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+10Shansaa jam Ungern Laogorus EddieCochran OmbreBlanche Le chanoine quantat Zed Biloulou 14 participants | |
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| | Sujet: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 8/11/2008, 13:47 | |
| Rappel du premier message :Browse Newspapers by country
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EddieCochran
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Nombre de messages : 12768
Date d'inscription : 03/11/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 19/6/2010, 02:43 | |
| 486 - - Citation :
- The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.
The move is a rare instance of the federal government forcefully intervening in a state’s affairs, and it carries significant political risks. (..) Cette opinion piquée sous le clapet magique du billet précédent est porteuse de sens. En effet, le signe est historiquement vérifié que le déclin d'une Nation s'amorce à partir du moment où la politique étatique consiste à escagacer ses propres administrés qu'elle devrait laisser tranquilles. | |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 19/6/2010, 08:11 | |
| En effet, le signe est historiquement vérifié que le déclin d'une Nation s'amorce à partir du moment où la politique étatique consiste à escagacer ses propres administrés qu'elle devrait laisser tranquilles.
Que la loi qui derange l'administration Obama (gouvernement federal) passee le mois dernier a Phoenix (gouvernement etatique) et devant entrer en vigueur le 29 juillet prochain escagasse les immigres illegaux, difficile d'en douter.
En revanche elle est soutenue par environ 75% des Arizoniens, les "administres".
Des lors... |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 19/6/2010, 10:54 | |
| ... et ca c'est pas beau? Nous sommes vraiment gates avec le POTUS  (qui est pret a tout faire pour mettre des lois en place soutenues par seulement 35% de la population (Obamacare) et Nancy  qui avait annonce en prenant sa place de Speaker of the House (Presidente de l'Assemblee) qu'elle allait nettoyer le "marecage" et qui fait face a une telle vague de corruption chez ses collegues Democrates qu'elle a decide de changer les regles d'ethique... et bien sur Reid, le President du Senat, qui est loin de s'etre appauvri en representant le Nevada a Washington et qui a tendance a confondre, son compte bancaire avec son budget de senateur...) Donc la derniere, enfin une des dernieres: les avocats de la Maison Blanche se defendraient de la plainte par l'Etat de Floride devant les tribunaux selon laquelle Obamacare qui oblige les Americains a s'assurer est une loi inconstitutionnelle, en expliquant que ce n'est en fait qu'un impot..... et que la cour ne peut statuer sur ce dossier puisqu'il concerne la levee d'impots federaux et qu'elle n'a pas autorite pour se prononcer.  Obama Admin. Argues in Court That Individual Mandate Is a TaxBy Philip Klein on 6.17.10 @ 2:04PMIn order to protect the new national health care law from legal challenges, the Obama administration has been forced to argue that the individual mandate represents a tax -- even though Obama himself argued the exact opposite while campaigning to pass the legislation. - Spoiler:
Late last night, the Obama Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the Florida-based lawsuit against the health care law, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction and that the State of Florida and fellow plaintiffs haven't presented a claim for which the court can grant relief.
To bolster its case, the DOJ cited the Anti-Injunction Act, which restricts courts from interfering with the government's ability to collect taxes.
The Act, according to a DOJ memo supporting the motion to dismiss, says that "no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed." The memo goes on to say that it makes no difference whether the disputed payment it is called a "tax" or "penalty," because either way, it's "assessed and collected in the same manner" by the Internal Revenue Service.
But this is a characterization that Democrats, and specifically Obama, angrily denounced during the health care debate. Most prominently, in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama argued that the mandate was "absolutely not a tax increase," and he dug into his view even after being confronted with a dictionary definition:
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but...
OBAMA: ...what you're saying is...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it's a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
At the time Obama made that statement, the Senate Finance Committee had just released its own health care bill, which clearly referred to the mandate penalty as an "excise tax." But in later versions, the word "tax" was stripped, because it had become too much of a political liability for Democrats. The final version that Obama signed did not describe the mandate as a tax, and used the Commerce Clause -- not federal taxing power -- as the Constitutional justification for the mandate.
""This is an about face from what is laid out in the law," said Karen Harned of the National Federation of Independent Business, which joined the Florida lawsuit against ObamaCare. "In the text of the healthcare law, the findings for passing an individual mandate specifically rely on the effects of individuals on the national economy and interstate commerce. Nowhere in the findings is the mandate referred to as a tax. The Justice Department is now calling it a tax to try and convince the court not to rule on whether or not Congress exceeded their authority under the Commerce Clause by legislating that all citizens must purchase private health insurance or face a penalty."
Put another way, the administration is now arguing in federal court that Obama signed a massive middle-class tax increase, in violation of his campaign pledge.
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| | Sujet: 2489 - Jewish, Muslim Tensions Rise at UC Irvine After Suspension of Muslim Group 19/6/2010, 16:28 | |
| Jewish, Muslim Tensions Rise at UC Irvine After Suspension of Muslim GroupBy Stephen ClarkPublished June 19, 2010FOXNews.com- Spoiler:
 Tensions are rising at UC Irvine after a Muslim student group wa suspended for repeatedly disrupting a speech by Israel's ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, pictured here. (Reuters)
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| | Sujet: 2490- 21/6/2010, 09:30 | |
| Energy PipedreamsBy Robert Samuelson"For decades, we've talked and talked about the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels. ... Time and time again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor."-- Barack Obama, June 15 address on the BP oil spill - Spoiler:
WASHINGTON -- Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn't that president. His speech the other night was about political damage control -- his own. It was full of misinformation and mythology. Obama held out a gleaming vision of an America that would convert to the "clean" energy of, presumably, wind, solar and biomass. It isn't going to happen for many, many decades, if ever.
