If Obama goes for real change and selects education reformers my hat will be off to him and so, eventually, will be the gratitude of the nation's school children trapped by union resistance to their getting a chance in life and a solid education. (See 1 below.)
Unions have become an impediment to progress and are more crippling than inflammatory arthritis. Most everything they touch is eventually ruined - the auto industry and education are obvious and glowing cases in point. If unions get their hands on WalMart, they will help destroy that company as well. (See 1 a below.)
Neither do workers always get a fair deal and management does take advantage. That said, unions have outlived their original purpose. They won the battle of poor working conditions, health care benefits and a fair wage decades ago. Now union leader rigidity and blind orthodoxy is causing their members to lose work, plants to be closed and relocated overseas.
A better way must be devised for reaching an accommodation between legitimate needs of workers regarding their safety, job security and health care and the equally legitimate needs of business to earn an appropriate return on invested capital so they can continue to invest, modernize and stay afloat. That there will always be a level of tension between labor and management is a given. However, this tension must be reduced and much of its destructive force re-channeled into sensible co-operation for the benefit of all.
If corporate management continues to disregard the needs of their workers, leverage company balance sheets thereby putting thecompany at financial risk, while lining their own pockets with outrageous compensation packages, they will not only continue to invite the wrath of the public but also of Congress. These managements should not be saved by bail outs. They should be allowed to fall on their own swords. Rewarding such behaviour sends the wrong message and wil perpetuate foolhardiness.
Since stockholders no longer control their companies, having lost leverage over management decades ago, change must occur here as well or capitalism runs the risk of becoming extinct at the very worst or imperiled by a public backlash which will encourage a vindictive grandstanding Congress's interference
Democrats receive enormous funding from unions and therefore have no interest in illing their golden calf so progress is not likely to come from that side of the aisle. It will take a president, from their own party, to defy rank and file politicians who keep their "collective" heads buried in the sand and their outstretched "collective" hands grabbing for union money. (See 1 a below.)
In the past, business generally aligned with Republicans but that connection has largely been broken and corporations now contribute indiscriminately to both parties.
As I have repeatedly said, we have the best Congress money can buy and in the process we all suffer. (See 1a below again.)
Obama can change the atmosphere and eventually the rules if he has true grit! If not, the know nothings and unenlightened in Congress will keep intruding their counterproductive solutions and making matters worse. Even China lectured Sec. Paulson this week, telling him America needs to get its financial house in order. How the mighty has fallen.
What I am subtly suggesting is that if president elect Obama wants to lay the groundwork for winning a second term, even before beginning his first, he might easily do so by doing what is best for the country. That means not pandering to the far left of his party. By pacifying the extreme he runs the risk of losing the middle. Obama enters office with an economy vastly different than the one that existed during the campaign. Much of what Obama said, to get elected, was never going to serve him or the nation well if he chooses to implement it. His ideas weren't particularly wise then and they would be even more destructive now if they became law.
This may be intellectually impossible for Obama because a confrontation with Pelosi and Reid and the extrme of his party might be a battle he neither has the stomach for nor the ability to win. I have sugested all along Obama's greatest eventual political threat could well come from within if he is see, even perceived, walking off the reservation. Romney and McCain learned that during their own campaign pursuits but with Obama it is different. Why? Because he is going to become our president. He ran and won and that gives him a lot of latitude if he has the guts to walk that lonely path and do right by the nation, aka Truman. Doing right by the nation means disavowing a lot of the inane populism and unrealistic pronouncements Obama made during the run for the roses. Will he, won't he?
It will make for a fascinating experience watching from the sidelines. (See 2 below.)
IAEA Chief finally acknowledges the U.N and the West's efforts to constrain Iran's nuclear program have failed. Meanwhile, Bush keeps playing his broken record at The Saban Conference. (See 3 and 3a below.)
Moynihan revisited - the legacy and aftermath of failed liberality. A lingering and intractable problem continues to confront our society. Rebuilding the family unit, paticularly in the black community, is a toughie!( See 4 below.)
My earlier prediction of a Caroline Kennedy appointment to relace Hillary is gaining traction among the elite. Camelot lives on? (See 5 below.)
Dick
1) Who Will He Choose?
By DAVID BROOKS
As in many other areas, the biggest education debates are happening within the Democratic Party. On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who support merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards. On the other hand, there are the teachers’ unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms.
During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent the establishment view. Their disagreements were collegial (this is Obamaland after all), but substantive.
In public, Obama shifted nimbly from camp to camp while education experts studied his intonations with the intensity of Kremlinologists. Sometimes, he flirted with the union positions. At other times, he practiced dog-whistle politics, sending out reassuring signals that only the reformers could hear.
Each camp was secretly convinced that at the end of the day, Obama would come down on their side. The reformers were cheered when Obama praised a Denver performance pay initiative. The unions could take succor from the fact that though Obama would occasionally talk about merit pay, none of his actual proposals contradicted their positions.
Obama never had to pick a side. That is, until now. There is only one education secretary, and if you hang around these circles, the air is thick with speculation, anticipation, anxiety, hope and misinformation. Every day, new rumors are circulated and new front-runners declared. It’s kind of like being in a Trollope novel as Lord So-and-So figures out to whom he’s going to propose.
You can measure the anxiety in the reformist camp by the level of nervous phone chatter each morning. Weeks ago, Obama announced that Darling-Hammond would lead his transition team and reformist cellphones around the country lit up. Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford, is a sharp critic of Teach for America and promotes weaker reforms.
Anxieties cooled, but then one morning a few weeks ago, I got a flurry of phone calls from reform leaders nervous that Obama was about to side against them. I interviewed people in the president-elect’s inner circle and was reassured that the reformers had nothing to worry about. Obama had not gone native.
Obama’s aides point to his long record on merit pay, his sympathy for charter schools and his tendency to highlight his commitment to serious education reform.
But the union lobbying efforts are relentless and in the past week prospects for a reforming education secretary are thought to have dimmed. The candidates before Obama apparently include: Joel Klein, the highly successful New York chancellor who has, nonetheless, been blackballed by the unions; Arne Duncan, the reforming Chicago head who is less controversial; Darling-Hammond herself; and some former governor to be named later, with Darling-Hammond as the deputy secretary.
In some sense, the final option would be the biggest setback for reform. Education is one of those areas where implementation and the details are more important than grand pronouncements. If the deputies and assistants in the secretary’s office are not true reformers, nothing will get done.
The stakes are huge. For the first time in decades, there is real momentum for reform. It’s not only Rhee and Klein — the celebrities — but also superintendents in cities across America who are getting better teachers into the classrooms and producing measurable results. There is an unprecedented political coalition building, among liberals as well as conservatives, for radical reform.
No Child Left Behind is about to be reauthorized. Everyone has reservations about that law, but it is the glaring spotlight that reveals and pierces the complacency at mediocre schools. If accountability standards are watered down, as the establishment wants, then real reform will fade.
This will be a tough call for Obama, because it will mean offending people, but he can either galvanize the cause of reform or demoralize it. It’ll be one of the biggest choices of his presidency.
Many of the reformist hopes now hang on Obama’s friend, Arne Duncan. In Chicago, he’s a successful reformer who has produced impressive results in a huge and historically troubled system. He has the political skills necessary to build a coalition on behalf of No Child Left Behind reauthorization. Because he is close to both Obamas, he will ensure that education doesn’t fall, as it usually does, into the ranks of the second-tier issues.
If Obama picks a reformer like Duncan, Klein or one of the others, he will be picking a fight with the status quo. But there’s never been a better time to have that fight than right now.
1a) Let's 'Share the Wealth': America's most powerful union boss says Europe offers a good economic model.
By MATTHEW KAMINSKI
Washington:"We just won an election. It's no secret." By "we," Andy Stern means "American workers." He also means Big Labor. Speaking on behalf of the fastest growing trade group in America, the Service Employees International Union -- and as one of labor's most powerful figures today -- Mr. Stern sets this simple bar for the Obama presidency: "I expect nothing less than what he said he was going to do, and we should hold him accountable."
From his perspective -- atop SEIU's Washington headquarters, which offers an enviable view of the National Cathedral -- the first part is straightforward: "Massive investment" in a stimulus for the economy, the car industry, deficit-ridden states and infrastructure. Then universal health care, an issue on which the SEIU boss helped push the Democratic consensus leftward, and "tax cuts for the middle class" (and hikes for the upper bracketed). At the end of his list, Mr. Stern puts something particularly dear to unions: Quick adoption of the Employee Free Choice Act, commonly known as "card check," which would end secret ballots in union elections.
The bit about accountability is no idle warning. Organized labor put up some $450 million to get Democrats elected. The SEIU accounted for $85 million of that, making Mr. Stern's union the single biggest contributor to either party in this election cycle. And just in case, the SEIU set aside an additional $10 million fund to get people unelected if need be. "We would like to make sure people appreciate that we take them at their word and when they don't live up to their word there should be consequences," he says.
Wearing an open-necked purple shirt, the color adopted for the SEIU's rebranding, Mr. Stern makes his threat with a genial smile. He's in an ebullient mood these days, after all, and plainly not a labor boss out of central casting. Trim and 58, with no blue collar bona fides to speak of, Mr. Stern started at Wharton before switching majors -- 1968, he says, was no year to be a business student -- at the University of Pennsylvania to education and urban planning. He became a welfare case officer out of school and worked his way up the union hierarchy, becoming at 46 the youngest SEIU president in history.
Mr. Stern feels at ease with CEOs and in the media limelight. His sentences come seasoned with business phrases like "market share" and "our customers" alongside well-crafted ideological sound bites. As in: "This election was the end of the line for 25 years of market worshipping, deregulating, trickle-down economics. It's over. It didn't work. Greed kind of ruled the roost and we've taken the greatest economy on earth and have it staggering."
Admire or despise him -- and many union bosses fall into the latter category -- Mr. Stern is undeniably sharp, innovative and successful. In his 12 years atop the SEIU, membership more than doubled, to two million, as other unions stagnated. He has used his growing stable of janitors, nurses and office workers to wield political influence and challenge the old labor consensus. In 2005, he took the SEIU out of the AFL-CIO, criticizing the latter's emphasis on political over grass-roots organization and the movement's inability to adapt to the realities of a 21st century, service-dominated and global economy.
His tactics are controversial. The SEIU targets private equity firms, shames business leaders, and competes with other unions to build up its membership. Mr. Stern is unapologetic. "We like to say: We use the power of persuasion first. If it doesn't work, we try the persuasion of power." Inside the SEIU, a traditionally decentralized union, his dominant personality has earned him enemies among dissident local bosses. The biggest SEIU local in California is enmeshed in a corruption scandal. Some people wonder whether he's truly in charge. As an admiring adversary in Washington noted, these days "Andy Stern is surfing a high wave, and hanging on right by the edge."
It is the political seas in Washington, however, that look most interesting. The Obama camp says the future president, who won running left, intends to govern from the center. Moderate Democrats float possible delays, or the outright shelving, of legislation dear to the left. Card check, in particular, makes them nervous since it would provoke a battle with business in the midst of a recession. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce unveiled plans last week to spend $10 million to fight passage.
Mr. Stern betrays no doubts about future policy. I ask him which Obama pick so far pleases him most? "Obama," he shoots back. Yes, Larry Summers, the market-friendly free trader from the Clinton years, and Treasury nominee Tim Geithner, straight from Wall Street, headlined the economic team. But these "experienced, steady" men are there "to implement a new president's agenda" -- new financial regulations, job-creation programs and the rest. The pro-business, balanced-budget economics of the Clinton years isn't appropriate to today's world of income inequality and stagnant wages, he says. "It was not the same Larry Summers of '93 I saw on that stage."
All the political signs are favorable for a "universal," government-run health-care system. Mr. Stern hails the appointment of Tom Daschle to lead the push from the Department of Health and Human Services, and he considers Montana Sen. Max Baucus's reform plan a big step in the right direction. Unlike the last time it came up in 1993, Mr. Stern says, "it's hard to find an outspoken voice against comprehensive reform." Mr. Obama takes office at "an unusual Washington moment" when business, labor and the politicians "see common ground" on the president's headline initiatives, health care above all.
The exception is card check. And yet of all the things on the union wish list, this agenda item stands out as the single existential one for them. Its passage would ease organization and help reverse the decline in American union membership, today at just 12% of the workforce. Mr. Stern keeps the pressure on, saying card check ought to come up in the first hundred days. "You should do it early and I think it should be part of the basic second-tier economic package when we're dealing with health care, energy and other ways that over the long term begin to solve America's long-term economic problems." Just how it will pass -- in a single package, or a budget, or who knows -- is hard to predict amid all the economic uncertainty, he says.
Under the legislation passed by the House last year, if a majority of employees sign authorization forms, or cards, a union would be formed and employers would have 120 days to reach a contract. Failing that, the government would appoint an arbitrator to decide on the terms. This "minimum binding arbitration" provision worries employers as much as card check itself. But Mr. Stern rules out a compromise that would keep it out of the bill. Such arbitration has proven to be "a rational, reasonable, non-confrontational, cooperative way" to reach a deal. "It's not good for America when people fight," he adds.
The Democratic left frames the argument for increasing union membership in terms of closing the gap between the rich and poor. The question is, Mr. Stern says, "how to put money in peoples' pockets. One is to create more jobs and create wealth. The other is you find ways to, and I hate to use Joe the Plumber, to share the wealth differently. You do that through taxes, you do that through employee free choice. Employee free choice is only a process of giving workers the choice of sitting down with their employers about getting raises." He adds that "it's just amazing that people who don't want employee free choice, I'm not sure what they want to do."
Maybe, I venture, they just want to keep free elections for unions? "It is a total ruse," Mr. Stern responds. "We have a way of workers making the choice that no politician would ever live with." Employers can campaign directly with voters "and threaten them," and the union organizers "stand outside and hope to catch them coming home from work." Card check would do away with the secret ballot and ask workers publicly to declare themselves. This, the anti-card-check camp argues, would in fact make the choice anything but free and leave employees vulnerable to intimidation by unions and peers.
Another hot topic in the Democratic primaries was trade. Having backed trade liberalization in the 1950s, the unions today lead the charge to close borders. Mr. Stern plays the opposition, saying the important free trade deals have already been struck and ratified. The Korea, Panama and Colombia trade pacts now before Congress have little "economic impact." Though he won't endorse them, when I ask about a possible political trade-off, his eyes beam. "If they want to attach employee free choice to the Colombia free trade deal, I think we can work something out," he says, smiling again.
The current Washington preoccupation is the transition. Along with "200,000 others," the SEIU put forward a wish list for cabinet jobs as well as the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies. Aside from Mr. Daschle, the SEIU has close ties to Obama political director Patrick Gaspard and Mr. Stern "loves" Bill Richardson at Commerce. Mr. Stern wants an "an updating of our regulatory framework" at the National Labor Relations Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to better "enforce its laws." That kind of talk fast gets the business community's hackles up.
Universal health care, widespread unionization, stronger regulations on business, profit-sharing for employees, higher taxes -- all that sounds like Western Europe. Mr. Stern considers that a worthy model. "I think Western Europe as much as we used to make fun of it has made different trade-offs which may have ended up with a little more unemployment but a lot more equality."
Again, perhaps channeling the old Wharton student within, he couches his pitch in business-friendly terms. "When you have universal health care, employers compete without health care being a competitive factor. When you have higher wages, people aren't poor, they get to eat, they get to live a better life and have a social safety net. I also think that when CEOs don't make as much money off of stock options they don't make risky investments." And does unionization improve competitiveness? It helps productivity, he counters, arguing that cheap labor, as in China, is a disincentive for industry to innovate and use workers efficiently.
Andy Stern's ambition would seem to be nothing less than to remake American capitalism from the ground up. His union, and the labor movement, hasn't had this good a chance to do so in a very long time. "Being heard and being listened to are two different things," he says, suddenly looking to strike a modest note. "But we'll start by being heard and hopefully we'll be listened to."
