Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise

Rappel du premier message :

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

Biloulou en 620 a écrit:

Spécial Jam et Biloulou, I presume ?

Et peut-être aussi OB, mais difficile d'en être relativement sûr...

Oui, bon, Jam a chaque semaine (environ) quelques jours d'hibernation dans sa caverne en Pays Averne.

Quant à Eddie, des missions énigmatiques et impératives l'éloignent périodiquement de son Countea Nissa et donc de notre proximité épistolaire...

Ainsi vont les grands mystères de la vie !

FOX News:



Reuters
North Korea puts armed forces on standby for war and threatens retaliation against anyone seeking to stop the regime from launching a 'satellite' into space.
• N. Korean Leader Kim Re-Elected to Parliament
• Israel: Iran Past Point of No Return
• Iran Test-Fires Missile That Puts Israel in Range

=====

CNN

...

CNNMoney: World Bank: This is worst since '30s

N. Korea warning over 'satellite' launch
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Who will succeed Kim Jong Il?

...

l'echec d'Obama (evidemment pas celui des Etats Unis). Une petite recherche des sondages de l'annee 2006 montre que 51% des Democrats souhaitaient que Pres. Bush echoue (or a l'epoque il ne s'agissait pas de refonder les Etats Unis pour en faire un pays autre - comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui avec Obama - mais bien de voir nos soldats en Iraq reussir - Ce qu'ils ont fini par faire d'ailleurs, meme NNP l'a reconnu la semaine derniere au Camp Lejeune!)

Deux poids - deux mesures? mais bien sur!

Flashback: 2006 Poll Showed Most Democrates Wanted Bush to Fail

An August 2006 poll conducted by FOX News/Opinion Dynamics showed 51 percent of Democrats did not want Bush to succeed.
FOXNews.com

Monday, March 09, 2009

Rush Limbaugh took a lot of heat for saying he wants President Obama to fail -- but a lot of Democrats felt the same way about former President George W. Bush during his second term.

An August 2006 poll conducted by FOX News/Opinion Dynamics showed 51 percent of Democrats did not want Bush to succeed. Thirty-four percent of independents also did not want Bush to succeed.
By comparison, 90 percent of Republicans said at the time that they wanted Bush to succeed, and 40 percent of Democrats said the same.

Conservative radio talk show host Limbaugh says he doesn't want the economy to fail -- just Obama's policies. But his comments last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference drew sharp criticism from the White House.
After CPAC, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CBS' "Face the Nation" that Limbaugh's stance was the "wrong philosophy for America."

...

Il est evident que les Democrates ont tres peur de Rush Limbaugh sinon pourquoi meme Rahm Emmanuel perdrait son temps a le critiquer.

Allez Rush!

Lorsque Bush 43 a utilise ces objections, c'etait trop souvent et a la limite de l'anticonstitutionnalite selon les Democrates, si Obama le fait ce sera rare donc acceptable.

Voyons si la transparence nous laisse savoir combien de fois et a quel sujet, cet outil presidentiel est utilise.

Obama: Ignore signing statements
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Signaling another break with his predecessor’s expansive view of executive power, President Barack Obama is essentially nullifying hundreds of so-called signing statements in which George W. Bush took issue with provisions in bills he signed.

Bush used signing statements to express opposition to about 1,200 items in legislation passed during his eight years in office. In many instances, he told federal agencies they should ignore the offending provisions because they intruded on duties he said the Constitution reserved exclusively for the executive branch.

On Monday, Obama issued a memorandum effectively negating Bush’s signing statements by telling agencies not to follow on them without consulting with the Justice Department in advance.

“There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused,” Obama’s directive said. “Constitutional signing statements should not be use to suggest that the President will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements.”

But as with other distinctions Obama has drawn with Bush, the new president is not making an entirely clean break—nor is he doing enough to satisfy some critics. He is reserving his right to issue signing statements when he sees fit, though he is pledging to be more sparing in his use of the tactic.

“This president will use signing statements in order to go back to what has previously been done — that is to enumerate constitutional problems that either the Justice Department or legislative counsel here see as potential problems with their reading — but not ask that laws be disallowed simply by executive fiat,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Bush’s frequent use of the statements drew rebukes from lawmakers, as well as a variety of civil liberties and legal groups, including the American Bar Association. It also produced a variety of legislative proposals to address the issue. Some called for stripping funding for publicizing or enforcing the statements. Others sought to have the statements reported back to Congress for further legislative action.

Obama’s memorandum argues that Congress was, in part, to blame for the proliferation of signing statements because of the trend towards packaging legislation into huge bills which can run to thousands of pages and include a myriad of unrelated provisions. That makes it awkward for a president to veto a bill over relatively minor provisions that he may consider problematic.

“Signing statements have been in existence for two centuries in order for presidents to make known Constitutional problems with ideas that are in legislation, without necessarily dealing a veto to the entire piece of legislation,” Gibbs said. “Obviously, the proliferation of omnibus legislation has made that even more prevalent.”

The new memo gives Obama considerable latitude in deciding when a signing statement is warranted.

“I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded,” the president wrote. But nearly every assurance Obama gave in the memo was qualified in some fashion. Even a vow to inform Congress in advance about his constitutional concerns was limited to “whenever practicable.”

Obama’s order got a chilly reception from at least one Congressional critic of Bush’s signing statements, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

“I think he’s wrong,” Specter said of Obama’s action, according to comments his office e-mailed to reporters. “I think the Constitution is explicit as to how you handle these situations. If the president thinks something is unconstitutional, then he ought to veto it. I think it’s just that plain.”

Specter also scoffed at some of the qualifiers in Obama’s memo. “Congress ought not to have to rely on what he thinks is ‘well-founded’….His approach, regrettably, is subject to abuse,” the senator said.

“One of my first thoughts was, ‘President Bush could have issued this, because it has all those caveats in it,’” Christopher Schroeder, a professor at Duke Law School, said. “The devil is in the implementation. No president is going to say categorically that he will never object to a bill as unconstitutional, because every president wants to reserve his right to do just that.”

Schroeder said he expects Obama to feel less of a need for signing statements because he and his aides subscribe to a narrower view of presidential power.

“I think there’s value to signing statements, so we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” the professor said. “It’s just that the device can be misused, and I think it was way overused and misused.”

In one widely-discussed case in 2005, Bush signed a measure intended to ban torture, the Detainee Treatment Act, and quietly issued a signing statement suggesting he might ignore the law under some conditions.

During last year’s campaign, Obama spoke out against Bush’s reliance on signing statements and promised to strike a new course. “We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress,” he told a forum in May.

That said, Obama was actually less strident in his opposition than was his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who said unequivocally that he would not issue signing statements under any circumstances.

While Obama’s directive was clearly aimed at Bush’s signing statements, by its terms it also puts on hold written objections from all of Obama’s predecessors, not just Bush.

Another law professor who has studied signing statements acknowledged ambiguities in Obama’s memo but noted that it was written with the input of Obama advisers who were outspoken critics of Bush’s signing statements and now are in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

“I would read it that President Obama will dramatically curtail the use of signing statements, based upon what those advising him have said about when it is and isn’t legitimate to use them,” said Neil Kinkopf of Georgia State University. “It’s not just extrapolating that this really means what they’ve said in the past—they’re going to be the ones who implement this order.”

Le fameux programme de Bush 43 "No child left behind" TANT decrie sera largement conserve par NNP!! Trop drole. Je me demande si les Democrates vont la aussi se taire. JE ME MARRE! Oh ben si quand meme, on peut.

Obama to Outline Educatin Plan Leave No Child Left Behind Intact

President will propose tightening standards for teachers and reducing the dropout rate for students as part of an education plan that will leave the Bush-era policy of No Child Left Behind largely intact.


FOXNews.com

Tuesday, March 10, 2009


WASHINGTON -- President Obama will propose tightening standards for teachers and reducing the dropout rate for students on Tuesday as part of an education plan that will leave the Bush-era policy of No Child Left Behind largely intact.

Officials said the president will save his suggested changes to No Child Left Behind until later this year when Congress votes to reauthorize the Bush-era education reform that set nationwide standards for math and reading proficiency.
"We are not calling for specific amendments to No Child Left Behind," a senior administration official told FOX News. "We are not calling for specific federal action."

Instead, Obama will suggest states broaden standards of proficiency beyond math and reading to cover "creativity" in ways to prepare children not just to graduate but for "college and career."

The president will also call for reforms to reduce high school drop out rates and to boost federal college aid through inflation-adjusted Pell Grants.

