians are looking for leverage in their talks with Washington. In more extreme and unlikely examples, the Russians might offer help to Venezuela's weakening regime. There are places that Russia can hurt the United States, and it is now in a position where it will take risks -- as with Iran's nuclear program -- that it would not have taken before.
The European and American strategy to control the Russians has been to threaten sanctions. The problem is that Russia is the world's eighth-largest economy, and its finances are entangled with the West's, as is its economy. For any sanctions the West would impose, the Russians have a counter. There are many Western firms that have made large investments in Russia and have large Russian bank accounts and massive amounts of equipment in the country. The Russians can also cut off natural gas and oil shipments. This would of course hurt Russia financially, but the impact on Europe -- and global oil markets -- would be more sudden and difficult to manage. Some have argued that U.S. energy or European shale could solve the problem. The Russian advantage is that any such solution is years away, and Europe would not have years to wait for the cavalry to arrive. Some symbolic sanctions coupled with symbolic counter-sanctions are possible, but bringing the Russian economy to its knees without massive collateral damage would be hard.
The most likely strategy Russia will follow is a combination of all of the above: pressure on mainland Ukraine with some limited incursions; working to create unrest in the Baltics, where large Russian-speaking minorities live, and in the Caucasus and Moldova; and pursuing a strategy to prevent Eastern Europe from coalescing into a single entity. Simultaneously, Russia is likely to intervene in areas that are sensitive to the United States while allowing the Ukrainian government to be undermined by its natural divisions.
Considering the West's Countermoves
In all of these things there are two questions. The first is what German foreign policy is going to be. Berlin supported the uprising in Ukraine and has on occasion opposed the Russian response, but it is not in a position to do anything more concrete. So far, it has tried to straddle the divides, particularly between Russia and the European Union, wanting to be at one with all. The West has now posed a problem to the Russians that Moscow must respond to visibly. If Germany effectively ignores Russia, Berlin will face two problems. The first will be that the Eastern Europeans, particularly the Poles, will lose massive confidence in Germany as a NATO ally, particularly if there are problems in the Baltics. Second, it will have to face the extraordinary foreign policy divide in Europe. Those countries close to the buffers are extremely uneasy. Those farther away -- Spain, for instance -- are far calmer. Europe is not united, and Germany needs a united Europe. The shape of Europe will be determined in part by Germany's response.
The second question is that of the United States. I have spoken of the strategy of balance of power. A balance of power strategy calls for calibration of involvement, not disengagement. Having chosen to support the creation of an anti-Russian regime in Ukraine, the United States now faces consequences and decisions. The issue is not deployments of major forces, but providing the Central Europeans from Poland to Romania with the technology and materiel to discourage Russia from dangerous adventures -- and to convince their publics that they are not alone.
The second question is that of the United States. I have spoken of the strategy of balance of power. A balance of power strategy calls for calibration of involvement, not disengagement. Having chosen to support the creation of an anti-Russian regime in Ukraine, the United States now faces consequences and decisions. The issue is not deployments of major forces, but providing the Central Europeans from Poland to Romania with the technology and materiel to discourage Russia from dangerous adventures -- and to convince their publics that they are not alone.
The paradox is this: As the sphere of Western influence has moved to the east along Russia's southern frontier, the actual line of demarcation has moved westward. Whatever happens within the buffer states, this line is critical for U.S. strategy because it maintains the European balance of power. We might call this soft containment.
It is far-fetched to think that the Russians would move beyond commercial activity in this region. It is equally far-fetched that EU or NATO expansion into Ukraine would threaten Russian national security. Yet history is filled with far-fetched occurrences that in retrospect are obvious. The Russians have less room to maneuver but everything at stake. They might therefore take risks that others, not feeling the pressure the Russians feel, would avoid. Again, it is a question of planning for the worst and hoping for the best.
For the United States, creating a regional balance of power is critical. Ideally, the Germans would join the project, but Germany is closer to Russia, and the plan involves risks Berlin will likely want to avoid. There is a grouping in the region called the Visegrad battle group. It is within the framework of NATO and consists of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It is now more a concept than a military. However, with U.S. commitment and the inclusion of Romania, it could become a low-cost (to the United States) balance to a Russia suddenly feeling insecure and therefore unpredictable. This, and countering Russian commercial imperialism with a U.S. alternative at a time when Europe is hardly in a position to sustain the economies in these countries, would be logical.
It is far-fetched to think that the Russians would move beyond commercial activity in this region. It is equally far-fetched that EU or NATO expansion into Ukraine would threaten Russian national security. Yet history is filled with far-fetched occurrences that in retrospect are obvious. The Russians have less room to maneuver but everything at stake. They might therefore take risks that others, not feeling the pressure the Russians feel, would avoid. Again, it is a question of planning for the worst and hoping for the best.