2) Obama's Environmental Test: The president-elect's picks for his energy and environment team could undo any smart moves so far.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
You might think now that Barack Obama has staffed his economic and security teams, the hard choices are over. But he has one more doozy of a decision to make. And the worry is that his picks for that final, crucial team -- those overseeing energy and environmental policy -- will undo any smart moves the president-elect has made so far.
Chad CroweIt isn't yet clear Team Obama understands that it doesn't have the luxury of making a mistake here. Energy is the engine of, and inextricably linked to, the American economy. Environmental policies and regulations that punish energy markets will only deliver a further economic hit.
In the process, this will damage Mr. Obama's own goals. He has picked an economic team that has already successfully discouraged him from proceeding immediately with any tax hikes. Good. But an ill-crafted cap-and-trade program that dramatically escalates energy costs is the same as a giant tax hike. Mr. Obama is promising to save or create 2.5 million jobs. Fabulous. But drowning industries in exorbitant energy prices will only encourage further overseas flight. If the president-elect thinks Detroit is a problem, just wait for the impact an upward march in electricity prices would have on, say, the manufacturing South.
Most of Mr. Obama's decisions so far have reflected the fact that the economy he is taking over is far different from the one he campaigned on. (No one would have thought eight months ago of a Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, but $700 billion financial rescues have ways of changing things.) Yet so far, all signs suggest the Obama crew is stubbornly refusing to acknowledge this reality when it comes to its militant past promises on energy and environment.
The transition itself is being handled by John Podesta. After leaving the Clinton White House, he founded the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, where he became deeply immersed in environmental issues. His recent book, "The Power of Progress," ruminates on how one duty of "progressives" is to save the world from climate change. At his side in the transition is former Clinton Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Carol Browner, who is as committed a green revolutionary as they come.
Having enraged the left wing of his party with several initial high-profile appointments, Mr. Obama is now under pressure to placate this mob. One obvious, if frightening, choice would be to reward them with the energy-and-environment portfolio, turning it over to a team that shares the grass-roots' green agenda.
The appointments at stake here are big, with the potential for even greater influence. There's chief of the EPA, the prominence of which is growing in the climate debate. Another is secretary of the Energy Department, a body that traditionally serves as a cheerleader for the entire mix of domestic energy sources (including nuclear, oil and coal), but which, with a weak or turncoat head, could easily fail in that duty.
Mr. Podesta is also a fan of creating a National Energy Council (akin to the National Economic Council). This council would presumably include a much-discussed "climate czar," with a straight line to the president.
Sanity is all the more in need given the Washington environment. Henry Waxman's ouster of the thoughtful John Dingell as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee proves the left is raring to sweep through a climate agenda, with little or no debate about the economic consequences. Mr. Obama needs a team that will push back, and think through the ramifications for his broader agenda.
And then there's the regulatory temptation. Last year the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases are "air pollutants." This opened the door for vast new EPA powers that could, in the wrong hands, make that agency a central planner for the entire economy. Environmentalists love that idea. Voters may not.
The EPA will also have purview over whether to grant California's request for tougher auto standards -- a move that might well finish off Detroit, even as Mr. Obama attempts to save it. Better to have a team that is aware of the political and practical implications of an EPA power grab.
This last point is downright terrifying considering that Mrs. Browner is not only helping with the transition, but is a rumored pick for a second run at EPA. Mrs. Browner's worldview is that the only way to accomplish environmental good is to use blunt regulatory and legal force to squeeze targeted industries. Her last ride at that agency was marked by a series of diktats and lawsuits that dog companies to this day.
Mrs. Browner encapsulates, in fact, the choice Mr. Obama has to make. A team of Browner-ites, armed with even greater regulatory powers, would certainly bring change. But the cost would be huge, both to Mr. Obama's political accountability and to the economy he has promised to restore.
This is the new reality. The president-elect can't have it both ways.
3) UN nuclear watchdog chief: Western policy on Iran "a failure"
Dr. Mohammed El Baradei sees futility of sanctions - belatedly
Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Mohammed El Baradei, says five years of US and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions are a failure. He told the Los Angeles Times Sat. Dec. 6: "We haven't moved one inch toward addressing the issues."
Political sources: ElBaradei's words are the answer to president George W. Bush's reiteration Friday in a summing-up of his foreign policy record that the US would not allow Iran to develop an atomic weapon.
The UN official bluntly marked the sanctions-incentives policy "a failure."
The same mark automatically applies to Israel's leaders and their dogged reliance on the international community to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons – a line favored by president Shimon Peres, ex-prime minister Ariel Sharon, incumbent Ehud Olmert, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and defense minister Ehud Barak.
The IAEA director stressed: "Tehran continues to acquire nuclear technology and stockpiling sensitive material" after three sets of international sanctions and the US-European offer of economic and security incentives.
In retrospect, the sanctions may have led to "more hardening of the position of Iran," ElBaradei said. "Many Iranians who even dislike the regime [are] gathering around the regime because they feel that their country is under siege."
Nonetheless, Israel's government leaders stick to the demand for more sanctions in the face of the IAEA director's confirmation that this course has got exactly nowhere.
3a) Bush vows US won't allow Iranian nukes
The United States will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, even after US President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009, US President George W. Bush said on Friday.
Speaking at the Saban Forum in Washington, the US president went on to call Teheran's nuclear program "a major threat to peace," noting that diplomatic and economic incentives from the West had been turned down by the Islamic Republic.
"While Iran has not accepted these offers, we have made our bottom line clear: For the safety of our people and the peace of the world, America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," he said.
Bush also spoke of his administration's efforts to bring about an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and said Israel is America's "closest ally in the Middle East."
The US president noted he had been "the first American President to call for a Palestinian state, and building support for the two-state solution has been one of the highest priorities of my Presidency."
"To earn the trust of Israeli leaders, we made it clear that no Palestinian state would be born of terror, we backed [former] prime minister [Ariel] Sharon's courageous withdrawal from Gaza, and we supported his decision to build a security fence, not as a political border but to protect his people from terror."
He called the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a "terrorist who stole from his people and walked away from peace," but was complimentary of the current Palestinian Authority's leadership, saying that the US was "strongly supporting its efforts to build the institutions of a vibrant democratic state."
"In all our efforts to promote a two-state solution, we have included Arab leaders from across the region, because their support will be essential for a lasting peace," the president added. "I believe that the day will come when the map of the Middle East shows a peaceful, secure Israel beside a peaceful and democratic Palestine."
Noting that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has not yet been reached, as was agreed at the Annapolis conference in November 2007, Bush said that both sides had "made important progress. And as they have stated to the Quartet, they have laid a new foundation of trust for the future."
The US president went on to speak about problems in the entire Middle East, saying, "Iran and Syria continue to sponsor terror, Iran's uranium enrichment remains a major threat to peace, and many in the region still live under oppression."
Still, Bush proclaimed that the Mideast was a freer, more hopeful place today than it was when he took office in 2001. He cited examples: The Lebanese are free from Syria's military occupation; Libya's nuclear weapons equipment is locked away in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are emerging as centers of commerce; Iran is facing greater international pressure than ever before; and the threat from terror organizations like al-Qaida has been curtailed.
On Iraq, Bush defended the US-led invasion on grounds the world could not have risked leaving President Saddam Hussein's power unchecked. While it is true Saddam was not connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the decision to oust him cannot be viewed in isolation, he said.
"In a world where terrorists armed with box cutters had just killed nearly 3,000 people, America had to decide whether we could tolerate a sworn enemy that acted belligerently, that supported terror and that intelligence agencies around the world believed had weapons of mass destruction," the US president said, referring to intelligence reports that later proved false.
"It was clear to me, it was clear to members of both political parties, and to many leaders around the world that after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take," President Bush said about the Iraq war, which has claimed the lives of more than 4,200 US military personnel and many times more than that Iraqis.
4) An Enduring Crisis for the Black Family
By Kay Hymowitz
In the nearly half-century in which we have gone from George Wallace to Barack Obama, America has another, less hopeful story to tell about racial progress, one that may be even harder to reverse.
In 1965, a young assistant secretary of labor named Daniel Patrick Moynihan stumbled upon data that showed a rise in the number of black single mothers. As Moynihan wrote in a now-famous report for the Johnson administration, especially troubling was that the growth in illegitimacy, as it was universally called then, coincided with a decline in black male unemployment. Strangely, black men were joining the labor force more, but they were marrying -- and fathering -- less.
There were other puzzling facts. In 1950, at the height of the Jim Crow era and despite the shattering legacy of slavery, the great majority of black children -- an estimated 85 percent -- were born to their two married parents. Just 15 years later, there seemed to be no obvious reason that that would change. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, legal barriers to equality were falling. The black middle class had grown substantially, and the first five years of the 1960s had produced 7 million new jobs. Yet 24 percent of black mothers were then bypassing marriage. Moynihan wrote later that he, like everyone else in the policy business, had assumed that "economic conditions determine social conditions." Now it seemed, "what everyone knew was evidently not so."
President Lyndon Johnson was deeply shaken by Moynihan's findings. Neither man was driven by sentimentality or religious conviction, but both believed that fatherlessness undermined the "basic socializing unit." Intent on sounding a public alarm, Johnson declared during a commencement address at Howard University: "When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled."
Unfortunately, those warnings were as prescient as they were reviled. Civil rights leaders, worried about reviving racist myths about black promiscuity, objected to what they viewed as blaming the victim. Feminists were inclined to look on the "strong black women" raising their children without men as a symbol of female autonomy. By the fall of 1965, when a White House conference on the black family was scheduled, the Moynihan report and the subject had disappeared.
But the silent treatment was the wrong medicine. Since 1965, through economic recessions and booms, the black family has unraveled in ways that have little parallel in human cultures. By 1980, black fatherlessness had doubled; 56 percent of black births were to single mothers. In inner-city neighborhoods, the number was closer to 66 percent. By the 1990s, even as the overall fertility of American women, including African Americans, was falling, the majority of black women who did bear children were unmarried. Today, 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers. In some neighborhoods, two-parent families have vanished. In parts of Newark and Philadelphia, for example, it is common to find children who are not only growing up without their fathers but don't know anyone who is living with his or her biological father.
And what has this meant for racial progress? Fifty years after Jim Crow, black U.S. households have the lowest median income of any racial or ethnic group. Close to a third of black children are poor, and their chances of moving out of poverty are considerably lower than those of their white peers. The fractured black family is not the sole explanation for these gaps, but it is central. While half of all black children born to single mothers are poor, that is the case for only 12 percent of those born to married parents. At least three simulation studies "marrying off" single mothers to either the fathers of their children or to potential husbands of similar demographic characteristics concluded that child poverty would be dramatically lower had marriage rates remained what they were in 1970.
Black married couples make a median household income of $62,000, which is more than 80 percent of what white households earn and represents a gain of 13 percentage points since the 1960s. Yet overall, black household median income is only 62 percent that of white households, a mere six-point increase over the same period.
Merely walking down the aisle can't explain these differences. Rather, the institution of marriage appears to promote ideals of stability, order and fidelity that benefit children and adults alike. Those who pin their hopes for black progress on education tend to forget this. Numerous studies, when controlled for income and race, show that, on average, children growing up with single mothers are less likely to graduate from high school and go to college. And Moynihan's discovery of a negligible relationship between "economic conditions and social conditions" suggests that even increases in black male employment are not a certain cure.
Through the power of his own example, Obama presents a chance to revive what Lyndon Johnson called "the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights." Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father," conveys the economic, emotional and existential toll of growing up fatherless, and he has spoken movingly of his determination to ensure for his own children a different life. Yet tackling this issue won't be easy. When Obama gave a Father's Day speech lamenting "fathers . . . missing from too many lives and too many homes," Jesse Jackson was so incensed that he said he wanted to castrate Obama. Still, painful as the subject is, the alternative is far worse: racial inequality as far as the eye can see.
5) Another Sen. Kennedy?
After taking on a more active political role during the election, ABC's sources say David Paterson may be considering Caroline Kennedy, and she may be considering the offer:
A Democrat who would know tells ABC News that New York governor David Paterson has talked to Caroline Kennedy about taking the seat, which was once held by her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy. It’s not exactly shocking that Paterson would reach out to one of the most highly respected public figures in New York, but this is: Sources say Kennedy is considering it, and has not ruled out coming to Washington to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disavowed interest in the job this week, he suggested Caroline as a replacement, and her endorsement of Obama during the primaries would make her a pleasing choice for the president-Elect, to whom she'd likely have great access. It was partly her comparison of Obama to her father that allowed Obama to luxuriate in a week of Kennedy comparisons when the primary contest was heating up, as it gave a news hook to everything the media had wanted to say about him.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Bet On Hypocrisy - Rangel Stays in The Hen House!
Kornacki supports my previous comments in his ending statement that: 'Democrats would rather take the heat from Republicans than go to war with themselves.' So much for "change" in ethics under Pelosi. Rangel is a sly fox and he will, most assuredly, be allowed to remain in the hen house - bet on it. (See 1 below.)
Barney Frank somewhat displeased with Obama's decision not to be as engaged as Frank thinks Obama should be. (See 2 below.)
This from a fellow memo reader regarding the market outlook. (See 3 below.)
If you want the height of hypocrisy you should have watched the Congressional Auto hearings chaired by Sen. Dodd. Here you have elected officials who are bankrupting the country by either their outrageous management skills and/or piggish self dealing grilling executives who ran businesses largely crippled by political decisions that favored union constituents.
I have been critical of auto management for years and there is enough mismanagement and blame to go round. However, the industry was subject to anti-trust laws while the unions were not, so the unions played one company off against each other. That said, the government imposed all kind of dumb laws, beginning with CAFE, on the industry forcing them to make cars no one would buy and even if they did they lost money making and selling them.
Now Congress holds hearing and the auto executives come hat in hand and are being humiliated by Senators who are interested in grandstanding and laying off blame. What these executives should be doing is telling the American people the truth about why the industry is in its current plight but beggars cannot bite the hand that feeds them.
These executives were also accused earlier of flying to DC in private jets, which was stupid on their part, while Congress does it all the time. These hearings are the height of hypocrisy and do more to demonstrate the problem than will lead a way to a solution.
Watching an arrogant Nardelli (formerly ran Home Deot into the ground) humbled wasn't all bad I must admit.(See 4 and 4a below.)
Syria back in nuclear business? Water samples reveal yes! (See 5 below.)
Have a great weekend.
Dick
1) Why Charlie Rangel Is Still Smiling
By Steve Kornacki
Charlie Rangel's perch as the chairman of the mighty House Ways and Means Committee is in danger. Supposedly.
The 78-year-old Harlem Democrat, a fixture on Capitol Hill since 1971, has been the subject of a stream of revelations about potential financial and ethical improprieties, the sort of never-ending scandal that would pose a serious threat to his electability if he represented a marginally competitive district. But New York's 15th District is tailor-made for an entrenched Democratic incumbent to stay in office as long as he wants, so Rangel need not fear the wrath of the voters.
The only real threat to a congressional lifer like Rangel is internal, from within the ranks of his fellow Democrats in the U.S. House. If they want to strip him of his powerful Ways and Means gavel, they can. And, technically, that is what they are now mulling, with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- otherwise known as the ethics committee -- set to report back on his supposed misdeeds just before the new Congress convenes in early January. But don't hold your breath waiting for any drama.
Even if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a majority of the Democratic caucus were inclined to remove Rangel from his post -- and, as of now, it doesn't seem that they are -- numerous obstacles, including the obstinate chairman and his allies and some recent history within the Democratic caucus, would make it a trying experience for them.
Start with the the ethics committee itself. It's no accident that Rangel is the one who actually requested that the panel review his case, or that he declared this week, "Am I confident? You're damn right. I'm the one who asked for it."
The House ethics committee has a richly earned reputation for giving its colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Rangel has found the perfect body to hear out his various denials and explanations. Very likely, the panel will either clear Rangel or, at worst, declare him guilty of a slight, venial infraction or two. It will be a surprise if the report includes any real ammunition for those hoping to push him out.
Then there are the realities of the Democratic caucus, which, much more than the G.O.P. side, is divided into several powerful camps. One of the most powerful is the Congressional Black Caucus, of which Rangel is among the most senior members. And within the C.B.C., issues of committee chairmanships and assignments are particularly sensitive now, after Pelosi targeted several of the group's members over the past few years.