Administration officials also said Obama will press for merit pay for teachers, or so-called "innovative compensation schemes." As he did in the campaign, Obama will call on school districts to negotiate merit pay schedules with teachers and their union representatives.

Schools are struggling to meet the existing requirements as millions of residents have lost their jobs and state and local governments have seen tax revenues tighten. Obama's economic stimulus plan includes a $5 billion incentive fund to reward states for, among other things, boosting the quality of standards and state tests -- much-needed money for some states.

"I know that talking about standards can make people nervous," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said recently. But he said a high school diploma has to mean something, no matter in which state the student earned it.
Obama advisers say they will use the economic woes as a way to sell the country on his agenda. A second senior administration official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said higher standards would be part of their discussions about how to deal with Bush-era education policy, but not just yet.

White House aides characterized the president's speech on Tuesday as a first step in an agenda to change American schools. Aides say the president will again call for the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the year 2020, as well as pre-kindergarten programs that would send children to classrooms prepared to learn.

Obama also planned to continue his support for charter schools, although officials call them "laboratories of innovation." Educators' unions generally oppose charter schools because they divert tax dollars away from public schools, one spot where he splits with the traditionally Democratic Party-backing constituency.

Aides said Obama would not propose new spending during the speech, although he already has taken steps on education. His $787 billion economic stimulus package provides $41 billion in grants to local school districts. He also plans to send $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cuts in state aid and another $21 billion for school modernization.

FOX News' Major Garrett and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Guantanamo Detainees Say They Planned 9-11 Attachs


Tuesday, March 10, 2009




Sep. 10: A short test of the "Tribute in Light" illuminates the sky over the World Trade Center site in New York.

The five detainees at Guantanamo Bay charged with plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks have filed a document accepting responsibility for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and expressing pride at their accomplishment, The New York Times reported late Monday.

The document, which the newspaper said may be released publicly on Tuesday, describes the five men as the "9/11 Shura Council," and says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document read to a reporter by a government official, the report said.

"'To us,' the official read, 'they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor,'" the paper said.

The document is titled "The Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations," the military judge at the U.S. Naval base said in a separate filing, obtained by the Times, that described the detainees' document.

The document was filed on behalf of the five men, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who has called himself the mastermind of the attacks.

Some of the men had said earlier that they planned the 2001 attacks and that they wanted to be martyrs. The reason for the new filing, which the report said reached the military court on March 5, was not clear. The brief court order describing the filing said the men sought no legal action.



Qu'on leur donne leur paradis mais d'une des facons deja proposees ici il y a quelques temps.

Quand il avait ete question de recompenser les enseignants selon leur merite, ce fut le scandale. Les syndicats ne voulaient pas en entendre parler et que fait NNP? et oui...


MARCH 10, 2009, 6:57 A.M. ET



Education Push to INclude Merit Pay

By LAURA MECKLER


WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is laying out his "cradle to career" plan for education Tuesday, including a controversial plan to boost pay for teachers who excel.

The White House plan also includes new incentives for states to boost quality in their preschool programs, to raise standards for student achievement and to reduce the high school drop-out rate. And the president is fleshing out his plan to increase financial aid for college students, senior administration officials said.

In a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the president will also call on Americans to take responsibility for their children's education and their own, the officials said.

The speech will build on comments made during his address to Congress, where Mr. Obama dramatically declared that those who drop out of school are failing not just themselves, but their country.

The speech was described by three administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcement, and in a fact sheet provided by the White House.

The merit pay proposal would significantly expand a federal program that increases pay for high-performing teachers to an additional 150 school districts, officials said. "What he'll be calling for…is to reward good teachers that are improving student outcomes," said one official.

This proposal is controversial with teachers' unions, who fear the rewards will not be fairly distributed. Mr. Obama tried to address those concerns last year on the campaign trail.

"If teachers learn new skills that serve their students better or they consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded," he told the National Education Association last July. "It is possible to find new ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on teachers."

One administration official said he will again emphasize the importance of working with teachers. He'll also call for improved professional development, mentoring for new and underperforming teachers and "new processes to remove ineffective teachers."

He is also promoting better recruitment, including recruitment of mid-career professionals to enter teaching.

Additionally, he'll call for more charter schools and challenge states to lift limits on the number in operation.
To reduce high-school drop-outs, the president wants to direct attention to the low-performing districts that account for a disproportionate share of the problem. According to the White House fact sheet, 2,000 low-performing high schools produce more than half the drop-outs, so the goal is to invest new money in these areas, including new attention to at-risk students still in middle school. The president's 2010 budget includes funding for programs that deal with dropouts, such as transfer schools that combine education and job training for students that are far behind.

The early education portion of the plan will offer states Early Learning Challenge Grants to improve quality of child care, including improvements to workforce quality. Incentive grants will provide aid for states to better collect data about programs, push for uniform standards and increase help for the most disadvantaged students.

For elementary and secondary schools, the president will challenge states to voluntarily raise their standards in reading and math. As is, certain states give students high grades for the scores that would rate low in other states. He'll encourage states to adopt tougher curriculum and discourage states from using "ineffective `off the shelf' tests."

"He is challenging all states to adopt world class standards," one official said.

But he does not plan to say anything on Tuesday about changes to the landmark No Child Left Behind law, which imposes federal standards on schools. Officials said that matter would be dealt with later in the year.
For higher education, Mr. Obama has already proposed increasing Pell grants and boosting their value with inflation. On Tuesday, he'll also talk about simplifying the application process for financial aid.

And the president plans to talk about the importance of education and job training for adults already in the work force, as well as support for community colleges.

Sylvette a écrit:

Sylvette: Ah ben alors pourquoi ce desir de demontrer que Rasmusen ait ete achete par la droite (montants a l'appui) donc de s'assurer sa partialite professionnelle en particulier concernant les pourcentages d'approbation de NNP?

Shansaa: Pas achete par les Republicains (il a travaille comme consultant) mais de tendance Republicaine, ce qui peut tout de meme influencer la facon de poser les questions dont on n'aura de toutes facons pas les resultats exacts comme pour une election.

Vous avez ecrit dans votre 593) Rasmussen:

...
Considerant que Scott Rasmussen a ete paye par le RNC et le camp de campagne de Bush en 2004 en tant que consultant, repsectivement 95.000$ et 45.500$ on peut effectivement croire en leur impartialite totale Leur "serieux" doit lui aussi etre considere avec quelques bemols.

Suivi d'un article titre:

Is pollster Scott Rasmussen a right-wing hack with an agenda?

et l'insinuation ne serait pas l'achat de Rasmussen. Cette pietre tentative de precision est-elle reellement destinee au lecteur ou bien essayez-vous de vous convaincre vous-meme?

Me convaincre de quoi ? De tendance Republicaine, Pencher pour les Republicains, etre Republicain ou Right wing ou whatever, ne veut pas dire "achete par" dans aucune des 6 langues que je parle. Mais je ne dois certainement pas parler la votre....

Sylvette a écrit:

SylvetteLa mon opinion, n'a pas plus de valeur que la votre.

Shansaa: eh non !

Remettons cette petite phrase dans son contexte, si vous le voulez bien:

apres avoir reconnu tout de meme dans votre 599) Pour les election et "les faits", l'un des articles l'explique : Rasmussen est precis parce qu'il ya quelque chose de tangible, un resultat concret et verifiable au bout. Pour les reste, c'est tout de meme bien plus nuance, comme tout institut de sondage et selon l'etude demandee. Il suffit d'orienter la question, de .....

a quoi je repondais dans le 604): C'est ce qu'on rappelle de la recuperation au vol. Nouvelle opportunite: Impossible de verifier les faits, alors on s'y enfile. La mon opinion, n'a pas plus de valeur que la votre.

=======

Sylvette: Mais c'est tellement mieux de reprocher aux autres ce que font ceux dont on partage les opinions, ca donne une petite chance que si ca marche on ait fait passer un peu plus de propagande.

Sanshaa: Ah ca je ne vous le fais pas dire ;-) Les uns comme les autres

QUOA, les Democrates ne seraient pas l'ethique meme?

Je rectifie mon mail sur votre penchant pour la precision. Au fond c'est plutot la petite bete que vous cherchez

Sylvette a écrit:

La question est finalement de savoir si le parti au pouvoir, quel qu'il soit, veut vraiment un bipartisanship s'il peut faire sans ?

Je dirai que malgre des promesses electorales sans fin a ce sujet, NNP ayant laisse notre WWW enfoncer ses ongles aceres dans le cou de la minorite, le mot bipartisme pour le gouvernement en place n'est que cela: un mot.

Ah ca repond vraiment a la question ca.........

Bonsoir Biloulou

Votre 616.

Contexte de l'interview ou pas, un homme que ca ne generait pas de voir les testicules d'un enfant ecrasees pour faire parler son pere, est pour moi la
pire des ordures.
Si vous trouvez une quelconque justification a ce genre de propos, libre a vous.

Vous avez vous meme dit dans votre message :
Et très franchement, il y a des méthodes chimiques pour obtenir des informations tellement plus faciles et sans risques...

Eh bien voila, ce n'est pas complique, ce n'est pas de la torture et c'est efficace. Ce n'est donc pas la peine de s'amuser a jouer les barbares comme ceux que nous accusons de l'etre.

Et excellente journée pour vous avec la conscience en paix, hein ?

Merci, ma conscience va bien et vous remercie

Sylvette a écrit:

Il est evident que les Democrates ont tres peur de Rush Limbaugh sinon pourquoi meme Rahm Emmanuel perdrait son temps a le critiquer.

Allez Rush!

Mais non, justement, les democrates ne souhaitent qu'une chose : Que Rush Limbaugh represente les Republicains......C'est ce qui peut leur arriver de mieux
Go Rush Go...........!!

The GOP's Limbaugh Dilemma


Radio Host's Prominence Underscores Party's Challenge to Forge New Identity
March 7


by Naftali Bendavid and GREG HITT

Rush Limbaugh is right where he wants to be and right where the White House wants him: in the news. But Republicans have more mixed feelings about
the controversial talk radio host's recent elevation. Mr. Limbaugh dominated headlines this week, as a drive by the White House and other top Democrats to paint him as the leader of the Republican Party left the GOP flummoxed. Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, illustrated his party's dilemma, first calling Mr. Limbaugh's style "ugly," then phoning him to apologize. One committee member labeled Mr. Steele's handling of the matter a "Republican Horror Show" and called on him to step down just weeks after taking on the job.
Behind the political theater lay a fundamental challenge for a party seeking a way out of the wilderness after last November's drubbing. Republican leaders and activists are grappling with how to joust with a popular new president, particularly after years of being accused of embracing a cutthroat style of politics.

UPI Photo /Landov
Rush Limbaugh addresses a conservative conference in February

Yet some Republicans also sense openings in the early days of the Obama presidency. They argue that Democrats may be overreaching with an ambitious big-government agenda and that voters will turn to Republicans once they absorb the impact of spending bills that greatly expand the deficit without, they contend, doing much to stimulate the economy.

"There are clear opportunities for Republicans," says party strategist Dave Winston, who suggests party leaders are starting to find their voice on targeted issues. Republicans are painting newly Democratic Washington as a hotbed of higher taxes and spending.

By week's end, Republicans broke through the Limbaugh-dominated political news with their own story line: repeated attacks on "earmarks" in a spending bill passing through Congress. They even forced a delay in a Senate vote until next week.
Earmarks dont 60% est du aux rajouts des Republicains......

Still, Mr. Winston said, Mr. Obama continues to benefit from the goodwill created in 2008. "The question is when do we get to the point where the afterglow of the election dissipates," he said. "That'll be an important inflection point."

Many party activists hunger for direct confrontation. This past week, Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council, excoriated Republicans for not resisting Kathleen Sebelius, the nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, who supports abortion rights. "If Republicans won't take a stand now, when will they?" Mr. Perkins demanded in an online newsletter.

Some Republicans argue that Democratic attacks on Mr. Limbaugh will backfire by rallying disenchanted conservatives who lost enthusiasm for the party in 2006 and 2008. "They've miscalculated big time," said Greg Mueller, a conservative strategist and veteran of the Pat Buchanan and
Steve Forbes presidential campaigns. "The best thing they can do for the Republican Party is energizing the base, by attacking Rush. He communicates more effectively to the Reagan coalition that most elected Republicans."

But others say the party risks alienating voters by attacking the president at a time of financial crisis. In Florida, Jim Greer, the party's state chairman, is urging Republicans to "move on to the issues that are important to American voters in addition to [social] issues -- education, the economy, things that affect people every day." Mr. Greer kicked off a youth-outreach program this past week emphasizing young people's financial concerns.

Republicans clearly are on the defensive. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll this week found nearly half of respondents viewed the Democrats positively and 31% negatively, while 26% viewed the GOP positively and 47% negatively.

Still, the poll also showed an opening for the emerging Republican line of attack against Mr. Obama's early policies. By 61% to 29%, those surveyed said they were more worried the government would "spend too much money trying to boost the economy" than too little.

Republican guru Ed Gillespie, who held Mr. Steele's job during the George W. Bush years, says the floundering and internal debate is to be expected for a party out of power. "The fact is there is a natural process that goes on when you don't have the House, the Senate or the White House, where a lot of voices start to emerge," he said. "Let a thousand flowers bloom."

¥_zed_¥ a écrit:

Un géant veut me faire ma fète, étrangement, je vais comprendre vite


Mais vous les filles, je me perd dans vos conjonctures. Suis-je le seul matcho {modéré} a ne rien y comprendre

Vous avez raison, Zed , cet echange n'a pas grand interet.

Chas Freeman pulls out

Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr., the appointee to chair Obama’s National Intelligence Council, withdrew his name from consideration.


The controversial appointee to chair President Barack Obama’s National Intelligence Council walked away from the job Tuesday as criticism on Capitol Hill escalated.

Charles W. Freeman Jr., the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, had been praised by allies and by the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, as a brilliant, iconoclastic analyst. Critics said he was too hard on Israel and too soft on China, and blasted him for taking funding from Saudi royals.

Freeman “requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed,” Blair’s office said in a statement. “Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret.”

The withdrawal came after Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) grilled Blair at a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing Tuesday. Lieberman cited his “concern” about “statements that [Freeman] has made that appear either to be inclined to lean against Israel or too much in favor of China.”

In particular, Freeman has described “Israeli violence against Palestinians” as a key barrier to Mideast peace, and referred to violence in Tibet last year — widely seen in the U.S. as a revolt against Chinese occupation — as a “race riot.”

His writing drew criticism of members of Congress, but Blair said the words were taken “out of context” and allies warned that Obama was allowing domestic politics to skew intelligence analysis and continuing the Bush Administration’s stance of sidelining critics of Israeli policy toward Palestinians.

“If they withdraw his appointment prior to the conclusion of [Freeman’s formal vetting] that would be seen as abject caving in on people who are extreme partisans of Israel,” Nicholas Veliotes, a former Ambassador to Egypt, and one of 17 former diplomats who signed a letters supporting Freeman, said Tuesday before the withdrawal was announced.

But Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), one of Freeman's leading critics, said the appointee could have "withstood" the attacks on policy grounds, but ultimately was torpedoed by the fact that he headed an institute funded by Saudi royalty and sat on the board of a Chinese state oil company.

"The administration made yet another mistake not doing its homework before nominating someone to a senior position of unique sensitivity, and then learned from the press further and further embarrassing details," Kirk said. "He was heavily encumbered by multiple conflicts of interest involving Chinese, Saudi and other business dealings that all should have been disclosed long before."

Bouffee d'air: Breath in - breath out!

The new left-wing conspiracy

By BEN SMITH | 3/10/09 2:50 PM EDT Updated: 3/10/09 3:36 PM EDT


Liberal groups plot strategy on daily phone calls.
Photo: AP

The vast new left-wing conspiracy sets its tone every morning at 8:45 a.m., when officials from more than 20 labor, environmental and other Democratic-leaning groups dial into a private conference call hosted by two left-leaning Washington organizations.

The “8:45 A.M. call,” as it’s referred to by members, began three weeks ago, and it marks a new level in coordination by the White House’s allies at a time when the conservative opposition is struggling for a toe-hold and major agenda items like health care reform appear closer than ever to passage.

The call has helped attempts to link the Republican Party to radio host Rush Limbaugh, and has served as the launching ground for attacks on critics of Obama’s policy proposals. It springs from a recognition of what was lacking in the Clinton years, said Jennifer Palmieri, the senior vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, one of the groups hosting the call.

“[CAP President John] Podesta’s and my experience was in the White House during the Clinton years, and we didn’t have a coordinated echo chamber on the outside backing us up,” she said. “There’s a real interest on the progressive side for groups to want to coordinate with each other and leverage each other’s work in a way I haven’t ever seen before.”

The call is hosted by Progressive Media, a project of the CAP Action Fund and the Media Matters Action Fund. The project began last year as a launching pad for attacks on John McCain, but failed to raise money for television advertisements, and served in the later days of the presidential campaign as a platform for disseminating opposition research critical of his policy plans. White House officials do not take part in the calls.

