PetSugar

Group Seeks More Religion in U.S. Foreign Policy

Yogaforlife — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:12:13 -0800

Yesterday, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ 32-member task force asked the U.S. government to make religion “integral” to American foreign policy.

The group claims that countries see America’s focus on religious freedom as a form of imperialism and concludes that Western secularism feeds into religious extremism.

The report, produced by a group who wants to see government entangled with religion even at home, thinks the U.S. needs to close the “God gap.” To do this, they have asked for two things: that government officials and diplomats be educated about religion and that they have the ability to “engage” with religious communities abroad to get things done. Right now, the task force claims there are too many obstacles – namely the First Amendment – that prevent this type of activity.

Writing on The Washington Post’s Web site, Susan Jacoby, who agreed that education on religion could be valuable, otherwise criticized the council’s recommendations for being “stunning in their naïveté.”

She accurately points out in The Post’s “On Faith” blog what can happen when American citizens interact too deeply with religious groups abroad. She cites the situation in Uganda, where a series of lectures on homosexuality by Religious Right activists led to the proposal of an anti-gay law by Ugandan legislator, David Bahati.

“[O]ne can only shudder at the thought of diplomats being urged to work more closely with religious groups,” Jacoby writes.

I was especially struck by language in the report that seems to indicate that America should be reluctant to champion human rights abroad because it might offend some religious believers. It calls on the United States to “recognize that human rights can be implemented effectively and robustly only in a manner consistent with different traditions and beliefs.”

But what about when the prevailing “traditions and beliefs” simply refuse to recognize certain groups’ rights? In some nations, women and members of minority religions are considered second-class citizens because of oppressive unions of religion and government. Is the report seriously arguing that our country not speak out against that? Remarkable!

Unfortunately, the Chicago Council’s recommendation may actually be taken seriously. Members of the task force met with Joshua DuBois, head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and other government officials on Tuesday. In addition, the group has close ties to President Obama, who spoke once to the council as a state senator and twice as a U.S. Senator. Michelle Obama is even on their board.

We hope the report receives no more attention than it already has. What this group is calling for is unnecessary. They have made it seem that as things stand, Americans abroad must practice “secular fundamentalism” and can’t even acknowledge the existence of religion. That’s not true.

Government officials abroad should of course be educated about religion and the role it plays in the countries they travel to; no one disputes that. But that doesn’t mean we need to be ashamed of our country’s own tradition of ensuring religion doesn’t control government decisions. We are a secular state. The report seems to think that’s something to be ashamed of rather than a reason for pride.

Secular government is a positive value that’s worth exporting overseas. Think of it – our most stable and strongest allies tend to have secular governments either officially or by default. (When was the last time Finland caused any problems?) By contrast, harsh theocracies are usually dangerous and unstable, often harboring terrorists.

Just as Americans advocate for better conditions for citizens all of the world – such as urging countries to respect free speech, democratic elections and human rights – we can and should do the same for religious freedom. Many theocratic Middle Eastern nations, for example, would do well to adopt secular governments.

We have seen the benefits of our system – it keeps religious bigotry and disputes over religion at bay, while allowing religion to flourish. Why shouldn’t we be proud of what we have accomplished?

Source:

http://blog.au.org/2010/02/25/international-intrigue-group-seeks-more-religion-in-u-s-foreign-policy/

Report Card for the Obama Administration

Grandpa — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:36:52 -0800

Report Card for the Obama Administration

by CEI Staff
January 20, 2010

Washington, D.C., January 20, 2010-One year ago today, Barack Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States. Since then, he and his appointees have had the opportunity to begin implementing their policy agenda, with notable results throughout the federal government’s departments and agencies. The analysts of the Competitive Enterprise Institute have assessed the administration’s first-year performance and assigned grades accordingly.

D- White House (overall) ― Barack Obama, President

Grader: Fred L. Smith, Jr., President

Americans rallied behind President Obama’s message of hope and change, giving this administration a wonderful opportunity to reframe the debate about an array of issues in America-entitlements, environmental policy, health care, and the roles of the federal and state governments. Americans, not wedded to either the Democrats or the Republicans, were ready for a reappraisal, a rebalancing of the powers of the people and the politicians. He blew it. Despite being elected by moderates and independents, this administration adopted the most statist agenda and created the most bloated bureaucracy in America’s history. By championing further politicization of an already overly politicized America, there have been rapid drops in Obama’s credibility and popularity.

Americans are dropping out of his Long March toward Socialism. Obama could have adopted a “Nixon in China” policy, working with Republicans, Independents, and Democrats to rebalance private and political frontiers, encouraging greater private involvement in education, allowing private property a role in the environmental field, taking on the non-sustainable entitlement programs already threatening the survival of Europe, reducing the regulatory and tax burdens on entrepreneurial creativity, and moving away from the neo-conservative “nation building” crusade of his predecessor. Unfortunately, he has not. He could have been-and, if he reshapes his course quickly enough, might still become-a great president. But, in this first year of his presidency, he has disappointed. The performance of the White House to date merits only a D-.

D+ Department of Agriculture ― Tom Vilsack, Secretary

Grader: Frances B. Smith, Adjunct Fellow

In a February 24, 2009, address to Congress, President Obama promised the American people that his administration would be taking a hard look at farm support. “In this budget,” he said, “we will . . . end direct payments of large agribusinesses that don’t need them.” However, reality wasn’t consistent with that rhetoric, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that direct government payments would total $12.5 billion in 2009, a 2-percent increase over 2008. Agricultural policy in the Obama administration has also continued and expanded massive agricultural subsidies, with new “green” subsidies for ethanol production. In addition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 gave USDA nearly $28 billion in funding, which together with guaranteed loan programs represents nearly $52 billion in new program funding. The Obama administration has also refused to touch special interest programs that benefit wealthy farmers at the expense of consumers-for example, the USDA decided not to increase import quotas for sugar, which restrict the amount of sugar available for sugar users and consumers. And, despite World Trade Organization rulings against U.S. cotton subsidies, no U.S. action has been taken to change that program.

D Consumer Product Safety Commission ― Inez Moore Tenenbaum, Chairman

Grader: Angela Logomasini, Director of Risk and Environmental Policy

The CPSC gets a D for its management of perhaps the most significant item on the Consumer Product Safety Commission agenda for 2009: the implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). It regulates lead and certain chemicals in toys. Never mind the fact that the trace levels are too low to pose a health risk, this draconian law is putting small businesses out of commission and forcing charities to toss old books, toys, and other items. Small businesses and others have been fighting this unreasonable and impractical law since its inception. But CPSC has made things even more difficult than necessary by refusing to apply any flexibility built into the law.

Commissioner Ann Northup, one of the few voices of reason at CPSC, noted recently in the Wall Street Journal: “For the past several months, American businesses have been caught in the middle of a classic standoff between the federal commissioners in the majority, who argue that the statute ties their hands, and members of Congress, who claim they wrote flexibility into the law and blame the commission for any harsh consequences. Although the commission steadfastly refused to reach out to Congress to seek clarifications to the law, Congress has now reached out to us-asking the agency last week for a list of recommendations to amend the statute. Thankfully the commission responded, in part, by agreeing to extend the stay on testing and certification for lead content. This window gives Congress time to consider such common-sense changes…” The commission gets a few points for having at least extended one compliance deadline to allow time for reform, but it could have taken more opportunities to apply some reason to the application of the law.

