Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise

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U.S. clamps down on banking transactions; terror group finds new funding

By Robert Windrem and Garrett Haake
NBC News
updated 7:56 a.m. ET Nov. 14, 2008
Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence officials believe they've won many small victories against al-Qaida's ability to finance its operations, but they remain unable to put a concrete dollar figure on their impact.

That's because they have no reliable estimate of al-Qaida's overall budget, according to current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials, which means the only measures of the organization's economic health are sporadic, anecdotal and fragmentary.

"When you see a cell complaining that it hasn't received its monthly or biannual stipend and it's unable to pay the salaries of the people in the cell, unable to make the support payments to the families of terrorists living or dead, that's a tremendous indicator we have pressured the financial channel," said Adam Szubin, the director of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the man in charge of tracking terrorist finance.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27644191

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OPINION

JANUARY 31, 2009, 12:04 A.M. ET

By PETER BERKOWITZ
Now that George W. Bush has left the harsh glare of the White House and Barack Obama has settled into the highest office in the land, it might be reasonable to suppose that Bush hatred and Obama euphoria will begin to subside. Unfortunately, there is good reason to doubt that the common sources that have nourished these dangerous political passions will soon lose their potency.

At first glance, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria could not be more different. Hatred of Mr. Bush went well beyond the partisan broadsides typical of democratic politics. For years it disfigured its victims with open, indeed proud, loathing for the very manner in which Mr. Bush walked and talked. It compelled them to denounce the president and his policies as not merely foolish or wrong or contrary to the national interest, but as anathema to everything that made America great.

In contrast, the euphoria surrounding Mr. Obama's run for president conferred upon the candidate immunity from criticism despite his newness to national politics and lack of executive experience, and regardless of how empty his calls for change. At the same time, it inspired those in its grips, repeatedly bringing them tears of joy throughout the long election season. With Mr. Obama's victory in November and his inauguration last week, it suffused them with a sense that not only had the promise of America at last been redeemed but that the world could now be transfigured.
In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.

To be sure, democratic debate has always been a messy affair in which passion threatens to overwhelm reason. So long as citizens remain free and endowed with a diversity of interests and talents, it will remain so.

In October 1787, amid economic crisis and widespread fears about the new nation's ability to defend itself, Alexander Hamilton, in the first installment of what was to become the Federalist Papers, surveyed the formidable obstacles to giving the newly crafted Constitution a fair hearing. Some would oppose it, Hamilton observed, out of fear that ratification would diminish their wealth and power. Others would reject it because they hoped to profit from the political disarray that would ensue. The opposition of still others was rooted in "the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears."

Indeed, the best of men, Hamilton acknowledged, were themselves all-too-vulnerable to forming ill-considered political opinions: "So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes, which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society."

In surveying the impediments to bringing reason to bear in politics, it was not Hamilton's aim to encourage despair over democracy's prospects but to refine political expectations. "This circumstance, if duly attended to," he counseled, "would furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right, in any controversy."

As Hamilton would have supposed, the susceptibility of political judgment to corruption by interest and ambition is as operative in our time as it was in his. What has changed is that those who, by virtue of their education and professional training, would have once been the first to grasp Hamilton's lesson of moderation are today the leading fomenters of immoderation.

Bush hatred and Obama euphoria are particularly toxic because they thrive in and have been promoted by the news media, whose professional responsibility, it has long been thought, is to gather the facts and analyze their significance, and by the academy, whose scholarly training, it is commonly assumed, reflects an aptitude for and dedication to systematic study and impartial inquiry.

From the avalanche of vehement and ignorant attacks on Bush v. Gore and the oft-made and oft-refuted allegation that the Bush administration lied about WMD in Iraq, to the remarkable lack of interest in Mr. Obama's career in Illinois politics and the determined indifference to his wrongness about the surge, wide swaths of the media and the academy have concentrated on stoking passions rather than appealing to reason.

Some will speculate that the outbreak of hatred and euphoria in our politics is the result of the transformation of left-liberalism into a religion, its promulgation as dogma by our universities, and students' absorption of their professors' lesson of immoderation. This is unfair to religion.

At least it's unfair to those forms of biblical faith that teach that God's ways are hidden and mysterious, that all human beings are both deserving of respect and inherently flawed, and that it is idolatry to invest things of this world -- certainly the goods that can be achieved through politics -- with absolute value. Through these teachings, biblical faith encourages skepticism about grand claims to moral and political authority and an appreciation of the limits of one's knowledge, both of which well serve liberal democracy.

In contrast, by assembling and maintaining faculties that think alike about politics and think alike that the university curriculum must instill correct political opinions, our universities cultivate intellectual conformity and discourage the exercise of reason in public life. It is not that our universities invest the fundamental principles of liberalism with religious meaning -- after all the Declaration of Independence identifies a religious root of our freedom and equality. Rather, they infuse a certain progressive interpretation of our freedom and equality with sacred significance, zealously requiring not only outward obedience to its policy dictates but inner persuasion of the heart and mind. This transforms dissenters into apostates or heretics, and leaders into redeemers.

Consequently, though Bush hatred may weaken as the 43rd president minds his business back home in Texas, and while Obama euphoria may fade as the 44th president is compelled to immerse himself in the daunting ambiguities of power, our universities will continue to educate students to believe that hatred and euphoria reflect political wisdom. Urgent though the problem is, not even the efficient and responsible spending of a $1 trillion stimulus package would begin to address it.

Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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"Idiots" indeed

After President Obama denounced Wall Street bonuses as "shameful" on Thursday, the way was clear for the rest of the political class to pour gasoline on the bonfire being prepared for the offending bankers. Senator Chris Dodd, former "friend" of mortgage banker Angelo Mozilo, ranted that the Treasury should somehow confiscate the bonuses.
Senator Claire McCaskill rolled out legislation to put a compensation cap of $400,000 on executives whose firms receive bailout money. She also proposes creating a court to restrain their "massive self-indulgences." The Senator from Missouri then spoke of "a bunch of idiots on Wall Street." Insofar as the Congress is blithely waving more than $800 billion of cats-and-dogs "stimulus" spending into the air, the American people can be forgiven for asking who are the greater fools.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has begun a formal investigation into the bonuses and the negotiating details of Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch. In short, Mr. Cuomo is putting BofA head Ken Lewis and Merrill's John Thain in the legal crosshairs. Watching this spectacle, Mr. Obama should consider that there may be a price for letting the populist flames burn out of control during a deep recession.

In our experience, political nuance has never been the strong suit of Wall Street executives. John Thain's year-end bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives, whatever their rationale, reflected an acute case of political tin ear. If the excesses of his office-decorating take this Wall Street practice the way of the dodo, we won't weep.
Yet the hard truth remains that whether on Wall Street or across the American business landscape, compensation levels are a business judgment made under the pressure of competition. The "idiots" notwithstanding, Wall Street has lots of highly talented financial minds and mobility among firms based on compensation is routine.
If Congress is going to start setting legal limits on salaries and bonuses in the U.S., it is going to drive talent out of Bank of America and these other banks and into institutions without such limits, perhaps abroad. The same goes for Attorney General Cuomo's implied threat of prosecutions.

