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BY Matt Vespa
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| by Michael Spence via Project Syndicate Many companies are promising to align their objectives – including how they measure their performance – with broader imperatives relating to sustainability, development, and social well-being. But progress will require effective incentives, and creating them is far from being a straightforward matter. +++ |
Fetterman Finally Agrees to Debate Oz in October
BY Sarah Arnold
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Fetterman’s Hometown Newspaper Questions His ‘Ability To Serve’ After Skipping Debate
BY Chuck Ross
Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman and his wife Gisele in August / Getty Images
Democrat John Fetterman's hometown newspaper questioned the Pennsylvania Senate hopeful's "ability to serve" after he pulled out of a debate with Republican Mehmet Oz, citing his recovery from a stroke earlier this year.
In a scathing editorial, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Fetterman's refusal to debate raises "legitimate concerns" about his health. "Voters have a right to know whether their prospective senator can do the job—including handling the give-and-take of a vigorous debate," the editorial board said.
Fetterman, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, said last week he would skip a debate with Oz this week as he works on his "auditory processing and speech" following a stroke in May. Fetterman also accused the Oz campaign of mocking his health for offering to provide medical personnel during the debate.
Fetterman's recovery has been far slower than expected. While his campaign initially said he would be back on the campaign trail "soon" after his stroke, he has made only a few public appearances and done even fewer interviews. Fetterman has relied heavily on his wife Gisele during those events. She sat by his side during an MSNBC interview last week, his first national interview since his stroke. Gisele was also spotted on Monday intervening as Fetterman was asked whether he would debate Oz.
Oz has made Fetterman's criminal justice reform policies a focal point of his campaign. On Tuesday, he cited the Washington Free Beacon‘s report that Fetterman cast the only vote on the board of pardons to release Wayne Covington, who was convicted of first-degree murder for killing a man while stealing money for heroin. Fetterman voted to free Covington last year, against the wishes of the victim's family.
Fetterman has not said whether he will debate Oz before the election in November. He said last week he "look[s] forward to having a productive discussion about how we can move forward and have a real conversation on this once Dr. Oz and his team are ready to take this seriously.
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iSRAEL HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE IRAN AT ITS WORD AND INITIATE AN ATTACK.
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IAEA ‘cannot assure’ Iran nuke program peaceful; Tehran has enough material for bomb
With country’s enriched uranium stockpile now 19 times the 2015 limit, head of nuclear watchdog is ‘increasingly concerned’
By AFP
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), updates journalists about the current situation in Iran in Vienna, Austria, June 9, 2022. (Joe Klamar/AFP)
VIENNA, Austria — The UN’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it could not guarantee the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, saying there had been “no progress” in resolving questions over the past presence of nuclear material at undeclared sites.
In a report seen by AFP, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was “not in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”
And a senior diplomat told the Reuters news agency that the uranium amount was enough — if enriched further — to construct a nuclear bomb.
The IAEA also said Iran was continuing to enrich uranium well over the limits laid down in the ailing 2015 deal, with its stockpile now over 19 times the limit set out in the accord.
The stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent is now 55.6 kilos, up from 43.1 kilos, the IAEA said. That level of enrichment is much closer to the 90-percent threshold required for use in a weapon.
“Iran now can produce 25 kilograms [of uranium] at 90% if they want to,” the unnamed diplomat told the agency. This, the diplomat said, could be done within three to four weeks if Tehran decided to (building a deliverable bomb would take longer, perhaps as long as two years).
The IAEA report said Director General Rafael Grossi was “increasingly concerned that Iran has not engaged with the Agency on the outstanding safeguards issues during this reporting period and, therefore, that there has been no progress towards resolving them.”
The IAEA has been pressing Iran for answers on the presence of nuclear material at three undeclared sites.
Tehran, which maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, is insisting that the IAEA probe be closed in order to revive the 2015 deal on its nuclear program with world powers.
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear site, as well as ongoing construction to expand the facility in a nearby mountain south of Natanz. Iran, May 9, 2022. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
The IAEA report said Iran’s total stockpile as of August 21 stood at an estimated 3,940 kilograms, up 131.6 kilograms from the last quarterly report.
The Vienna-based IAEA said it was unable to verify the exact size of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium due to limitations that Tehran imposed on UN inspectors last year and the removal of the agency’s monitoring and surveillance equipment in June at sites in Iran.
While Iran long has maintained its program is peaceful, officials now openly discuss Tehran’s ability to seek an atomic bomb if it wanted.
The IAEA’s assessment comes amid efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program.
The United States unilaterally pulled out of the accord in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump and reimposed sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to start backing away from the deal’s terms.