F Department of Energy ― Steven Chu, Secretary

Grader: Iain Murray, Vice President for Strategy

The mission of the Department of Energy has historically been one of ensuring that America has the power to meet its economic needs. Unfortunately, under Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, the Department has apparently decided that America’s economy is too big and needs to be scaled back. It has taken a decision to frown upon traditional sources of energy, generated from fossil fuels, and discouraged their further development. Alternative sources of energy, which cannot possibly meet America’s needs in the short-to-medium term, are instead encouraged with massive taxpayer-funded subsidies. Some noises have been made about nuclear energy, but it remains the red-headed stepchild of energy policy. The result will likely be a continuing degradation of America’s energy infrastructure which will almost certainly result in its failure to meet economic needs should the nation begin to climb out of the current recession, with the likelihood of a stalled recovery. For its failure to appreciate exactly what it is supposed to be there for, the Obama administration’s Department of Energy gets a resounding F.

F Environmental Protection Agency – Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator

Grader: Myron Ebell, Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy

EPA flunked on April 16, 2009, when EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson found that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare, and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. This endangerment finding came after an advance notice of proposed rulemaking begun during the Bush administration in July 2008 that resulted in numerous substantive expert comments that show clearly that the finding is unwarranted scientifically, that the Clean Air Act is entirely unsuitable for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and that using it to do so would create a regulatory nightmare and do enormous economic damage. Administrator Jackson admitted that the Clean Air Act was not designed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but went ahead and made the finding anyway.

In addition, EPA has moved aggressively to stop coal production in Appalachia by intervening in mine-permitting decisions by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The EPA has even demanded that the Corps revoke permits for new mines that have already been granted. The grounds upon which the EPA is attempting to stop coal mining are utterly ridiculous.

D Federal Communications Commission – Julius Genachowski, Chairman

Grader: Ryan Radia, Associate Director of Technology Studies

Radio and television stations, Internet service providers, and even wireless phone companies are all regulated by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This agency is tasked with governing the nation’s airwaves and making available communications services to the residents of the United States.

Technological evolution has spurred fundamental changes in the way we communicate over the last couple of decades. Consumers nowadays enjoy more information and entertainment sources than ever before, and the notion of scarcity in communications has yielded to a world of abundance. Consequently, the FCC’s proper role has grown smaller and smaller.

Like most modern bureaucracies, however, the FCC has maneuvered in recent years to interject itself in market processes in order to preserve the agency’s relevance in the face of a rapidly changing communications landscape. Most recently, the FCC has proposed imposing net neutrality rules that would limit how Internet providers can manage their networks in the name of protecting consumers. But these rules threaten to constrain tomorrow’s innovative business arrangements-arrangements which today’s shortsighted regulators simply cannot foresee.

The FCC also made headlines in the fall of 2009 when it launched an investigation into wireless industry practices. AT&T, the nation’s second largest wireless carrier, and Apple, the maker of the iPhone, were at the center of the controversy. Naturally, the FCC claimed its actions were aimed at protecting consumers. In fact, the looming scepter of regulatory intervention in the wireless market-a market which is highly innovative and competitive, according to objective measures-causes firms to retreat, stifling innovation and making consumers worse off.

On the other hand, the FCC has publicly acknowledged the need for expanding the pool of spectrum available to the marketplace. Spectrum is the lifeblood of mobile communications, but government controls giant swaths of this resource. The FCC has streamlined the process of deploying wireless services, which has helped ensure that wireless carriers are able to meet escalating demand for mobile data service. But the Commission still has a long ways to go if it’s to enable American enterprise to realize the full potential of the spectrum.

F Federal Trade Commission – Jon Leibowitz, Chairman

Grader: Michelle Minton, Policy Analyst

The purpose of the Federal Trade Commission is, ostensibly, to protect consumers and encourage competition in the marketplace. However, over the last year the FTC and the Obama administration have initiated or endorsed actions that display an increasingly interventionist intent and that would resoundingly impede competition and threaten the liberty of individual consumers. Congress initiated plans to repeal portions of the McCarran-Ferguson act, ending the long-standing antitrust exemption for health insurers. This proposal, endorsed by President Obama, would do nothing to reduce the costs of health insurance and would more than likely result in increased costs and market consolidation. The “collusion” practiced by health insurers actually allows them (especially small insurance companies) to share information and rate-setting standards for more accurate premium calculations. Setting accurate risk-based rates is fundamental to an insurer's ability to charge adequate rates that are neither too little or too much. States already have the power to regulate antitrust in the insurance industry so the result of repealing the antitrust exemption would most likely be insurance companies erring on the side of caution by reducing market cooperation, a reduction in premium rate accuracy and thus an increase in the costs of writing insurance.

Additionally, the FTC filed an antitrust suit against Intel, the leading manufacturer of microprocessors, alleging that the company violated federal laws by engaging in exclusionary business practices. In reality, Intel has been able to achieve its success due to constant innovation as a result of a vibrant and competitive market. The application of antitrust laws will only retard what is an otherwise dynamic market. There is no evidence that Intel's market success has harmed consumers in any way. Lastly, and most disturbingly, the FTC issued new rules which went into effect December 1, 2009, that would make the average blogger liable for civil penalties for false claims about products or failure to disclose material connections between the reviewer and the marketer of a product or service. This raises serious concerns about the scope of the FTC's powers and its ability and willingness to hamper individuals' freedom of speech. For this and the previously mentioned offenses the FTC receives an unequivocal F.

C- Food and Drug Administration – Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner

Grader: Gregory Conko, Senior Fellow

The Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration had a sub-par performance in 2009. The agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research approved just 24 new drugs and biotech medicines last year-roughly on par with its performance in the final year of the Bush administration, but well below recent highs of 53 in 1996 and 39 in 1997. In other areas, the FDA’s new leadership has taken a “get tough” attitude with manufacturers that will do nothing to improve safety, but could deprive consumers of useful products and information. For example, in April, the agency informed drug manufacturers that their use of “sponsored link” ads on search engines such as Google and Yahoo! were unlawful because the 70-character links did not present the same encyclopedic risk information required of conventional print advertisements-even though the links directed users to a page containing the full risk disclosure.

In May, the FDA issued a warning letter to General Mills that labels on boxes of Cheerios indicating that consumers could lower their cholesterol by eating the whole grain cereal turned the product from a food into a medical drug. And, in July, Principle Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein recommended imposing strict limits on the use of certain antibiotics in livestock production. The appointment of so-called consumer advocates such as Sharfstein and Assistant Commissioner for Policy Peter Lurie suggest one reason why the new FDA leadership has been taking a needlessly antagonistic regulatory approach. Similarly, the appointment of Ralph Tyler, an attorney with no food and drug law experience, to serve as FDA chief counsel, bodes poorly for consumers and manufacturers alike.

F Immigration and Customs Enforcement – John T. Morton, Assistant Secretary
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – Alejandro Mayorkas, Director

Grader: Alex Nowrasteh, Policy Analyst

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receive an F for enforcing America’s self-destructive immigration policies. ICE and USCIS have the impossible task of separating immigrants from economic opportunity, and have failed spectacularly. The cost per apprehension of illegal immigrant on the border is up by 1,041 percent since 1992, and the number of illegal immigrants only seems to dip in response to recessions. When our immigration laws are confronted with the economic realities of mass immigration, ICE and USCIS end up with egg on their faces and taxpayers with a hole in their pockets.

F Department of Interior – Ken Salazar, Secretary

Grader: R.J. Smith, Senior Environmental Scholar

Unfortunately, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the host of environmentalists who have filled key slots appear determined to continue to expand the amount of federal land ownership through the acquisition (and regulation) of private lands-supporting the creation of ever more National Parks, National Monuments, National Wildlife Refuges, National Heritage Areas, National Trails, and Wild and Scenic Rivers. With the poor record of stewardship on so many of the federal lands, one would hope for some demonstrated ability to care for what they already have, in place of endless acquisition as a seeming end in itself.