For starters, we won't soon end our "addiction to fossil fuels." Oil, coal and natural gas now supply about 85 percent of America's energy needs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects energy consumption to grow only an average of 0.5 percent annually from 2008 to 2035, but that's still a 14 percent cumulative increase. Fossil fuel usage would increase slightly in 2035 and its share would still account for 78 percent of the total.
...
Obama has made vilification of oil and the oil industry a rhetorical mainstay. This is intellectually shallow, if politically understandable. "...
Suite ...
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| | Sujet: 2491 - Cost of Seizing Fannie and Freddie Surges for Taxpayers 21/6/2010, 10:14 | |
| Si Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sont a l'origine de la crime financiere actuelle, meme si seules les banques privees sont blamees, ces organisations gouvernementales n'ont pas fini d'en couter aux contribuables, il est maintenant question de 389 billions de dollars: ainsi en ont decide le POTUS et ses congeneres  Cost of Seizing Fannie and Freddie Surges for TaxpayersBy BINYAMIN APPELBAUMPublished: June 19, 2010CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords. - Spoiler:
Joshua Lott for The New York Times Bill Bridwell says his realty firm employs as many people as during the boom, now working just on foreclosures for Fannie Mae.  Behind the CurveJoshua Lott for The New York TimesA foreclosed home in Casa Grande, Ariz., has been refurbished, inside and out. It is listed by Mr. Bridwell’s agency. Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay. In a good week, he sells 20 homes and Fannie sends another 20 listings his way. “We’re all working for the government now,” said Mr. Bridwell on a recent sun-baked morning, steering a Hummer through subdivisions laid out like circuit boards on the desert floor. For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that is likely to cost taxpayers the most money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion, and it grows with every foreclosure of a three-bedroom home with a two-car garage one hour from Phoenix. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the final bill could reach $389 billion. Fannie and Freddie increased American home ownership over the last half-century by persuading investors to provide money for mortgage loans. The sales pitch amounted to a money-back guarantee: If borrowers defaulted, the companies promised to repay the investors. Rather than actually making loans, the two companies — Fannie older and larger, Freddie created to provide competition — bought loans from banks and other originators, providing money for more lending and helping to hold down interest rates. “Our business is the American dream of home ownership,” Fannie Mae declared in its mission statement, and in 2001 the company set a target of helping to create six million new homeowners by 2014. Here in Arizona, during a housing boom fueled by cheap land, cheap money and population growth, Fannie Mae executives trumpeted that the company would invest $15 billion to help families buy homes. As it turns out, Fannie and Freddie increasingly were channeling money into loans that borrowers could not afford. As defaults mounted, the companies quickly ran low on money to honor their guarantees. The federal government, fearing that investors would stop providing money for new loans, placed the companies in conservatorship and took a 79.9 percent ownership stake, adding its own guarantee that investors would be repaid. The huge and continually rising cost of that decision has spurred national debate about federal subsidies for mortgage lending.Republicans want to sever ties with Fannie and Freddie once the crisis abates. The Obama administration and Congressional Democrats have insisted on postponing the argument until after the midterm elections.In the meantime, Fannie and Freddie are editing the results of the housing boom at public expense, removing owners who cannot afford their homes, reselling the houses at much lower prices and financing mortgage loans for the new owners. The two companies together accounted for 17 percent of real estate sales in Arizona during the first four months of the year, almost three times their share of the market during the same period last year, according to an analysis by MDA DataQuick. Valarie Ross, who lives in the Phoenix suburb of Avondale, has watched six of the nine homes visible from her lawn chair emptied by moving trucks during the last year. Four have been resold by the government. “One by one,” she said. “Just amazing.” The population of Pinal County, where Mr. Bridwell lives and works, roughly doubled to 340,000 over the last decade. Developers built an entirely new city called Maricopa on land assembled from farmers. Buyers camped outside new developments, waiting to purchase homes.One builder laid out a 300-lot subdivision at the end of a three-mile dirt road and still managed to sell 30 of the homes. Mr. Bridwell sold plenty of those houses during the boom, then cut workers as prices crashed. Now his firm, Golden Touch Realty, again employs as many people as at the height of the boom, all working exclusively for Fannie Mae. The payroll now includes a locksmith to secure foreclosed homes and two clerks devoted to federal paperwork.Golden Touch gets more listings from Fannie Mae than any other firm in Pinal County. Mr. Bridwell said he was ready to jump because he remembered the last time the government ended up owning thousands of Arizona houses, after the late-1980s collapse of the savings and loan industry. “The way I see it,” said Mr. Bridwell, whose glass-top desk displays membership cards from the Republican National Committee, “is that we’re getting these homes back into private hands.” Behind the Curve Selling a house generally costs the government about $10,000. The outsides are weeded and the insides are scrubbed. Stolen appliances are replaced, brackish pools are refilled. And until the properties are sold, they must be maintained. Fannie asks contractors to mow lawns twice a month during the summer, and pays them $80 each time. *1That’s a monthly grass bill of more than $10 million. All told, the companies spent more than $1 billion on upkeep last year. *2“We may be behind many loans on the same street, so we believe that it’s in everyone’s best interest to aggressively do property maintenance,” said Chris