A few quick facts about Wall Street bonuses. The pretext for the political outrage was the New York comptroller's report this week on the aggregate data for bonuses in 2008. That "irresponsible" bonus pool of $18 billion was for every worker in the New York financial industry, from top dogs to secretaries. This bonus pool fell 44% in 2008, the largest percentage decline in 30 years. The average bonus was $112,000; bonuses typically make up most of an employee's salary on Wall Street. The comptroller estimates that this decline will cost New York State $1 billion in lost tax revenue and New York City $275 million. Both city and state may have to announce layoffs.

What is more, the "Wall Street" of popular and fevered imagination isn't coming back anytime soon, if ever. Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch are gone, kaput. Enough bankers have been ruined or fired to sate class resentments for a lifetime. The remaining big two, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are no longer formally investment banks but are now under the supervisory control of the Federal Reserve. The Wall Street business model is broken, and not at a particularly opportune moment for the economy.

Mr. Obama wanted to hit a populist nerve this week because he knows he may have to ask Congress for another $1 trillion or more to revive the banking system. He also knows that the core of the economic crisis is a lending system that remains frozen in a vast lake of toxic, mispriced securities. In short, the credit system is on strike (see above).
The U.S. is a long way from getting out from under this burden. The danger of targeting what capitalists we have left for abuse or prosecution is that they will stay on strike, as they did in the 1930s. It won't be pretty this time either.

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Daschle Knew of Tax Issues Over Car Use Last June

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s choice for health secretary, Tom Daschle, was aware as early as last June that he might have to pay back taxes for the use of a car and driver provided by a private equity firm, but did not inform the Obama transition team until weeks after Mr. Obama named him to the health secretary’s post, senior administration officials said Saturday.

Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

The president’s pick for health secretary, Tom Daschle, failed to pay $128,000 in taxes.

Daschle Pays 3 Years of Tax on Use of Car (January 31, 2009)

As Senate Democrats rushed to save the nomination of Mr. Daschle, their former leader, the White House spent the day trying to explain how he survived its vetting process despite his failure to pay $128,000 in taxes.

The White House would not say when the president himself learned of the tax issue, but said Mr. Obama is standing by his nominee.

LA TRANS-PA-REN-CE, vous dis-je!

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“The president believes that nobody is perfect, but that nobody is trying to hide anything,” Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary, said in an interview, adding, “I think Senator Daschle rightly is going to have to answer questions, but I think members will be satisfied with the answers that he gives and will understand that he’s the right man for the job.”
geek

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At least six leading Democratic senators have come out in support of Mr. Daschle, but the fate of his nomination is unclear. The Senate Finance Committee, which is charged with holding a confirmation hearing on Mr. Daschle’s nomination, will meet behind closed doors Monday to discuss his taxes. After Timothy F. Geithner, Mr. Obama’s Treasury secretary, faced similar issues, some senators may have little appetite for confirming another nominee with tax problems.

“It’s totally shocking,” an aide to a Democratic senator said Saturday. “Why do we have to continue to have the same story over and over again with these nominees?”

Mr. Daschle, who has paid the back taxes with interest, is the latest of Mr. Obama’s cabinet choices who have run into trouble, and the revelations about his finances — which include more than $300,000 in income from health-related companies that he might regulate as secretary — raise questions about the presidential vetting process, as well as Mr. Obama’s ability to keep his pledge to run an administration free of outside influence.

“One of the problems here is what they set up as expectations,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, an expert in presidential transitions at Towson University. “If you have talked about the importance of ethics and set up the kind of rules they did on lobbying, then I think it sets expectations that yours is going to be an administration that is not going to have problems that others might have had.”

CHANGEment

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Privately, some Democrats on Saturday were scratching their heads at how Mr. Daschle, a Washington insider with a reputation as a sophisticated thinker, could have made such a mistake.
scratch

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A spokeswoman for Mr. Daschle, Jenny Backus, said Mr. Daschle became concerned last June

that he might owe taxes on the car and driver, and instructed his accountant to investigate. Mr. Obama named Mr. Daschle to the health secretary’s post on Dec. 11. But it was not until late December or early January,

Pas tres rapide le CPA!

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after the accountant came back to Mr. Daschle with a report on the back taxes owed, that the former senator informed the White House transition team. Ms. Backus said Mr. Daschle did not think to mention it earlier, in part because “he thought his accountant was taking care of it,” and in part because he had no idea the amount owed would be so high.

“He took responsibility for his mistake as soon as he figured it out,” Ms. Backus said. “That’s about all you can do. People who know him and respect him are putting that mistake in context.”

On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats rallied around Mr. Daschle, a former senator from South Dakota who lost his seat in 2004 while serving as the minority leader. Mr. Daschle is a close ally of the president’s — he marshaled his staff on behalf of the Obama campaign, and at least five former Daschle aides now have top White House jobs — and Democrats vowed to go to bat for him.

“We wish this didn’t happen,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who is on the Finance Committee, “but he’s chosen such quality people that nobody minds taking a bit of an extra step to help get them in.”

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But already, Mr. Daschle is becoming the butt of Republican jokes, as was the case at the House Republican retreat this weekend. According to one person who was there, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the party whip, had this to say after hearing the news about Mr. Daschle: “It is easy for the other side to advocate for higher taxes because — you know what? — they don’t pay them.”

When Mr. Obama was elected, official Washington marveled at the speed of his transition and the rigorous vetting process. But Paul C. Light, a professor at New York University who studies the federal bureaucracy, said that “speed may have been the enemy of thoroughness” in the Obama process. The White House, though, insisted that was not the case.

“In terms of the vetting,” Mr. Gibbs said Saturday, “we’re comfortable with the process.”

Richardson - Geithner - Daschle et rien que dans des postes de prime importance. Les autres.... s'ils existent avec la transparence opaque, je doute que nous soyons tenus au courant!

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The information about Mr. Daschle has come to light in different ways. He disclosed some to the transition team, including the taxes owed on the car and driver. The transition team spotted a problem with his charitable tax deductions, and the Senate Finance Committee discovered the failure to pay Medicare tax on the use of the car.
If Mr. Daschle’s confirmation is derailed, it would undoubtedly hurt one of Mr. Obama’s major domestic priorities: revamping the health care system. Mr. Daschle has been asked by the president to serve in a dual role spearheading that effort as the White House “health czar.”

As a politician, Mr. Daschle often struck a populist note, but his financial disclosure report shows that in the last two years, he received $2.1 million from a law firm, Alston & Bird; $2 million in consulting fees from a private equity firm run by a major Democratic fundraiser, Leo Hindery Jr. (which provided him with the car and driver); and at least $220,000 for speeches to health care, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. He also received nearly $100,000 from health-related companies affected by federal regulation.