An ugly fight nearly erupted, for instance, in the summer of 2006, when Pelosi, then the minority leader, decided to take on William Jefferson, the since-indicted New Orleans congressman whose home had just been raided by the F.B.I. -- which discovered $90,000 in cash in his freezer. Republicans accused the Democrats, who had been profiting mightily from a series of ethical scandals involving Congressional Republicans, of hypocrisy. With the November election months away and her party in its best position in years to reclaim the House, Pelosi considered it essential to make an example out of Jefferson and began pushing for his expulsion from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee.
To the general public, the move might have seemed like a no-brainer, but she was met with stiff resistance from many C.B.C. members, who pointed out that no formal rules existed for kicking members off committees, and who accused Pelosi of creating an arbitrary standard to go after a black member.
When, as required by caucus rules, she brought the matter to the full Democratic caucus that June, chaos erupted, with C.B.C. members and their allies offering a motion that would table the Jefferson matter until formal guidelines were established for committee expulsions. After lengthy debate, the matter was rejected, and then, after some more debate, Jefferson's ouster was finally approved, with nearly 60 Democrats voting against it.
What's noteworthy about the Jefferson fight is that he had previously alienated many of his colleagues and didn't enjoy the full support of the C.B.C. Rangel and other influential members, like South Carolina's James Clyburn, sat on their hands while Pelosi pursued Jefferson, refusing to add their voices. As a result, the conflict didn't explode into a full-fledged public fight. But it also served as a warning to Pelosi: If going after someone like Jefferson caused her that much grief, then she'd better not try to touch anyone with real support.
A few months later, though, she did - but the rules were a little different. After the '06 elections, when her party won back the majority, Pelosi decided to deny her California rival, Jane Harman, the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, a panel that operates under a slightly different set of rules than other House committees. Next in line for the gavel, in terms of seniority, was Florida's Alcee Hastings, a one-time federal judge who had been impeached and convicted on bribery and perjury charges by Congress in 1989. Still eligible to run for office, he went on to win a House seat from Florida in 1992 and then began racking up seniority.
Appointing Hastings to run the Intelligence Committee, which deals with sensitive national security information, would have been a public relations disaster for the incoming speaker and her Democratic colleagues, so she passed him over in favor of Texas' Silvestre Reyes (who promptly flunked a reporter's pop quiz on whether Al Qaeda is a Sunni or Shiite group). This time, Pelosi didn't need to go through the full caucus for approval, but by moving against a second C.B.C. member in a few months, she made doing so in the future that much tougher.
Which brings us to Rangel's case. Unlike Jefferson, he enjoys deep and enduring support from the C.B.C., not to mention many senior colleagues outside of the group. The full-fledged fight that Pelosi managed to avoid in Jefferson's case would almost certainly break out if she turned her guns on Rangel, creating potentially crippling divisions within the Democratic caucus just as Barack Obama takes office. For the C.B.C., giving up Jefferson and Hastings was one thing; Rangel would be an entirely different matter.
Plus, Democrats just went through an ugly committee fight, with Henry Waxman successfully dethroning John Dingell as the Energy and Commerce chairman. Pelosi was publicly neutral in the race, but few doubt that she was with Waxman, her longtime ally and ideological soul mate from California, behind the scenes. Democrats in the House do not take targeting committee chairmen, and by extension the seniority system, lightly. Especially if the ethics committee's report isn't too harsh, Rangel would stand to get the benefit of the doubt from many of them.
Given the historic opportunity that waits Democrats on January, when a president willing to sign their legislation will take office, it probably won't make sense for Pelosi to embark on a protracted and highly public chairmanship fight that would pit members of her own caucus against one another. It's also worth noting that she decided last year to maintain the three-term committee chairmanship limit imposed by Republicans in 1995. That means she'll be rid of Rangel by 2012, if he hangs on now.
The most likely outcome of this fiasco, then, is that Republicans will spend the early weeks of the new Congress shouting to the heavens about Rangel's ethics, offering resolutions to strip him of his chairmanship, and challenging Democrats to join them. As theater, it won't be bad. But Democrats will probably decide that they'd rather take the heat from the G.O.P. than go to war with themselves.
2) Democrats: Obama needs hands-on economic approach
By JIM KUHNHENN
WASHINGTON – Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin. "He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.
Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs to play a more significant role on economic issues.
"At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time," Frank said. "I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."
Obama has maintained one of the most public images of any president-elect. He has held half a dozen press conferences, where he has entertained question after question about the economy, the mortgage crisis, and the flailing auto industry. He called for passage of extended unemployment benefits — which has passed — and even a stimulus package if possible before Jan. 20. But he has stayed away from trying to dictate remedies for the toughest problems Congress is confronting: the auto industry's troubles and how to spend the $700 billion bailout.
Frank's remarks came as the Bush administration considers whether it needs the second half of the $700 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program aimed at helping the financial sector before Obama takes office on Jan. 20.
An Obama official said the Bush administration reached out to the transition team about tapping into the money. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Obama's transition team urged the administration to talk to bipartisan congressional leaders and assemble a meeting between the White House and Congress. The official said the Obama team offered to participate in a bipartisan meeting if it would be helpful.
Earlier this week, Obama was asked whether he worried that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson might begin spending the next installment of the money before he assumes the presidency. Obama demurred.
"Until Secretary Paulson indicates publicly that he's drawing down the second tranche, the second half of the TARP money, it would be speculation on my part to suggest that that money's going to be used up," he told reporters at a Chicago news conference Wednesday.
Obama did stress that a significant component of the fund should be used to reduce the number of foreclosures. But he did not specify a particular remedy.
He also declined to take a stand in a debate over the source of money for an auto loan package. The dispute has divided Democrats and hindered progress on assistance for the industry. At issue is whether to take money from the $700 billion designated for the financial sector or to take it from a previously approved loan aimed at manufacturing more energy efficient cars.
"I think it's premature to get into that issue," Obama said at the conference.
Presidents-elect typically spend the transition period assembling their cabinets, their White House staff and preparing to take the reins of power. But this transition is occurring at an extraordinary time, with bad economic news mounting by the day and with one of the country's major industries begging for a hand to keep from collapsing.
Two Democratic senators involved in trying to salvage the auto companies have said Obama could help move the process along and should become more engaged.
"The Obama team has to step up," Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the lead negotiators, said Nov. 21 in Hartford, Conn. "In the minds of the people, this is the Obama administration. I don't think we can wait until January 20."
Two days later, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a point man in helping his state's main industry, called on Obama to help resolve the dispute over money for the auto loan package.
"It would be very helpful if the president-elect would become more involved in resolving the issue over the source of the funds," he said. "I want him to offer his assistance. He is a person who can really bring people together."
Frank, shrewd and quick-witted, also poked fun at Obama's calls for a "post-partisan" governing environment in Washington. Frank predicted that regulatory legislation aimed at preventing abuses related to subprime mortgages and credit cards stood a much better chance next year, when Democrats have greater majorities in the House and Senate.
"It is a grave mistake to assume that parties are irrelevant to this process," he said. "My one difference with the president-elect, about whom I am very enthusiastic, is when he talks about being post-partisan.
"Having lived with this very right wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time, the notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be post-partisan gives me post-partisan depression," Frank said.
3)I received this from one of the finest accountants in the USA who is spending two years in Shanghai, China. He suggests various articles in Portfolio.com.
Wall street really stuck it to the American Public in spades!!
Best regards,
This financial debacle we are currently experiencing just got a whole lot more frightening. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist and one of the very few media writers I trust, wrote a great article today about the financial mess. In his article, he referred to another article in Portfolio.com.( http://www.portfolio.com:80/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom ) Wow. Really opened my eyes. I thought I understood CDOs. I didn't. You really should read these articles; I think they will open your eyes, also. I don't think this financial mess is anywhere close to being over. I am very afraid we have just seen the tip of the iceberg.
When we lost enough money to buy a nice house in Texas, I converted more of my equity investments into CDs. When we lost enough to buy a nice house in the Bay Area, I decided (yesterday) that I better call my Certified Financial Planner in California, who has always given me good advice. (These losses were not caused by wild speculation or an imbalanced portfolio. Our portfolio is more than 50% cash and bonds, and our equities, except for a major stake in PG, are all Morningstar 5 rated funds). Our CFP said that they thought that, while there might be more losses, they did not expect any more major losses, although they did not expect a real turnaround for about a year out. That being said, they recommended holding our highly-rated equities so we would not miss the rebound, when it finally occurs, and since we are not currently using any of our investments for living expenses, we could expect, in the long run, to recoup some of the losses.(Of course, in the long run, I'll be dead). They convinced me to hold on to our equities for the long term.
Then, I read articles in Portoflio.com. It appears there are a lot more questionable assets in major financial institutions than the current bail-out money will begin to cover. I am, by most definitions, a 'sophisticated investor', and I am really starting to get worried. Read the following articles, and I think you'll be worried, too.
As most of you know, I am not a dooms-day predictor but I am truly becoming worried. For what it's worth.
Thomas Friedman, NYT < http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26friedman.html?ref=opinion > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26friedman.html?ref=opinion
Portfolio.com < http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom > http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom
4)Auto aid deal dicey as Senate skeptics grill GM, Chrysler execs and Dems urge Bush to tap Wall Street rescue funds.
By Christine Tierney and David Shepardson
The chief executives of Detroit's automakers returned to Congress on Thursday offering new concessions in a desperate plea for emergency loans to keep their companies afloat but encountered fresh resistance from lawmakers.
General Motors Corp. appeared to be facing the greatest peril as the CEOs of the Big Three left the Capitol no closer to obtaining the $34 billion they have requested.
As hopes for congressional approval dimmed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged President George W. Bush late Thursday to tap the Wall Street rescue funds to help the automakers.
In a letter that was also signed by the heads of the committees holding hearings this week, the lawmakers said they were hopeful that they could work "cooperatively" with the administration to "provide urgent assistance and support our domestic auto industry."
The Detroit News has learned that the White House held discussions as recently as Wednesday among various Cabinet departments about how the administration could aid automakers in the event Congress cannot agree on providing funding, but Bush has not decided whether he would step in.
One issue under discussion is whether the administration could shift some of the $700billion Wall Street bailout money to automakers if Congress doesn't act to prevent their collapse.
During a six-hour hearing Thursday, many members of the Senate Banking Committee praised the recovery plans the automakers had submitted to justify federal aid. They also acknowledged that the collapse of an auto company would have grave economic consequences.
Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said doing nothing would be tantamount to playing "Russian roulette with our entire economy."
But Dodd told reporters after the hearing that he wasn't certain any deal could be made, and time was running out. "We've got to be a lot further along than where we are today" to call Congress back in session on Monday for a possible vote next week. "I don't want to raise expectations that this is going to be easy... This is a tall order to get done in three or four days."
Some Capitol Hill aides said Congress may end up approving $10 billion in aid next week, delaying a decision on the rest of the money until President-elect Barack Obama takes office. But even that might be difficult to achieve.
President Bush was noncommittal in an NBC interview Thursday: "No matter how important the autos are to our economy, we don't want to put good money after bad," he said. "We want to make sure that the plan they develop is one that ensures their long-term viability for the sake of the taxpayer."
Among Republican lawmakers, several remained adamant in their opposition to a bailout despite dire warnings about the consequences of inaction.
"I believe that we could lose General Motors by the end of this month," said United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, who joined the Big Three CEOs for the second congressional hearings in a month. The UAW agreed Wednesday to make new concessions to help save the industry.
GM and Chrysler are most urgently in need of a cash infusion. GM said it needed $4 billion this month to stay afloat as part of its $18 billion request in loans and a line of credit.
Chrysler said it needs $4 billion to get through the first quarter of 2009, while Ford Motor Co. has asked for a $9 billion "stand-by" line of credit.
The CEOs received a warmer reception than they did last month, when they were criticized for flying in corporate jets and other lavish perks and for asking for money without offering detailed plans for how they would use and repay it.
Congressional leaders opted not to vote on the loan request two weeks ago but gave the automakers 11 days to return with plans emphasizing fuel-economy and shared sacrifices at all levels.
For Thursday's hearing, GM CEO Rick Wagoner, Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Chrysler LLC CEO Robert Nardelli drove from Michigan in hybrid vehicles and pledged to return home the same way. In the restructuring plans they submitted to Congress, Wagoner and Nardelli agreed to take $1-a-year salaries, and Mulally said he'd do the same if Ford had to access the line of credit it seeks.
Several lawmakers regretted the apparent double-standard between the treatment of the financial firms that were given money with few questions asked and the demands made of the automakers. "You're paying the price because of the way some other matters were handled," Dodd said.
Of the three companies, GM offered the most comprehensive plan, proposing to restructure debt, reduce labor costs, win new labor concessions and close, shrink or sell four brands. GM also pledged to cut 21,000 to 31,000 more jobs by 2012 and close nine more factories.
Lawmakers treated Chrysler as a case apart from the other two, saying they believed the privately owned automaker was trying to stay in business long enough to attract a merger partner. Ford is in comparatively better financial shape than its crosstown rivals.
GM's plight overshadowed the hearing. The 100-year-old automaker is rapidly running out of options. "GM is the reason that we're here," Corker said.
The company has lost more than $70 billion since 2004 and its market share has slumped.
Wagoner, the CEO since 2000, sounded weary as he faced fresh questioning on whether the company needed new management. "I think the leadership team we have is the right one, but I serve at the pleasure of the board," he said.
He conceded that the company was partly to blame for its misfortunes. He even agreed to take the company into bankruptcy if an aid package required GM to meet loan conditions set by the government by March 31 and it failed to do so. Bankruptcy is an option he has repeatedly described as disastrous for GM.
"We're sorry to be asking for this support," Wagoner said. "We're here today because forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink."
As the senators mulled various options, Robert Bennett, R-Utah, asked GM and Chrysler whether they would agree to merge to get money -- a "shotgun wedding," in his words, aimed at saving money. Wagoner said GM's liquidity needs were the top priority, while Nardelli said he would agree if a merger were a condition for receiving the loans.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed a view common among Democrats when he said the failure of the automakers "would make a sick economy sicker".
He called for the appointment of one person -- such as the Treasury secretary -- to ensure that all stakeholders, including dealers and debt holders, make concessions in the next three or four weeks as a condition of aid. "I don't trust the car company leadership," Schumer said.
The Republican ranking member on the Senate committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, said he still had serious doubts about aiding automakers, adding he was concerned that the request had grown from $25 billion to $34 billion in just two weeks.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of the Moody's rating agency, said he believed the cost of bailing out the industry would range between $75 billion and $125 billion -- including $25 billion in loans already approved by Congress specifically to help automakers develop more fuel-efficient cars. But the automakers received some understanding from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who also noted that Wall Street banks had received much larger sums without having to go through what the auto executives CEOs have.
"We are asking extraordinary things of our witnesses today," Brown said. "We did not ask those CEOs of the banks to drive into town in a Wells Fargo armored truck" to collect tens of billions of dollars and they weren't asked for detailed plans.
Wagoner drove up to a Senate office building for the hearing in a prototype plug-in Chevy Volt.
4a)The Concord Coalition's Executive Director Robert Bixby has an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post entitled "Congress in a Glass House." In the article, Bixby draws an analogy between the struggling automobile industry and the nation's long-term fiscal outlook.
It can be viewed online by visiting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/03/AR2008120302891.html
5) Covert marine operation uncovers Syria's return to plutonium production
In the face of Damascus' refusal to allow UN inspectors access to three suspect "research laboratories, Western agents recently carried out a daring covert operation to collect water samples from the Orontes river in Syria where it drains into the Mediterranean. Intelligence sources report the discoveries were presented to a closed session of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's board on Nov. 27-28.
Situated on the river bank near Homs is one of the three research institutes where Syrian, Iranian and North Korean technicians and scientists are suspected of reprocessing plutonium for Syria's clandestine military nuclear program. The Orentes samples confirmed the suspicion that Syria has gone back to the plutonium project which was cut short when Israeli destroyed its reactor at Al Kibar in September 2007.