And while DOI is reducing private land ownership, it is also locking up millions of additional acres of existing federal lands in Wilderness Areas, which can never be used and most of which have never even been inventoried for their potential contributions to national survival. Additionally the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of listing more and more species of plants and animals as threatened or endangered regardless of the facts as well as designating ever-larger critical habitats for listed species. DOI is supporting efforts of environmentalists to not only close areas of known fossil fuel deposits to exploration and development, but is also opposing the creation of alternative wind and solar energy farms because they might impact endangered species and their habitat-or harm “viewsheds” -thus making doubly sure that America has neither non-renewable nor renewable energy supplies for the future. Such policies harm the land, the resources, the wildlife and the American people. How could one do worse?

F Department of Justice – Eric Holder, Attorney General

Grader: Hans Bader, Senior Attorney

The Justice Department is deeply politicized, putting partisanship before its legal responsibilities and the Constitution. It has failed to enforce federal voting rights laws like UOCAVA that protect the right of military service members to vote, resulting in many of them receiving absentee ballots to late to vote in close congressional races, like the special election for New York’s 20th congressional district. The obvious result of this is to put critics of the administration, who are disproportionately backed by military voters, at a disadvantage in every election. It dropped a voter-intimidation case after career justice department had already won the case and obtained a default judgment, shielding from punishment an Obama poll watcher and Philadelphia democratic official who used a nightstick and racial epithets to intimidate voters, and who belonged to the anti-Semitic, racist New Black Panther Party. It then thumbed its nose at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, by refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the Commission in its investigation of the administration’s actions. It overturned a legal opinion by David Baron, a liberal Justice Department attorney hired under the Obama administration, when he had the temerity to point out the inconvenient truth that giving D.C. a congressman, as Obama advocates, would violate the Constitution.

The Justice Department has expanded the use of Miranda Warnings in Afghanistan -even though they are not constitutionally required and impede investigators. Yet it argues in court briefs that detainees subjected to torture have no redress under the U.S. Constitution. It is eroding civil liberties by re-prosecuting in federal court teenagers acquitted of a hate crime in state court, even though testimony in the state case supported the jury’s not-guilty verdict by pointing to a different culprit. It failed to take steps to cut off funds to ACORN, a political ally of the President, despite ACORN’s being caught on video promoting mortgage fraud and other criminal activity, and the existence for years of federal statutes debarring contractors who engage in fraud.

D Department of Labor – Hilda L. Solis, Secretary

Grader: Ivan Osorio, Editorial Director

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis gets a low grade for shifting the focus of the Department of Labor to run once again as if it were the Department of Organized Labor. Since taking office, she has worked with union bosses to promote organized labor’s agenda, including undermining efforts to improve union financial disclosure. However, one mitigating factor is the fact that the department’s searchable database for union LM-2 reports remains online (the database was made available online by Solis’s predecessor, Elaine Chao).

C- Office of Management and Budget – Peter Orszag, Director

Grader: Ryan Young, Journalism Fellow

Spending and deficits are far higher than under President George W. Bush, himself a big spender. But Obama can’t be given all the blame. The bailout and stimulus spending programs that caused much of the fresh red ink got their start under Bush. In a potentially positive regulatory development, the number of pages in the Federal Register decreased from 79,435 in 2008 to 69,676 in 2009. Of course, the contents of those pages matters more than how many of them there are. And on that front, the new administration is business as usual.

F Public Company Accounting Oversight Board – Daniel L. Goelzer, Acting Chairman

Grader: John Berlau, Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, created by Sarbanes-Oxley to implement its rules, gets an F. It has done nothing to simplify the rules that Republicans and Democrats have called overly burdensome to small public companies. And this year when bonuses in the private sector were under so much scrutiny, the PCAOB raised the salary of its chairman to almost $700,000 a year.

However, it is important to note that Obama cannot be held accountable for any of the PCAOB's actions, since the PCAOB's unconstitutional structure prevents the President from exercising any control through either the appointment or removal process. Despite our disagreement with the Obama administration, in a pending Supreme Court case, CEI has argued for his and future administrations to have the necessary constitutional controls over this agency so that they can be held politically accountable for its actions, good or bad.

D Securities and Exchange Commission – Mary L. Schapiro, Chairman

Grader: John Berlau, Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs

The reason the SEC does not get an F is because its Chairman Mary Schapiro, appointed by President Obama last year at the beginning of his administration, has made going after major investor fraud a key priority. She has brought on law enforcement experts and shifted enforcement resources from trivial headline-grabbing investigations such as the alleged backdating of stock options, which caused little harm to shareholders’ bottom lines, into seeking out Madoff-like Ponzi schemes. Contrary to press accounts, the SEC was not inactive during the Bush administration, but focused on the wrong enforcement priorities. It threw the book at Martha Stewart for trivial charges, but ignored warnings about Bernie Madoff and other fraudsters (as the agency had also done with regard to Madoff, to be fair, under the Clinton administration).

However other actions of the Obama-Schapiro SEC have greatly undermined shareholder well-being. Schapiro brought back the widespread use of corporate penalties to punish shareholder fraud. But penalties on the corporation, rather than individual bad actors in the company, have the effect of punishing the very shareholders the fraud was committed against. The money to pay the penalties is taken from the corporate treasury, which ultimately belongs to the ordinary shareholders of the company. Thus, shareholders end up being penalized twice for the fraud: once when the corporate executives misuse a company's money and again when the corporate penalty further reduces the assets that belong to all shareholders.

Schapiro also gets this bad grade for, over the objection of the two Republican commissioners, overriding 150 years of state corporate law to mandate that companies list shareholder nominees on the same ballot with their own. These proposed “proxy access” rules would let special interests with agendas and shares of stocks, such as union pension funds and environmental groups, use the director nomination process as a wedge against management to promote political agenda items that are contrary to the interests of ordinary shareholders.

And Schapiro failed shareholders and entrepreneurs when she refused to extend an exemption from the Sarbanes-Oxley “internal control” auditing mandates to the very smallest public companies. At a time when President Obama and Republicans are worries about small business growth and the ability to create jobs, this will severely limit these companies ability to grow. And Sarbanes-Oxley, despite costing the economy more than $1 trillion according to University of Minnesota economist Ivy Zhang, did little for shareholders in preventing fraud in the subprime crisis. This action may be mitigated by bipartisan actions in Congress to create a permanent exemption for these smaller companies. This measure was inserted into the financial regulation bill that passed the House in December, with the Obama administration's limited support. But it still needs to clear the Senate. Schapiro should heed this bipartisan action and continue to extend this exemption so vital for entrepreneurs and shareholders from this law that was rushed through after Enron and signed by President Bush in 2002.

F Department of Transportation – Ray LaHood, Secretary

Grader: Sam Kazman, General Counsel

For proposing, in conjunction with EPA, to raise vehicle fuel economy standards to even greater levels, despite the overwhelming evidence that such standards kill people by causing cars to be made smaller and lighter. Downsizing may squeeze more mpgs out of a car, but it also reduces crashworthiness. When passenger car standards were at 27.5 mpg several years ago, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that they contributed to about 2,000 traffic deaths per year. As those standards are pushed up by DOT and EPA, that death toll will only climb, with nary a peep out of the agency whose alleged job is to promote traffic safety.