Mr. Obama has instituted rules requiring former lobbyists in his administration to pledge not to deal with former clients, though he has made exceptions for two nominees, one at the Pentagon and one at the health agency. As a strategic adviser to companies, Mr. Daschle did not have to register as a lobbyist, and is not technically covered by those rules.

“He’s never lobbied, therefore he’s not in violation of the pledge,” Mr. Gibbs said. “The president is comfortable with Senator Daschle’s variety of experiences and backgrounds. It’s why he believes he’s best suited to the efforts to reform our health care system.”

Ta daaaa! cheers

Nombre de messages : 1674 Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008

Bonsoir Biloulou sunny

C'est la pagaille dans les N°s...

A vrai dire les termes techniques m'importent peu, l'essentiel etant qu'ils soient juges pour des actes dont ils se seraient rendus reponsables. S'il faut creer un tribunal particulier ou d'exception, soit, mais l'aberration de Guantanamo et des prisons secretes de la CIA doit cesser en l'etat.

Le probleme restant, etant celui de savoir qu'en faire et je rajouterai au paragraphe n° 4 de Mme Lizin : ne pas les livrer a certains pays qui s'empresseront de les remettre en liberte.

Je note que, en gros, les constatations et recommandations de ce rapport correspondent à ce que l'Administration Bush avait déjà mis en route, après les tâtonnements que cette situation nouvelle et urgente posait...

Notez, notez Biloulou, c'est bien. Notez simplement que si l'administration Bush a finalement cede, c'est uniquement sous la pression internationale, comme pour Abou Ghraib et autres petites gentillesses Wink

Bonjour Shansaa ! sunny

Oufti! comme diraient mes compatriotes d'adoption, quelle pagaille !
Je me demande si je ne vais pas tenter la suggestion de Jam, vu que chaque écran de messages en affiche 10...
C'est finalement très facile quand on veut se référer à un message de citer sa page, qui est indiquée, et son numéro d'ordre qui est pour ainsi dire évident ...

Je reviens à votre message.

Si j'ai écrit "...correspondent à ce que l'Administration Bush avait déjà mis en route, après les tâtonnements que cette situation nouvelle et urgente posait..." , par "avait déjà" je soulignais le fait que les États-Unis n'ont pas attendu le rapport de Mme Lizin pour faire évoluer le centre de détention de Guantánamo.

À mon point de vue, s'il s'était agi d'une guerre classique prévue et préparée longtemps à l'avance, des centres de détention militaires auraient été préparés. Mais...

Mais tout s'est passé tellement vite, la situation était si neuve, les crimes et les criminels étaient d'un type si nouveau, on avait à faire à un genre de guerre inédit, tout était à inventer... et l'Administration Bush s'y est employée de son mieux, comme les Alliés à Nuremberg.

Ce que je trouve proprement hallucinant est la constance des médias à ignorer le seul rapport légitime d'inspection de Guantánamo, celui de Mme Lizin, et à nous asséner encore et toujours de la désinformation, de l'intoxication, bref, des mensonges, à un point tel que même les honnêtes gens finissent par répéter leurs impostures de toute bonne foi.

Mais bon, on fait ce qu'on peut pour rétablir la vérite...

Sujet: 330- Ah oui, c'est vrai ! 1/2/2009, 20:28

Est-ce que vous parlez sérieusement quand vous établissez un parallèle entre la discipline stricte qui règne à Guantánamo et les fantaisies de trois ou quatre ploucs d'Abou Ghraib, qui font plutôt penser à des bizutages à forte tendance sadique qu'à des méthodes de gestion des détenus ? Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 480334

Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 480334

Nombre de messages : 1674 Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008

Bonsoir Biloulou flower

Je me permets de repeter que si les US n'ont pas attendu le rapport de Mme Lizin, ils n'ont mis en route les changements a Guantanamo que sous la pression internationale. Ce qui a "ete prepare",( tiens ca on a le temps de le faire ???) ce sont les "centres de detention" (c'est gentil ca non ? :-)) de la CIA mais, oops ca aussi ca a ete decouvert et il a bien fallu "mettre en route" la fermeture et decreter qu'on ne torturerait plus, enfin qu'on se reservait le droit d'avoir recours a certaines techniques d'interrogation...... qui sont pourtant assimilees a de la torture par le droit international.

Quand a Mme Lizin, parlons-en. Il me semble que cette brave dame ne soit pas en odeur de saintete pour des questions d'ethique, mais je m'egare !

Je n'ai aucune raison de la croire plus particulierement d'autant plus qu'elle a fait un rapport sans avoir une seule fois interroge un prisonnier ni ete mise en contact avec l'un d'entre eux. Elle estimait que cela concernait uniquement le CICR. Comme "seul rapport legitime" ca n'engage donc que elle.......et vous Smile

Le CICR qui s'est rendu a Guantanamo apporte une toute autre version des choses. Et j'aurais tendance a pencher pour le CICR Razz

qui a discute avec gardes et prisonniers et qui a plusieurs fois denonce les conditions de detention des prisonniers.
Une douzaine de gardes et de prisonniers se sont suicides. Signe que tout etait pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes je suppose Wink

Ce que je trouve proprement hallucinant est la constance des médias à
ignorer le seul rapport légitime d'inspection de Guantánamo, celui de
Mme Lizin, et à nous asséner encore et toujours de la désinformation,
de l'intoxication, bref, des mensonges, à un point tel que même les
honnêtes gens finissent par répéter leurs impostures de toute bonne foi.

Moi ce que je trouve hallucinant, c'est le deni dans lequel certaines honnetes gens preferent vivre parce que ca arrange leur convictions politiques et leur foi dans certains
"chefs" Very Happy

. Nous n'hallucinons pas tous pour la meme chose, ce serait barbant.

Mais bon, on fait ce qu'on peut pour rétablir la vérite...

Votre verite, Biloulou, votre verite !. Ce n'est pas forcement LA verite..... Very Happy

.

Nombre de messages : 1674 Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008

Biloulou a écrit:: Est-ce que vous parlez sérieusement quand vous établissez un parallèle entre la discipline stricte qui règne à Guantánamo et les fantaisies de trois ou quatre ploucs d'Abou Ghraib, qui font plutôt penser à des bizutages à forte tendance sadique qu'à des méthodes de gestion des détenus ?

Re-bonsoir Biloulou, Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 267600

Desolee, le cynisme a des limites.

Passez une bonne nuit.

Sujet: 333- À Shansaa, en "331" 2/2/2009, 08:36

Bon, c'est une façon de présenter les choses en y instillant des suppositions, des conjectures, des extrapolations... mais c'est évidemment votre droit et surtout votre façon de communiquer avec moi, donc j'accepte avec plaisir.

Inversement, je préfère me tenir au rapport de l'OCDE (sans en faire un dogme) qui me semble beaucoup plus digne de crédit que les oeuvres du CICR.
C'est peut-être la conséquence de certaines relations... surprenantes (sic) que j'ai eu avec d'autres instances de la Croix rouge.

De vous à moi, le raport de l'OCDE n'engage pas uniquement Mme Lizin et votre serviteur mais la Communauté Européenne toute entière.
Vous vouliez me flatter, hein ?

Oui, j'ai entendu qu'on soupçonne les services de la très socialiste Mme Lizin d'irrégularités dans l'administration de sa ville d'Huy.
Et aussi, il qu'y a quelques années, elle a organisé et participé à une expédition très confidentielle en Algérie pour tenter de ramener en Belgique les enfants d'un couple belgo-algérien, divorcé, dont la garde des enfants avait été confiée à leur mère, en Belgique, et que le mari avait enlevé et emmené avec lui en Algérie. L'opération avait échoué.
C'est qu'elle a le caractère bien trempé, la madame, et on ne lui dicte pas facilement ce qu'elle doit faire ou dire...

Votre vérité... ma vérité...
Je n'ai pas de vérité à imposer, Shansaa, mais quand j'ai à me forger un opinion sur ce qui se passe à l'autre bout du monde je dois me fier provisoirement à la documentation crédible qui existe au lieu de laisser mon imagination voguer vers là où ça m'arrange...

Le refus du syndrôme de Nathalie, quoi ! Wink

Sujet: 334- Oui, bien sûr 2/2/2009, 08:41

Shansaa a écrit:: Re-bonsoir Biloulou,
Desolee, le cynisme a des limites.
Passez une bonne nuit.

C'est bien ce que je me dis en lisant certains médias.... Twisted Evil

(Grand merci, ma nuit fut bonne et reposante. La vôtre aussi ?)

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Je viens de corriger la numerotation dans mes messages de la page precedente. (l'internet ne refonctionne correctement que maintenant - orage incroyable ici depuis hier soir mais le calme est revenu)

L'erreur venait du fait que j'avais transfere l'un (message) d'entre eux d'un fil a celui-ci gardant l'autre numerotation.

Mea Culpa Embarassed

Sujet: 336- L'important... 2/2/2009, 10:28

...est que vous ayez survécu à l'orage. Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 456111

Ah, on peut transférer des messages d'un fil à l'autre ? Mais c'est formidable, ça !
Je me dis que finalement je m'accomode fort bien de ce déménagement forcé. Merci MSN. Wink

Entre-temps je réfléchis sérieusement à la suggestion de Jam.... Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 654324

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By STEPHEN RADEMAKER
Published: February , 2009

THE presidential campaign failed to address the hard choices America must make to contain the Iranian nuclear threat. By focusing almost exclusively on tactics, the election obscured the questions that really matter: What should the United States demand when it finally talks to Iran? And when Iran rejects our opening position, how much should we compromise to come to a deal?

The opening act, after all, is entirely predictable. The Obama administration will likely begin negotiations by insisting that Iran suspend its efforts to enrich uranium. Compliance with this requirement — imposed by the United Nations Security Council in July 2006 and reiterated several times since — has been the goal of the European-led negotiations with Iran that President Obama faulted the Bush administration for not joining. Iran has consistently rejected the demands of the United Nations and our European allies, however, and it would be naïve to expect a different answer just because the United States is at the negotiating table. Iran will almost certainly say no, presumably calculating that it can eventually force the world to accept its enrichment program.

So what then? After a few unsuccessful meetings, experts both in and outside of government will increasingly express doubts about the American position. They will ask: Aren’t we demanding too much? Perhaps it was reasonable to call for suspension in 2006 when Iran had 164 centrifuges spinning, but is it reasonable now that Iran claims to have more than 5,000 in operation, and more on the way? Some will argue that time is on Iran’s side: As we negotiate, Iranians will continue to install more centrifuges. So shouldn’t we cut the best deal we can now, even if it allows Iran to continue enriching?

The critics will propose fallback positions like allowing enrichment, but under enhanced international safeguards that supposedly can detect the development of nuclear weapons. Perhaps they will propose strict limits on the amount of uranium that Iran can enrich. Or, as suggested last year by the retired diplomat Thomas Pickering and his co-writers William Luers and Jim Walsh: allowing enrichment, but only on the condition that Iran converts its national enrichment efforts into a multinational program that is owned and operated by a consortium of countries.

The problem is that other countries in the region could demand the same treatment. Such is the lesson of the Bush administration’s decision to abandon its opposition to Iran’s construction of a nuclear power reactor at Bushehr. This eliminated the option of opposing civil nuclear power elsewhere in the Middle East. How could we explain to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for example, that we trust Iran to have civil nuclear power reactors, but not them?
The same principle applies to enrichment. Once we accept enrichment in Iran, it will become impossible to deny the same arrangement to friendly governments in the region, let alone unfriendly ones like Syria. The result will be the proliferation of dangerous nuclear technologies that we have been seeking to avoid.

The risks will be even greater if we agree to convert Natanz into an international enrichment center. International partners will not invest in a primitive enrichment operation that relies on old and unproven technologies. They will insist on state of the art enrichment equipment, Western management and access to export markets — the absence of which has hindered Iran’s enrichment progress up to now. By contrast, so long as Iran’s nuclear enrichment program remains illegitimate and subject to international censure, it cannot serve as an attractive model for other countries.

For these reasons, the United States cannot be more eager than Tehran to reach a deal, and Mr. Obama must persuade Iran that he can afford to see negotiations fail. Of course, he will have to do so amid the high expectations that he has created by calling for direct, unconditional engagement with Tehran. This may turn out to be the new president’s greatest diplomatic challenge.

Stephen Rademaker was an assistant secretary of state responsible for arms control and nonproliferation from 2002 to 2006.

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Vive le CHANGEment! bounce

Il est temps qu'une nouvelle loi limite le nombre de mandats au Congres!

In Daschle’s Tax Woes, a Peek Into Washington

Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 02daschle_span

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Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

Tom Daschle speaking to former Senator Bob Dole last month during a Senate hearing. Mr. Daschle has taken on an array of clients seeking influence in Washington.

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate leader, had been voted out of office. His close friend Leo Hindery, a Democratic donor and media mogul, was out of a job too, having just sold his latest company, Yes Networks.

So in early 2005 the two men decided to team up. Mr. Daschle agreed to become the founding chairman of “a world-class executive advisory board” of “industry and regulatory experts” for a new investment firm run by Mr. Hindery, according to a news release announcing its inception and seeking investors. The Daschle-led board, the release said, would help provide a “collective depth of industry knowledge and expertise that will allow us to pursue unique and high-value opportunities.”

In addition to lending the prestige of his name, Mr. Daschle traveled to help raise money from investors for Mr. Hindery’s new venture, said Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for Mr. Daschle. And in exchange, over the next four years the firm compensated Mr. Daschle with over $2 million, and Mr. Hindery lent Mr. Daschle the use of a chauffeured limousine in Washington.

Ms. Backus said that when Mr. Hindery was not in Washington he lent his car to Mr. Daschle as a favor to a friend.
The partnership has now come back to haunt Mr. Daschle, with the disclosure that he had failed to pay $128,000 in taxes on the car and driver Mr. Hindery’s firm provided him, threatening to derail his confirmation as secretary of health and human services.

Beyond the ramifications for Mr. Daschle’s ascent to the cabinet, the disclosures about Mr. Hindery and the many clients Mr. Daschle advised on public policy offers a new window into how Washington works. It shows how in just four years an influential former senator was able to make $5 million and live a lavish lifestyle by dint of his name, connections and knowledge of the town’s inner workings.

There is no evidence that Mr. Daschle pulled strings for Mr. Hindery. Indeed, Mr. Hindery’s firm appears to have had few interests before the government. But interviews and a review of public documents show that in his work for a Washington law firm, Mr. Daschle did take on an array of clients seeking influence with the government, including concerns involved in Indian gambling, ethanol, health care, telecommunications and federal contracting.

At least one, the nonprofit student loan company EduCap, may pose new problems for Mr. Daschle. The Senate Finance Committee said it was trying to determine whether trips to the Bahamas and the Middle East provided to Mr. Daschle by the company should also have been reported as income.
Ms. Backus said that the trips predated his work for EduCap, that he traveled at the request of a different charity, and that his accountants say he handled the trips appropriately.

Affiliated with the firm Alston & Bird, Mr. Daschle has operated in the gap between the popular understanding and legal definition of a lobbyist. There is no evidence that he directly sought to influence his former colleagues or other government officials in ways that would have required him to register as a lobbyist or could have run afoul of the restrictions on former lobbyists entering the Obama administration. But the rules still left plenty of room for him to advise businesses seeking to influence the government or to profit otherwise from the fame and insights he acquired in public life.

“Did he attempt to influence? Maybe,” said Thomas Susman, an official at the American Bar Association and author of its lobbying manual. “Did he advise others in the business of influencing? Probably. But he wasn’t a lobbyist.” Ms. Backus said Mr. Daschle provided clients with advice based on years of public service. But she said he also gave the same insights free to the One campaign and the liberal Center for American Progress, as well as to his students at Georgetown University.

Un peu la meme idee que les anciens employes du FISC qui s'installent a leur compte et vous sort de problemes "delicats" connaissant exactement les "ins and outs" ou les anciens employer de l'immigration qui font de meme apportent leurs connaissances a des cabinets d'avocats.

Aides to President Obama said on Sunday that they still expected Mr. Daschle to win confirmation. The Senate Finance Committee will meet on Monday to discuss the nomination.

What expertise Mr. Daschle contributed to Mr. Hindery’s firm is hard to determine. The firm, Intermedia, has hired no federal lobbyists and it mainly invests in media businesses — the television program “Soul Train,” for example; cable networks devoted to gospel music or hunting and fishing; and the Christian publisher Thomas Nelson — with few interests before the government.

Mr. Hindery, who sought the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in 2000, could not be reached for comment. Other firm executives did not return calls. Former Senator Bob Kerrey, another board member, did not respond to an e-mail message.

Former Senator Slade Gorton, a Washington Republican who also joined the board, said in an interview on Sunday that the other members received $100,000 a year in compensation, mainly for attending quarterly meetings about the state of the firm.

The Senate Finance Committee expects to disclose this week the results of a two-year investigation into the possibility that Mr. Daschle’s client EduCap abused its tax-exempt status by providing lavish entertainment and travel to its officers and their guests, including Mr. Dashcle. Mr. Daschle is an old friend of Catherine B. Reynolds, EduCap’s chief executive.

Another client paying for his policy advice was UnitedHealth, a giant insurance company with many issues pending before the Department of Health and Human Services. About a third of its $81 billion in revenue last year came from federally regulated sales of Medicare Advantage and Medicare supplement and prescription drug plans.

The company boasted in its annual report that “one in five Medicare recipients participates in a UnitedHealth Group Medicare program.” (Mr. Daschle has said he will recuse himself from matters involving former clients.)

Two of the clients Mr. Daschle disclosed involved Indian tribes: the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association, and the law firm Fredericks Peebles & Morgan, which represents Indian tribes in legal and government-relations matters involving gambling, health care and other issues.

Another was Perry Capital, a firm that specialized in handicapping the completion of mergers, many of which required federal approvals.

Several other clients or employers have stakes in federal support for the production of ethanol, an alternative to petroleum popular in farm states but controversial among environmentalists. Mr. Daschle received fees as a director of Prime BioSolutions and the Mascoma Corporation, which are involved in ethanol production, and he sold policy advice to the Governors’ Ethanol Coalition and the Renewable Fuels Association. Other clients were investment companies with stakes in federal environmental policies, and one, Crown Consulting, specialized in work for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Mr. Daschle was also a director of the Mayo Clinic. Although he did not officially lobby for the hospital, he did lend his voice to its cause in at least one notable battle. (As a director, Mr. Daschle received free medical care from the clinic, and for that he paid taxes, his spokeswoman said.)

Over the last few years, the clinic paid several Washington lobbyists to help beat back a $2.5 billion government loan for a company from Mr. Daschle’s home state, South Dakota, that wanted to operate a freight rail line near the clinic’s headquarters in Rochester, Minn.

To much criticism in his home state, Mr. Daschle sided with the clinic, calling it “an American treasure.”
“I don’t think the Mayo Clinic is asking too much,” he told The St. Paul Pioneer Press. The Federal Railroad Administration killed the project last February.

Finalement comment Daschle, va-t-il pouvoir faire un travail correct s'il doit se recuser (selon sa propre suggestion) a chaque fois qu'un plan approchera de toutes ces societes ou de tout ce qui, de pres ou de loin, plus peut etre leur interet?

Et Obama est toujours pour qu'il soit confirme? Rolling Eyes

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Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 OB-DB027_0130da_D_20090130190718

Daschle Apologizes For Tax Errors

The former senator also is to face questions on gifts from a charity.

...

bounce

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By GLENN THRUSH & JOHN BRESNAHAN | 2/2/09 10:56 AM EST

When the book is written on Nancy Pelosi’s reign as speaker of the House, the thinnest chapter just might turn out to be: “Bipartisanship and the 111th Congress.”

To hear her aides and associates tell it, Pelosi entered last week on her best bipartisan behavior, hoping that billions in tax cuts would be enough to lure six to 10 Republican House members to vote for the $819 billion stimulus plan.

To Republicans, it was a typical Pelosi pose — and they accused her of ramming one of the biggest spending bills in history down their throats while scaling back President Barack Obama’s tax-cut proposal to fund 40 years’ worth of liberal wish-list items.

In the end, the GOP unleashed a Rush-and-Drudge media campaign on funding for contraceptives and resodding of the National Mall tucked into the package — and Pelosi was genuinely surprised that every single Republican House member voted against it.

As a result, the speaker’s public commitment to bipartisanship may quickly yield to a depressingly familiar pattern of partisan combat that comes along with her new role as Obama’s human shield.

None of this was entirely unexpected, but the window of opportunity is closing fast for Republicans. And a handful of Democrats who defied her on the stimulus, especially Reps. Paul E. Kanjorksi of Pennsylvania and Heath Shuler of North Carolina, may also find themselves shut out, Pelosi associates and Democratic aides tell Politico.