The Orontes rises at Tal al Musa north of Damascus and south of Homs. It flows into the sea near Antakya, which is north of Latakiya and west of Aleppo, not far from the Turkish border.
The IAEA board meeting was told in general teams how the tainted river samples were obtained. Military sources add that western nuclear technicians collected them from a boat which sailed surreptitiously up to the river mouth in Syria. To make sure of their finding, they collected river water on three different dates in the last two months.
Their discovery tied in with a separate report reaching the nuclear watchdog board that Iran and North Korea were frantically drafting in nuclear specialists to help Syria revive its plutonium reprocessing project. The product is to be stored in protected hideouts.
It was the view of some board members that Tehran and Pyongyang had determined to prove that the Israeli attack had not put Syria off its nuclear program. Both were even more insistent on showing the world that the Iranian nuclear program of which the Syrian project was a part was unstoppable.
Syria and North Korea accordingly renewed their clandestine nuclear cooperation accord on Oct. 22, so making sure of an uninterrupted flow from Pyongyang of nuclear materials, technology and experts for Syria's covert nuclear facilities
Barney Frank somewhat displeased with Obama's decision not to be as engaged as Frank thinks Obama should be. (See 2 below.)
This from a fellow memo reader regarding the market outlook. (See 3 below.)
If you want the height of hypocrisy you should have watched the Congressional Auto hearings chaired by Sen. Dodd. Here you have elected officials who are bankrupting the country by either their outrageous management skills and/or piggish self dealing grilling executives who ran businesses largely crippled by political decisions that favored union constituents.
I have been critical of auto management for years and there is enough mismanagement and blame to go round. However, the industry was subject to anti-trust laws while the unions were not, so the unions played one company off against each other. That said, the government imposed all kind of dumb laws, beginning with CAFE, on the industry forcing them to make cars no one would buy and even if they did they lost money making and selling them.
Now Congress holds hearing and the auto executives come hat in hand and are being humiliated by Senators who are interested in grandstanding and laying off blame. What these executives should be doing is telling the American people the truth about why the industry is in its current plight but beggars cannot bite the hand that feeds them.
These executives were also accused earlier of flying to DC in private jets, which was stupid on their part, while Congress does it all the time. These hearings are the height of hypocrisy and do more to demonstrate the problem than will lead a way to a solution.
Watching an arrogant Nardelli (formerly ran Home Deot into the ground) humbled wasn't all bad I must admit.(See 4 and 4a below.)
Syria back in nuclear business? Water samples reveal yes! (See 5 below.)
Have a great weekend.
Dick
1) Why Charlie Rangel Is Still Smiling
By Steve Kornacki
Charlie Rangel's perch as the chairman of the mighty House Ways and Means Committee is in danger. Supposedly.
The 78-year-old Harlem Democrat, a fixture on Capitol Hill since 1971, has been the subject of a stream of revelations about potential financial and ethical improprieties, the sort of never-ending scandal that would pose a serious threat to his electability if he represented a marginally competitive district. But New York's 15th District is tailor-made for an entrenched Democratic incumbent to stay in office as long as he wants, so Rangel need not fear the wrath of the voters.
The only real threat to a congressional lifer like Rangel is internal, from within the ranks of his fellow Democrats in the U.S. House. If they want to strip him of his powerful Ways and Means gavel, they can. And, technically, that is what they are now mulling, with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- otherwise known as the ethics committee -- set to report back on his supposed misdeeds just before the new Congress convenes in early January. But don't hold your breath waiting for any drama.
Even if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a majority of the Democratic caucus were inclined to remove Rangel from his post -- and, as of now, it doesn't seem that they are -- numerous obstacles, including the obstinate chairman and his allies and some recent history within the Democratic caucus, would make it a trying experience for them.
Start with the the ethics committee itself. It's no accident that Rangel is the one who actually requested that the panel review his case, or that he declared this week, "Am I confident? You're damn right. I'm the one who asked for it."
The House ethics committee has a richly earned reputation for giving its colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Rangel has found the perfect body to hear out his various denials and explanations. Very likely, the panel will either clear Rangel or, at worst, declare him guilty of a slight, venial infraction or two. It will be a surprise if the report includes any real ammunition for those hoping to push him out.
Then there are the realities of the Democratic caucus, which, much more than the G.O.P. side, is divided into several powerful camps. One of the most powerful is the Congressional Black Caucus, of which Rangel is among the most senior members. And within the C.B.C., issues of committee chairmanships and assignments are particularly sensitive now, after Pelosi targeted several of the group's members over the past few years.
An ugly fight nearly erupted, for instance, in the summer of 2006, when Pelosi, then the minority leader, decided to take on William Jefferson, the since-indicted New Orleans congressman whose home had just been raided by the F.B.I. -- which discovered $90,000 in cash in his freezer. Republicans accused the Democrats, who had been profiting mightily from a series of ethical scandals involving Congressional Republicans, of hypocrisy. With the November election months away and her party in its best position in years to reclaim the House, Pelosi considered it essential to make an example out of Jefferson and began pushing for his expulsion from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee.
To the general public, the move might have seemed like a no-brainer, but she was met with stiff resistance from many C.B.C. members, who pointed out that no formal rules existed for kicking members off committees, and who accused Pelosi of creating an arbitrary standard to go after a black member.
When, as required by caucus rules, she brought the matter to the full Democratic caucus that June, chaos erupted, with C.B.C. members and their allies offering a motion that would table the Jefferson matter until formal guidelines were established for committee expulsions. After lengthy debate, the matter was rejected, and then, after some more debate, Jefferson's ouster was finally approved, with nearly 60 Democrats voting against it.
What's noteworthy about the Jefferson fight is that he had previously alienated many of his colleagues and didn't enjoy the full support of the C.B.C. Rangel and other influential members, like South Carolina's James Clyburn, sat on their hands while Pelosi pursued Jefferson, refusing to add their voices. As a result, the conflict didn't explode into a full-fledged public fight. But it also served as a warning to Pelosi: If going after someone like Jefferson caused her that much grief, then she'd better not try to touch anyone with real support.
A few months later, though, she did - but the rules were a little different. After the '06 elections, when her party won back the majority, Pelosi decided to deny her California rival, Jane Harman, the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, a panel that operates under a slightly different set of rules than other House committees. Next in line for the gavel, in terms of seniority, was Florida's Alcee Hastings, a one-time federal judge who had been impeached and convicted on bribery and perjury charges by Congress in 1989. Still eligible to run for office, he went on to win a House seat from Florida in 1992 and then began racking up seniority.
Appointing Hastings to run the Intelligence Committee, which deals with sensitive national security information, would have been a public relations disaster for the incoming speaker and her Democratic colleagues, so she passed him over in favor of Texas' Silvestre Reyes (who promptly flunked a reporter's pop quiz on whether Al Qaeda is a Sunni or Shiite group). This time, Pelosi didn't need to go through the full caucus for approval, but by moving against a second C.B.C. member in a few months, she made doing so in the future that much tougher.
Which brings us to Rangel's case. Unlike Jefferson, he enjoys deep and enduring support from the C.B.C., not to mention many senior colleagues outside of the group. The full-fledged fight that Pelosi managed to avoid in Jefferson's case would almost certainly break out if she turned her guns on Rangel, creating potentially crippling divisions within the Democratic caucus just as Barack Obama takes office. For the C.B.C., giving up Jefferson and Hastings was one thing; Rangel would be an entirely different matter.
Plus, Democrats just went through an ugly committee fight, with Henry Waxman successfully dethroning John Dingell as the Energy and Commerce chairman. Pelosi was publicly neutral in the race, but few doubt that she was with Waxman, her longtime ally and ideological soul mate from California, behind the scenes. Democrats in the House do not take targeting committee chairmen, and by extension the seniority system, lightly. Especially if the ethics committee's report isn't too harsh, Rangel would stand to get the benefit of the doubt from many of them.
Given the historic opportunity that waits Democrats on January, when a president willing to sign their legislation will take office, it probably won't make sense for Pelosi to embark on a protracted and highly public chairmanship fight that would pit members of her own caucus against one another. It's also worth noting that she decided last year to maintain the three-term committee chairmanship limit imposed by Republicans in 1995. That means she'll be rid of Rangel by 2012, if he hangs on now.
The most likely outcome of this fiasco, then, is that Republicans will spend the early weeks of the new Congress shouting to the heavens about Rangel's ethics, offering resolutions to strip him of his chairmanship, and challenging Democrats to join them. As theater, it won't be bad. But Democrats will probably decide that they'd rather take the heat from the G.O.P. than go to war with themselves.
2) Democrats: Obama needs hands-on economic approach
By JIM KUHNHENN
WASHINGTON – Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin. "He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.
Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs to play a more significant role on economic issues.
"At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time," Frank said. "I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."
Obama has maintained one of the most public images of any president-elect. He has held half a dozen press conferences, where he has entertained question after question about the economy, the mortgage crisis, and the flailing auto industry. He called for passage of extended unemployment benefits — which has passed — and even a stimulus package if possible before Jan. 20. But he has stayed away from trying to dictate remedies for the toughest problems Congress is confronting: the auto industry's troubles and how to spend the $700 billion bailout.
Frank's remarks came as the Bush administration considers whether it needs the second half of the $700 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program aimed at helping the financial sector before Obama takes office on Jan. 20.
An Obama official said the Bush administration reached out to the transition team about tapping into the money. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Obama's transition team urged the administration to talk to bipartisan congressional leaders and assemble a meeting between the White House and Congress. The official said the Obama team offered to participate in a bipartisan meeting if it would be helpful.
Earlier this week, Obama was asked whether he worried that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson might begin spending the next installment of the money before he assumes the presidency. Obama demurred.
"Until Secretary Paulson indicates publicly that he's drawing down the second tranche, the second half of the TARP money, it would be speculation on my part to suggest that that money's going to be used up," he told reporters at a Chicago news conference Wednesday.
Obama did stress that a significant component of the fund should be used to reduce the number of foreclosures. But he did not specify a particular remedy.
He also declined to take a stand in a debate over the source of money for an auto loan package. The dispute has divided Democrats and hindered progress on assistance for the industry. At issue is whether to take money from the $700 billion designated for the financial sector or to take it from a previously approved loan aimed at manufacturing more energy efficient cars.
"I think it's premature to get into that issue," Obama said at the conference.
Presidents-elect typically spend the transition period assembling their cabinets, their White House staff and preparing to take the reins of power. But this transition is occurring at an extraordinary time, with bad economic news mounting by the day and with one of the country's major industries begging for a hand to keep from collapsing.
Two Democratic senators involved in trying to salvage the auto companies have said Obama could help move the process along and should become more engaged.
"The Obama team has to step up," Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the lead negotiators, said Nov. 21 in Hartford, Conn. "In the minds of the people, this is the Obama administration. I don't think we can wait until January 20."
Two days later, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a point man in helping his state's main industry, called on Obama to help resolve the dispute over money for the auto loan package.
"It would be very helpful if the president-elect would become more involved in resolving the issue over the source of the funds," he said. "I want him to offer his assistance. He is a person who can really bring people together."
Frank, shrewd and quick-witted, also poked fun at Obama's calls for a "post-partisan" governing environment in Washington. Frank predicted that regulatory legislation aimed at preventing abuses related to subprime mortgages and credit cards stood a much better chance next year, when Democrats have greater majorities in the House and Senate.
"It is a grave mistake to assume that parties are irrelevant to this process," he said. "My one difference with the president-elect, about whom I am very enthusiastic, is when he talks about being post-partisan.
"Having lived with this very right wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time, the notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be post-partisan gives me post-partisan depression," Frank said.
3)I received this from one of the finest accountants in the USA who is spending two years in Shanghai, China. He suggests various articles in Portfolio.com.
Wall street really stuck it to the American Public in spades!!
Best regards,
This financial debacle we are currently experiencing just got a whole lot more frightening. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist and one of the very few media writers I trust, wrote a great article today about the financial mess. In his article, he referred to another article in Portfolio.com.( http://www.portfolio.com:80/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom ) Wow. Really opened my eyes. I thought I understood CDOs. I didn't. You really should read these articles; I think they will open your eyes, also. I don't think this financial mess is anywhere close to being over. I am very afraid we have just seen the tip of the iceberg.
When we lost enough money to buy a nice house in Texas, I converted more of my equity investments into CDs. When we lost enough to buy a nice house in the Bay Area, I decided (yesterday) that I better call my Certified Financial Planner in California, who has always given me good advice. (These losses were not caused by wild speculation or an imbalanced portfolio. Our portfolio is more than 50% cash and bonds, and our equities, except for a major stake in PG, are all Morningstar 5 rated funds). Our CFP said that they thought that, while there might be more losses, they did not expect any more major losses, although they did not expect a real turnaround for about a year out. That being said, they recommended holding our highly-rated equities so we would not miss the rebound, when it finally occurs, and since we are not currently using any of our investments for living expenses, we could expect, in the long run, to recoup some of the losses.(Of course, in the long run, I'll be dead). They convinced me to hold on to our equities for the long term.
Then, I read articles in Portoflio.com. It appears there are a lot more questionable assets in major financial institutions than the current bail-out money will begin to cover. I am, by most definitions, a 'sophisticated investor', and I am really starting to get worried. Read the following articles, and I think you'll be worried, too.
As most of you know, I am not a dooms-day predictor but I am truly becoming worried. For what it's worth.
Thomas Friedman, NYT < http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26friedman.html?ref=opinion > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26friedman.html?ref=opinion
Portfolio.com < http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom > http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom
4)Auto aid deal dicey as Senate skeptics grill GM, Chrysler execs and Dems urge Bush to tap Wall Street rescue funds.
By Christine Tierney and David Shepardson
The chief executives of Detroit's automakers returned to Congress on Thursday offering new concessions in a desperate plea for emergency loans to keep their companies afloat but encountered fresh resistance from lawmakers.
General Motors Corp. appeared to be facing the greatest peril as the CEOs of the Big Three left the Capitol no closer to obtaining the $34 billion they have requested.
As hopes for congressional approval dimmed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged President George W. Bush late Thursday to tap the Wall Street rescue funds to help the automakers.
In a letter that was also signed by the heads of the committees holding hearings this week, the lawmakers said they were hopeful that they could work "cooperatively" with the administration to "provide urgent assistance and support our domestic auto industry."
The Detroit News has learned that the White House held discussions as recently as Wednesday among various Cabinet departments about how the administration could aid automakers in the event Congress cannot agree on providing funding, but Bush has not decided whether he would step in.
One issue under discussion is whether the administration could shift some of the $700billion Wall Street bailout money to automakers if Congress doesn't act to prevent their collapse.
During a six-hour hearing Thursday, many members of the Senate Banking Committee praised the recovery plans the automakers had submitted to justify federal aid. They also acknowledged that the collapse of an auto company would have grave economic consequences.
Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said doing nothing would be tantamount to playing "Russian roulette with our entire economy."
But Dodd told reporters after the hearing that he wasn't certain any deal could be made, and time was running out. "We've got to be a lot further along than where we are today" to call Congress back in session on Monday for a possible vote next week. "I don't want to raise expectations that this is going to be easy... This is a tall order to get done in three or four days."
Some Capitol Hill aides said Congress may end up approving $10 billion in aid next week, delaying a decision on the rest of the money until President-elect Barack Obama takes office. But even that might be difficult to achieve.
President Bush was noncommittal in an NBC interview Thursday: "No matter how important the autos are to our economy, we don't want to put good money after bad," he said. "We want to make sure that the plan they develop is one that ensures their long-term viability for the sake of the taxpayer."
Among Republican lawmakers, several remained adamant in their opposition to a bailout despite dire warnings about the consequences of inaction.
"I believe that we could lose General Motors by the end of this month," said United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, who joined the Big Three CEOs for the second congressional hearings in a month. The UAW agreed Wednesday to make new concessions to help save the industry.
GM and Chrysler are most urgently in need of a cash infusion. GM said it needed $4 billion this month to stay afloat as part of its $18 billion request in loans and a line of credit.
Chrysler said it needs $4 billion to get through the first quarter of 2009, while Ford Motor Co. has asked for a $9 billion "stand-by" line of credit.
The CEOs received a warmer reception than they did last month, when they were criticized for flying in corporate jets and other lavish perks and for asking for money without offering detailed plans for how they would use and repay it.
Congressional leaders opted not to vote on the loan request two weeks ago but gave the automakers 11 days to return with plans emphasizing fuel-economy and shared sacrifices at all levels.
For Thursday's hearing, GM CEO Rick Wagoner, Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Chrysler LLC CEO Robert Nardelli drove from Michigan in hybrid vehicles and pledged to return home the same way. In the restructuring plans they submitted to Congress, Wagoner and Nardelli agreed to take $1-a-year salaries, and Mulally said he'd do the same if Ford had to access the line of credit it seeks.
Several lawmakers regretted the apparent double-standard between the treatment of the financial firms that were given money with few questions asked and the demands made of the automakers. "You're paying the price because of the way some other matters were handled," Dodd said.
Of the three companies, GM offered the most comprehensive plan, proposing to restructure debt, reduce labor costs, win new labor concessions and close, shrink or sell four brands. GM also pledged to cut 21,000 to 31,000 more jobs by 2012 and close nine more factories.
Lawmakers treated Chrysler as a case apart from the other two, saying they believed the privately owned automaker was trying to stay in business long enough to attract a merger partner. Ford is in comparatively better financial shape than its crosstown rivals.
GM's plight overshadowed the hearing. The 100-year-old automaker is rapidly running out of options. "GM is the reason that we're here," Corker said.
The company has lost more than $70 billion since 2004 and its market share has slumped.
Wagoner, the CEO since 2000, sounded weary as he faced fresh questioning on whether the company needed new management. "I think the leadership team we have is the right one, but I serve at the pleasure of the board," he said.
He conceded that the company was partly to blame for its misfortunes. He even agreed to take the company into bankruptcy if an aid package required GM to meet loan conditions set by the government by March 31 and it failed to do so. Bankruptcy is an option he has repeatedly described as disastrous for GM.
"We're sorry to be asking for this support," Wagoner said. "We're here today because forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink."
As the senators mulled various options, Robert Bennett, R-Utah, asked GM and Chrysler whether they would agree to merge to get money -- a "shotgun wedding," in his words, aimed at saving money. Wagoner said GM's liquidity needs were the top priority, while Nardelli said he would agree if a merger were a condition for receiving the loans.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed a view common among Democrats when he said the failure of the automakers "would make a sick economy sicker".
He called for the appointment of one person -- such as the Treasury secretary -- to ensure that all stakeholders, including dealers and debt holders, make concessions in the next three or four weeks as a condition of aid. "I don't trust the car company leadership," Schumer said.
The Republican ranking member on the Senate committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, said he still had serious doubts about aiding automakers, adding he was concerned that the request had grown from $25 billion to $34 billion in just two weeks.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of the Moody's rating agency, said he believed the cost of bailing out the industry would range between $75 billion and $125 billion -- including $25 billion in loans already approved by Congress specifically to help automakers develop more fuel-efficient cars. But the automakers received some understanding from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who also noted that Wall Street banks had received much larger sums without having to go through what the auto executives CEOs have.
"We are asking extraordinary things of our witnesses today," Brown said. "We did not ask those CEOs of the banks to drive into town in a Wells Fargo armored truck" to collect tens of billions of dollars and they weren't asked for detailed plans.
Wagoner drove up to a Senate office building for the hearing in a prototype plug-in Chevy Volt.
4a)The Concord Coalition's Executive Director Robert Bixby has an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post entitled "Congress in a Glass House." In the article, Bixby draws an analogy between the struggling automobile industry and the nation's long-term fiscal outlook.
It can be viewed online by visiting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/03/AR2008120302891.html
5) Covert marine operation uncovers Syria's return to plutonium production
In the face of Damascus' refusal to allow UN inspectors access to three suspect "research laboratories, Western agents recently carried out a daring covert operation to collect water samples from the Orontes river in Syria where it drains into the Mediterranean. Intelligence sources report the discoveries were presented to a closed session of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's board on Nov. 27-28.
Situated on the river bank near Homs is one of the three research institutes where Syrian, Iranian and North Korean technicians and scientists are suspected of reprocessing plutonium for Syria's clandestine military nuclear program. The Orentes samples confirmed the suspicion that Syria has gone back to the plutonium project which was cut short when Israeli destroyed its reactor at Al Kibar in September 2007.
The Orontes rises at Tal al Musa north of Damascus and south of Homs. It flows into the sea near Antakya, which is north of Latakiya and west of Aleppo, not far from the Turkish border.
The IAEA board meeting was told in general teams how the tainted river samples were obtained. Military sources add that western nuclear technicians collected them from a boat which sailed surreptitiously up to the river mouth in Syria. To make sure of their finding, they collected river water on three different dates in the last two months.
Their discovery tied in with a separate report reaching the nuclear watchdog board that Iran and North Korea were frantically drafting in nuclear specialists to help Syria revive its plutonium reprocessing project. The product is to be stored in protected hideouts.
It was the view of some board members that Tehran and Pyongyang had determined to prove that the Israeli attack had not put Syria off its nuclear program. Both were even more insistent on showing the world that the Iranian nuclear program of which the Syrian project was a part was unstoppable.
Syria and North Korea accordingly renewed their clandestine nuclear cooperation accord on Oct. 22, so making sure of an uninterrupted flow from Pyongyang of nuclear materials, technology and experts for Syria's covert nuclear facilities
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Intellectuals Gather - Fate of The World in Balance?
This was supposedly written by a Georgia Legislator whom I happen to know. It speaks to many of the peeves most of us have and it made me think about the message of Saxby Chambliss' re-election. (See 1 below.)
Not to take anything away from Saxby's sterling re-election, particulalrly since I voted for him and sent him a congratulatory e mail, I respectfully believe his victory is being mis-interpreted.
To begin with, Saxby was opposed by a white candidate and thus black voters had less incentive to go vote as they did when Obama ran.
Second, Saxby credits Palin with energizing the Party's base. That may be true, but Republicans statistically enjoy a shrinking base. They have lost, for the moment, the Hispanics and lost the black vote about 100 years ago. Whites will soon be a miinority so not only is the Republican base shrinking but also the nation's base of caucasians is ebbing.
Third, Saxby is correct in surmising it is sensible for Republicans to return to being rational conservatives in the truest sense of the word but doing so by emphasizing narrow social issues is more likely to turn off the uncommitted middle than capture them.
Republicans might get somewhere if they embraced and fight tirelessly and with zeal for five basic "changes" as follows:
a) True tax simplification. Whether it be a "Fair Tax" or a two tier tax with three specified deductions (interest on one home, charitable and a per person exemption not to exceed say $30,000/family) is not the issue. The key objective is to allow taxpayers to file on a post card.
b) Eliminate entire departments, agencies and rules and regulations that add to cost, make us less competitive and foster loss of jobs. I would start with ending The Department of Education and Energy.
c) Tell the U.N. we will contribute to those programs that are effective and no others.
d) Allow anyone who is eligible to immigrate to our nation as we did back in the early 1900's and for those in our nation illegally allow them to apply for citizenship within a prescribed period of time. Those who remain illegally should be deported and/or jailedwhen found and never allowed to become legal citizens.
e) Demand that states re-introduce a rigorous curriculum and insist that schools teach children to reason, to read, to write, to speak English and to do math and, above all, fight for school choice. Public education does not have to prepare everyone for college but it must prepare our youth for life, for earning a living, learning a vocation or job skill, become productive citizens so they can pursue happiness, stay out of prison and pay off the enormoous debt burden we are leaving them.
It should go without saying, the primal purpose of government is protective so a strong defense aligned with a rational foreign policy is a given!
Anoher interpretation - a truly pure election on a philosophical basis and a desire to trip up Reid. (See 2 below.)
What could Rice expect if Indian intelligence sources are correct? (See 3 below.)
Could not agree more. Neither can we spend nor should we try and buy our way out of our economic mess. (See 4 below.)spend
Saban Center discussion on Iran will be attended by heavy hitters seeking to influence Obama regarding negotiations with Iran, Middle East Foreign Policy, etc..
A report prepared by Richard N. Haass and Martin S. Indyk, Brookings Institution Press 2008 c. 288pp. (www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2008/restoringthebalance.aspx )- A Time for Diplomatic Renewal Toward a New U.S. Strategy in the Middle East, has some concerned that it will become the driving force behind Obama's Mid East policies and initiatives.
Amazing how the possible future of the world often and simply hinges on the outcome of an intellectual fight among a selected few. Some even try to shape the future by having a book banned. (See 5 and 5a below.)
Meanwhile, Israel prepares various option scenarios because it has no other choice. (See 6 below.)
Victor Davis Hanson writes about the implications of Mumbai. (See 7 below.)
Syria and Israel continue their background discussions through Turkey even in the face of the American ambassador at IAEA comments that all data indicate that alleged Syrian reactor bombed by Israel in 2007 was not configured for energy production, ill-suited for research purposes. (See 8 below.)
Dick
1)We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone
get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our
nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of
debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren,
hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense
guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other
liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole
lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require
a Bill of NON-Rights.'
ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any
other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but
no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is
based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You
may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but
the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a
screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool
manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans
are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in
need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after
generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the
creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is
my pet peeve...get an education and go to work....don't expect everyone else
to take care of you!)
ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be
nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in
public health care.
ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If
you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if
the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you
rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be
surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where
you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of
leisure.
ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to
have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you
to take advantage of the educational and vocational training
laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)
ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means
that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot
easier if you are un-encumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created
by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are
from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came
from! (Lastly....)
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or
heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet,
you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith
at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of
our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!
2) Saxby's Win: 08's Most Intellectually Pure Contest
By C. Edmund Wright
For all of the talk about "bi-partisanship," the Georgia Senate run-off was nothing if not blatantly partisan. It was, simply, ALL about the party, and by extention, was the most intellectually sound and pure election in all of the 2008 cycle.
Six years ago, Republican Saxby Chambliss routed incumbent Max Cleland by running a partisan and aggressive campaign that "infuriated Democrats" at the time. Since then, Chambliss has often wandered off the conservative partisan plantation and infuriated mainly his own base. He even got chastised for a "reach across the aisle" energy vote in an appearance on the Rush Limbaugh show when oil was over 100 bucks a barrel. (If you heard the interview, you probably remain undecided as to whether Chambliss even realized he was being mocked.)
This philosophical meandering had the conservative base less than thrilled with Saxby to the point that a libertarian candidate polled strongly and kept Chambliss from winning 50% plus one on election day in November.
This rightward bleeding, plus Obama mania and the attached voter drives, had him in a run-off against a charismatically challenged and unknown state legislator named Jim Martin.
As we know, it has been trendy for years for voters to claim an aggressive lack of party affiliation and to proclaim that one "votes for the man (or woman) and not the party." It sounds so darned enlightened and open minded. When turnout is high, many who fit this category vote.
But with respects to the Congress this makes almost no sense. After all, a vote for any single Democrat in 2008 was effectively a vote for one of only two people: Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. These are the people who are mainly empowered when there are more D's than R's in the Senate and House. Chances are, for any law that might actually affect your life, the D or the R mean much more than the name of your reps.
With this in mind, what happened this week in Georgia is not so much that Saxby Chambliss beat Jim Martin -- as it is that Harry Reid lost to the Republican Party - or perhaps he lost to the fear of a Democrat super majority. Martin was irrelevant. (OK, his photo op appearance with Ludacris was relevant, but not in a good way.) Chambliss was not the issue. He was a Republican speedbump versus the prospects of a Harry Reid legislative super highway.
Sadly, one of the fruits of a government school system run amok and a leftist MSM is that only a small percentage of the voters in the country realize the critical party dynamic in congress. Well fine. Only a small percentage of voters turned out for Chambliss v. Martin. Coincidence? I think not. For all of Chambliss' flaws to the conservative base, he was suddenly critical due to the senate math to these same voters.
In this particular election, money and effort from all across the country poured into Georgia on behalf of Chambliss. Websites and national pundits like Dick Morris (via the the National Republican Trust PAC) hyped the need for conservatives and Republicans everywhere to donate to the Georgia cause. And all of the pleas were about one thing: keeping Harry Reid and Barack Obama from getting a "filibuster proof" Senate. Period.
There was no mention in any of these ads about Martin. There was nothing mentioned about the need to keep the wonderful Chambliss in office. As is the case with the still on-going Minnesota contest, pleas for help were all about keeping the total of Democrats in the senate to less than 60 at any cost.
And frankly, this is brilliant and appropriate. This makes the Georgia run-off the most intelligently pure contest in the nation. This race was ultimately decided on what is really important. It was decided on what the national impact would be, which had everything to do with party affiliation. Period.
There is nothing about Chambliss, Martin, Norm Coleman or Al Franken that will have an impact equal to the enormous effect of Reid having or not having 60 Democrats --counting Joe Lieberman -- to work with. There is an extremely liberal President-elect and a very left wing Speaker of the House with a huge House majority and no procedures like cloture votes to stem the liberal tide.
The only "firewall" against an all out leftward legislative lurch is the Senate where an organized minority of 41 or more can stall the wishes of the other 59 . And the small percentage of Georgians who turned out for this run-off, be they liberal or conservative, seemed to understand that as the key issue in this campaign.
There were precious few of the now famous "Obama voters" from the John Ziegler video (and reinforcing Zogby Polls he commissioned) who were clueless about who Harry Reid is, not to mention how many Senators there are. Folks who think Sarah Palin said she could "see Russia from my house" and has "campaigned in 57 states" did not bother to show up in large numbers.
In short, the ignorant stayed home. And so did the "I vote for the man, not the party" crowd. This was all about party. It was more like a cross-primary election.
All of which led to a really good election. For years we have been bombarded with the ideas that being undecided or non-partisan is necessarily a good thing and that every living being (and then some) should vote. I have always disagreed. With so much at stake in elections, especially this one, I cringe when I realize informed votes will be cancelled by many who remain cluelessly undecided and misinformed and arrogantly non-partisan. Call me close minded, but I happen to think knowing how many Senators exists and how the Senate works is a low bar requisite for voting in a Senatorial election.
I also think partisanship is a good thing. So did our founders, by the way, as long as it was based on principles.
The genius of the American people -- if such a thing really exists -- will only manifest itself when the few interested and enlightened from both sides of the philosophical spectrum participate. Much like Chambliss v. Martin 2008, where folks voted for party. They will be free from the vote dilution of the uninformed and the distractions of the dishonest attempts to fool the same.
Perhaps we should start encouraging people not really interested to stay home on election day. I suspect more races would turn out like the run-off in Georgia did. Now THAT would be "change I can believe in."
3 )Rice fails to damp Indian-Pakistan tensions which rise amid fresh terror threat
Sources report in their talks in New Delhi and Islamabad Wednesday, Dec. 3, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and top US soldier, Adm. Mike Mullen, failed to tamp down the rising military tensions between India and Pakistan. Their talks were clouded by the threat of a second round of terror, this one directed against three Indian international airports, Delhi Bangalore and Chennai, by infiltrators of Pakistani or Afghan origin. Last week, Lashkar e-Taiba Islamists held Mumbai to siege for three days and killed more than 170 people. The Indian investigation points to two Lashkar leaders, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Yusuf Muzammil, as masterminds of that outrage.
The intelligence of a second round of attacks which may include the hijacking of aircraft at the three targeted airports, was handed to prime minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday, Dec. 3, by the Indian spy agency RAW. Special forces backed by armored vehicles and explosives detecting devices including sniffer dogs were posted at those airports.
According to counter-terror sources, Indian intelligence has been warned of a third round of attacks scheduled for the coming festival season against resorts like Goa and Puna which are frequented by foreign tourists and trekkers. Once again, Americans, Britons and Israelis will be singled out.
When Condoleezza Rice urged Indian officials to exercise military restraint against Pakistan they showed her this intelligence. Since Islamabad did not rein in the terrorists who cross the border at will, India had no choice, they said, but to send its army across to hit them in their Pakistani lairs.