D Department of Treasury – Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary

Grader: Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy

In a libertarian world of civil rather than political society, the Treasury Department would pay the modest bills of a constitutionally limited government. It’s true that Congress holds the purse strings; but during an economic and financial crisis rooted in already-gargantuan government that – despite the news reports – has regulated money, credit and interest rates many decades, a sane Treasury’s vision for leadership and recovery would rule out seducing Congress with yet more elaborate and larger purses (with elastic seams besides). This Treasury Department has compounded the “NASCAR” bailouts, helps inflate a silly “green energy” bubble, and stands at the podium cheerleading the idea of regulating the private-sector salaries among other priestly interventions in one formerly free endeavor after another. But creating ficticious economies through political means is nothing new; we’re experiencing the fruits of this key governmental function now. I want to give Treasury an “F” for standing by as the 2009 deficit topped an incomprehensible $1.6 trillion last year amid this self-serving orgy, a political spending phenomenon unrelated to the requirements of economic recovery.

However, Treasury gets only a “D” because it inherited from President Bush what was already the largest government on Planet Earth ($3 trillion) a behemoth it had few complaints about financing. We can argue it ‘till the whiskey’s gone, but there’s no question that under President Obama, Treasury has been instrumental in extending and “customizing” a Stimulus to Nowhere already making a beeline for the cliff’s edge, and things could have been otherwise. Federal interventions are so extensive that civil, voluntary society as opposed to administered society may never quite recover in this particular geographical area of the world during any of our lifetimes.

Since it insists upon doing more than keeping the books, to get an “A,” the U.S. Treasury Department must take a leadership role in removing obstacles to corporate and small business innovation like tax and capital gain liberalization, and help expand economic deregulation on a massive scale. Apart from paying the government’s own light bill, Treasury’s leadership is only valuable when it prioritizes wise and honest alternatives to spending yet more stimulus money that it doesn’t have. It can take a lead role in expanding ideas like privatization, liberalizing America’s network industries like electricity and telecommunications (it will surprise few that the latter is being newly regulated rather than deregulated), simplifying taxes, explaining why a VAT is disastrous, and much more. The U.S. federal government buys us far too much misery with the $4 trillion it now spends annually; I almost wish it were more Machiavellian rather than just crazy. Freedom and liberty cost less than this, America.

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest group that studies the intersection of regulation, risk, and markets.
Related Files:

http://cei.org/news-release/2010/01/20/report-card-obama-administration

Haitians praise God after apocalyptic quake

PinkNC — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:24:58 -0800

By MICHELLE FAUL and MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writers Michelle Faul And Mike Melia, Associated Press Writers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Drumbeats called the faithful to a Sunday Mass praising God amid a scene resembling the Apocalypse - a collapsed cathedral in a city cloaked with the smell of death, where aid is slow to reach survivors and rescue crews battle to pry an ever-smaller number of the living from the ruins.

Sunlight streamed through what little was left of blown-out stained windows as the Rev. Eric Toussaint preached to a small crowd of survivors. A rotting body lay in its main entrance.

"Why give thanks to God? Because we are here," Toussaint said. "We say 'Thank you God.' What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now."

As Catholic and Protestant worshippers across the city met for their first Sunday services since the magnitude-7.0 quake, many Haitians were still waiting for food and water and some took vengeance against looters.

Haitians seemed increasingly frustrated by a seemingly invisible government and rescue workers were exasperated by the stuggle to get aid through the small, damaged and clogged airport run by U.S. military controllers, and to get it from the airport into town.

Doctors Without Borders said Sunday that a cargo plane carrying a field hospital was denied permission to land at the airport and had to be rerouted through the Dominican Republic - creating a 24-hour delay in setting up a crucial field hospital.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the quake "one of the most serious crises in decades."

"The damage, destruction and loss of life are just overwhelming," he said before arriving in Haiti on Sunday.

Nobody knows how many died in Tuesday's quake. Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies - not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press.

The Pan American Health Organization now says 50,000 to 100,000 people perished in the quake. Bellerive said 100,000 would "seem to be the minimum."

Yet President Rene Preval has made no broadcast address to his nation, nor has he been seen at any disaster site. Instead he has met Cabinet ministers and foreign visitors at a police station that serves as his base following the collapse of the National Palace.

"The government is a joke. The U.N. is a joke," said 71-year-old Jacqueline Thermati, who lay in the dirt at a damaged old-age hospice - not far from Preval's temporary headquarters - where dozens of elderly people were near death.

Downtown, young men sitting amid piles of garbage shouted, "Preval out! Aristide come back!" referring to former Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in 2004.

At the roofless cathedral, elderly women worried the beads of their rosaries and prayed for the intervention of Our Lady Of The Ascension, to whom the 81-year-old church is named.

A military helicopter roared overhead, drowning out a hymn by the congregation. Above loomed the partially destroyed office of the archbishop who died nearby and another building whose blown-out walls had laid it open it like a doll's house.

An apparently demented elderly woman began preaching on the sideline of the Mass: "Where is our justice? Now the palace of justice has been broken down ... we are all infected by disease. The end is near."

Amid the struggle for food, some turned to looting, infuriating people struggling to guard what little they still have.

Two suspected looters lay on the street in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, both beaten and with their hands bound together. Some in the angry crowd that gathered around them said they had been attacked by angry residents, others that police had caused their wounds.

One lay completely motionless, his dreadlocked hair stained by a deep pool of dark crimson blood. The other lay bleeding profusely but occasionally twitched his leg.

A few hours later, a reporter found both men were dead. However they got that way - whether vigilante justice or police execution - all agreed that they were criminals who had escaped from the destroyed prison.

There were also occasions of joy: An American team pulled a woman alive from a collapsed university building where she had been trapped for 97 hours. Near dawn, another crew rescued three survivors from deep in the pancaked ruins of a supermarket.

And a woman was pulled alive, dehydrated but otherwise uninjured, from the ruins of the Montana Hotel, to the applause of onlookers.

The son of co-owner Nadine Cardoso said he could hear her voice from the rubble. Twelve hours later, with more than 20 friends and relatives watching, she was lowered from a hill of debris on a stretcher.

"It's a little miracle," her husband, Reinhard Riedl, said after hearing she was alive in the wreckage. "She's one tough cookie. She is indestructible."

But the rescue was bittersweet for Cardoso's sister Gerthe: Rescuers had to abandon a search for her 7-year-old grandson after an aftershock closed a space where he was believed to be.

U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said 1,739 rescue workers in 43 teams with 161 dogs and high-tech equipment so far have saved more than 70 people.

The U.N. itself lost at least 40 confirmed dead - including its mission chief Hedi Annabi - with hundreds still missing. "For the United Nations, this is the gravest and greatest single loss in the history of our organization," Ban said.

But the U.N. secretary-general said the agency was already feeding 40,000 and hopes to feed 2 million within a month.

Florence Louis, seven months pregnant with two children, was one of thousands of Haitians who gathered at a gate at the Cite Soleil slum, where U.N. World Food Program workers handed out high-energy biscuits for the first time.

"It is enough because I didn't have anything at all," said Louis, 29, clutching four packets of biscuits.

The Haitian government has established 14 distribution points for food and other supplies, and U.S. Army helicopters scouted locations for more. Aid groups opened five emergency health centers. Vital gear, such as water-purification units, was arriving from abroad.

On a hillside golf course, perhaps 50,000 people were sleeping in a makeshift tent city overlooking the stricken capital and paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division flew in to set up a base for handing out water and food.

As relief teams grappled with on-the-ground obstacles, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited and pledged more American assistance. President Barack Obama met with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in Washington and urged Americans to donate to Haiti relief efforts.

In Brussels, the European Commission announced that its envoy to Haiti, Pilar Juarez, was among those who died in the quake.

At the cathedral, the Rev. Toussaint described his own near-miraculous survival.

"I watched the destruction of the cathedral from this window," he said, pointing to a window in what remains of the archdiocese office. "I am not dead because God has a plan for me."

"What happens is a sign from God, saying that we must recognize his power - we need to reinvent ourselves,"

Others, however, were angry.