For the United States, creating a regional balance of power is critical. Ideally, the Germans would join the project, but Germany is closer to Russia, and the plan involves risks Berlin will likely want to avoid. There is a grouping in the region called the Visegrad battle group. It is within the framework of NATO and consists of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It is now more a concept than a military. However, with U.S. commitment and the inclusion of Romania, it could become a low-cost (to the United States) balance to a Russia suddenly feeling insecure and therefore unpredictable. This, and countering Russian commercial imperialism with a U.S. alternative at a time when Europe is hardly in a position to sustain the economies in these countries, would be logical.
This has been the U.S. strategy since 1939: maximum military and economic aid with minimal military involvement. The Cold War ended far better than the wars the Americans became directly involved in. The Cold War in Europe never turned hot. Logic has it that at some point the United States will adopt this strategy. But of course, in the meantime, we wait for Russia's next move, or should none come, a very different Russia.
Deadlines rapidly approach on Assad's chemical weapons and Tehran's nuclear program, deals now surely on the road to detonation
By Bridget Johnson
In a bid to avoid military strikes that the White House was lukewarm about launching, Syria’s regime committed to clear all of its chemical weapons from the country by June 30.
The end of the six-month interim nuclear deal with Iran, which likewise has more than a few skeptics within the Beltway and beyond, rolls around on July 20.
While the world’s attention is diverted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of the Crimean peninsula, his most nefarious allies have important deadlines to meet.
Timelines that, by all indications, are punctuated by obfuscation and delays while Iran and Syria’s ally in the Kremlin — Russia, for example, is Bashar al-Assad’s biggest arms supplier — has the world’s eyes trained on Eastern Europe.
In addition to this perfect storm, the State Department is demanding a Middle East peace plan blueprint be accepted by the end of April.
“We’re going to have to take some tough political decisions and risks if we’re able to move it forward. And my hope is, is that we can continue to see progress in the coming days and weeks,” President Obama said today while welcoming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.
“We don’t have any time to waste,” Abbas chimed in. “Time is not on our side, especially given the very difficult situation that the Middle East is experiencing and the entire region is facing… Mr. President, I’m aware that you have several international concerns in various places around the world and we know that you are dedicating your time and effort for peace, and so are the teams that are working on this.”
After a fruitless meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in London on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry said afterward that they nonetheless “agreed that we are going to stay in touch in the next days on Ukraine, as well as on the other issues of concern, which we are working on – Syria, Iran, and other challenges of mutual concern.”
But a senior administration official speaking on background today about Ukraine and the latest sanctions said “clearly we’re willing to indicate that this is going to have costs in our bilateral relationship.”
“But if you look at the scope of those other issues, on the Syria chemical weapons issue, Russia is deeply invested in that project and, in fact, we’ve seen a picking up of the pace in terms of the removal of the CW from Syria,” the official said. “Similarly, on Iran, Russia would only be further isolating itself were it to cease cooperation through the P5-plus-1, and Russia has its own interests in avoiding an escalation of events in the Persian Gulf or nuclear proliferation.”
Moscow has been eager to ink deals with the Islamic Republic regardless of its nuclear status. In January, the two began negotiating a $1.5 billion-per-month oil-for-goods swap intended to undermine sanctions to the tune of half a million barrels of oil per day, sources told Reuters. Onetime Intelligence Committee chairman and former Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) warned the House Foreign Affairs Committee this month that Iran and Russia were forging “a much closer relationship” centered around the capability to wage cyber attacks.
“Iran’s and Russia’s support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and their confrontation with US and Western policies aimed at Assad’s demise leads us to conclude that both countries intend to consolidate their strategic depth in the region, establishing themselves as an influential actor. Combine this strategic security objective with the geopolitical security interests, shared between Russia and Iran, and there is no better country with whom Russia could ally than Iran,” Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian ambassador to Germany who served as the regime’s mouthpiece in nuclear negotiations with the EU a decade ago, wrote in Al-Monitor on Sunday.
“It is a safe assumption that if the Ukrainian crisis continues and Iran faces excessive demands and pressure from the West during the nuclear negotiations, Russia will move closer to Iran and the two states could form a power pole in the region,” Mousavian added.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5) A Tiger of a Book
By Thomas Sowell
Professor Amy Chua of the Yale law school is better known as a "Tiger Mom" because of her take-no-prisoners, tough love approach to raising children. She and her husband Jed Rubenfeld (a fellow Yale law professor) have written what may turn out to be the best book of this year.
It is titled "The Triple Package" because it argues that three qualities are found in spectacularly successful groups in America. These three qualities, they say, are a superiority complex, insecurity and impulse control.
Whether you buy their theory or not, you will be enormously enlightened by their attempts to prove it. In the process they shoot down many of the popular beliefs about upward mobility in America and about the kinds of people who succeed.
At a time when so many in academia and the media are proclaiming that the poor are no longer able to rise in America, Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld point out that a major research project on which that conclusion has been based left out immigrants.