Rice then traveled to Islamabad for a last-ditch appeal for urgent Pakistani "cooperation" by rounding up the suspects behind the Mumbai atrocity. But the new president Asif Zardari lacks the clout to deliver.
Security measures have also been tightened across India for the Dec. 6 anniversary of the destruction of the medieval Ayodhya mosque in 1992.
4) Keynesian borrowing won't solve our economic problems
By Raymond Richman, Howard Richman, and Jesse Richman
Washington's response to the recession has been ever-expanding borrowing for stimulus packages and bailouts:
(1) $150 billion in February;
(2) $850 billion in October, and, coming soon;
(3) Obama's $800 billion stimulus package.
These packages are implementations of Keynesian economics which advocates increased government borrowing during recessions. But government borrowing has severe long-term costs. The late Milton Friedman, founder of the fiscally conservative alternative known as monetarism, often pointed out: "There ain't no free lunch!"
For one thing, borrowing from abroad artificially strengthens the dollar, which causes American producers to lose market share both at home and in world markets. In fact, the first two stimulus packages may have actually made the U.S. recession worse, not better.
But the biggest costs of government borrowing are borne when the government has to make payments on its increased debt. The rapid pace of Washington's borrowing, at present, is greatly increasing the possibility that a rise in interest rates could force the U.S. government to either repudiate or inflate away its debt.
The central idea of monetarism is that governments are too short-term in their thinking unless they are bound by sensible long-term rules. Monetarists have always advocated the first two rules below. We would add the third:
1. Balanced Monetary Growth. Governments should maintain a steadily growing money supply, sufficient to prevent deflation, but not so fast as to cause inflation.
2. Balanced Budgets. Governments should maintain relatively balanced budgets so as not crowd-out private investment or leave a huge government debt to future generations.
3. Balanced Trade. Governments should insure that foreign trade is relatively balanced so as not to lose production jobs or leave a huge national debt to future generations.
Monetarism, even without the balanced trade rule, has been a successful economic philosophy. The Federal Reserve applied the balanced monetary growth rule during the 1980s and 1990s, keeping the U.S. economy relatively free from inflation. Similarly, President Clinton and the Republican Congress applied the balanced budget rule in the mid 1990s, producing a long period of steady economic growth.
The new balanced trade rule is necessary in order to respond to modern mercantilism, the economic policy that maximizes exports and minimizes imports in order to gain market share from trading partners. The latest evidence is the increase in China's subsidies to exporters which has not yet evoked a response from the U.S. government even though China exports four times as much as it imports from the United States and promised to forego export subsidies when it joined the WTO.
China and the other mercantilist governments have been perpetuating and increasing the U.S. trade deficits by buying U.S. financial assets with the dollars earned from their trade surpluses with the United States. For over a decade, American banks passed along the flow of foreign savings to American consumers, offering ever-riskier loans in order to get a high return. But when American consumers could no longer afford the payments, banks went bankrupt and the resulting hole in worldwide demand is causing the worldwide recession.
If the U.S. government switched to balanced trade monetarism, the U.S. could quickly recover since there would be plenty of demand for American products if foreigners bought as much from the U.S. as the U.S. buys from them.
One definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again, but expecting a different result. Washington seems to be stuck on borrowing foreign savings. But borrowing from abroad exacerbated this recession, has already bankrupted many U.S. banks, and is starting to bankrupt U.S. manufacturers, including Detroit automakers. It's time to stop the borrowing by bringing trade into balance!
5)Think-tank comments on Iran worry Israel: Restoring the Balance A Middle East Strategy for
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER and HERB KEINON
Israeli officials expressed concern Wednesday about some recommendations in a report top American experts have prepared on Middle East policy for the Obama administration, including expanding engagement with Iran and possible responses should Teheran acquire nuclear capabilities.
The report, drafted by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings
Institution, will be a major focus of the latter's Saban Center for Middle
East Policy forum this weekend for top US and Israeli officials, as
Washington heavy hitters try to play a role in shaping the policies of the
next administration.
Foreign Ministry officials weren't thrilled about the report's
recommendations, but downplayed its significance.
"We have nothing to be afraid of," one official said, refuting those who
expressed fear that this report would become Obama's diplomatic road map.
"Obama is surrounding himself with people who we know - from Hillary
Clinton, to Rahm Emanuel, to James Jones. There is no reason to panic.
"It could be that the new administration's policy will be different from the
Bush administration's; in fact, it will be a little different. But that
doesn't mean it will be against Israel."
The official remarked that the report would likely be passed around by Obama
subordinates, along with many other similar documents being prepared over
the transition period. It was unrealistic, he said, to think Obama is going
to internalize this report's findings and make them his own policies.
Still, the Saban gathering draws together international figures of the
highest order and leading thinkers and experts on Middle East issues. US
President George W. Bush is set to give his valedictory speech on the region
at the weekend event, being held in Washington.
Despite Bush's presence, the report is blunt in assessing that current US
policies toward Iran have "failed." Instead, the report calls for direct
engagement with Iran, to begin at a low level as soon as possible.
Though it acknowledges that diplomacy is not a cure-all, it considers
diplomacy more likely than other options - including a military attack and
regime change - to productively manage Iran's nuclear ambitions.
A separate chapter on Iran estimates that the country won't be capable of
producing a credible nuclear weapons option for another two to three years,
during which increased sanctions alongside engaged diplomacy are advocated.
But, it adds, "If diplomacy or force fails to prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons, a declared US nuclear umbrella for the region or parts of
it should be a key mechanism for deterring Iran, reassuring Israel, and
incorporating our other allies into an effective regional balance."
Martin Indyk, who heads the Saban Center and co-wrote the report's
introductory section - though he didn't author the chapters dealing with
specific countries - explained the latter recommendation as potentially
helping to synchronize the American and Israeli time frames on Iran.
Speaking to the press after the report was unveiled on Tuesday, Indyk said
that the US and Israel have different deadlines for dealing with the threat
of a nuclear Iran, because Israel sees the issue as an existential one while
the US sees room to maneuver, even if Tehran did acquire some nuclear
capabilities.
By the US providing security guarantees, such as a nuclear umbrella, he
argued, it could reassure Jerusalem and "buy more time" for diplomacy to
work.
Indyk also backed US support for Israeli-Syrian negotiations that are
already under way through a third party, Turkey.
He suggested that they could strengthen the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
peace process, since a price for an agreement would be Syria cutting its
ties to radical Islamic parties and Iran, whose influence the Fatah-led
Palestinian Authority also wants to see diminish as part of its effort to
tame Hamas.
In its chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report contends that
Hamas needs to be brought back into a Palestinian national unity government
to try to reshape its current role as a spoiler.
The report doesn't push the US to recognize Hamas, but suggests mediation by
the Arab countries between the rival Palestinian parties.
Indyk also said the current Annapolis process could continue to provide a
good framework for moving forward on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Richard Haass, president of CFR and the co-author of the introduction,
agreed that there were positive aspects of Bush's policies that shouldn't be
thrown out in the new administration's haste to turn the page.
"It's important that the administration not start with an ABB approach -
anything but Bush," he said.
5a) To Ban a Book
By Winfield Myers
Political correctness is at its most parodic precisely when it seems beyond parody. The latest bit of history to support this adage is the Middle East studies establishment's reception of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel of Medina (Jewel), a life of Aisha, the favorite wife of Muhammad. As Robert Spencer writes in his review of Jewel for the Winter 2009 issue of the Middle East Quarterly, Jones set out to "be a bridge-builder" who chose her historical sources selectively to ensure that her work would present a flattering picture of her subjects.
Enter Denise Spellberg, who teaches Islamic history at the University of Texas. She heard of Jewel pre-publication because Jones, in her naiveté, asked her then-publisher Ballantine, an imprint of Random House, to obtain an endorsement from Spellberg to splay across the back of the dust jacket. Spellberg is author of Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha bint Abi Bakr, which Jones cites as one of her sources. She is, in addition, a typical practitioner of the blatant bias toward things Muslim and, more particularly, Arab that has become almost ubiquitous among practitioners of Middle East studies. Put simply but accurately, this means that things Arab/Muslim = good; things American/Western = bad. Under this regime, dispassionate, fair-minded research that takes a critical look at the Middle East is more likely to be rewarded with professional ostracism than advancement.
The results of Spellberg's fantasy-laden reading of the publisher's galleys of Jewel is by now familiar: she threw a Texas-sized tantrum and effectively persuaded Random House (the publisher of her forthcoming Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an) to withdraw publication of the book. According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, Spellberg made a "frantic" phone call to Muslim friend Shahed Amanullah, who owns the popular site altmuslim. After telling him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history" and asking him to sound the alarm, word spread rapidly that Random House was on the verge of publishing a book on Islam that would spark worldwide violence akin to what occurred in the aftermath of the publication of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and Salmon Rushdie's Satanic Verses.
Here is a sample of what Spellberg has said about Jewel:
A very ugly, stupid piece of work.
A declaration of war...explosive stuff...a national security issue.
I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.
(Via Jane Garrett of Random House): [Spellberg] thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses [sic] and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP.
Compare those dire warnings to what Robert Spencer found in his reading:
But whoever reads The Jewel of Medina, after suffering through stilted Hollywood historical epic dialogue larded with Arabic tidbits for authenticity's sake, will wonder what the fuss was all about. True to her word, Jones offers a portrait of Muhammad that is so flattering as to be worthy of British religion writer Karen Armstrong, who compared Muhammad to Gandhi.
Jones, says Spencer, saves her harsh judgment for Muhammad's enemies:
In keeping with this approach, Jones paints Muhammad's enemies with lurid comic-book strokes as evil, treacherous, and repulsive. The Jews of the Qaynuqa tribe, whom Muhammad eventually exiled, lurk sinisterly in doorways and play evil pranks upon Muhammad's wives. Abu Sufyan, the Quraysh leader who fought Muhammad and the Muslims in the battles of Badr, Uhud, and the Trench, abducts and murders a friend of Aisha; Jones describes his sweat glistening "like beads of grease in every fold and crease of fat" while his accomplice's "pocked face seemed to writhe with hatred."
Spencer does find one instance in which, by having Aisha fall in love with Safwan ibn al-Muattal and express initial disappointment at her marriage to Muhammad, Jones ensures that "feathers will be ruffled." But enough to justify violence? That, Spencer says, "is doubtful in the extreme."
Spencer's review further demonstrates that Spellberg's solicitousness of things Muslim caused her to grossly overstate the risk involved in publishing Jewel. The British publishing house Gibson Square Books canceled publication of the book in the UK after the home of its head was firebombed. While it's impossible to say for sure that no violence would have accompanied its publication in the UK had Spellberg never launched her hysteria-laden campaign against the book, it's beyond dispute that Beaufort Books in the U.S. went ahead with publication, and to date no violence has occurred. Thanks to Robert Spencer's careful review, we can better understand why: Jewel is more "soft history" than "soft pornography."
6) IDF preparing options for Iran strike
By Yaakov Katz
The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States.
While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.
"It is always better to coordinate," one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. "But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination."
Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.
"There are a wide range of risks one takes when embarking on such an operation," a top Israeli official said.
Several news reports have claimed recently that US President George W. Bush has refused to give Israel a green light for an attack on Iranian facilities. One such report, published in September in Britain's Guardian newspaper, claimed that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert requested a green light to attack Iran in May but was refused by Bush.
In September, a Defense News article on an early warning radar system the US recently sent to Israel quoted a US government source who said the X-band deployment and other bilateral alliance-bolstering activities send parallel messages: "First, we want to put Iran on notice that we're bolstering our capabilities throughout the region, and especially in Israel. But just as important, we're telling the Israelis, 'Calm down, behave. We're doing all we can to stand by your side and strengthen defenses, because at this time, we don't want you rushing into the military option.'"
The "US European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent US military presence on Israeli soil," Defense News wrote. The radar will shave several precious minutes off Israel's reaction time to an Iranian missile launch.
In a related article at about the same time, TIME magazine raised the possibility that through the deployment of the radar, America wants to keep an eye on Israeli airspace, so that the US is not surprised if and when the IAF is sent to bomb Iran, a scenario Washington wants to avoid.
The US army sent 120 EUCOM personnel to Israel's Nevatim Air Base southeast of Beersheba to man the new radar.
Last week, Iran's nuclear chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh revealed that the country was operating more than 5,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and would continue to install centrifuges and enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel for the country's future nuclear power plants.
"At this point, more than 5,000 centrifuges are operating in Natanz," said Aghazadeh, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. This represents a significant increase from the 4,000 Iran had said were up and running in August at the plant.
The Islamic republic has said it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges.
Israeli officials said last week that the drop in oil prices and the continued sanctions on Iran were having an effect, although they had yet to stop Teheran's nuclear program. The officials said that while Iran was making technological advancements, it would not have the necessary amount of highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb until late 2009.
"There is still time and there is no need to rush into an operation right now," another Israeli official said. "The regime there is already falling apart and will likely no longer be in power 10 years from now."
The IAF was preparing for a wide range of options, OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan recently said, adding that all it would take to launch an operation was a decision by the political echelon.
"The air force is a very robust and flexible force," he told Der Spiegel. "We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us."
On Monday, Teheran dismissed the possibility of an Israeli strike, saying it didn't take Israel seriously.
"We think that regional and international developments and the complicated situation faced by Israel itself will not allow it to launch military strikes against other countries," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters in Teheran, according to the Press TV Web site. "Israel makes threats to promote its psychological and media warfare," he said.
7) Back to the Old 9/11 Days
By Victor Davis Hanson
For three days, Islamist gunmen nearly shut down Mumbai, the financial center of India. The terrorists -- Pakistani militants, according to Indian authorities -- murdered almost 200 innocents and left hundreds of others wounded, giving reprieve only to hostages they thought were Muslims.
The timing of their assault seemed aimed for maximum shock value here in the U.S. -- during the transference of American presidential power and amid a long U.S. holiday in which millions of Americans were glued to televised news.
The macabre killing spree was apparently part of a larger, though failed, effort to shoot or blow up a planned 5,000 civilians -- especially Americans, Brits and Jews. The jihadists may have hoped that India would heed Islamist warnings to loosen its connections to Western finance and commerce, and pay better attention to Muslim grievances.
There are a number of things to take away from the Mumbai atrocities.
First was the welcome re-emergence of concerned discussion of the dangers of global Islamist violence. George Bush apparently was not fabricating a global terrorist bogeyman -- as was sometimes alleged over the last years of calm -- when he sought support for his war in Iraq and domestic security measures.
In fact, caricatured efforts like the Patriot Act, the FISA accords, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the fostering of Middle East constitutional government, and the killing of violent insurgents abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq might seem once again understandable in the context of preventing another major violent terrorist attack of the sort we just saw at Mumbai.
Second, in the fashion of the old post-9/11 apologists, we were lectured once again that global terrorism is not necessarily an Islamic phenomenon. Supposedly the poverty and mistreatment of India's Muslim minority, not jihadist ideology and hatred, better explain India's incessant sectarian violence. That theory of victimhood is no more convincing now than it was in 2001.
Transnational terrorism still remains mostly Islamist in nature. Very few impoverished Hindu, Christian or Sikh terrorists go abroad to murder civilians. Nor are the wretched poor of Brazil or Haiti organizing mass-murdering assaults against foreigners and Western iconic targets in their cities.
Third, the serial excuses of Pakistan are also beginning to wear thin. Hundreds of Indians have been killed by Pakistani terrorists, who have routinely attacked both foreigners and Christians in their own country. It is now over seven years since more than 3,000 innocent Americans were murdered on orders from terrorists now all but certainly in sanctuary in Pakistan -- and whom we are still told cannot be extradited.
So despite billions of dollars in American military and financial assistance given to Pakistan, nothing really changes. When pressed to explain the apparent role of the Pakistani military or intelligence services in turning a blind eye to jihadists, the government -- whether a Pervez Musharraf in uniform or now civilian President Asif Ali Zardari (formerly known as "Mr. Ten Percent" for allegations of graft) -- still politely offers a variety of clichés.