"It's a catastrophe and it is God who has put this upon us," said Jean-Andre Noel, 39-year-old computer technician "Those who live in Haiti need everything. We need food, we need drink, we need medicine. We need help."

___
.
.
.

both my husband and I had affairs but he got his affair pregant. We both love each other and want to make it work but what now?

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:37:48 -0800

I have been with my husband for 10 years, 8 of them married. I am a free spirit, happy go lucky person that wants to heal and love the world. I didn't seem to have normal boundaries and i always got into situations that I shouldn't have had. On the other hand, to me and to everyone else, my husband was the most angelical, quiet, reserved, kind and honest person that kissed the ground I walked on. I also loved him so much. I am bisexual and he always knew it. it didnt seem to bother him. I slept with my female friend and quickly told him the next day and confessed. he was hurt and angry but somehow, we ended up in a threesome! it was a mind messing experience. On one side, i was so excited to see them together but on the other one, I wanted to kill him when I saw how he was soft and gentle with her. I thought he would only touch me that way... when she left, we started crying and arguing and he also didn't like the fact that I enjoyed sex with her. Some time passed by and stupidly enough, we did it again with the same girl. In fact, we did it at least on another 25 ocassions!!!! It became addictive... but in the midst of it, she fell in love with me, and I fell in love with her. yet... i still loved him husband.
He didn't seem to mind much that I was seeing her... and he said I could have a girflriend as long as I didnt give him details. I would say I didnt wanna see her but I would still see her behind his back. This continued on and off for about 5 years!!! All whilst being with my husband and loving him. I realized I was very hurt by what I had seen and I continued sleeping with her out of spite, even though I also had feelings for her. My husband seemed like the most understanding man in the world. Really cool and nice. I traveled the world. I didn't have to work, have a comfortable life and he let me jet off around the world. I thought I had the coolest man in the world. I tried to break it off with her but she would not let me go.
We didnt realize that our relationship (husband and I) was never the same after that threesome... we started to grow apart. Then I had a sexual encounter with a male friend of mine. There wasn't intercourse (this was a man) but we did all sorts of things. I came home to try to confess to my husband but as soon as I said the word "Kiss" he started to punch the wall and his face got red in anger. He had never, ever had yelled at me or gotten mad at me... so I never confessed.
Time went on and we kept growing apart and I kept jetting around the world. I suspected a few times that he must have been having an affair with a couple of women from when he was a teenager and confronted him but he behemently denied it (or course!) yet, I sort of knew he was messing about... funny thing is that we were still loving each other. We didn't have much sex anymore but we did still do something 2 or 3 times per month, something that is rubbish but that was what we had... I kept telling him that he should not let me get away with murder, that I wanted us to make things work... that I wanted to have another baby (we got 2 kids now and he has 2 from a previous marriage. They live with their mum) but it seemed as if we were avoiding one another because nothing would last more than 3 or 4 days... then go back to ignoring each other...
I got pissed off and started to sleep with other women (3 in total but he never knew of all of this, though he might have suspected it) and even developed some feelings for a couple of girls. Now, mind you, I never had a mother or a father and I can see looking back that I was in need of love, i wanted to see what the love of a woman felt like. After messing about with these 3 woman and realizing that I was being stupid, selfish, self centered, egotistical, pig... I came home to tell him that eveything he ever wanted me to do and change, i was willing to do and work at the relationship 150%... but he was gone. He was distant, distracted and I suspected he was having an affair with one of his female friends that he used to talk about and hang out with. He denied it again and again. But I felt him not being in love with me anymore.... to make a long story short, he disappeared for 5 days and said he was going to go to a silent retreat... well... he went with her and they had a few days of doing whatever they pleased... and then, they apparently finished it (again and for the 4th time!) and he came home to tell me that he wanted to make it work just the same way as I did and he loved me more than anything in the world. But I knew deep down inside what he was doing and told him to forget it.
Amidst all this chaos, wrongs, and two people running around, lost, looking for God knows what... I never stopped loving him... We were/are each other's best friend. We get along brilliantly, we can talk about anything, we are both loving, kind, popular, and friendly.
A couple of weeks later, he comes one morning to tell me he was leaving me. That his mind was made up and that he said that I always complained that he never made me happy and that he was leaving now whilst I was young enough to find another mate. I thought he was joking, having a nervous breakdown, mid life crisis, etc... and he said there was a woman involved... and that he had cheated on me on 2 other ocassions and that he might as well leave... My world came tumbling down on my head, this was not happening... I told him to stay, he didnt have to leave and that we could talk about anything and if he didnt love me anymore, he could still live here as friends but he was adamant he was living... I could not understand why... then he told me that there was more to this puzzle... the woman was pregnant! That was the point at which I lost the plot. I asked him to leave. But as he was living, I changed my mind and begged him to stay and pleaded, got on my knees and asked him to forgive everything I did and the way i treated him. But he still left. He said he loved me but he also loved her. I wanted to just die.
I texted himt he whole night. He later on turned his phone off. He was with her. In the morning, he phoned me crying telling me he had made the biggest mistake of his life and that he loved me more than life itself but after what he had done, how can we build from that. I told him to come back no questions asked. I would forgive and forget. (Or so I thought!!!!) So we saw each other again and we both had this overwhelming desire to love each other, to treat each other right, to make things right and rectify wrongs. To start from fresh, clean slate. Our encounter was amazing. We made love like we never had and we both cried and cried. I hit him, slapped him and cried some more and made love again... it was something that you see in the cinema.
2 weeks have gone by since that horrible day when he left. He is back at the house but now, I am obsessed with the fact that at least I didn't sleep around with men, though wrong, he said I could have a girlfriend as long as I didnt tell him. And that I would have never let a man other than that, have penetrative sex with me. Let alone climax inside of me. That kills me. I asked my husband for all the details and he gave them to me. Now I have the image stamped in my brain and I can't deal with not only him having unprotected sex but getting her pregnant too when we were having to have a baby!
We are both willing to go to therapy, to work on the reasons why we kept having affairs. (by the way, I confessed all of my sins to him, all of them! and he seems to be forgiving, because somehow, it feels that he gets the price for the biggest screw up!) We still love one another very much. I can't breath without him. I know it sounds as if we are very screwed up people and dysfunctional, and I would not dispute anyone's opinion on this but the fact remains we both want to change. We both love each other. He wants nothing to do with the woman. He does not love her (he says and I believe him) and he does not feel in his heart like this child is his child. I know is wrong for him not to ever see the baby or have nothing to do with it. He will have to give him money (he already does this to 2 more children) and the baby will be a constant reminder and a tie with this other girl.
I don't know how to make it past all this amazing, messed up mess! I love him so much. He loves me too. We want to change. But this baby is just such an obstacle. I know is not the little baby's fault. But I cannot deal with it...
WHAT TO DO PLEASE? thank you for reading...

Beauty Class for Employees at Sochi Mayor's Office

genesisrocks — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:51:18 -0800

Millions of dollars are being poured into the Russian city of Sochi to get it ready to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. For the event, the city mayor’s office has introduced a beauty class for its female staff.

For three summer months each year the city of Sochi turns into one of Russia’s most popular beach resorts. Locals and visitors alike share a passion for the tropical paradise.

However, according to Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, the city’s laidback resort attitude may have become an obstacle to its development as a future Olympic capital.

Shortly after his election, Pakhomov introduced a strict dress code for everyone in his administration. It turns out, however, that it was not enough, so now everyone in the mayor’s office is getting a makeover.

To demonstrate the mayor is a man of his word, makeup artists have been brought in to help give women a more business-like appearance.

“I have been trying for a year to make one of my clients apply blusher. It turns out that when she was young she tried it once, and everybody was laughing at her, so she has been afraid to apply it ever since,” said an invited makeup specialist at one of the sessions.

While the course is primarily aimed at younger women, everyone is free to visit the classes during their lunch breaks. And even though attendance is not mandatory, it is hoped it could eventually lead to a single executive style for all the office girls.

While some might claim the mayor's makeup reforms are sexist, others say it is necessary to give the right image.

“Sometimes very light and very dark lipstick does not make a good image in a business dress code. So they want to be creative, to make something new in the appearance, to make them feel like a real business lady,” said Tatyana Pustovit, one of the employees.

The classes have been met with mixed feelings. Some employees, like Nastya, say it is just a waste of time:

“To be honest, I didn’t like it at all. It had no substance. They were just creating an appearance,” she said.

Nevertheless, if the mayor’s plan works well, by next summer both Sochi itself and its female workforce will see a complete makeover.

http://russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-11-16/sochi-beauty-reform.html

The Hasan Case: Overt Clues and Tactical Challenges

Grandpa — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:38:31 -0800

The Hasan Case: Overt Clues and Tactical Challenges

By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton

In last week’s global security and intelligence report, we discussed the recent call by the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasir al-Wahayshi, for jihadists to conduct simple attacks against a variety of targets in the Muslim world and the West. We also noted how it is relatively simple to conduct such attacks against soft targets using improvised explosive devices, guns or even knives and clubs.

The next day, a lone gunman, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire on a group of soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. The victims were in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, a facility on the base where troops are prepared for deployment and where they take care of certain processing tasks such as completing insurance paperwork and receiving medical examinations and vaccinations.

Even though the targets of Hasan’s attack were soldiers, they represented a very soft target in this environment. Most soldiers on bases inside the United States are normally not armed and are only provided weapons for training. The only personnel who regularly carry weapons are the military police and the base civilian police officers. In addition to being unarmed, the soldiers at the center were closely packed together in the facility as they waited to proceed from station to station. The unarmed, densely packed mass of people allowed Hasan to kill 13 (12 soldiers and one civilian employee of the center) and wound 42 others when he opened fire.

Hasan is a U.S.-born Muslim who, according to STRATFOR sources and media accounts, has had past contact with jihadists, including the radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki is a U.S.-born imam who espouses a jihadist ideology and who was discussed at some length in the 9/11 commission report for his links to 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Al-Awlaki, who is currently living in Yemen and reportedly has contacts with al Qaeda, posted a message on his Web site Nov. 9 praising Hasan’s actions. Despite Hasan’s connections to al-Awlaki and other jihadists, it is unknown at this point if he was even aware of al-Wahayshi’s recent message calling for simple attacks, and therefore it is impossible to tell if his attack was in response to it.

However, one thing that is certain is that investigators examining Hasan’s computer hard drive, e-mail traffic and Internet history will be looking into that possibility, along with other indications that Hasan was linked to radicals.

We noted last week that by their very nature, individual actors and small cells are very difficult for the government to detect. They must somehow identify themselves by contacting a government informant or another person who reports them to the authorities, attend a militant training camp or conduct correspondence with a person or organization under government scrutiny. In the Hasan case, it now appears that Hasan did self-identify by making radical statements to people he worked with, who reported him to the authorities. It also appears that he had correspondence with people such as al-Awlaki, whom the government was monitoring. Because of this behavior, Hasan brought himself to the attention of the Department of Defense, the FBI and the CIA.

The fact that Hasan was able to commit this attack after bringing government attention to himself could be due to a number of factors. Chief among them is the fact that it is tactically impossible for a government to identify every aspiring militant actor and to pre-empt every act of violence. The degree of difficulty is increased greatly if an actor does indeed act alone and does not give any overt clues through his actions or his communications of his intent to attack. Because of this, the Hasan case provides an excellent opportunity to examine national security investigations and their utility and limitations.

The Nature of Intelligence Investigations

The FBI will typically open up an intelligence investigation (usually referred to as a national security investigation) in any case where there is an indication or allegation that a person is involved in terrorist activity but there is no evidence that a specific law has been broken. Many times these investigations are opened up due to a lead passed by the CIA, National Security Agency or a foreign liaison intelligence service. Other times an FBI investigation can come as a spin-off from another FBI counterterrorism investigation already under way or be prompted by a piece of information collected by an FBI informant or even by a tip from a concerned citizen - like the flight instructors who alerted the FBI to the suspicious behavior of some foreign flight students prior to the 9/11 attacks. In such a case, the FBI case agent in charge of the investigation will open a preliminary inquiry, which gives the agent a limited window of time to look into the matter. If no indication of criminal activity is found, the preliminary inquiry must be closed unless the agent receives authorization from the special agent in charge of his division and FBI headquarters to extend it.

If, during the preliminary inquiry, the investigating agents find probable cause that a crime has been committed, the FBI will open a full-fledged criminal investigation into the case, similar to what we saw in the case of Luqman Ameen Abdullah and his followers in Detroit.

One of the large problems in national security investigations is separating the wheat from the chaff. Many leads are based on erroneous information or a misidentification of the suspect - there is a huge issue associated with the confusion caused by the transliteration of Arabic names and the fact that there are many people bearing the same names. Jihadists also have the tendency to use multiple names and identities. And there are many cases in which people will falsely report a person to the FBI out of malice. Because of these factors, national security investigations proceed slowly and usually do not involve much (if any) contact with the suspect and his close associates. If the suspect is a real militant planning a terrorist attack, investigators do not want to tip him off, and if he is innocent, they do not want to sully his reputation by showing up and overtly interviewing everyone he knows. Due to its controversial history of domestic intelligence activities, the FBI has become acutely aware of its responsibility to protect privacy rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and other laws.

And the rights guaranteed under the Constitution do complicate these national security investigations. It is not illegal for someone to say that Muslims should attack U.S. troops due to their operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, or that more Muslims should conduct attacks like the June 1 shooting at a recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark. - things that Hasan is reported to have said. Radical statements and convictions are not illegal - although they certainly would appear to be conduct unbecoming a U.S. Army officer. (We will leave to others the discussion of the difficulties in dealing with problem officers who are minorities and doctors and who owe several years of service in return for their education.)

There are also many officers and enlisted soldiers in the U.S. Army who own personal weapons and who use them for self-defense, target shooting or hunting. There is nothing extraordinary or illegal about a U.S. Army major owning personal weapons. With no articulable violation of U.S. law, the FBI would have very little to act upon in a case like Hasan’s. Instead, even if they found cause to extend their preliminary inquiry, they would be pretty much limited to monitoring his activities (and perhaps his communications, with a court order) and waiting for a law to be violated. In the Hasan case, it would appear that the FBI did not find probable cause that a law had been violated before he opened fire at Fort Hood. Although perhaps if the FBI had been watching his activities closely and with an eye toward “the how” of terrorist attacks, they might have noticed him conducting preoperational surveillance of the readiness center and even a dry run of the attack.

Of course, in addition to just looking for violations of the law, the other main thrust of a national security investigation is to determine whom the suspect is connected to and whom he is talking to or planning with. In past cases, such investigations have uncovered networks of jihadist actors working together in the United States, Canada, Europe and elsewhere. However, if all Hasan did in his correspondence with people such as al-Awlaki was exercise his First Amendment right to hold radical convictions, and if he did not engage in any type of conspiracy to conduct an attack, he did not break the law.

Another issue that complicates national security cases is that they are almost always classified at the secret level or above. This is understandable, considering they are often opened based upon intelligence produced by sensitive intelligence programs. However, this classification means that only those people with the proper clearance and an established need to know can be briefed on the case. It is not at all unusual for the FBI to visit a high-ranking official at another agency to brief the official on the fact that the FBI is conducting a classified national security investigation involving a person working for the official’s agency. The rub is that they will frequently tell the official that he or she is not at liberty to share details of the investigation with other individuals in the agency because they do not have a clear need to know. The FBI agent will also usually ask the person briefed not to take any action against the target of the investigation, so that the investigation is not compromised. While some people will disagree with the FBI’s determination of who really needs to know about the investigation and go on to brief a wider audience, many official are cowed by the FBI and sit on the information.

Of course, the size of an organization is also a factor in the dissemination of information. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Army are large organizations, and it is possible that officials at the Pentagon or the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (still known by its old acronym CID) headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Va., were briefed on the case and that local officials at Fort Hood were not. The Associated Press is now reporting that the FBI had alerted a Defense Criminal Investigative Service agent assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Washington about Hasan’s contacts with al-Awlaki, and ABC reports that the Defense Department is denying the FBI notified them. It would appear that the finger-pointing and bureaucratic blame-shifting normally associated with such cases has begun.

Even more severe problems would have plagued the dissemination of information from the CIA to local commanders and CID officers at Fort Hood. Despite the intelligence reforms put in place after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government still faces large obstacles when it comes to sharing intelligence information with law enforcement personnel.

Criminal Acts vs. Terrorism

So far, the Hasan shooting investigation is being run by the Army CID, and the FBI has been noticeably - and uncharacteristically - absent from the scene. As the premier law enforcement agency in the United States, the FBI will often assume authority over investigations where there is even a hint of terrorism. Since 9/11, the number of FBI/JTTF offices across the country has been dramatically increased, and the JTTFs are specifically charged with investigating cases that may involve terrorism. Therefore, we find the FBI’s absence in this case to be quite out of the ordinary.

However, with Hasan being a member of the armed forces, the victims being soldiers or army civilian employees and the incident occurring at Fort Hood, the case would seem to fall squarely under the mantle of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). From a prosecutorial perspective, a homicide trial under the UCMJ should be very tidy and could be quickly concluded. It will not involve all the potential loose ends that could pop up in a federal terrorism trial, especially when those loose ends involve what the FBI and CIA knew about Hasan, when they learned it and who they told. Also, politically, there are some who would like to see the Hasan case remain a criminal matter rather than a case of terrorism. Following the shooting death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah and considering the delicate relationship between Muslim advocacy groups and the U.S. government, some people would rather see Hasan portrayed as a mentally disturbed criminal than as an ideologically driven lone wolf.

Despite the CID taking the lead in prosecuting the case, the classified national security investigation by the CIA and FBI into Hasan and his possible connections to jihadist elements is undoubtedly continuing. Senior members of the government will certainly demand to know if Hasan had any confederates, if he was part of a bigger plot and if there are more attacks to come. Several congressmen and senators are also calling for hearings into the case, and if such hearings occur, they will certainly produce an abundance of interesting information pertaining to Hasan and the national security investigation of his activities.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091111_hasan_case_overt_clues_and_tacti...

Who Killed California?

Eleuthera — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:50:10 -0700

by Troy Senik
http://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/who-killed-california
My apologies for having nothing originally in this post. The text was here but didn't show up.
Apparently this article is too long to be printed here, at about 11 pages. It is nevertheless worth reading, unless, as someone has already done, you have made your mind up what to believe before reading.

Gleichschaltung

Grandpa — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:39:39 -0700

Feel the Gleichschaltung
Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 1:15 PM
The_Anchoress

Reading through this transcript, I was struck by two things. One was the aroma of self-intoxication. These bureaucrats and artists and activists are utterly besotted by the contemplation of their own virtue. They know what’s good for the country, and what’s good for you, and they’re willing to devote themselves ceaselessly to making it happen.

The second thing that strikes one about this transcript is the aura of menace that floats just behind the talk of passion, pushing the president’s agenda, connecting with “labor unions, progressive groups,” etc., etc. As Yosi Sergant’s pep talk suggests, these people regard legal obstacles not as boundaries to be observed but as impediments to be overcome by “tactics,” a word that frequently appears in the transcript.

There is a German word for what we are witnessing at the NEA and elsewhere in the Obama administration’s effort to push its agenda. It is Gleichschaltung. It means two things: first, bringing all aspects of life into conformity with a given political line. And second, as a prerequisite for realizing that goal, the obliteration or at least marginalization of all opposition. –Roger Kimball

Is it an abuse of power?

If Bush had done this, or if the Obama White House were Republican, we’d be watching a screamfest on all channels, calls for investigations, probably a call for a special prosecutor, and Olbermann’s head would be exploding.

But since this is Obama, and he has a D after his name, we’ll have to wait to see what develops, if and when the Obamamedia (who still control the narratives) deigns to cover it.

Okay – I have a ton of stuff to do today -still uncharacteristically behind on my deadlines and Sr. Mary Menace is yelling- so here are many, many links to many, many stories. Knock yerselves out, but none of it is going to make you feel like dancing:

Manuel Zelaya, who in the Honduras, is back, hiding at the Brazilian Embassy? How did he get there? For that matter why did we just give 2 Billion Dollars to Brazil in order to -apparently- fund offshore drilling. You know, the stuff we won’t do in our own country. Seems odd, doesn’t it? We give Brazil 2 Billion for something we disapprove of, then Zelaya, who seems to have an incipient case of despot-wannabeeism (which Obama and Hillary seem to dig) suddenly pops up in the Brazilian Embassy?

It all just seems too strange to me. What the hell is going on? We’re broke but we give 2 Billion to Brazil, when we could certainly use that money to create jobs and tap into our own reserves?

Legal Insurrection says he hopes Obama fails in Honduras, with whatever he’s trying to do. I do too. Why don’t Obama and Hillary like our allies?

“Smart diplomacy”? How about Alice-in-Wonderland Diplomacy?:

“…the Obama team is insisting on the return of the man no institution in this democratic country supports–and that position only emboldened that same unpopular figure to return. Nice work. And now that he has returned, will the Obama administration give up its bizarrely stubborn position that no new election can be recognized because that same unpopular figure isn’t back in power? And he isn’t in power, you will recall, because the supreme court and legislature, with the backing of the military, acted in defense of their constitution.”

As to recent or growing terrorism threats (are we allowed to call it terrorism, anymore? I forget), did law enforcement blow the Denver terror investigation? Didn’t we learn in the 1990’s that law enforcement was not effective counter-terrorism?. That’s not a criticism of our hardworking law enforcement folks, but mindsets matter.

Andy McCarthy says we need an administrative detention law, and doublequick.

5 Healthcare Promises Obama won’t keep: Only five? Meanwhile look at this: tort reform works!

Obama’s EnergySec: Americans are Children and need the government to control them. Writes Ed:

This is nothing more than a slightly more honest look at the attitude of the Left when it comes to governance. It’s all about paternalism and condescension, and the belief that a group of elites should be appointed to rule over the unwashed and unschooled masses for their own good. That has never been consonant with the American experience, which allows the individual to make his own choices and live with the consequences. Chu gives us a good look at the liberal soul, and most Americans will not like what they see.

May be too late to do much about it, though. These unruly cool kids, they’re running amok. Instapundit says, Chu has no idea.

President Grown Up, who wants to rule us children: He’s having General problems. Jennifer Rubin writes:

There is something bizarre about the president’s disassociating himself from his generals and his own stated goals–within a span of just months. He gives the appearance of an errant teenager who one month ago simply had to do X and now can’t bring himself to even defend X.
…he hasn’t collapsed yet on Afghanistan. Maybe his spine will stiffen and he’ll realize that a confrontation with his military commanders is going to add to and not lessen his political problems. He may want to consider just how ludicrously flighty and weak he would appear if he reversed himself on not one but two major national-security positions. Even if he can’t stomach disappointing the left wing of his own party, someone in his administration must surely realize that a second reversal of this magnitude will only cement his image as a Jimmy Carter–esque figure–weak, irresolute, and easily manipulated–and invite endless challenges to the U.S. After all, if he’s going to back down whenever someone screams loudly, there will be a lot of very loud screaming.