Iran last week sent a written response in negotiations over a final draft of a roadmap for parties to return to the tattered nuclear deal, though the US cast doubt on Tehran’s offer. Neither side elaborated on the contents.
Were the deal to be renewed, the IAEA report said, the lack of surveillance and monitoring since IAEA cameras were removed in June would require “remedial action” to reestablish its knowledge of Iran’s activities during this period.
On Wednesday, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site Zman Yisrael reported that the deal is likely off the table after Iran made new demands Washington refuses to accept.
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PALESTINIANS ARE OBDURATE AND THEREFORE, There is no RATIONAL diplomatic solution. CONSEQUENTLY, Israel should declare three no's; no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state.
iF BIDEN AND RADICAL DEMOCRATS DO NOT LIKE THIS RESPONSE THEN ISRAEL SHOULD POLITELY TELL THEM WHAT AN AMERICAN GENERAL ONCE TOLD THE GERMANS WHO ASKED HIM TO SURRENDER - "NUTS."
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Biden’s Pointless Presidency
By CHARLES C. W. COOKE
President Biden says that he is engaged “in a battle for the soul of this nation.” The trouble is, he doesn’t seem quite sure what that means.
It is not unfair to ask: What is the Biden administration? What is its purpose? What, besides a haphazard rehashing of Absolutely Everything Progressives Have Ever Thought Of, is its program? Joe Biden became president because the alternative was reelecting Donald Trump, and, much to his detriment, Joe Biden has never managed to transcend that elementary fact. Eighteen months in, his presidency still lacks a theme, a focus, a narrative. The most pressing issues facing the country — inflation, debt, energy — all seem to bore him. His foreign policy is non-existent. His domestic priorities are determined by the transient concerns of Elizabeth Warren’s emissaries to the White House and by the trending bar on Twitter. “Who is really in charge?” Biden’s critics like to ask. The question assumes too much. Nobody is in charge, because there’s nothing to be in charge of. One might as well ask who is in charge of a feather floating in the wind.
MAGA Republicans are the worst, Biden says. But he can’t make up his mind whether or not he means all Republicans.
Around and around Biden spins — smiling here, glaring there, emitting sparks without kindling, telling stories without meaning, gesturing without function, striding purposelessly back and forth in search of something, anything, that might reverse his slide toward irrelevance. Rudderless, he motions momentarily toward tackling inflation, and then moves on to something else. Desperate, he forswears responsibility: Gas prices are up? That’s the oil companies’ fault. Hopeful, he snatches responsibility: Gas prices are down? That’s Dark Brandon’s doing! Impotently, he yells and intones and lectures, flitting between ersatz solemnity and peremptory ire with no perceptible loss of vim. We have a crisis in this country, he says, in whispers. What is that crisis? It’s Trump and his friends. Or, maybe, it’s everyone in the Republican Party, or pro-lifers, or apologists for Wall Street, or people with bad policy ideas. It’s something; he just hasn’t quite decided what yet. He’ll get back to you on that.
When Biden said that he could sum up America in a single word, and that that single word was “asufutimaehaehfutbw,” he was inadvertently onto something. Often, Biden reaches for words that aren’t quite there, and perhaps never were — “Regoduwidadefi,” “Trunalimunumaprzure” — and, often, it doesn’t especially matter, because he wasn’t saying anything comprehensible to begin with. And so it is with his conception of the United States. Online, Biden acolytes pretend that the man is Demosthenes without the pebbles. Biden will utter a keyword aloud — “Unity” or “Democracy” or “Honor” — and his fans will cluck along. “Now that is leadership,” they will enthuse. “It’s so nice to have a president who . . .”
Though it’s never how they finish the sentence, “a president who isn’t Donald Trump” is always what they mean to say. But not being Donald Trump is not a philosophy, a worldview, or an agenda; it’s a staffing choice. And besides, the keywords that he throws around to signal that his administration has some substantive purpose are invariably inaccurate. He’s not a uniter. He’s not a moderate. He’s not honorable. He’s not competent. He’s a weak, partisan hypocrite who has survived half a century in public service because he’s willing to change with the political winds.
Every few months, Biden invites a cabal of historians to the White House and asks them who he is, as if he were playing dress-up at Halloween. Is he FDR? Is he LBJ? Is he Lincoln? This question should ring alarm bells, but does it? Not enough, no. I have always comprehended why so many Republicans decided in 2020 that they were going to vote for Joe Biden. I have never understood why some of those people feel the need to keep insisting that Joe Biden is a useful or admirable person.
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QUEEN ELIZABETH WAS AN AMAZING WOMAN . SHE SERVED HER NATION IN AN AMAZING WAY AND OVER AN EQUALLY AMAZING PERIOD OF TIME. mAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE. SHE WILL BE MISSED.
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