The Pakistani borderlands are beyond the government's control. Pressuring the existing government for either more order or more democracy will lead only to worse alternatives -- such as a takeover by fundamentalist clerics, authoritarian generals, or weak democrats whose plebiscites will ensure rule by popular fanatics. No Pakistani leader of any stripe ever quite takes responsibility of the government for the mayhem committed by its own citizens or foreigners on its soil.
Instead, there always seems an implied threat that it would be unwise to push too far a volatile Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons, or whose fanaticism makes it immune from classical laws of nuclear deterrence, or whose poverty and mismanagement ensure that it simply cannot be expected to meet international norms of behavior.
Fourth, the problem of Pakistan and the Islamist terrorism that so frequently emanates from its soil will now be President-elect Obama's to deal with. He will have to decide whether George Bush's anti-terrorism architecture shredded the Constitution and should be repealed, or helped to keep us safe from attack for seven years, and thus should be maintained, if not strengthened.
Obama once advocated open intrusions into Pakistan in hot pursuit of terrorists, and will have to adjudicate whether such actions will more likely enrage nuclear Pakistan or finally eliminate the followers of Osama bin Laden. At the same time, Obama also must ponder whether he should continue our subsidized "alliance" with Pakistan.
Just as I didn't envy George Bush's lose/lose dilemma in dealing with Pakistan and global Islamic terrorism, so too I can only sympathize with President-elect Obama, who faces the same dismal choices.
8) Report: Syria waiting for Israel for talks
By Roee Nahmias
Al-Hayat newspaper reveals Turks planned to have Jerusalem, Damascus answer each other's questions regarding borders, security before going to direct talks. Syria reportedly responds while Israel gives no reply
Damascus is waiting for responses to six questions sent to Israel through Turkish mediation regarding the future of the Golan Heights, the London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper reported on Thursday.
According to the report, Turkey proposed a plan to both parties that would help the talks progress. According the plan, Israel would present Syria with six questions regarding security matters and the Syrians would pose six questions to Israel regarding borders.
Syria reportedly gave its six responses to the Turkish mediators, but requested not to have them given to Israel until Israel provided its responses to Syria's questions.
It was also reported that Syria would not agree to move on to direct talks until the answers were given.
A source close to the talks said France got the impression that both Israel and Syria were interested in moving forward with negotiations, but at this point, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would have a hard time doing so due to the general elections period.
Meanwhile, Damascus on Wednesday congratulated Hilary Clinton on her appointment as American secretary of state, and a Syrian source told al-Watan newspaper that this appointment showed US President-elect Barack Obama's aspirations towards a just peace in the Middle East.
Last month, Syrian President Bashar Assad accused Israel of being insincere in its statements of ambition for peace with its Arab neighbors.
"For Israel, peace is a tactical act and not a strategic choice," said Assad, "Israel should give proof of its desire for peace, since it is the Israelis who occupied our land."
Not to take anything away from Saxby's sterling re-election, particulalrly since I voted for him and sent him a congratulatory e mail, I respectfully believe his victory is being mis-interpreted.
To begin with, Saxby was opposed by a white candidate and thus black voters had less incentive to go vote as they did when Obama ran.
Second, Saxby credits Palin with energizing the Party's base. That may be true, but Republicans statistically enjoy a shrinking base. They have lost, for the moment, the Hispanics and lost the black vote about 100 years ago. Whites will soon be a miinority so not only is the Republican base shrinking but also the nation's base of caucasians is ebbing.
Third, Saxby is correct in surmising it is sensible for Republicans to return to being rational conservatives in the truest sense of the word but doing so by emphasizing narrow social issues is more likely to turn off the uncommitted middle than capture them.
Republicans might get somewhere if they embraced and fight tirelessly and with zeal for five basic "changes" as follows:
a) True tax simplification. Whether it be a "Fair Tax" or a two tier tax with three specified deductions (interest on one home, charitable and a per person exemption not to exceed say $30,000/family) is not the issue. The key objective is to allow taxpayers to file on a post card.
b) Eliminate entire departments, agencies and rules and regulations that add to cost, make us less competitive and foster loss of jobs. I would start with ending The Department of Education and Energy.
c) Tell the U.N. we will contribute to those programs that are effective and no others.
d) Allow anyone who is eligible to immigrate to our nation as we did back in the early 1900's and for those in our nation illegally allow them to apply for citizenship within a prescribed period of time. Those who remain illegally should be deported and/or jailedwhen found and never allowed to become legal citizens.
e) Demand that states re-introduce a rigorous curriculum and insist that schools teach children to reason, to read, to write, to speak English and to do math and, above all, fight for school choice. Public education does not have to prepare everyone for college but it must prepare our youth for life, for earning a living, learning a vocation or job skill, become productive citizens so they can pursue happiness, stay out of prison and pay off the enormoous debt burden we are leaving them.
It should go without saying, the primal purpose of government is protective so a strong defense aligned with a rational foreign policy is a given!
Anoher interpretation - a truly pure election on a philosophical basis and a desire to trip up Reid. (See 2 below.)
What could Rice expect if Indian intelligence sources are correct? (See 3 below.)
Could not agree more. Neither can we spend nor should we try and buy our way out of our economic mess. (See 4 below.)spend
Saban Center discussion on Iran will be attended by heavy hitters seeking to influence Obama regarding negotiations with Iran, Middle East Foreign Policy, etc..
A report prepared by Richard N. Haass and Martin S. Indyk, Brookings Institution Press 2008 c. 288pp. (www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2008/restoringthebalance.aspx )- A Time for Diplomatic Renewal Toward a New U.S. Strategy in the Middle East, has some concerned that it will become the driving force behind Obama's Mid East policies and initiatives.
Amazing how the possible future of the world often and simply hinges on the outcome of an intellectual fight among a selected few. Some even try to shape the future by having a book banned. (See 5 and 5a below.)
Meanwhile, Israel prepares various option scenarios because it has no other choice. (See 6 below.)
Victor Davis Hanson writes about the implications of Mumbai. (See 7 below.)
Syria and Israel continue their background discussions through Turkey even in the face of the American ambassador at IAEA comments that all data indicate that alleged Syrian reactor bombed by Israel in 2007 was not configured for energy production, ill-suited for research purposes. (See 8 below.)
Dick
1)We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone
get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our
nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of
debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren,
hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense
guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other
liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole
lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require
a Bill of NON-Rights.'
ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any
other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but
no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is
based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You
may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but
the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a
screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool
manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans
are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in
need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after
generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the
creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is
my pet peeve...get an education and go to work....don't expect everyone else
to take care of you!)
ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be
nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in
public health care.
ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If
you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if
the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you
rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be
surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where
you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of
leisure.
ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to
have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you
to take advantage of the educational and vocational training
laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)
ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means
that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot
easier if you are un-encumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created
by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are
from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came
from! (Lastly....)
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or
heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet,
you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith
at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of
our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!
2) Saxby's Win: 08's Most Intellectually Pure Contest
By C. Edmund Wright
For all of the talk about "bi-partisanship," the Georgia Senate run-off was nothing if not blatantly partisan. It was, simply, ALL about the party, and by extention, was the most intellectually sound and pure election in all of the 2008 cycle.
Six years ago, Republican Saxby Chambliss routed incumbent Max Cleland by running a partisan and aggressive campaign that "infuriated Democrats" at the time. Since then, Chambliss has often wandered off the conservative partisan plantation and infuriated mainly his own base. He even got chastised for a "reach across the aisle" energy vote in an appearance on the Rush Limbaugh show when oil was over 100 bucks a barrel. (If you heard the interview, you probably remain undecided as to whether Chambliss even realized he was being mocked.)
This philosophical meandering had the conservative base less than thrilled with Saxby to the point that a libertarian candidate polled strongly and kept Chambliss from winning 50% plus one on election day in November.
This rightward bleeding, plus Obama mania and the attached voter drives, had him in a run-off against a charismatically challenged and unknown state legislator named Jim Martin.
As we know, it has been trendy for years for voters to claim an aggressive lack of party affiliation and to proclaim that one "votes for the man (or woman) and not the party." It sounds so darned enlightened and open minded. When turnout is high, many who fit this category vote.
But with respects to the Congress this makes almost no sense. After all, a vote for any single Democrat in 2008 was effectively a vote for one of only two people: Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. These are the people who are mainly empowered when there are more D's than R's in the Senate and House. Chances are, for any law that might actually affect your life, the D or the R mean much more than the name of your reps.
With this in mind, what happened this week in Georgia is not so much that Saxby Chambliss beat Jim Martin -- as it is that Harry Reid lost to the Republican Party - or perhaps he lost to the fear of a Democrat super majority. Martin was irrelevant. (OK, his photo op appearance with Ludacris was relevant, but not in a good way.) Chambliss was not the issue. He was a Republican speedbump versus the prospects of a Harry Reid legislative super highway.
Sadly, one of the fruits of a government school system run amok and a leftist MSM is that only a small percentage of the voters in the country realize the critical party dynamic in congress. Well fine. Only a small percentage of voters turned out for Chambliss v. Martin. Coincidence? I think not. For all of Chambliss' flaws to the conservative base, he was suddenly critical due to the senate math to these same voters.
In this particular election, money and effort from all across the country poured into Georgia on behalf of Chambliss. Websites and national pundits like Dick Morris (via the the National Republican Trust PAC) hyped the need for conservatives and Republicans everywhere to donate to the Georgia cause. And all of the pleas were about one thing: keeping Harry Reid and Barack Obama from getting a "filibuster proof" Senate. Period.
There was no mention in any of these ads about Martin. There was nothing mentioned about the need to keep the wonderful Chambliss in office. As is the case with the still on-going Minnesota contest, pleas for help were all about keeping the total of Democrats in the senate to less than 60 at any cost.
And frankly, this is brilliant and appropriate. This makes the Georgia run-off the most intelligently pure contest in the nation. This race was ultimately decided on what is really important. It was decided on what the national impact would be, which had everything to do with party affiliation. Period.
There is nothing about Chambliss, Martin, Norm Coleman or Al Franken that will have an impact equal to the enormous effect of Reid having or not having 60 Democrats --counting Joe Lieberman -- to work with. There is an extremely liberal President-elect and a very left wing Speaker of the House with a huge House majority and no procedures like cloture votes to stem the liberal tide.
The only "firewall" against an all out leftward legislative lurch is the Senate where an organized minority of 41 or more can stall the wishes of the other 59 . And the small percentage of Georgians who turned out for this run-off, be they liberal or conservative, seemed to understand that as the key issue in this campaign.
There were precious few of the now famous "Obama voters" from the John Ziegler video (and reinforcing Zogby Polls he commissioned) who were clueless about who Harry Reid is, not to mention how many Senators there are. Folks who think Sarah Palin said she could "see Russia from my house" and has "campaigned in 57 states" did not bother to show up in large numbers.
In short, the ignorant stayed home. And so did the "I vote for the man, not the party" crowd. This was all about party. It was more like a cross-primary election.
All of which led to a really good election. For years we have been bombarded with the ideas that being undecided or non-partisan is necessarily a good thing and that every living being (and then some) should vote. I have always disagreed. With so much at stake in elections, especially this one, I cringe when I realize informed votes will be cancelled by many who remain cluelessly undecided and misinformed and arrogantly non-partisan. Call me close minded, but I happen to think knowing how many Senators exists and how the Senate works is a low bar requisite for voting in a Senatorial election.
I also think partisanship is a good thing. So did our founders, by the way, as long as it was based on principles.
The genius of the American people -- if such a thing really exists -- will only manifest itself when the few interested and enlightened from both sides of the philosophical spectrum participate. Much like Chambliss v. Martin 2008, where folks voted for party. They will be free from the vote dilution of the uninformed and the distractions of the dishonest attempts to fool the same.
Perhaps we should start encouraging people not really interested to stay home on election day. I suspect more races would turn out like the run-off in Georgia did. Now THAT would be "change I can believe in."
3 )Rice fails to damp Indian-Pakistan tensions which rise amid fresh terror threat
Sources report in their talks in New Delhi and Islamabad Wednesday, Dec. 3, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and top US soldier, Adm. Mike Mullen, failed to tamp down the rising military tensions between India and Pakistan. Their talks were clouded by the threat of a second round of terror, this one directed against three Indian international airports, Delhi Bangalore and Chennai, by infiltrators of Pakistani or Afghan origin. Last week, Lashkar e-Taiba Islamists held Mumbai to siege for three days and killed more than 170 people. The Indian investigation points to two Lashkar leaders, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Yusuf Muzammil, as masterminds of that outrage.
The intelligence of a second round of attacks which may include the hijacking of aircraft at the three targeted airports, was handed to prime minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday, Dec. 3, by the Indian spy agency RAW. Special forces backed by armored vehicles and explosives detecting devices including sniffer dogs were posted at those airports.
According to counter-terror sources, Indian intelligence has been warned of a third round of attacks scheduled for the coming festival season against resorts like Goa and Puna which are frequented by foreign tourists and trekkers. Once again, Americans, Britons and Israelis will be singled out.
When Condoleezza Rice urged Indian officials to exercise military restraint against Pakistan they showed her this intelligence. Since Islamabad did not rein in the terrorists who cross the border at will, India had no choice, they said, but to send its army across to hit them in their Pakistani lairs.
Rice then traveled to Islamabad for a last-ditch appeal for urgent Pakistani "cooperation" by rounding up the suspects behind the Mumbai atrocity. But the new president Asif Zardari lacks the clout to deliver.
Security measures have also been tightened across India for the Dec. 6 anniversary of the destruction of the medieval Ayodhya mosque in 1992.
4) Keynesian borrowing won't solve our economic problems
By Raymond Richman, Howard Richman, and Jesse Richman
Washington's response to the recession has been ever-expanding borrowing for stimulus packages and bailouts:
(1) $150 billion in February;
(2) $850 billion in October, and, coming soon;
(3) Obama's $800 billion stimulus package.
These packages are implementations of Keynesian economics which advocates increased government borrowing during recessions. But government borrowing has severe long-term costs. The late Milton Friedman, founder of the fiscally conservative alternative known as monetarism, often pointed out: "There ain't no free lunch!"
For one thing, borrowing from abroad artificially strengthens the dollar, which causes American producers to lose market share both at home and in world markets. In fact, the first two stimulus packages may have actually made the U.S. recession worse, not better.
But the biggest costs of government borrowing are borne when the government has to make payments on its increased debt. The rapid pace of Washington's borrowing, at present, is greatly increasing the possibility that a rise in interest rates could force the U.S. government to either repudiate or inflate away its debt.
The central idea of monetarism is that governments are too short-term in their thinking unless they are bound by sensible long-term rules. Monetarists have always advocated the first two rules below. We would add the third:
1. Balanced Monetary Growth. Governments should maintain a steadily growing money supply, sufficient to prevent deflation, but not so fast as to cause inflation.
2. Balanced Budgets. Governments should maintain relatively balanced budgets so as not crowd-out private investment or leave a huge government debt to future generations.
3. Balanced Trade. Governments should insure that foreign trade is relatively balanced so as not to lose production jobs or leave a huge national debt to future generations.
Monetarism, even without the balanced trade rule, has been a successful economic philosophy. The Federal Reserve applied the balanced monetary growth rule during the 1980s and 1990s, keeping the U.S. economy relatively free from inflation. Similarly, President Clinton and the Republican Congress applied the balanced budget rule in the mid 1990s, producing a long period of steady economic growth.
The new balanced trade rule is necessary in order to respond to modern mercantilism, the economic policy that maximizes exports and minimizes imports in order to gain market share from trading partners. The latest evidence is the increase in China's subsidies to exporters which has not yet evoked a response from the U.S. government even though China exports four times as much as it imports from the United States and promised to forego export subsidies when it joined the WTO.
China and the other mercantilist governments have been perpetuating and increasing the U.S. trade deficits by buying U.S. financial assets with the dollars earned from their trade surpluses with the United States. For over a decade, American banks passed along the flow of foreign savings to American consumers, offering ever-riskier loans in order to get a high return. But when American consumers could no longer afford the payments, banks went bankrupt and the resulting hole in worldwide demand is causing the worldwide recession.