Bowden, the Freddie Mac executive in charge of foreclosure sales. Prices have plunged. So by the time a home is resold, Fannie and Freddie on average recoup less than 60 percent of the money the borrower failed to repay, according to the companies’ financial filings. In Phoenix and other areas where prices have fallen sharply, the losses often are larger. Foreclosures punch holes in neighborhoods, so residents, community groups and public officials are eager to see properties reoccupied. But there also is concern that investors are buying many foreclosures as rental properties, making it harder for neighborhoods to recover. Real estate agents tend to favor investors because the sales close surely and quickly and there is the prospect of repeat business. But community advocates say that Fannie and Freddie have an obligation to sell houses to homeowners. David Adame worked for Fannie Mae’s local office during the boom, on programs to make ownership more affordable. Now with prices down sharply, Mr. Adame sees a second chance to put people into homes they can afford. *3“Yes, move inventory,” said Mr. Adame, now an executive focused on housing issues at Chicanos por la Causa, a Phoenix nonprofit group, “but if we just move inventory to investors, then what are we doing?” Executives at both Fannie and Freddie say they have an overriding obligation to limit losses, but that they are taking steps to sell more homes to families. Fannie Mae last summer announced that it would give people seeking homes a “first look” by not accepting offers from investors in the first 15 days that a property is on the market. It also offers to help buyers with closing costs, and prohibits buyers from reselling properties at a profit for 90 days, to discourage speculation. Fannie Mae said that 68.4 percent of buyers this year had certified that they would use the house as a primary residence. Freddie Mac has adopted fewer programs, but it said it had sold about the same share of foreclosures to owner-occupants. The companies also have agreed to sell foreclosed homes to nonprofits using grants from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Chicanos por la Causa, which won $137 million under the program in partnership with nonprofits in eight other states, plans to buy more than 200 homes in Phoenix in the next two years. It plans to renovate them to sell to local families. The scale of such efforts is small. The home ownership rate in Phoenix continues to fall as foreclosures pile up and renters replace owners. But John R. Smith, chief of Housing Our Communities, another Phoenix-area group using federal money to buy foreclosures, says he tries to focus on salvaging one property at a time. “I tell them, ‘O.K., you want to unload 10 houses to that guy, fine,’ ” he said. “ ‘Now give me this one. And this one. And one over here.’ ” *1 Rien que la il y a un probleme et on peut se demander aux amis de qui appartiennent ces societes d'entretien.. A Houston, nous ne payons que 25 dollars pour le meme travail! *2 En general une maison en saisie immobiliere est vendue "telle quelle" (as is). Pourquoi n'est-ce pas le cas ici? *3 Voila le pourquoi du comment, les maisons seront revendues a des personnes qui n'ont pas pu payer les mensualites la premiere fois et qui n'ayant pas beaucoup d'argent seraient incapables de remettre les maisons abimees par les premiers occupants en etat, alors on le fait faire pour eux avec l'argent des contribuables. C'est normal, c'est l'esprit socialiste.
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| | Sujet: 2492 - Report: Rahm Emanuel Expected to Quit 21/6/2010, 11:19 | |
| Report: Rahm Emanuel Expected to Quit
Published June 21, 2010
NewsCoreWhite House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is expected to leave his job within six to eight months because he is fed up with the "idealism" of President Barack Obama's closest advisers, The London Daily Telegraph reported Monday.- Spoiler:
 File: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, left, stands with former White House Counsel Greg Craig and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at a White House briefing. (AFP)
"I would bet he will go after the midterms," said one source, a leading Democratic consultant.
"Nobody thinks it's working, but they can't get rid of him -- that would look awful. He needs the right sort of job to go to, but the consensus is he'll go."
"It might not be his fault, but the perception is there," said the consultant. "Every vote has been tough, from health care to energy to financial reform.
"Democrats have not stood behind the President in the way Republicans did for George W. Bush, and that was meant to be Rahm's job."
Emanuel is known as an abrasive pragmatist who has clashed with the idealistic inner circle around Obama.
Although he is believed to have a cordial working relationship with the President, The Telegraph reported Obama aides are frustrated that Emanuel "failed to deliver a smooth ride for the President's legislative program that his background promised."
The newspaper said Emanuel had told friends he envisaged the high-pressure White House role as an 18-month job. He is reportedly interested in running for mayor of Chicago, his home town.
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| | Sujet: 2493 - Federal Judge Blocks Obama's Offshore Drilling Moratorium in Gulf of Mexico 22/6/2010, 21:43 | |
| Federal Judge Blocks Obama's Offshore Drilling Moratorium in Gulf of MexicoPublished June 22, 2010FOXNews.comIn a victory for drilling proponents, a federal judge struck down President Obama's six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the administration rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too.- Spoiler:
The White House promised an immediate appeal. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."
The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.
Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium.
They argued it was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.
Feldman sided with the companies, saying in his ruling the Interior Department assumed that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deepwater drilling pose an imminent danger.
"The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster," he wrote. "What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm."
His ruling prohibits federal officials from enforcing the moratorium until a trial is held. He did not set a trial date.