Les memes qui reprochaient a Pres. Bush le fameux "Vous etes avec ou contre nous" au sujet de la guerre contre la terreur.

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“I think the take-away here is ‘screw ’em,’” half-joked a House Democratic aide.

“Remember, you have a speaker who has dealt with that for a couple years. She dealt with it as minority leader, she dealt with it as speaker [under President George W. Bush],” another staffer close to Pelosi said.

“What she realized with Obama coming in was that, yeah, we can go through this dance, but at the end of the day, this was going to be a tutorial for the Obama folks,” the person added. “They’re all going to vote against you and then come to your cocktail party that night.”

At the moment, targeting Pelosi and pulling punches with Obama is a simple matter of math for House Republicans. The new president’s approval ratings are in the 65 to 75 percent range; Pelosi’s are frozen at around 40 percent.

“Obama is at 70 [percent], we’re at 30 [percent],” noted a top Senate Democratic aide, referring to the even lower approval rating the Congress gets as a whole. “Of course they’re going to drive a wedge between us.”

GOP leaders have other more substantive reasons to prefer Obama over Pelosi. She is much less supportive of tax cuts, persuading Obama to scale back his original tax cut plan from more than $300 billion to around $275 billion. And she’s signaled she might push back if the White House insists on allowing the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy to expire at the end of 2010, instead of repealing them sooner.

“The president’s call for bipartisanship has been completely ignored by the House Democrats,” the No. 3 ranking Republican in the House, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, told the Washington Post shortly before the stimulus vote.

Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), perhaps the most aggressive partisan in the Republican caucus, has portrayed the unanimous “no” vote as a blow against an imperial and unresponsive majority.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, arguably the most conservative member of the upper chamber, expressed a more visceral sentiment, whooping it up in the manner of former NFL coach Jimmy Johnson, who used to bellow “How about those Cowboys?” after Dallas wins.

“How about those House Republicans?” DeMint told a group of the like-minded at the Heritage Foundation last week.

Still, there’s a serious potential downside to the strategy. Senior Democratic aides say they’ll hammer away on the notion that the GOP, led by Rush Limbaugh, is essentially banking on the failure of the stimulus — and Republicans will be “pushed further into the minority” if the program actually succeeds.

The GOP bluster hasn’t carried through on other, lower-profile votes.

Last month, 40 Republicans bucked party leadership to vote with the Democratic majority in expanding the popular federal children’s health program — and a similar number rejected Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer’s Tuesday amendment striking everything but tax cuts from the stimulus.

Moreover, some Republican members have hinted they’d be willing to support the stimulus when an amended version bounces back from the Senate, perhaps with an extension of middle-income exemptions to the alternative minimum tax.

For her part, Pelosi has publicly embraced the role as Obama’s besieged field general on the Hill, even if a little resentment leeched through after a week of absorbing the attacks that would have been aimed at a less popular president.

One metaphor-mixing aide said Pelosi has become the “whipping horse for Obama, she’s taken all the punches on this, when [Republicans] aren’t going to vote with Obama in a million years.”

Another staffer, another mixed metaphor about Pelosi’s self-sacrifice: “She’s willing to take a bullet for [Obama]. ... And the White House was perfectly willing to let her take all the hits.”

Yet for Pelosi, last week’s victory was a sweet one. She was clearly delighted in her comfortable margin of victory and even a little tickled by Republicans’ inability to change the outcome despite their unanimous opposition. The speaker was in a jubilant mood late on the morning after the vote, and echoes of applause, mixed with cheering, reverberated from her office into the Capitol Rotunda.

But there were hints of pique. Pelosi cut off a reporter at her weekly press availability when asked about the role Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh played in her stimulus-week demonization.

“I am the speaker of the House. I don’t get into that,” she said, waving a dismissive hand.

“I didn’t come here to be partisan, I didn’t come here to be bipartisan,” she added. “I came here, as did my colleagues, to be nonpartisan, to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest.”

Responding to claims that she shut Republicans out of the real decision making in the process, she shot back: “We reached out to the Republicans all along the way, and they know it. And they know it. ... They just didn’t have the ideas that had the support of the majority of the people in the Congress.”

Pelosi, people familiar with the situation say, is also peeved at some of her own Democratic staffers, including Appropriations Committee bill drafters, for not “scrubbing” out funding for controversial family planning programs, the mall grass, and preventive programs for sexually transmitted diseases.

Those programs spawned a damaging barrage of talk-radio and Internet attacks that undermined the Pelosi-creates-jobs message her communications team had hoped to portray during the week. Shortly before the vote, Pelosi, at the urging of the White House, plucked out the family planning and contraceptive funding.

And her communications team, which had been urged to keep their public pronouncements “positive” and focused on the package’s potential to create or save more than 3 million jobs, was forced to issue a new set of defensive talking points criticizing the GOP for obstructionism.

Moreover, Pelosi took careful note of the 11 Democrats who voted no, particularly Shuler and Kanjorski, whose narrow victory in November came after a big push by the Pelosi-allied Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“Oh, she’s not going to forget that one,” said a Pelosi confidant of Kanjorski’s vote.

Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 707951

Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 707951

Nombre de messages : 1674 Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008

Bonsoir Biloulou Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 5400

Inversement, je préfère me tenir au rapport de l'OCDE (sans en faire un dogme) qui me semble beaucoup plus digne de crédit que les oeuvres
du CICR.C'est peut-être la conséquence de certaines relations... surprenantes (sic) que j'ai eu avec d'autres instances de la Croix rouge.

OSCE, pas OCDE Wink

Chacun est libre de choisir sa paroisse. Je m’en tiens au CICR que j’ai cotoye pendant plusieurs annees et dont je garde une excellent souvenir
et beaucoup de respect pour le travail serieux et credible que j’ai vu accomplir, plutot qu’a un rapport tronque puisqu’il n’inclue pas les principaux interesses.

De vous à moi, le raport de l'OCDE n'engage pas uniquement Mme Lizin et votre serviteur mais la Communauté Européenne toute entière.
Vous vouliez me flatter, hein ?

S’il n’ ya que ca pour vous faire plaisir. Very Happy

Mais d’autres membres de LP savent faire ca bien mieux que moi Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 409250

Dans ce cas, il ya aussi le rapport de l'ONU sur Guantanamo, le texte adopte par le Parlement Europeen en 2006(serait-il moins credible que Mme Lizin) validant le rapport de 5 experts de l'ONU qui eux avaient demande de pouvoir s'entretenir avec les prisonniers. Non vraiment, je vous laisse Mme Lizin, si vous me permettez l'expression Cool

.

Votre vérité... ma vérité...
Je n'ai pas de vérité à imposer, Shansaa, mais quand j'ai à me forger un opinion sur ce qui se passe à l'autre bout du monde je dois me fier provisoirement à la documentation crédible qui existe au lieu de laisser mon imagination voguer vers là où ça m'arrange...