In their own words, "Although rarely mentioned in media reports, the studies said to show the demise of upward mobility in America largely exclude immigrants and their children. Indeed, the Pew Foundation study most often cited as proof of the death of upward mobility in the United States expressly cautions that its findings do not apply to 'immigrant families,' for whom 'the American dream is alive and well.'"
Some immigrant groups have risen spectacularly, even when they arrived here with very little money and sometimes with little knowledge of English. "Almost 25 percent of Nigerian households make over $100,000 a year" in America, the authors point out, compared to just 11 percent of black American households.
Other groups that have risen dramatically over the years include Mormons, immigrants from India and Iran, and refugees who fled Cuba when Fidel Castro took over there, back in 1958.
Those Cubans had to leave most of their wealth behind and, even when they had been doctors or other professionals in Cuba, they had to start out at the bottom in America, "crammed into small apartments and became dishwashers, janitors, and tomato pickers." But, by 1990, Cuban American households had middle class incomes twice as often as Anglo Americans.
Americans from India have the highest income of any ethnic group the Census keeps track of, "with Chinese, Iranian and Lebanese Americans not far behind."
Despite many who argue that black Americans cannot rise because of racist barriers, black immigrants rise. A majority of the black students at Harvard are from Africa or the Caribbean, and Nigerians "are already markedly overrepresented at Wall Street investment banks and blue-chip law firms."
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld write about America. But similar patterns can be found in England, where the white underclass seems to be stuck at the bottom, while low-income non-white immigrant children outperform them in the schools, just as Asian immigrant children outperform black underclass children in America.
Those in the media, in politics and in academia who seem determined to blame American society for individuals and groups who do not rise would be hard-pressed to explain why immigrants of various colors come in at the bottom and proceed to rise, both in the schools and in the economy -- on both sides of the Atlantic.
It would probably never occur to those who are eager to blame "society" that it is they and their welfare state ideology who have, for generations, burdened the underclass with a vision of hopeless victimhood that immigrants have been spared.
By the time various immigrant groups have been here for generations, they have already risen, despite the welfare state ideology that says that they cannot rise.
That so many in the media and in academia who proclaim the end of social mobility in America leave out the fact that data they cite do not include various immigrant groups tells you all you need to know about them.
"The Triple Package" is a book that tells us much that we all need to know about America -- especially if we want to keep the welfare state ideology from destroying the American Dream.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Economists: Fed Likely to Scrap Jobless Target
The Federal Reserve will probably scrap its 6.5 percent unemployment rate threshold and switch to qualitative guidance for signaling when it will consider raising the main interest rate from near zero, according to economists in a survey.
The Federal Open Market Committee, which adopted the jobless threshold more than a year ago, will say on Wednesday that it will instead link policy to a range of economic indicators, according to 76 percent of economists in a March 14-17 Bloomberg News survey. Twenty percent of 54 economists surveyed said the Fed will maintain the threshold, while 6 percent said the Fed will drop such guidance entirely.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues are considering ways to clarify when they’ll increase borrowing costs for the first time since 2006 after payrolls rose more than projected last month and unemployment fell to 6.7 percent from 7 percent in November. They plan to begin a two-day meeting Tuesday.
Policy makers will lean toward “less specificity and a greater emphasis on just judgment,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Often these economic numbers can move in ways you don’t anticipate and because of things you can’t anticipate, and I think they got caught off guard,” he said, citing the fall in joblessness.
Policy makers at their Dec. 17-18 meeting forecast unemployment would decline by the end of this year to 6.3 percent to 6.6 percent. Joblessness has fallen from 7.5 percent in June and a 26-year high of 10 percent in October 2009.
Every Meeting
The FOMC this week also will announce a cut in monthly bond purchases by $10 billion to $55 billion and continue reductions at that pace at every meeting before announcing an end to the buying at its Oct. 28-29 gathering, according to the median of responses in the survey. Policy makers at each of their prior two meetings have cut monthly purchases by $10 billion.
The committee “will likely reduce the pace of asset purchases in further measured steps at future meetings,” Yellen said to the Senate Banking Committee on Feb. 27. “That said, purchases are not on a preset course, and the committee’s decisions about their pace will remain contingent on its outlook for the labor market and inflation as well as its assessment of the likely efficacy and costs of such purchases.”
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley in comments on March 6 endorsed a switch to qualitative guidance. In a speech the following day he said the decline in the jobless rate “significantly overstates the degree of improvement in the labor market.” People dropping out of the labor force accounts for much of the fall in the unemployment rate, said Dudley, FOMC vice chairman.
“Dudley seemed pretty clear it’s time to abandon the 6.5 percent unemployment rate, and it makes sense to do it before their backs are up to the wall” should the jobless rate fall further, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. “They’ve laid down enough clues to tell me that they’re ready to make the change.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment