PRINCETON, NJ -- A Gallup Poll finds a statistically significant increase since last year in the percentage of Americans who describe the Democratic Party's views as being "too liberal," from 39% to 46%. This is the largest percentage saying so since November 1994, after the party's losses in that year's midterm elections.
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If a new General Motors emerges from bankruptcy as planned, U.S. financial aid for the company will expand to nearly $50 billion, but neither the government nor the company is forecasting how much of the public money will be repaid.
It's sure to be a stretch. For the United States to fully recover its investment, the value of General Motors stock will have to reach levels it has never before attained.
"I'm not going to predict it -- that's not my job today," GM chief executive Fritz Henderson said in a recent interview.
"I don't know how much we're going to recover," a senior Obama administration official said as the company headed into bankruptcy last month.
This uncertainty stems from the difficulty in valuing the 60 percent GM stake that the United States will receive in exchange for the public investment. The government also gets preferred shares and other compensation.
The stake will be worth enough to fully cover the government's direct investment only if GM's stock rises above $68 billion. Even at its recent 2000 peak, GM's stock was worth only $56 billion.
"I don't see GM hitting those benchmarks in a very long time," said Maryann Keller, a veteran automotive analyst and author of "Rude Awakening: The Rise, Fall, and Struggle for Recovery of General Motors," which was published in 1989.
We all agree the health care system is in need of reform. That's not the issue. The debate is really what kind of reform is needed. There are those rooting for nationalizing health care - Obama Care. What's that you ask? Obama's idea of reform is a government takeover of the health care system. One of the most popular forms of government takeover is the "Massachusetts Model." Those of us opposing "reform" that involves yet more government interference, wish to see a system that incorporates more consumer choice and more competition. Take a minute to watch this new video outlining just one of the many reasons the Massachusetts model has failed.
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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 31% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-three percent (33%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That matches the lowest level yet recorded.
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea criticized the U.S. on Monday for positioning missile defense systems around Hawaii, calling the deployment part of a plot to attack the regime and saying it would bolster its nuclear arsenal in retaliation.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he ordered the deployment of a ground-based, mobile missile intercept system and radar system to Hawaii amid concerns the North may fire a long-range missile toward the islands, about 4,500 miles away.
"Through the U.S. forces' clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the U.S. attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.
The paper also accused the U.S. of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove "the U.S. pre-emptive nuclear war" on the North is imminent.
The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the North will bolster its nuclear arsenal in self-defense.
So let me get this straight. First North Korea launches short, mid and long range missiles, detonates a nuclear bomb, threatens nuclear war, announces it's going to launch a missile towards Hawaii on Independence Day and the US is gearing for war?
Can you guess who else is against a missile defense shield....President Obama.
It took two weeks of intensified government repression against protesters in Iran before Barack Obama, the US president, moved from cautious commentary to describing the crackdown as "violent and unjust".
The acknowledged elephant in the room preventing a more robust US response to the Iranian crisis is the Anglo-American-organised coup in 1953, which overthrew Mohammed Mossadeqh, the nationalist prime minister, and brought the 33-year-old Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, back to the country as unchallenged ruler.
The coup was motivated by Mossadeqh's and the Iranian parliament's decision to nationalise the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, and by the fear that Soviet-inspired communists might take over the government.
The US-sponsored overthrow of Mossadeqh and our subsequent whole-hearted support for the Shah's brutal rule are ignominious chapters in the history of US foreign policy.
But does a coup 55 years ago really disqualify the US from standing up forcefully for democracy in Iran today?
It is highly unlikely.
US policies flawed
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, do not fear the US but rather their own people's desire to live in a country more like the US.
In fact, in poll after poll Iranians have revealed themselves to be among the most pro-American and pro-democratic people in the Muslim majority world.
At today's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to rule out increasing taxes on the middle-class, something President Obama pledged to never do on the campaign trail.
Remember the good old days—when dissent was patriotic? Fuggedaboutit. Dissent isn't merely unpatriotic now. It's downright treasonous. Just ask Paul Krugman.
If, like virtually all House Republicans and a handful of Dems, you don't agree with the likes of Henry Waxman on the need to take radical measures on the climate, you're guilty of . . . "a form of treason." Treason against the planet, to be precise.
The U.S. and other countries condemned the coup. President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" and called on all political actors in Honduras to "respect democratic norms." Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, a close ally of Mr. Zelaya and nemesis of the U.S., said he would consider it an ''act of war" if there were hostilities against his diplomats. "I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert," Mr. Chávez said.
The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Zelaya’s ouster, a senior U.S. official said. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Obama wouldn’t support any non-democratic transfer of power in the Central American country.
“We had some indication” that a move against Mr. Zelaya was a foot, said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. “We made it clear it was something we didn’t support.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Mr. Obama Sunday in criticizing the Honduran coup and calling for the restoration of the democratic process.
The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
WASHINGTON: Republicans concerned about the Obama administration's big spending on economic stimulus, energy and health care are asking, "Where are the jobs?"
"The president and Democrats in Congress claim this spending binge is necessary to put Americans back to work," House Republican leader John Boehner said Saturday in the Republican radio and Internet address. "They promised unemployment would not rise above 8 percent if their trillion-dollar stimulus was passed.
"But our nation has lost nearly 3 million jobs this year. Unemployment has soared above 9 percent. And now the president admits that unemployment will soon reach double digits.
"After all of this spending, after all of this borrowing from China, the Middle East, our children and our grandchildren, where are the jobs?" Boehner said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said early this week that the president expects the nation will reach 10 percent unemployment within the next few months. In January, President Barack Obama's economic team predicted unemployment would rise no higher than 8 percent with the help of $787 billion in new government spending. The unemployment rate in May reached a 25-year high of 9.4 percent. Obama aides have said that the economy took a turn for the worse since their initial forecast.
Boehner has seized on the administration's revised forecast.
He predicted Democratic proposals on health care, stimulus and energy would all be bad for the economy. (accent is mine)
Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.
The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.
New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases. All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations. (accent is mine)
Within days of my going public last September with the speculation that terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers helped Barack Obama write his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, I learned that I was not alone in that intuition.
Since then, I have received helpful contributions from serious people in at least five countries and any number of states and have integrated many of their observations into my ongoing narrative, summarized here. If you are unfamiliar with this research, please read this before going forward.
About a week ago, however, I heard from a new contributor. I will refer to him as "Mr. West." Like most contributors, he prefers to remain anonymous. The media punishment that Joe the Plumber received has much to do with this nearly universal reticence.
A week before that, I heard from another excellent contributor, Mr. Midwest. Their collective contribution should dispel the doubts of all but the willfully blind that Ayers played a substantial role, likely the primary role, in the writing of Dreams. (accent is mine)
Article continued here.
Over 700 dissenting scientists (updates previous 650 report) from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2009 255-page U.S. Senate Minority Report -- updated from 2007’s groundbreaking report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” -- features the skeptical voices of over 700 prominent international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. This updated report includes an additional 300 (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the initial release in December 2007. The over 700 dissenting scientists are more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 and 2009 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analysis, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the "science is settled" and there is a "consensus." On a range of issues, 2008 and 2009 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick”; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted. Continued here.
As the U.S. Senate now prepares to consider the cap-and-trade climate bill recently passed by the House, they will want to consider all the facts related to this landmark spending program. So far we have learned that the Environmental Protection Agency has suppressed an internal report skeptical about the wild global warming claims and now, from across the pond, we find out that a polar bear expert has been forbidden by global warming alarmists from reporting that most of those animals have actually been increasing in population during the past few years or are at optimum levels.
Although you won't find this story anywhere in the American media, Christopher Booker of the UK Telegraph has delivered an excellent report on this inconvenient truth suppression:
Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.
This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN's major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world's leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with those of the rest of the group.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) would like to amend that little joke he made earlier this week about Sarah Palin when he said he wished it had been the Alaska governor who had gone missing instead of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
"Too bad, if a governor had to go missing, it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin," Kerry told a group of civic and business leaders on Tuesday, according to the Boston Herald. That, of course, was before he and the rest of us learned Sanford had lost himself in Argentina with his secret mistress.
"We stand corrected, the truth is every Democrat hopes Governor Palin is in the public eye for a long, long time, especially on the 2012 presidential ballot," Kerry spokeswoman Jodi Seth says. "Lately it's been Vice President Cheney that everyone hopes would lose the cameras and go for a long leisurely hike on the Appalachian Trail. And good grief, if anyone thinks John Kerry is afraid of strong, smart women, they sure haven't met his brilliant wife and two independent daughters. It sounds like getting crushed these last two election cycles cost some of these Republicans their sense of humor."
MICHAEL Jackson's two eldest kids face a tug-of-love battle after their mum Debbie Rowe confessed he was not their father.
In an astonishing interview Debbie - mother of Prince, 12, and Paris, 11 - said she was artificially inseminated by an anonymous donor.
And she told how, despite Jackson's death, she does not WANT custody of the children and NEVER expects to see them again.
It means Prince and Paris now face a doubtful future, effectively without parents and the subject of a fight to find them a permanent and stable family home.
CLACKAMAS, Ore. - A man upset at the way McDonald's employees handled his order was charged after allegedly calling 911 repeatedly on Friday to report the restaurant had robbed him, authorities said.
Jeremy Lloyd Martin, 23, was charged with improper use of the 911 service, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said. He was cited at the scene and released.
According to a tape of the 911 calls released by Clackamas County 911, a man initially told a dispatcher that he was at the McDonald's near the intersection of Southeast Sunnyside Road and Southeast 82nd Avenue and needed help. The man said he had paid $10 in the drive-thru but only received a single burger and a fry before he was told to pull around.
"Sir, this is not a police matter," the dispatcher told him. "You need to take it up with the manager of the McDonald's."
But a person who identified himself as Martin called back demanding that dispatchers send a police officer to the scene and threatening to sue.
"This is a 911 emergency," the person said. "I got robbed for eight dollars."
A montage of Iran's protest photos along with Michael Jackson's "Beat It".
Passing President Obama's cap and trade energy program would cost the average Oklahoma family $3,200 a year, Sen. Jim Inhofe said Friday, but he's confident the measure will be killed in the Senate no matter what happens in the House of Representatives.
The Tulsa Republican, a longtime critic of what he considers 'this hoax called global warming,' made his latest statements during a morning stop in Shawnee while House members in Washington were preparing to vote on the controversial issue.
"Between the years of 1998 and 2005, I was the only member of the United States Senate who would take on what I call 'the Hollywood elitists' and the United Nations on this hoax called global warming and I went through seven years of purgatory on that issue.
But now I've been redeemed and the vast majority of the scientific community has now said Inhofe's right and the United Nations is wrong and those individuals have now said no, the science is not there and these are natural cycles."
Vodkapundit: “Never have so few stolen so much from so many to achieve so little.”
In the zaniest White House press briefing (a low bar, for sure) since Robert Gibbs started collecting cell phones, the press secretary took an out-of-the-blue swipe at the Fox News channel when a reporter mistakenly said that the deficit "keeps [Obama] asleep at night," instead of awake. Gibbs corrected him, and added, "Fox is what puts him to sleep."
As luck would have it, Fox would shortly get a shot at revenge. Gibbs announced that he would be among the victims in the Congressional Luau's dunk tank. Those of us in the press corps went nuts, challenging Gibbs to let us take some shots at him. He agreed. As we walked out to the South Lawn to witness Gibbs's fate, the president stuck his head out of the Oval Office and shouted, "Go get him, guys!" Great boss.
BROUN: Scientists all over this world say that the idea of human induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community. It is a hoax. There is no scientific consensus. … And who’s going to be hurt most [by ACES] the poor, the people on limited income…the people who can least afford to have their energy taxes raised by MIT says $3100 per family. … This bill must be defeated. We need to be good stewards of our environment, but this is not it, it’s a hoax!
For six years Iraqis in this restless provincial capital have been waiting for US forces to withdraw, in the hope that the area will return to being Iraq’s sleepy rural backwater.
However, with only days to go before the last American soldiers are due to pull out of Baquba and other Iraqi cities, the residentshaving doubts.
There are fears that a premature departure will lead to a return of sectarian violence or allow al-Qaeda to re-establish itself. Many would like the Americans to remain until security is restored permanently.
“After you guys pull out from the city I don’t know what our enemies are going to do,Thaban Hassan said. The head of an Iraqi Army battalion in Baquba, he told the American soldiers gathered in his office that “safety is not 100 per cent . . . why are the Americans leaving?”
"Poor guy, Governor of South Carolina disappeared for a few weeks... So then Senator John Kerry makes this joke. I don't know if you saw this, saying, "Shoot with all the governors in the nation to disappear too bad it couldn't have been that governor of Alaska." But, when he said it he looked quite frustrated and looked sad and I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say, "John Kerry, why the long face?"
An altercation erupted on the House floor Thursday evening between House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wisc.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).The incident stemmed from Rep. Obey's refusal to fund an earmark that Rep. Waters requested, sources told FOX. Waters specifically wanted federal money set aside for an institute named after her. Obey, who is skeptical of many earmarks, has long refused to fund any more "monuments to me." The institute in question was named for Waters before she requested the earmark.Upon Obey's refusal, Waters insisted Obey reward the money instead to a school that could serve as a conduit to the institute, but Obey told Waters that wasn't acceptable and "became irate," said a source.Obey tried to walk away from Waters, but she continued to browbeat the Appropriations Committee Chairman and followed him around the House floor, according to reports."She was in his face," a source said.Other media reported that the altercation evolved into a "shoving match." Those reports could not be confirmed.Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for Obey said that Waters "accosted" his boss and "made a scene."Attempts to reach Waters for comment were unsuccessful.
“You’re out of line,” Waters shot while walking down toward the well.
“You’re out of line,” Obey shot back before turning and walking away.
But then Obey stopped, turned back toward Waters, and shouted; “I’m not going to approve that earmark!”
Obey turned away, but Waters went to go huddle with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. She could be over heard telling them; “He touched me first.”…
A Waters aide said that Obey had pushed her.
The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour (against NBC's "The Philanthropist" debut and a repeat of "CSI: NY" on CBS). The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.
Call this a teachable moment, but even with ABC’s best-laid plans to kickstart the debate about health care reform and not allow the “Prescription for America” special to become an “infomercial,” as many have complained – the president spent more than twice as much time as his questioners vaguely answering or not answering the questions asked of him. But the network consistently presented the event as part of the need to fix a "broken system." When asked, every one of the 164 hand-picked audience members said they felt that health care needed to be changed.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.
In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party javascript:void(0)should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.
President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face.
The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists during ABC News’ special on health care reform, “Questions for the President: Prescription for America,” anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.["]
Environmental Protection Agency officials have silenced one of their own senior researchers after the 38-year employee issued an internal critique of the EPA's climate change position.
Alan Carlin, senior operations research analyst at the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, or NCEE, submitted his research on the agency's greenhouse gases endangerment findings and offered a fundamental critique on the EPA's approach to combating CO2 emissions. But officials refused to share his conclusion in an open internal discussion, claiming his research would have "a very negative impact on our office."
His study was barred from circulation within the EPA and was never disclosed to the public for political reasons, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, or CEI, a group that has accessed four internal e-mails on the subject.
CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman told WND, "His boss basically told him, 'No, I'm not going to send your study further up. It's going to stay within this bureau.'"
A March 12 e-mail to Carlin warned him not to have "any direct communication with anyone outside NCEE on endangerment."
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It’s not unusual for the media to lie about President Obama’s predecessor. What’s unusual is that Harry Smith’s lie was so outrageous that even President Obama felt compelled to correct it. In fact, Obama actually laughs at the absurdity of Harry Smith’s comments.
The AFL-CIO is passing around these hard hats today to every office on Capitol Hill. Check out where they're made:
They are also passing around this cardboard hammer which says, "another bad corporate tool to beat down workers." Plus, there's a booklet detailing "the truth about the Employee Free Choice Act." (Card Check.) “Everyone should have the right to join the union,” the group says when they drop the goodies off, according to sources.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged parliamentarians Wednesday to tolerate the voices of the opposition, government-run Press TV reported.
The Iranian regime has appointed one of its most feared prosecutors to interrogate reformists arrested during demonstrations, prompting fears of a brutal crackdown against dissent.
Relatives of several detained protesters have confirmed that the interrogation of prisoners is now being headed by Saaed Mortazavi, a figure known in Iran as “the butcher of the press”. He gained notoriety for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003.
“The leading role of Saeed Mortazavi in the crackdown in Tehran should set off alarm bells for anyone familiar with his record,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.
President Barack Obama plans to return an ambassador to Syria, filling a post that has been vacant for four years and marking an acceleration of Washington's engagement with the Arab world, the White House said on Wednesday.
Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama's decision was aimed at fulfilling his promise to show more U.S. engagement in the Arab world and not a response to any explicit policy change on Syria's part.
He cited a series of meetings between Syrian and U.S. officials since Obama took office.
"This strongly reflects the administration's recognition of the role Syria plays, and the hope of the role that the Syrian government can play constructively, to promote peace and stability in the region," Gibbs said.
The United States and Venezuela are to reinstate ambassadors to Caracas and Washington, setting aside a diplomatic spat that soured ties last year.
The two nations expelled each other's envoys last September in a dispute involving allegations by Bolivia, a close ally of Venezuela, that Washington was meddling in its internal affairs.
The normalisation of diplomatic ties "will take place in the coming days, and as soon as the ambassadors have resumed their functions we will move forward to a more fluid communication," Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan foreign minister, said on Wednesday.
Most respondents are "very concerned" that health-care reform would lead to higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices, a bigger deficit, diminished insurance coverage and more government bureaucracy. About six in 10 are at least somewhat worried about all of these factors, underscoring the challenges for lawmakers as they attempt to restructure the nation's $2.3 trillion health-care system.
Part of the reason so many are nervous about future changes is a fear they may lose what they currently have. More than eight in 10 said they are satisfied with the quality of care they now receive and relatively content with their own current expenses, and worry about future rising costs cuts across party lines and is amplified in the weak economy.
In a live interview on CNBC today, Warren Buffett said there has been little progress over the past few months in the "economic war" being fought by the country. "We haven't got the economy moving yet," he told Becky Quick.
While the economy is a "shambles" and likely to stay that way for some time, he remains optimistic there will eventually be a recovery over a period of years.
Buffett repeated his criticism of "cap and trade" as a method to control pollution, saying it would be a huge, regressive tax.
"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
"We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran," Kelly said. "We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a different path now." Link here.
Their gesture attracted worldwide comment and drew the attention of football fans to Iran's political turmoil. Now the country's authorities have taken revenge by imposing life bans on players who sported green wristbands in a recent World Cup match in protest against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
According to the pro-government newspaper Iran, four players – Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka'abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32 – have been "retired" from the sport after their gesture in last Wednesday's match against South Korea in Seoul.
In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran.
“Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”
Pitney, as if ignoring what Obama had just said, said: “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”
He then noted that the site had solicited questions from people in the country “who were still courageous enough to be communicating online.”
“Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the — of what the demonstrators there are working towards?”
Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.
CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was "very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about."
According to POLITICO's Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.
His name has become a verb, one so crisp and eloquent that it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary: if you've been blocked from appointment to public office, you've been "borked." The term's namesake is Robert Bork, whose path to the Supreme Court was derailed in 1987 by a hostile Senate. As Sonia Sotomayor braces for the same firing line, Bork, 82, sat down with NEWSWEEK for a rare interview. Excerpts:
President Obama has spoken of empathy as his key standard for choosing judicial nominees. What do you think of that approach?
I don't know exactly what empathy means. I suppose at a minimum it means you want a judge who will depart from the meaning of the constitution when a sympathetic case arises. It does seem to raise a warning that we're talking about a judge who does not follow the law.
And I take it that you don't approve?
You are quite correct.
What are your thoughts about Judge Sotomayor's nomination?
I think it was a bad mistake. Her comments about the wise Latina suggest identity-group jurisprudence. She also has a reputation for bullying counsel. And her record is not particularly distinguished. Far from it. And it is unusual to nominate somebody who states flatly that she was the beneficiary of affirmative action. But I can't believe she will be any worse than some recent white male appointees.
How have you been struck by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito since they were appointed?
My general impression of them is quite good. The justice up there who I most admire is Clarence Thomas. I notice that when he and Scalia differ—it's not that often, but when they do—I tend to agree with Thomas.
* Various analysis show that Lieberman-Warner would result in higher prices at the gas pump, between 41 cents and $1 per gallon by 2030.
* The bill would represent the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
* The bill would be the biggest pork bill ever contemplated with trillions of dollars in giveaways.
* Science Applications International Corporation SAIC shows that up to 4 million jobs will be lost by 2030 in the U.S.
* Manufacturing jobs will be one of the hardest hit sectors as the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that manufacturing output will decline by up to 9.5% in 2030. This country has already lost 19% of its manufacturing since 2000.
* EIA estimates that this bill will result in the loss of nearly 300,000 U.S. jobs by 2020.
* The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that “most of that cost would ultimately be passed on to consumers.”
* CBO says Lieberman-Warner would effectively raise taxes on Americans by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
* Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), warned last week that Lieberman-Warner “could result in the most massive bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of Americans since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service.”
* The bill would not have a detectable impact on the climate. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s own analysis, by 2050 Lieberman-Warner would only lower global CO2 concentrations by less than 1.4% without additional international action.
* The Wall Street Journal calls it “the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.”
* The bill would hinder U.S. competitiveness. It will transfer American jobs overseas where environmental regulations are much more lenient.
* If you are wonderng what is going to happen, just watch and then get involved by calling your Senator on these issues immediately.
An Iranian student protester in Tehran made a passionate plea for help from the world community this morning in a phone call to CNN’s “American Morning.”
For safety reasons, CNN can only identify the student by his first name, Mohammad. He’s been a part of the protests and a target of the violence there. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.
Roberts: Interesting perspective this morning from Mohammad, a student demonstrator there in Tehran.
Mohammad: Excuse me, sir. I have a message for the international community. Would you please let me tell it?
Roberts: Yes, go ahead.
Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely — is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it’s illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message…to the international community, especially I’m addressing President Obama directly – how can a government that doesn’t recognize its people’s rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help international community. Don’t leave us alone.
Chetry: Mohammad, what do you think the international community should do besides sanctions?
Mohammad: Actually, this regime is really dependent on importing gasoline. More than 85% of Iran’s gasoline is imported from foreign countries. I think international communities must sanction exporting gasoline to Iran and that might shut down the government.