Devant cette profession de foi de tolerance et d'objectivite, vous me permettrez donc de l'emprunter et la faire mienne pour vous repondre, j'epere alors ? Wink

Malgre le gout le gout prononce, de j’ai raison et vous avez tort meme s’il est emballe dans une jolie formule……Mais bon je ne vous accuserai tout de
meme pas de vouloir imposer indirectement vos points de vue ou plutot si, allez, ce sera plus clair. Very Happy

Cependant Biloulou, la source que vous considerez comme la plus credible n’est pas obligatoirement celle choisie par d’autres dont moi. Alors si vous avez envie de vous
rassurer de cette facon, ouh la, je vous laisse voguer vers la ou ca vous arrange.
Mais permettez moi tout de meme, de prendre un autre bateau, merci d'avance. Razz

Nombre de messages : 1674 Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008

Merci Biloulou. Et se reveiller sachant qu'il va faire beau et chaud, je ne vous dis pas le bonheur. !

Biloulou a écrit:

Shansaa a écrit:: Re-bonsoir Biloulou,
Desolee, le cynisme a des limites.
Passez une bonne nuit.

C'est bien ce que je me dis en lisant certains médias.... Twisted Evil

(Grand merci, ma nuit fut bonne et reposante. La vôtre aussi ?)

Meme Fow News et O'Reilly pourtant bien devoues a l'admnistration Bush n'ont pas trouve ca tres amusant.
Decidemment sur LP il y a une facon bien particuliere d'interpreter le respect des droits de l'homme,enfin c'est a geometrie variable on va dire.

Mabycaaaaa, surtout ne reviens pas, ca ne s'est pas arrange Rolling Eyes

Sujet: 343- Ben voilà ! 3/2/2009, 08:11

Shansaa en 341 a écrit:: Devant cette profession de foi de tolerance et d'objectivite, vous me permettrez donc de l'emprunter et la faire mienne pour vous repondre, j'epere alors ?
Malgre le gout prononce, de j’ai raison et vous avez tort meme s’il est emballe dans une jolie formule……Mais bon je ne vous accuserai tout de meme pas de vouloir imposer indirectement vos points de vue ou plutot si, allez, ce sera plus clair.
Cependant Biloulou, la source que vous considerez comme la plus credible n’est pas obligatoirement celle choisie par d’autres dont moi. Alors si vous avez envie de vous rassurer de cette facon, ouh la, je vous laisse voguer vers la ou ca vous arrange.
Mais permettez moi tout de meme, de prendre un autre bateau, merci d'avance.

Vous voyez ? Il est sain d'admettre que chacun puisse avoir ses sources, ses opinions, et qu'il n'est pas un délit ni une tare de les exprimer, du moins ici.

C'est pas plus difficile que ça, hein ? Very Happy

Sujet: 344- Encore, encore... 3/2/2009, 08:19

Shansaa en 342 a écrit:: Meme Fow News et O'Reilly pourtant bien devoues a l'admnistration Bush n'ont pas trouve ca tres amusant.
Decidemment sur LP il y a une facon bien particuliere d'interpreter le respect des droits de l'homme, enfin c'est a geometrie variable on va dire.
Mabycaaaaa, surtout ne reviens pas, ca ne s'est pas arrange

Je ne comprends pas bien ce que Fow (sic) News, O'Reilly et Mabycaaaa (sic) viennent faire ici.
Pour le reste... c'est quoi la façon de LP d'interpréter les droits de l'homme : la vôtre ? la mienne ? ou celle de qui ?

Est-ce si difficile de comprendre qu'échanger des opinions n'est un déshonneur pour personne, c'est même un brevet de liberté et respectabilté pour le lieu où cela est possible en toute liberté ?

Pensez-y, Shansaa... et une belle et chaude journée pour vous ! sunny

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Vous exagerez tout de meme, vous osez ecrire: Mabycaaaa (sic) alors que c'etait Mabycaaaaa (5 "a" pas 4!).

Sujet: 346- aaaaaaaaaaaaah ! 3/2/2009, 09:10

Et pour Shansaa c'était juste ? jocolor

(Bonjour Dame Sylveeette ! )

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Voui!

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Obama's Moraliing Tone May Not Wear Well

How often do Americans want to hear how misguided they were before his arrival?

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

Two days into his presidency, Barack Obama delivered on his most celebrated and ardently pledged campaign promise -- the imposition of stringent limitations on the ways in which U.S. agents can question terror suspects, an executive order mandating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and the freezing of all detainee prosecutions.

That last request brought an eloquent reply from Col. James Pohl, Guantanamo's chief military judge, who promptly said no. He declared the directive to freeze all trials "not reasonable" -- a description that could as well apply to the whole of the administration's program for our moral cleansing and reformation in intelligence gathering. Col. Pohl refused, specifically, to delay the Feb. 9 arraignment of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri -- accused Saudi master-planner of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors and a cause célèbre for the American Civil Liberties Union. In its characteristically nuanced style, the ACLU declared, through executive director Anthony Romero, that the judge's ruling was the work of "Bush hangers-on in the Defense Department."

...

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Il semble qu'elle ne serait utilisee que pour jauger les Republicains!

Driving Mr. Daschle
AP

Tax avoidance and Democratic Party standards. "TAX AVOIDANCE" n'est-ce pas une expression bien choisie?

So Tom Daschle, the erstwhile prairie populist and scourge of multiple Presidential nominees, failed to disclose and pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars of income. He also waited months to pay up and told the Obama transition team about his tax oversights only days before his Senate confirmation hearing to become Secretary of Health and Human Services.

This one is going to be fascinating to watch, less for what it says about Mr. Daschle than what it will reveal about Democratic standards. Every Republican in America knows that if Mr. Daschle were a Reagan or Bush nominee he'd now be headed back to private life faster than you can say John Tower. That's the way Democrats have treated GOP nominees who were accused of far lesser transgressions than Mr. Daschle's tax, er, avoidance. The question is whether Democrats are going to treat Mr. Daschle according to the standard that Mr. Daschle set when he was running the Senate.

And what standard was that? Well, on taxes, you may recall that Mr. Daschle's Senate Democrats led the campaign against "Benedict Arnold corporations" that earn too much income overseas. The companies do this legally, in part to avoid a U.S. corporate tax rate (35%) that is the developed world's second highest, but that hasn't stopped the Daschle Democrats from comparing them to traitors.

Then there was the assault on legal tax shelters, led in the Daschle Senate by Democrat Carl Levin. The Levin hearings encouraged the Justice Department to prosecute employees who sold tax shelters for KPMG, though no tax court had found them illegal. Most of the KPMG charges were later thrown out of court, but not before careers were ruined and life savings spent on legal defense fees. Under political pressure in 2002, the IRS disclosed the names of users of a KPMG shelter, including William Simon Jr., a Republican candidate for California Governor. Democrats cried that Mr. Simon was a tax cheat, and he had to release years of tax returns to show otherwise.