The Interior Department said it needed time to study the risks of deepwater drilling. But the lawsuit filed by Hornbeck Offshore Services of Covington, La., claimed there was no proof the other operations posed a threat.
Company CEO Todd Hornbeck said after the ruling that he is looking forward to getting back to work.
"It's the right thing for not only the industry but the country," he said.
Earlier in the day, executives at a major oil conference in London warned that the moratorium would cripple world energy supplies. Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean Ltd., owner of the rig that exploded, called it an unnecessary overreaction. BP PLC was leasing the rig.
"There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Newman told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
The moratorium was declared May 6 and originally was to last only through the month. Obama announced May 27 that he was extending it for six months.
In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal and corporate leaders said that would force drilling rigs to leave the Gulf of Mexico for lucrative business in foreign waters.
They said the loss of business would cost the area thousands of lucrative jobs, most paying more than $50,000 a year. The state's other major economic sector, tourism, is a largely low-wage industry.
Tim Kerner, the mayor of Lafitte, La., cheered Feldman's ruling.
"I love it. I think it's great for the jobs here and the people who depend on them," said Kerner, whose constituents make their living primarily from commercial fishing or oil.
But in its response to the lawsuit, the Interior Department said the moratorium is needed as attempts to stop the leak and clean the Gulf continue and new safety standards are developed.
"A second deepwater blowout could overwhelm the efforts to respond to the current disaster," the Interior Department said.
The government also challenged contentions the moratorium would cause long-term economic harm. Although 33 deepwater drilling sites were affected, there are still 3,600 oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf.
Catherine Wannamaker, a lawyer for environmental groups that intervened in the case and supported the moratorium, called the ruling "a step in the wrong direction."
"We think it overlooks the ongoing harm in the Gulf, the devastation it has had on people's lives," she said. "The harm at issue with the Deepwater Horizon spill is bigger than just the Louisiana economy. It affects all of the Gulf."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| | Sujet: 2494 - The Chaos Factor and President Obama 23/6/2010, 09:15 | |
| Video
The Chaos Factor and President Obama |
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| | Sujet: 2495 - Obama's Most Controversial Nominee Yet 23/6/2010, 09:22 | |
| A vomir! Obama's Most Controversial Nominee Yet
'Hannity' Special Investigation: Judge accused of sympathizing with serial killer gets Senate panel OK |
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| | Sujet: 2496 - Top U.S. General Under Fire 23/6/2010, 10:01 | |
| Top U.S. General Under Fire Afghan War Strategist McChrystal Summoned to Explain Magazine Comments By MATTHEW ROSENBERG in Kabul and PETER SPIEGEL in Washington- Spoiler:
 Peter van Agtmael / Magnum Photos General Stanley McChrystal, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, meets with Marine and Afghan commanders last August.. Comments attributed to him and his aides have put his job in jeopardy.—Alan Cullison in Kabul contributed to this article.
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| | | | Biloulou
 Nombre de messages : 54566
Localisation : Jardins suspendus sur la Woluwe - Belgique
Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 23/6/2010, 10:05 | |
| Comme quoi la guerre est une affaire trop sérieuse pour la confier à des civils...  | |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 23/6/2010, 10:06 | |
| Absolument et voila la derniere nouvelle:
Breaking: General Stanley McChrystal tenders his resignation |
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| | Sujet: 2499 - McChrystal “Stone’d”…How Badly Hurt? 23/6/2010, 14:57 | |
| McChrystal “Stone’d”…How Badly Hurt? June 23, 2010 - 6:44 AM | by: Greg Palkot LONDON - I will probably be in the minority here, but I don’t think the Rolling Stone article about General Stanley McChrystal was all that bad to him. And maybe it shouldn't be a firing offense.- Spoiler:
If you simply listened to the punditry, and simply read the selected quotes you’d think he should face the firing squad.
But a closer examination of the story by reporter Michael Hastings suggests a different take.
Let’s look at the article point-by-point as, no doubt, will happen today inside the White House.
President Obama - There is NO McChrystal direct quote critical of Obama in the article. Just an unnamed advisor making observations including the President being “unprepared” in an early meeting. He described McChrystal as “disappointed.”
Obama Afghanistan War Review - A rare direct quote from McChrystal. "I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position." Frank , but hardly damning.
V.P. Biden- No McChrystal direct quote critical of Biden. There’s a reworking of an early dispute with Biden over policy. The only current reference is an obtuse line from the General about Biden during some banter with aides.
Richard Holbrooke – No McChrystal direct quote specifically critical of Holbrooke. A second-hand critique from an unnamed source saying the General called him a “wounded animal.” And a line from the General about regretting receiving an email from Holbrooke.
Ambassador Eikenberry - A lengthy re-tread of the public dispute between Eikenberry and McChrystal and others. A few retrospective direct quotes from McChrystal like "I felt betrayed," but again, hardly damning.
NSA Jim Jones, Sen.’s McCain and Kerry-Critical comments from unnamed aides. No McChrystal input
Secretary of State Clinton- There’s actually praise for her from yet another unnamed source. But once again, nothing from McChrystal.
By now you get the pattern of the article :
Criticism by the reporter of many of the key players, interspersed with many, mostly unattributed, quotes by McChrystal staffers and others, sometimes saying what they think the General feels, and then a few basically innocuous direct quotes from McCrystal.
Add up all the direct quotes from McChrystal and it would barely amount to a paragraph, from what Hastings claims is several lengthy interviews, in an article that weighs in at 12 single-spaced pages.