The calls are led by its top staffer, Tara McGuinness, who will also head Progressive Media's "communications research and analysis war room" to wage spin and policy wars throughout the day, Palmieri said.

The call has proved particularly effective at coordinating attacks on critics, said Jacki Schechner, the national communications director for Health Care for America Now, a labor-backed alliance of groups that support Democratic efforts to expand health care.

“There’s a coordination in terms of exposing the people who are trying to come out against reform —they’ve all got backgrounds and histories and pasts, and it’s not taking long to unearth that and to unleash that, because we’re all working together,” Schechner said.

When a new group called Conservative for Patients Rights, for instance, launched an ad campaign featuring former health care executive Rick Scott, “There was a discussion about what do we know about this guy and in a very quick period of time we were able to come up with his background,” she said.

Scott, as progressive groups quickly informed reporters, had reportedly been forced to resign as head of the company became known as Columbia/HCA amid fraud charges, and the company eventually paid a massive settlement in the case.

When Betsy McCaughey, best known for her attacks on Clinton’s 1993 health care plan, published a column criticizing Obama, groups on the call coordinated attacks on her recalling questions about her 1993 article and noting her seat on the board of a medical device maker, in which she also owned stock.
The results of the new coordination are perhaps most obvious in the ongoing effort to saddle the Republican Party and its allies with radio host Rush Limbaugh’s hope that Obama “fails.” The Center for American Progress’s blog seized on Limbaugh’s “fail” comment early, as did congressional Democrats, and participants in the call drove it well beyond its obvious political range.

Media Matters, for instance, launched a “Limbaugh Wire” http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/; and even the League of Conservation Voters Tuesday released a video in which Limbaugh’s attacks on conservation and global warming theory are played over the talking heads of Republican leaders.

“We know the oil and coal industry are going to spend $20 million this year trying to get their message out there, so us coordinating to get our message out in terms of trying to advance a progressive agenda is a huge opportunity,” said Navin Nayak, the director of the global warming project at the League of Conservation Voters.

Though White House officials do not participate in the calls, Palmieri said, the new infrastructure is closely tied to the White House. Podesta directed Obama’s transition, and Americans United for Change exists largely to run ads promoting the White House agenda. Some on the left, however, remain skeptical of the White House’s embrace.

“When something works for us we'll pick up on it anyway, like the Rush Limbaugh story -- we don't need to be told,” said Jane Hamsher, the creator of the liberal blog Firedoglake. “I think we serve everyone better if we maintain our independence and preserve our ability to pick up on popular sentiment like that, rather than just bang on the same drum everyone else is.”

Shansaa en 640 a écrit:

Contexte de l'interview ou pas, un homme que ca ne generait pas de voir les testicules d'un enfant ecrasees pour faire parler son pere, est pour moi la pire des ordures.
Si vous trouvez une quelconque justification a ce genre de propos, libre a vous.

Bonjour Shansaa !

Du peu que j'ai lu et de la méconnaissance totale que j'ai de ce monsieur, il me semble à le lire que ce n'est pas à lui ni à moi de trouver une justification ou pas au comportement décrit, d'être génés ou pas, mais au président.
De plus, n'oublions pas qu'il s'agit d'un exemple extrême imaginé par l'interviewer, d'une caricature, nullement d'un cas avéré ni d'une méthode préconisée. Je me trompe ?

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Vous avez vous meme dit dans votre message :
Et très franchement, il y a des méthodes chimiques pour obtenir des informations tellement plus faciles et sans risques...

Eh bien voila, ce n'est pas complique, ce n'est pas de la torture et c'est efficace. Ce n'est donc pas la peine de s'amuser a jouer les barbares comme ceux que nous accusons de l'etre.

C'est bien pourquoi je ne pense pas que d'autres méthodes d'interrogatoire - j'entends par là la "question" moyênageuse - aient été ou soient utilisées.
Je crois plutôt à du matériel rédactionnel pour "journalistes" en mal d'émotions lucratives à vendre.

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Et excellente journée pour vous avec la conscience en paix, hein ?

Merci, ma conscience va bien et vous remercie

Comme nous sommes beaux, gentils et urbains, n'est-ce pas ? Excellente journée, Shansaa !