Now we learn that Mr. Daschle failed to report some $255,000 in income from 2005 through 2007 for a car and driver supplied to him for personal use. The chauffeur service was provided by Leo Hindery, a big Democratic donor who also made Mr. Daschle a bundle by making him a limited partner in InterMedia Partners, a private equity shop.

As a legal tax matter, this isn't even a close call. Mr. Daschle says he used the car service about 80% for personal use, and 20% for business. But his spokeswoman says it only dawned on the Senator last June that this might be taxable income. Mr. Daschle's excuse? According to a Journal report Friday, "he told committee staff he had grown used to having a car and driver as majority leader and did not think to report the perk on his taxes, according to staff members." How's that for a Leona Helmsley moment: Doesn't everyone have a car and chauffeur, dear?

...

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Le dossier Daschle (toujours autant soutenu par le nouveau president), apres le dossier Geithner (egalement soutenu par le nouveau president et confirme par le Congres en majorite Democrate, bien que n'ayant pas non plus paye tous ses impots dus*) souligne non seulement l'echelle des valeurs a geometrie variable des Democrates en general mais egalement celle de Mr. Obama, en particulier (elle semble elle-aussi souffrir d'une inconstance certaine).

CHANGEment! pale

* (le pauvre, comme beaucoup d'autres Americains, n'avait pas compris la loi). Ce monsieur est donc tout-de-meme maintenant Secretaire au Tresor, agence qui chapeaute le fisc,

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Le plan de relance

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MEME LE NEW YORK TIMES A REMARQUE!

J'avais commence a surligne mais l'article entier est important, des lors...

Obama’s Ethics Reform Promise Faces Early TestBy PETER BAKER
Published: February 2, 2009

WASHINGTON — During almost two years on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to slay the demons of Washington, bar lobbyists from his administration and usher in what he would later call in his Inaugural Address a “new era of responsibility.” What he did not talk much about were the asterisks.

The exceptions that went unmentioned now include a pair of cabinet nominees who did not pay all of their taxes. Then there is the lobbyist for a military contractor who is now slated to become the No. 2 official in the Pentagon. And there are the others brought into government from the influence industry even if not formally registered as lobbyists.

President Obama said Monday that he was “absolutely” standing behind former Senator Tom Daschle, his nominee for health and human services secretary, and Mr. Daschle, who met late in the day with leading senators in an effort to keep his confirmation on track, said he had “no excuse” and wanted to “deeply apologize” for his failure to pay $128,000 in federal taxes.

But the episode has already shown how, when faced with the perennial clash between campaign rhetoric and Washington reality, Mr. Obama has proved willing to compromise.

Every four or eight years a new president arrives in town, declares his determination to cleanse a dirty process and invariably winds up trying to reconcile the clear ideals of electioneering with the muddy business of governing. Mr. Obama on his first day in office imposed perhaps the toughest ethics rules of any president in modern times, and since then he and his advisers have been trying to explain why they do not cover this case or that case.

“This is a big problem for Obama, especially because it was such a major, major promise,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “He harped on it, time after time, and he created a sense of expectation around the country. This is exactly why people are skeptical of politicians, because change we can believe in is not the same thing as business as usual.”

And so in these opening days of the administration, the Obama team finds itself being criticized by bloggers on the left and the right, mocked by television comics and questioned by reporters about whether Mr. Obama is really changing the way Washington works or just changing which political party works it.

Some Republicans saw a double standard. “What would it be like if Hank Paulson had come in without paying his taxes, or any other member of the cabinet?” asked Terry Nelson, a political strategist who worked for President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, referring to Mr. Bush’s Treasury secretary. “It would be roundly attacked and roundly criticized.”

Several Democrats, including some who have advised Mr. Obama, said privately that he had only himself to blame for delivering such an uncompromising message as a candidate without recognizing how it would complicate his ability to assemble an administration.

In the campaign, Mr. Obama assailed Washington’s “entire culture” in which “our leaders have thrown open the doors of Congress and the White House to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” He vowed to “close the revolving door” and “clean up both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue” with “the most sweeping ethics reform in history.”

The language, however, was always more sweeping than the specifics. He spoke of refusing campaign money from lobbyists but took it from the people who hired them. The ethics plan he outlined, and eventually imposed on his administration, did not ban all lobbyists outright but set conditions for their employment and did not cover many who were lobbyists in everything but name.

Mr. Daschle, for instance, is not a registered lobbyist, but he made a handsome living advising clients seeking influence with the government, including some in the health industry. Mr. Obama also gave himself the right to grant waivers in cases he deemed exceptional, most prominently to William J. Lynn III, an ex-Raytheon lobbyist he nominated as deputy defense secretary. Others were lobbyists more than two years ago, and therefore not covered by the Obama rules.

Some who worked as lobbyists have found places in the administration, including Mark Patterson, who represented Goldman Sachs and is now chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. William V. Corr, who lobbied for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, has been selected as deputy health and human services secretary.
Obama advisers said that the exceptions were minimal given the thousands to be hired and that appointees would be barred from work on issues they lobbied on in the last two years. The exceptions, they said, were needed for particular skills and experience.

Some advocates said the rules were still more significant than any previously imposed. “This is a direct attack on the culture of Washington and in an extremely powerful way,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, an advocacy group.

As for Mr. Daschle and Mr. Geithner, who also failed to pay some taxes, White House officials said the errors should not obscure their records. Mr. Obama “believes that both Secretary Geithner and Secretary-Designate Daschle are the right people for very important jobs,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, “and he does not believe that that will undercut their ability to move forward on an agenda that makes sense for the American people.”

That argument has drawn sharp criticism from left and right. “Is this really the message he wants to convey to voters in just his first month in office, a message that it’s O.K. to break or skirt the law just as long as you’re a good guy with a special skill set?” asked Andy Ostroy, a blogger writing on The Huffington Post, a liberal Web site.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, a liberal magazine, said Mr. Obama should withdraw Mr. Daschle’s nomination to “revive the change brand he campaigned and won on.”

Mr. Obama is running into crosscurrents that bedeviled his predecessors. Jimmy Carter promised a new day in Washington after Watergate but still found top associates caught up in scandal. Bill Clinton promised “the most ethical administration in history” and then endured the most independent counsel investigations in history. Mr. Bush vowed a new era of responsibility only to be accused of selling out to energy and military industries.

Jody Powell, who was Mr. Carter’s press secretary and later founded a prominent lobbying firm, said it was better to establish lofty goals that might not be met than to not have any at all.

“If you set standards, you’re going to fall short on occasion and you’re going to have to compromise on occasion,” Mr. Powell said. “But you’re probably also going to get more done.”

David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.

CHANGEment - Qu'en pensez-vous Lawrence ....

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"Jody Powell, who was Mr. Carter's press secretary and lager founded a prominet lobbying firm, sait it was better to establish lofty goals that might not be met than to not have any at all"

... and she knows whereof she speaks!!! Laughing

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Avez-vous remarquez que depuis la "signature" de l'acte decidant la fermeture de Guantanamo et le refut du juge d'arreter les proces en cours.... silence .... Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 931638

Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise - Page 14 931638

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