Furthermore, the reporter sets the profile of McChrystal in a narrative critical of the Afghanistan war effort implying a disgruntled McChrystal has bought into that position.
And then he offers a subjective portrayal of the independent-minded McChrystal, to add credence to the idea of a “Runaway General.”
I have met the General on several occasions in Afghanistan and in London. While he can be frank he is also the epitome of control. Powerpoint is his friend. He’s not “running away” from anyone.
I've also spent time with his staffers including the press aide reportedly fired Duncan Boothby. While he, too, was frank, I didn’t find him to be a “trash talker.”
As for the other folks quoted, I can't tell you my view of them because I don't know who most of them are!
(I doubt Hastings would be allowed to use as many blind quotes when writing for Newsweek as he’s done here)
As for Rolling Stone. Though it was my rock bible growing up, it has not always been the home to objective well-sourced journalism (Hunter Thompson notwithstanding).
In the end, though, there is guilt by association, by accumulation, perception is often key, judgements were off, mistakes were made, and some people should pay a price.
It looks like General McChrystal could also pay that price.
Which, at this critical time in Afghanistan, could be costly for that country, and the US, as well.
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| | Sujet: 2500 - Gen. Stanley McChrystal leaves White House 23/6/2010, 17:51 | |
| Pas bon signe! Gen. Stanley McChrystal leaves White HouseBy MIKE ALLEN & GORDON LUBOLD | 6/23/10 7:29 AM EDT
Updated: 6/23/10 11:21 AM EDTGen. Stanley McChrystal met for 30 minutes with President Barack Obama Wednesday morning, then left the White House abruptly, ahead of a planned national security meeting where he had been expected to attend.- Spoiler:
Ahead of the meeting with Obama, it was thought that McChrystal could save his job as U.S. commander in Afghanistan depending on how his Wednesday morning meeting went with Obama, top administration officials told POLITICO. Either way, the officials said, there will be a shakeup in the command because of the indiscipline among McChrystal's staff captured by Rolling Stone. McChrystal arrived at the West Wing at 9:39 Wednesday morning, out of reach of reporters. Asked if he had tendered his resignation as he arrived earlier at the Pentagon, McChrystal told NBC News that he had not. "This is one where the meeting really matters," a senior aide said. "This is a chance for the president to express his displeasure and gauge whether or not McChrystal gets it.  “And McChrystal will have to make a judgment about whether or not he feels the president has lost confidence in him. And if so, he may be a good soldier and say, 'Sir I just get the sense that there is not full faith in my ability to lead this mission.” The aide said McChrystal "wants to finish this job — he's just invested so much of his life in this." McChrystal told Pentagon colleagues and superiors he is prepared to resign but had not submitted a formal letter before landing in Washington, officials said. The loose-lipped commander was due for a private meeting at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Robert Gates before going to the White House for his one-on-one with the commander in chief. That will be followed at 11:35 a.m. by a Situation Room session with the war cabinet, including officials disparaged in the Rolling Stone blast. McChrystal's supporters hope the White House got its pound of flesh on Tuesday by leaving his status up in the air, with press secretary Robert Gibbs saying "capable and mature" leadership was needed in the theater. Based on the commander's background in special operations, one official said: "Stan McChrystal is responsible for killing more Al Qaeda than anyone in the world, hands down." ABC's George Stephanopoulos reported on "Good Morning America": "The White House has asked the Pentagon for a list of possible replacements." And ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper blogged: “During his round of phone calls to top officials of the Obama administration whom he and his team disparaged to a Rolling Stone reporter, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, ‘I've compromised the mission.’” The feeling in Washington is mixed about as to whether he should stay or go. But there is consensus that he did cross the line in the Rolling Stone article, which included mostly comments from his staff on background but also some slams on administration officials from McChrystal himself. Many military experts believe he should go because, taken together, the comments amount to a form of insubordination. But there remains concern that removing the top commander from Afghanistan — the second in just more than a year — would not be a strategically prudent move when time is of the essence in demonstrating success in the war there.
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| | | | | Biloulou
Nombre de messages : 54566
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Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 23/6/2010, 20:18 | |
| Je crains que ce soit mauvais pour l'Afghanistan et très mauvais pour l'Occident....  | |
| | | | Ungern
Nombre de messages : 17713
Date d'inscription : 18/05/2009
| | | | | Biloulou
Nombre de messages : 54566
Localisation : Jardins suspendus sur la Woluwe - Belgique
Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 23/6/2010, 20:31 | |
| - Ungern a écrit:
- Tu crois qu'il y a moyen d'aggraver les choses ?
 Si, si tu étais écouté en haut lieu. | |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 23/6/2010, 20:33 | |
| Biloulou  FOX News Ah mais que voulez-vous... il etait "en colere" comme l'a explique Gibbs. Alors il a puni! Na! Voyons comment l'armee va reagir maintenant. Obama se noie. Depuis le debut on sait qu'il n'a pas l'experience maintenant on apprend qu'il est incompetent. Pour arranger les choses, comme ca doit devenir assez difficile a supporter pour lui aussi, il passe son temps a jouer au golf, " to clear his mind"!!!! S'il voulait detruire les Etats Unis et le monde occidental, il ne s'y prendrait pas mieux. Mais je ne pense meme pas qu'il le fasse expres. |
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| | Sujet: 2506 - McChrystal Is Not the Problem 23/6/2010, 20:40 | |
| McChrystal Is Not the Problem
We’ve defined insubordination down. When Douglas MacArthur was cashiered by President Truman in 1951, Secretary of Defense George Marshall explained to Congress that the dismissal resulted from “the wholly unprecedented position of a local theater commander publicly expressing his displeasure at and his disagreement with the foreign and military policy of the United States.” That puts Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s making a joke about Vice President Joe Biden in perspective.