Someday, when I have time, I’ll put some thought into the notion that presidents raised without fathers have difficulty with this stuff. I don’t know if it’s true, and I wouldn’t want to be unfair. But it’s something I’d like to look into. I must say, though, that he does certainly resemble Carter in one respect: He wants to manage everything, and that he should stick his nose where he ought not, which means he believes he’s smart enough to manage everything. Which means he listens to no one. Just like Carter, and accomplishes nothing but malaise.

Is Obama our ADHD President? He seems to have lost interest in the economy, or in the job creation we desperately need. Then, in the middle of his hyper-intensive push for healthcare reform, (and his odd fighting with his generals, aiding Manuel Zelaya, etc) he’s suddenly demanding that the world create a “new world order” economy, and oh, yeah, suddenly the climate, the climate, the climate! And empty words about Carbon!

You know, if Obama would just settle down and focus on our economic issues, and seriously follow the lead of Germany and Sweden and cut taxes to create jobs, etc, maybe he’d get listened to.

Obama is no Jack Kennedy: Don’t miss Don Surber’s eye-opening examinations of the questions put to President Obama last Sunday on the Sabbath Gasbag shows. He looks not at Obama’s answers, but the questions, and it is very interesting, indeed. All sham, no wow.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel: has a little carnival of hate. Isn’t she the woman who Chris Matthews, back when he was sane and watchable, caught being unable to name her own congressman?

This is evil stuff

A Collapse in World Trade? A collapse in car sales?

On the Breitbart front: ACORN and the White House sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g (don’t miss that). Justice Department Inspector General -not yet fired by Obama- begins an investigation. Because they don’t have tax issues after getting rich from dubious means? I think it’s good that an inspector general looks into this since it’s doubtful Holder will. More and more and more.

Troublesome sunspots and other stories that disrupt the climate-change narrative and are thus ignored by the US Press. Maybe CO2 wasn’t the way to go?

Not surprising in our noisy world: People with no religion gaining on believers. Can’t hear the small, still voice over the omnipresent televisions, the earbuds and our own material wealth.

You little people, stop driving!: His Highness doesn’t like it

Canada’s National Post: The Stimulus Weakened the US Economy. Yes, of course. All those jobs not being created, and such.

Miracles are real: As long as you’re not talking about the Christian kind. Also, recall that Buddhist celibates are enlightened, not repressed. Vanderleun on the left’s virulent fear of Christianity.

Going to Church: Do you wear your Sunday Best?

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/09/22/feel-the-gleich...

Humans are Strange Animals

booklust — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:24:57 -0700

People want to be honest and completely consistent in their behavior and actions, but no one can sustain the image we all want to present to the world. It's not fair to say that people are hypocrites or liars, unless of course as a standard we acknowledge that every last one of us is a guilty party. The truth is that we are just unclear on how to live a personal life and public life without alienating ourselves in the process. We live in a modern world that is filled with people who may just want to take advantage of our weaknesses or willingness to be mislead and mistreated. We cannot afford to be genuine and open with everyone without putting ourselves at risk to our safety and our sanity. And so we create many types of selves that we take on or off depending on the situation we are faced with. This process makes us inconsistent and often in contradiction to our own personal interests and ethics. I am fascinated with these separate lives that each person lives in and I wonder how we are able to survive with so many obstacles and challenges.

Shop at Whole Foods

cine_lover — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:52:31 -0700

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

By JOHN MACKEY

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

-Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction-toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

View Full Image

Chad Crowe

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care-to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly-they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear-no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.-or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending-heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity-are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.

Of course, Liberals are now boycotting a CEO with great ideas, who does not take a salary, and offers almost all his employees Health Care on top of $1000 to each employee to put towards whatever you want, it can even be applied to your deductables.

Whole Foods drama continues: Unions join in fight against CEO

Bruce WatsonAug 27th 2009 at 5:00PM
Text SizeAAA
Filed under: Company News, People, Healthcare

In the latest move in the John Mackey/Whole Foods (WFMI) health care brouhaha, two unions have joined in the chorus of voices opposing the embattled CEO. The Change to Win (CtW) investment group and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) have released statements attacking Mackey and calling for a boycott of the store.This ongoing drama traces its roots to an op-ed article that Mackey published in The Wall Street Journal. Endorsing a cocktail of tax breaks and charity-based initiatives, he came out strongly against the universal health care policy that Obama (and, not coincidentally, many of his customers) endorse. Needless to say, many of Whole Foods' patrons felt stung by what they perceived as a corporate betrayal of their core policies. In addition to a torrent of attacks across the internet, this has led to a growing call for a boycott of the company.
In some interesting ways, this issue mirrors the battle between liberals and libertarians. Whole Foods' target demographic tends to be fairly liberal and, as such, is attracted to the company's socially-aware corporate governance as much as its high-quality food. From its decision to install fuel-cell generators in some of its stores to its commitment to philanthropy, many of While Foods' policies are designed to make its customers feel good about spending money there. And then there's the way that the company treats its workers. Whole Foods' employees are paid well above the market average, have full health coverage, and are reimbursed for their gym memberships. The company offers same-sex partner benefits, allows telecommuting for many of its workers, and has a strict nondiscrimination policy. In short, it's everything that a good liberal could want in a supermarket.Of course, all these benefits and donations come at a price, and Whole Foods passes much of this on to its consumers. But customers who are willing to pay a guilt premium for free-trade radicchio are likely to be the same sort of forward-looking, society-oriented liberals who support universal health care. Mackey, on the other hand, is a self-identified libertarian, which means that his politics tend more toward self-policing and a small role for government programs. In the case of Whole Foods, this perspective generally dovetails with the beliefs of his customers, in so far as responsible corporate stewardship and pro-employee policies are the kinds of things that both groups could support. However, big government solutions -- like universal health care that is funded by increased taxes -- is where liberals and libertarians part ways.From a business perspective, as far as Whole Foods is concerned, the politics of its customers are probably more important than the politics of its CEO. As previous battles against Bolthouse Farms and Coors (TAP) demonstrate, controversy and foodstuffs don't mix, particularly when one's target audience is noted for its political awareness. Given that Whole Foods' market position is inseparable from its socially activist image, Mackey's op-ed seems like an exercise in self-defeat.

However, while it is pretty obvious that Whole Foods should quickly and decisively move to distance itself from the statements of its CEO, it seems like the current boycott rivals Mackey's original move in its shortsightedness. By withholding patronage, Whole Foods' detractors convey the message that they require strict adherence to a hard liberal line. Never mind that Whole Foods does more for the environment, the needy, and its own employees than any other supermarket chain: its CEO has dared to utter heresy and must be clipped from the herd.Beyond this, CtW and UFCW's decision to jump on the boycott bandwagon seems more than a little disingenuous. As Mackey has made very clear in the past, he is firmly anti-union; although Whole Foods reached a compromise with organized labor back in March, it is fair to say that relations between the two sides are probably strained. In this context, it seems likely that the union boycott has little to do with health care and everything to do with Mackey's anti-union policies.If Whole Foods' customers are really liberal, then they will, perhaps, remember that true liberalism endorses the free flow of information, ideas, and perspectives. While they may not agree with Mackey's statements, their eagerness to censor him has effectively transformed righteous anger into bald-faced hypocrisy and bad business into bad politics. Even if Mackey isn't better than that, his customers certainly should be.