If the U.S. government switched to balanced trade monetarism, the U.S. could quickly recover since there would be plenty of demand for American products if foreigners bought as much from the U.S. as the U.S. buys from them.
One definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again, but expecting a different result. Washington seems to be stuck on borrowing foreign savings. But borrowing from abroad exacerbated this recession, has already bankrupted many U.S. banks, and is starting to bankrupt U.S. manufacturers, including Detroit automakers. It's time to stop the borrowing by bringing trade into balance!
5)Think-tank comments on Iran worry Israel: Restoring the Balance A Middle East Strategy for
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER and HERB KEINON
Israeli officials expressed concern Wednesday about some recommendations in a report top American experts have prepared on Middle East policy for the Obama administration, including expanding engagement with Iran and possible responses should Teheran acquire nuclear capabilities.
The report, drafted by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings
Institution, will be a major focus of the latter's Saban Center for Middle
East Policy forum this weekend for top US and Israeli officials, as
Washington heavy hitters try to play a role in shaping the policies of the
next administration.
Foreign Ministry officials weren't thrilled about the report's
recommendations, but downplayed its significance.
"We have nothing to be afraid of," one official said, refuting those who
expressed fear that this report would become Obama's diplomatic road map.
"Obama is surrounding himself with people who we know - from Hillary
Clinton, to Rahm Emanuel, to James Jones. There is no reason to panic.
"It could be that the new administration's policy will be different from the
Bush administration's; in fact, it will be a little different. But that
doesn't mean it will be against Israel."
The official remarked that the report would likely be passed around by Obama
subordinates, along with many other similar documents being prepared over
the transition period. It was unrealistic, he said, to think Obama is going
to internalize this report's findings and make them his own policies.
Still, the Saban gathering draws together international figures of the
highest order and leading thinkers and experts on Middle East issues. US
President George W. Bush is set to give his valedictory speech on the region
at the weekend event, being held in Washington.
Despite Bush's presence, the report is blunt in assessing that current US
policies toward Iran have "failed." Instead, the report calls for direct
engagement with Iran, to begin at a low level as soon as possible.
Though it acknowledges that diplomacy is not a cure-all, it considers
diplomacy more likely than other options - including a military attack and
regime change - to productively manage Iran's nuclear ambitions.
A separate chapter on Iran estimates that the country won't be capable of
producing a credible nuclear weapons option for another two to three years,
during which increased sanctions alongside engaged diplomacy are advocated.
But, it adds, "If diplomacy or force fails to prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons, a declared US nuclear umbrella for the region or parts of
it should be a key mechanism for deterring Iran, reassuring Israel, and
incorporating our other allies into an effective regional balance."
Martin Indyk, who heads the Saban Center and co-wrote the report's
introductory section - though he didn't author the chapters dealing with
specific countries - explained the latter recommendation as potentially
helping to synchronize the American and Israeli time frames on Iran.
Speaking to the press after the report was unveiled on Tuesday, Indyk said
that the US and Israel have different deadlines for dealing with the threat
of a nuclear Iran, because Israel sees the issue as an existential one while
the US sees room to maneuver, even if Tehran did acquire some nuclear
capabilities.
By the US providing security guarantees, such as a nuclear umbrella, he
argued, it could reassure Jerusalem and "buy more time" for diplomacy to
work.
Indyk also backed US support for Israeli-Syrian negotiations that are
already under way through a third party, Turkey.
He suggested that they could strengthen the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
peace process, since a price for an agreement would be Syria cutting its
ties to radical Islamic parties and Iran, whose influence the Fatah-led
Palestinian Authority also wants to see diminish as part of its effort to
tame Hamas.
In its chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report contends that
Hamas needs to be brought back into a Palestinian national unity government
to try to reshape its current role as a spoiler.
The report doesn't push the US to recognize Hamas, but suggests mediation by
the Arab countries between the rival Palestinian parties.
Indyk also said the current Annapolis process could continue to provide a
good framework for moving forward on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Richard Haass, president of CFR and the co-author of the introduction,
agreed that there were positive aspects of Bush's policies that shouldn't be
thrown out in the new administration's haste to turn the page.
"It's important that the administration not start with an ABB approach -
anything but Bush," he said.
5a) To Ban a Book
By Winfield Myers
Political correctness is at its most parodic precisely when it seems beyond parody. The latest bit of history to support this adage is the Middle East studies establishment's reception of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel of Medina (Jewel), a life of Aisha, the favorite wife of Muhammad. As Robert Spencer writes in his review of Jewel for the Winter 2009 issue of the Middle East Quarterly, Jones set out to "be a bridge-builder" who chose her historical sources selectively to ensure that her work would present a flattering picture of her subjects.
Enter Denise Spellberg, who teaches Islamic history at the University of Texas. She heard of Jewel pre-publication because Jones, in her naiveté, asked her then-publisher Ballantine, an imprint of Random House, to obtain an endorsement from Spellberg to splay across the back of the dust jacket. Spellberg is author of Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha bint Abi Bakr, which Jones cites as one of her sources. She is, in addition, a typical practitioner of the blatant bias toward things Muslim and, more particularly, Arab that has become almost ubiquitous among practitioners of Middle East studies. Put simply but accurately, this means that things Arab/Muslim = good; things American/Western = bad. Under this regime, dispassionate, fair-minded research that takes a critical look at the Middle East is more likely to be rewarded with professional ostracism than advancement.
The results of Spellberg's fantasy-laden reading of the publisher's galleys of Jewel is by now familiar: she threw a Texas-sized tantrum and effectively persuaded Random House (the publisher of her forthcoming Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an) to withdraw publication of the book. According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, Spellberg made a "frantic" phone call to Muslim friend Shahed Amanullah, who owns the popular site altmuslim. After telling him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history" and asking him to sound the alarm, word spread rapidly that Random House was on the verge of publishing a book on Islam that would spark worldwide violence akin to what occurred in the aftermath of the publication of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and Salmon Rushdie's Satanic Verses.
Here is a sample of what Spellberg has said about Jewel:
A very ugly, stupid piece of work.
A declaration of war...explosive stuff...a national security issue.
I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.
(Via Jane Garrett of Random House): [Spellberg] thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses [sic] and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP.
Compare those dire warnings to what Robert Spencer found in his reading:
But whoever reads The Jewel of Medina, after suffering through stilted Hollywood historical epic dialogue larded with Arabic tidbits for authenticity's sake, will wonder what the fuss was all about. True to her word, Jones offers a portrait of Muhammad that is so flattering as to be worthy of British religion writer Karen Armstrong, who compared Muhammad to Gandhi.
Jones, says Spencer, saves her harsh judgment for Muhammad's enemies:
In keeping with this approach, Jones paints Muhammad's enemies with lurid comic-book strokes as evil, treacherous, and repulsive. The Jews of the Qaynuqa tribe, whom Muhammad eventually exiled, lurk sinisterly in doorways and play evil pranks upon Muhammad's wives. Abu Sufyan, the Quraysh leader who fought Muhammad and the Muslims in the battles of Badr, Uhud, and the Trench, abducts and murders a friend of Aisha; Jones describes his sweat glistening "like beads of grease in every fold and crease of fat" while his accomplice's "pocked face seemed to writhe with hatred."
Spencer does find one instance in which, by having Aisha fall in love with Safwan ibn al-Muattal and express initial disappointment at her marriage to Muhammad, Jones ensures that "feathers will be ruffled." But enough to justify violence? That, Spencer says, "is doubtful in the extreme."
Spencer's review further demonstrates that Spellberg's solicitousness of things Muslim caused her to grossly overstate the risk involved in publishing Jewel. The British publishing house Gibson Square Books canceled publication of the book in the UK after the home of its head was firebombed. While it's impossible to say for sure that no violence would have accompanied its publication in the UK had Spellberg never launched her hysteria-laden campaign against the book, it's beyond dispute that Beaufort Books in the U.S. went ahead with publication, and to date no violence has occurred. Thanks to Robert Spencer's careful review, we can better understand why: Jewel is more "soft history" than "soft pornography."
6) IDF preparing options for Iran strike
By Yaakov Katz
The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States.
While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.
"It is always better to coordinate," one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. "But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination."
Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.
"There are a wide range of risks one takes when embarking on such an operation," a top Israeli official said.
Several news reports have claimed recently that US President George W. Bush has refused to give Israel a green light for an attack on Iranian facilities. One such report, published in September in Britain's Guardian newspaper, claimed that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert requested a green light to attack Iran in May but was refused by Bush.
In September, a Defense News article on an early warning radar system the US recently sent to Israel quoted a US government source who said the X-band deployment and other bilateral alliance-bolstering activities send parallel messages: "First, we want to put Iran on notice that we're bolstering our capabilities throughout the region, and especially in Israel. But just as important, we're telling the Israelis, 'Calm down, behave. We're doing all we can to stand by your side and strengthen defenses, because at this time, we don't want you rushing into the military option.'"
The "US European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent US military presence on Israeli soil," Defense News wrote. The radar will shave several precious minutes off Israel's reaction time to an Iranian missile launch.
In a related article at about the same time, TIME magazine raised the possibility that through the deployment of the radar, America wants to keep an eye on Israeli airspace, so that the US is not surprised if and when the IAF is sent to bomb Iran, a scenario Washington wants to avoid.
The US army sent 120 EUCOM personnel to Israel's Nevatim Air Base southeast of Beersheba to man the new radar.
Last week, Iran's nuclear chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh revealed that the country was operating more than 5,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and would continue to install centrifuges and enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel for the country's future nuclear power plants.
"At this point, more than 5,000 centrifuges are operating in Natanz," said Aghazadeh, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. This represents a significant increase from the 4,000 Iran had said were up and running in August at the plant.
The Islamic republic has said it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges.
Israeli officials said last week that the drop in oil prices and the continued sanctions on Iran were having an effect, although they had yet to stop Teheran's nuclear program. The officials said that while Iran was making technological advancements, it would not have the necessary amount of highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb until late 2009.
"There is still time and there is no need to rush into an operation right now," another Israeli official said. "The regime there is already falling apart and will likely no longer be in power 10 years from now."
The IAF was preparing for a wide range of options, OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan recently said, adding that all it would take to launch an operation was a decision by the political echelon.
"The air force is a very robust and flexible force," he told Der Spiegel. "We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us."
On Monday, Teheran dismissed the possibility of an Israeli strike, saying it didn't take Israel seriously.
"We think that regional and international developments and the complicated situation faced by Israel itself will not allow it to launch military strikes against other countries," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters in Teheran, according to the Press TV Web site. "Israel makes threats to promote its psychological and media warfare," he said.
7) Back to the Old 9/11 Days
By Victor Davis Hanson
For three days, Islamist gunmen nearly shut down Mumbai, the financial center of India. The terrorists -- Pakistani militants, according to Indian authorities -- murdered almost 200 innocents and left hundreds of others wounded, giving reprieve only to hostages they thought were Muslims.
The timing of their assault seemed aimed for maximum shock value here in the U.S. -- during the transference of American presidential power and amid a long U.S. holiday in which millions of Americans were glued to televised news.
The macabre killing spree was apparently part of a larger, though failed, effort to shoot or blow up a planned 5,000 civilians -- especially Americans, Brits and Jews. The jihadists may have hoped that India would heed Islamist warnings to loosen its connections to Western finance and commerce, and pay better attention to Muslim grievances.
There are a number of things to take away from the Mumbai atrocities.
First was the welcome re-emergence of concerned discussion of the dangers of global Islamist violence. George Bush apparently was not fabricating a global terrorist bogeyman -- as was sometimes alleged over the last years of calm -- when he sought support for his war in Iraq and domestic security measures.
In fact, caricatured efforts like the Patriot Act, the FISA accords, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the fostering of Middle East constitutional government, and the killing of violent insurgents abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq might seem once again understandable in the context of preventing another major violent terrorist attack of the sort we just saw at Mumbai.
Second, in the fashion of the old post-9/11 apologists, we were lectured once again that global terrorism is not necessarily an Islamic phenomenon. Supposedly the poverty and mistreatment of India's Muslim minority, not jihadist ideology and hatred, better explain India's incessant sectarian violence. That theory of victimhood is no more convincing now than it was in 2001.
Transnational terrorism still remains mostly Islamist in nature. Very few impoverished Hindu, Christian or Sikh terrorists go abroad to murder civilians. Nor are the wretched poor of Brazil or Haiti organizing mass-murdering assaults against foreigners and Western iconic targets in their cities.
Third, the serial excuses of Pakistan are also beginning to wear thin. Hundreds of Indians have been killed by Pakistani terrorists, who have routinely attacked both foreigners and Christians in their own country. It is now over seven years since more than 3,000 innocent Americans were murdered on orders from terrorists now all but certainly in sanctuary in Pakistan -- and whom we are still told cannot be extradited.
So despite billions of dollars in American military and financial assistance given to Pakistan, nothing really changes. When pressed to explain the apparent role of the Pakistani military or intelligence services in turning a blind eye to jihadists, the government -- whether a Pervez Musharraf in uniform or now civilian President Asif Ali Zardari (formerly known as "Mr. Ten Percent" for allegations of graft) -- still politely offers a variety of clichés.
The Pakistani borderlands are beyond the government's control. Pressuring the existing government for either more order or more democracy will lead only to worse alternatives -- such as a takeover by fundamentalist clerics, authoritarian generals, or weak democrats whose plebiscites will ensure rule by popular fanatics. No Pakistani leader of any stripe ever quite takes responsibility of the government for the mayhem committed by its own citizens or foreigners on its soil.
Instead, there always seems an implied threat that it would be unwise to push too far a volatile Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons, or whose fanaticism makes it immune from classical laws of nuclear deterrence, or whose poverty and mismanagement ensure that it simply cannot be expected to meet international norms of behavior.
Fourth, the problem of Pakistan and the Islamist terrorism that so frequently emanates from its soil will now be President-elect Obama's to deal with. He will have to decide whether George Bush's anti-terrorism architecture shredded the Constitution and should be repealed, or helped to keep us safe from attack for seven years, and thus should be maintained, if not strengthened.
Obama once advocated open intrusions into Pakistan in hot pursuit of terrorists, and will have to adjudicate whether such actions will more likely enrage nuclear Pakistan or finally eliminate the followers of Osama bin Laden. At the same time, Obama also must ponder whether he should continue our subsidized "alliance" with Pakistan.
Just as I didn't envy George Bush's lose/lose dilemma in dealing with Pakistan and global Islamic terrorism, so too I can only sympathize with President-elect Obama, who faces the same dismal choices.
8) Report: Syria waiting for Israel for talks
By Roee Nahmias
Al-Hayat newspaper reveals Turks planned to have Jerusalem, Damascus answer each other's questions regarding borders, security before going to direct talks. Syria reportedly responds while Israel gives no reply
Damascus is waiting for responses to six questions sent to Israel through Turkish mediation regarding the future of the Golan Heights, the London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper reported on Thursday.
According to the report, Turkey proposed a plan to both parties that would help the talks progress. According the plan, Israel would present Syria with six questions regarding security matters and the Syrians would pose six questions to Israel regarding borders.
Syria reportedly gave its six responses to the Turkish mediators, but requested not to have them given to Israel until Israel provided its responses to Syria's questions.
It was also reported that Syria would not agree to move on to direct talks until the answers were given.
A source close to the talks said France got the impression that both Israel and Syria were interested in moving forward with negotiations, but at this point, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would have a hard time doing so due to the general elections period.
Meanwhile, Damascus on Wednesday congratulated Hilary Clinton on her appointment as American secretary of state, and a Syrian source told al-Watan newspaper that this appointment showed US President-elect Barack Obama's aspirations towards a just peace in the Middle East.
Last month, Syrian President Bashar Assad accused Israel of being insincere in its statements of ambition for peace with its Arab neighbors.
"For Israel, peace is a tactical act and not a strategic choice," said Assad, "Israel should give proof of its desire for peace, since it is the Israelis who occupied our land."
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