[spoiler]
There’s no doubt that McChrystal was out of line in his cringe-making Rolling Stone interview. It shows terrible media judgment ever to have agreed to a profile by a reporter for that magazine, let alone taken him out drinking with your staff. McChrystal has embarrassed himself, offended his civilian superiors and colleagues, and overstepped his bounds as a servant of the U.S. government. Obama would be justified in firing him.
But let’s be clear-eyed about what that would likely do to advance the cause of the war: little or nothing.
It wouldn’t change the fact that Afghanistan represents a hideously complex human and physical terrain for a war of this sort. Our long-telegraphed operation into Kandahar has been delayed because the decision about to what extent to work with or confront the malign powers that be in that crucial city is such a difficult and momentous one.
It wouldn’t change the fact that our diplomatic team is a disaster. The work of both Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke and ambassador Karl Eikenberry has been ham-handed and counterproductive. It’s understandable that General McChrystal would be frustrated with them, and it’s a scandal that they’ve been allowed to stumble along for this long.
It wouldn’t change the fact that the July 2011 deadline for the beginning of our withdrawal has undermined our credibility in the region. If Obama offered that deadline as a vague political sop to the Left, neither our foreign enemies nor our friends have taken it that way.
Perhaps the Obama-McChrystal relationship has been poisoned and can’t be recovered, in which case the general has to go. But we hope there’s a solution that would both demonstrate the general’s regret and reinforce the authority of the president without the disruption of yet another change of command in Afghanistan: perhaps McChrystal’s offering his resignation (which is already being reported), and Obama’s generously rejecting it in the larger cause of winning the war.
Whatever McChrystal’s fate, the president will have to clean up his diplomatic team, tame his vice president and political advisers who are hostile to the strategy in Afghanistan (and have a handy stenographer in Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter), and walk back his July 2011 deadline. Above all, we’ll need patience. We are in for a long, difficult slog in Afghanistan, with or without Stan McChrystal.[/spoiler] |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 23/6/2010, 20:48 | |
| S'il comptait sur sa petite colere pour remonter dans l'estime des Americains...
Thank you for Voting!
No. We need stability in Afghanistan. The general should have been forgiven.
70% (32,190 votes)
Yes. The chain of command must be respected by the military.
27% (12,346 votes)
Other (leave a comment) 3% (1,423 votes)
Total Votes: 45,959 |
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| | Sujet: 2508 - 24/6/2010, 09:36 | |
| Incroyable quand on pense que le taux de chomage aux US donc des "administres" americains est de pres de 10% et que le Senat a coupe les aides gouvernementales aux memes administres sans travail! En temps de crise, c'est la meilleure facon de faire que de mauvaiss sentiments fassent surface! Labor Dept. Offers Assistance to Illegal Immigrants Facing Wage DisparitiesPublished June 23, 2010FOXNews.comRepublican lawmakers are expressing shock over a Labor Department ad campaign that offers government assistance to illegal immigrants who think they're getting shortchanged for their work -- and at least one of them is planning to write to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis for an explanation.- Spoiler:
In this photo taken May 7, 2010, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis stands by as President Barack Obama makes a statement on monthly jobs numbers outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. (AP) une personne sans papier n'a pas le droit de travailler, point. Les lois federales existent, elles sont ignorees, c'est la raison pour laquelle, l'Arizona, a bout de ressources, a passe la sienne. *2 qu'ils paient de leur propre denier. C'est la facon americaine: Creer une organisation charitable, ne pas prendre dans les fonds payer par les contribuables pour donner a des personnes qui ne devraient, de toutes facons, pas etre sur le territoire americain. *3 incroyable mais finalement typique Cette "equipe" elle aussi payee avec les dollars des contribuables. *4 ils feraient peut-etre mieux de s'assurer que le taux de chomage retombe a 5%!
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| | Sujet: 2509 - GOP Lawmakers Warn of Administration Plan to Grant Amnesty to Illegal Immigrants 24/6/2010, 13:12 | |
| ... et voila... en d'autres termes, bafouez la loi et vous serez recompenses! Le POTUS a trouve une solution a sa re-election en 2012!!!! Amnistie pour les immigres illegaux. Pres. Reagan l'avait fait, ca n'a absolument rien solutionne au contraire puisqu'au lieu d'etre puni pour venir illegalement votre dossier passera devant ceux des idiots qui eux ont demande et attendent patiennement leur carte verte legalement.. et ce sera le cas ici encore. GOP Lawmakers Warn of Administration Plan to Grant Amnesty to Illegal ImmigrantsPublished June 23, 2010FOXNews.com Eight Republican senators and an independent group that supports tighter limits on immigration are warning that the Obama administration is drafting a plan to "unilaterally" issue blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants as it struggles to win support in Congress for an overhaul of immigration laws. - Spoiler:
 AP FILE: Agents raid a drop house for illegal immigrants in Phoenix in April. Republicans say they fear suspected illegal immigrants will be given blanket amnesty by an executive order of President Obama
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| | Sujet: 2510 - Merkel Rejects Obama's Call to Spend 24/6/2010, 16:07 | |
| Le charme du POTUS n'a pas de prise sur Angela? Merkel Rejects Obama's Call to Spend German chancellor rebuffs pressure to boost domestic demand, not exports; warns Europe's crisis is far from over By MARCUS WALKER And MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIGBERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel roundly rebuffed U.S. President Barack Obama's call for Germans to aid the global recovery by spending more and relying less on exports, even as she warned that Europe's own financial crisis is far from over.- Spoiler:
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in her Berlin chancellery, an unapologetic Ms. Merkel said the nations that share the beleaguered euro have merely bought some time to fix the flaws in their monetary union. She called on the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations meeting in Toronto this weekend to send a signal that tougher financial-market regulation is on its way to dispel the impression that momentum is fading amid resistance by big banks.
She took aim at an idea voiced by France, the U.S. and others that Germany should help global producers by spurring its persistently weak consumer demand and ending its dependence on unsustainable spending elsewhere. The latest call came in a letter last Friday from Mr. Obama to the G-20, in which he asked big exporters—Germany, China and Japan—to rebalance global demand by boosting consumer spending.
Ms. Merkel countered that Germany's growth and employment are rising—and therefore the world's fourth-largest economy has no reason to rethink its dependence on its powerhouse industrial sector and large trade surplus. "German export successes reflect the high competitiveness and innovation strength of our companies," she said. "Artificially reducing Germany's competitiveness would be of no use to anyone."
The U.S. reiterated its stance Wednesday. "It is important for European growth in particular, and the world more generally, that advanced surplus economies in Europe strengthen the contribution of internal demand to growth," a senior administration official said.Ms. Merkel's defense of Germany's export-heavy model marks Berlin's second rebuff to international demands in recent days. Early this week, Ms. Merkel rejected calls for Germany to prolong fiscal-stimulus measures in the short term.
Germany's position threatens to isolate it within the G-20, likely making it difficult for it to win support for tougher financial-market regulation and its other priorities.
The country is at the center of attention now that China, whose growth also depends largely on trade surpluses, has defused some of the U.S.-led pressure to rebalance its economy by announcing a more flexible exchange-rate policy.
A report published Wednesday as a "primer" for G-20 governments by the Center for Economic Policy Research, a European network of leading economists, accused Germany of doing less than China to redress global imbalances, which the report called a threat to global economic stability.
Ms. Merkel denied Germany is under pressure to change, predicting "a very relaxed discussion about this topic in Toronto." She suggested that the prevailing economic theory on stimulus—that increased deficit spending promotes growth— doesn't apply in Germany.
Continuing to run big deficits could backfire here, she said, because of Germans' angst over their aging society and rising public debt. Fear that the German welfare state could run out of money leads individuals to save their income as a precaution, she said. If Germany cuts its budget deficit instead, "then the citizen is more willing to spend money," she said, "because he knows that he can count on the pension, health and elderly-care systems."
However, acknowledging some of the criticism, the chancellor said Germany still needs more "structural reforms," especially to "improve the incentives to take up work and to strengthen the services sector." Many economists say German service industries are overregulated and underdeveloped compared with those in the U.S. and other advanced economies.
Berlin's emphasis on fiscal discipline received support from top European Union officials Wednesday in a letter to the G-20 that said the "global recovery is progressing better than anticipated," so that the time for stimulus is ending. Leading economies should agree to consolidate budgets "starting at the latest in 2011," EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso wrote in the letter.
Germany's anemic consumer spending, which could be further weakened as budget cuts kick in starting in 2011, is causing frustration in crisis-hit EU countries such as Spain and Greece, which need a boost from Germany as they take drastic measures to repair their public finances.
Many economists believe Berlin could stoke private demand by putting more money in Germans' pockets through measures such as tax cuts and by delaying planned austerity measures.
In the interview, Ms. Merkel said Germany has made "an important contribution to overcoming the global economic crisis in the last two years." She pointed to Germany's continuing fiscal-stimulus measures, which come to over 2% of gross domestic product in 2010, according to the International Monetary Fund.
"That's more than in many other countries," where stimulus policies are ending earlier, she said. But with Germany's economy expected to grow by close to 2% this year, she said the time has come to remove the stimulus "step by step" from 2011.
Ms. Merkel, a 55-year-old former physicist who grew up in Communist East Germany, has been chancellor since 2005 and won a decisive re-election victory last year as head of a conservative-led coalition. Since then, however, her own and her government's popularity have fallen amid internal squabbling between her cabinet allies.
Many German voters are also angry that Ms. Merkel agreed to the €110 billion ($135 billion) EU-IMF bailout of highly indebted Greece, and to the creation of a €750 billion rescue facility for other euro-zone countries that might hit financial trouble. Opinion polls suggest the euro-zone crisis has hardened Germans' negative view of the euro.
Ms. Merkel said her compatriots aren't turning euro-skeptic. "Germans know the value of all things European," she said. "All of the current discussion about the euro is taking place on the basis that we want to make the euro stronger, not to call it fundamentally into question."
Germans also complain frequently about the costs of German unification, but that doesn't mean that want to reverse it, Ms. Merkel pointed out.
However, Ms. Merkel warned that the euro zone hasn't ended the financial crisis that gripped Greece this spring and threatened to spread to other countries such as Spain and Portugal.
"We have calmed down the situation through the rescue facility," she said, adding: "We now have the possibility, and have won time, to remove structural weaknesses in the euro zone and its framework of rules."
She rejected the criticism, voiced in Paris, Brussels and other EU capitals, that Germany delayed the rescue of Greece for too long, allowing the crisis to escalate.
"It was right that we didn't go down the supposedly easy route of supporting Greece financially without clear conditions, without reflecting on what the underlying causes of this crisis are," she said. "Instead we are now tackling the causes, namely the lack of competitiveness" in Greece and other economies, she said.
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| | Sujet: 2511 - America needs an Afghan strategy, not an alibi 24/6/2010, 16:24 | |
| America needs an Afghan strategy, not an alibiBy Henry A. KissingerThursday, June 24, 2010 I supported President Obama's decision to double American forces in Afghanistan and continue to support his objectives. The issue is whether the execution of the policy is based on premises that do not reflect Afghan realities, at least within the deadline that has been set. - Spoiler:
The central premise is that, at some early point, the United States will be able to turn over security responsibilities to an Afghan government and national army whose writ is running across the entire country. This turnover is to begin next summer.
Neither the premise nor the deadline is realistic.
Afghanistan has never been pacified by foreign forces. At the same time, the difficulty of its territory combined with the fierce sense of autonomy of its population have historically thwarted efforts to achieve a transparent central government.
The argument that a deadline is necessary to oblige President Hamid Karzai to create a modern central government challenges experience. What weakens transparent central governance is not so much Karzai's intentions, ambiguous as they may be, but the structure of his society, run for centuries on the basis of personal relationships. Demands by an ally publicly weighing imminent withdrawal to overthrow established patterns in a matter of months may prove beyond any leader's capacities.
Every instinct I have rebels against this conclusion. But it is essential to avoid the debilitating domestic cycle that blighted especially the Vietnam and Iraq wars, in which the public mood shifted abruptly -- and often with little relation to military realities -- from widespread support to assaults on the adequacy of allies to calls for an exit strategy with the emphasis on exit, not strategy.
Afghanistan is a nation, not a state in the conventional sense. The writ of the Afghan government is likely to run in Kabul and its environs, not uniformly in the rest of the country. The attainable outcome is likely to be a confederation of semi-autonomous, regions configured largely on the basis of ethnicity, dealing with each other by tacit or explicit understandings. American counterinsurgency strategy -- no matter how creatively applied -- cannot alter this reality.
All this leaves only a narrow margin for the American effort. We are needed to bring about the space in which non-jihadist authorities can be established. But if we go beyond this into designing these political authorities, we commit ourselves to a process so prolonged and obtrusive as to risk turning even non-Taliban Afghans against us.
The facile way out is to blame the dilemma on Karzai's inadequacies or to advocate a simple end of the conflict by withdrawing from it.
Yet America needs a strategy, not an alibi. We have a basic national interest to prevent jihadist Islam from gaining additional momentum, which it will surely do if it can claim to have defeated the United States and its allies after overcoming the Soviet Union. A precipitate withdrawal would weaken governments in many countries with significant Islamic minorities. It would be seen in India as an abdication of the U.S. role in stabilizing the Middle East and South Asia and spur radical drift in Pakistan. It would, almost everywhere, raise questions about America's ability to define or execute its proclaimed goals. A militant Iran building its nuclear capacity would assess its new opportunities as the United States withdraws from both Iraq and Afghanistan and is unable to break the diplomatic stalemate over Iran's nuclear program. But an obtrusive presence would, in time, isolate us in Afghanistan as well as internationally.
Afghan strategy needs to be modified in four ways. The military effort should be conducted substantially on a provincial basis rather than in pursuit of a Western-style central government. The time scale for a political effort exceeds by a wide margin that available for military operations. We need a regional diplomatic framework for the next stage of Afghan strategy, whatever the military outcome. Artificial deadlines should be abandoned.
A regional diplomacy is desirable because our interests coincide substantially with those of many of the regional powers. All of them, from a strategic perspective, are more threatened than is the United States by an Afghanistan hospitable to terrorism. China in Sinkiang, Russia in its southern regions, India with respect to its Muslim minority of 160 million, Pakistan as to its political structure, and the smaller states in the region would face a major threat from an Afghanistan encouraging, or even tolerating, centers of terrorism. Regional diplomacy becomes all the more necessary to forestall a neocolonial struggle if reports about the prevalence of natural resources in Afghanistan prove accurate.
Afghanistan becomes an international issue whenever an outside power seeks to achieve unilateral dominance. Inevitably, this draws in other parties to establish a countervailing influence, driving events beyond rational calculation. A regional diplomacy should seek to establish a framework to insulate Afghanistan from the storms raging around it rather than allow the country to serve as their epicenter. It would also try to build Afghanistan into a regional development plan, perhaps encouraged by the Afghan economy's reported growth rate of 15 percent last year.
Military operations could be sustained and legitimized by such diplomacy. In evaluating our options, we must remember that every course will be difficult and that whatever strategy we pursue should be a nonpartisan undertaking. Above all, we need to do justice to all those who have sacrificed in the region, particularly the long-suffering Afghan people.
The writer was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.
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