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

Bravo Sylvette, on a pensé que votre nouveau président serait un Grand Sorcier, mais finalement il est un grand humoriste.
Notez que ce n'est peut-être pas plus mal....

Au sujet de Charles Krauthammer:

As big fans of markets and their unmatched responsiveness, my Center colleagues and I are very pleased to announce that Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and commentator Charles Krauthammer will keynote our 2009 Annual Dinner, next June 1, at the McNamara Alumni Center at the U of M. As one of the most influential opinion leaders in the country, Dr. Krauthammer challenges conventional wisdom with practically every word he writes. No matter what the issue – from the War on Terrorism, bioethics, the Middle East, the future of Russia, or today’s political headlines – you can depend on his lucid commentary to clear the debris left by shoddy thinking with an entirely new viewpoint.

Charles Krauthammer earned an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and practiced medicine before becoming a writer. Today, he writes a nationally syndicated column for The Washington Post, a monthly column for TIME, and contributes to several other publications including The Weekly Standard and [/size][size=9]The New Republic.

Pres. Bush was right all along: Disabled Dr. Charles Krauthammer on Stem Cell Research




For those who refuse to consider the moral implications of Embryonic Stem Cell research, and who believe in the fantasy rhetoric of the “stem cells will cure all ailments” crowd, Charles Krauthammer has just put you in your place.

Krauthammer’s politics may stand on the right side of centre, but his bio makes him a source beyond reproach. A trained Medical Doctor, Krauthammer became a paraplegic in a diving accident while studying at Harvard Medical School, and after practicing for several years, went to work for the Carter administration in the late 1970s, and has been a writer ever since. Always an advocate for continued research on discarded embryos from fertility treatments, but queasy about the ethical implications of obtaining future embryos and the possible treatment options available from embryonic stem cells, he now believes the argument is essentially moot, now that new research has shown that therapeautic stem cells can be produced from a simple cheek swab – and he exposes the ugly alliance between money-hungry medical researchers and ugly political partisans who exploited the hopes of suffering people by purposely ignoring the truth:

That Holy Grail has now been achieved. Largely because of the genius of Thomson and Yamanaka. And also because of the astonishing good fortune that nature requires only four injected genes to turn an ordinary adult skin cell into a magical stem cell that can become bone or brain or heart or liver.

But for one more reason as well. Because the moral disquiet that James Thomson always felt — and that George Bush forced the country to confront — helped lead him and others to find some ethically neutral way to produce stem cells. Providence then saw to it that the technique be so elegant and beautiful that scientific reasons alone will now incline even the most willful researchers to leave the human embryo alone.

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C'etait en 2007, NP voit les choses differemment.

Biloulou a écrit:

Bravo Sylvette, on a pensé que votre nouveau président serait un Grand Sorcier, mais finalement il est un grand humoriste.
Notez que ce n'est peut-être pas plus mal....

Vous avez raison!

C'est trop mignon alors je repete (le titre est vraiment trop petit depuis la mise a jour de la semaine derniere):

NP (qui avant d'etre elu refusait de porter le drapeau americain a la boutonniere, jusqu'au jour ou il changea d'avis - politique obligeant - ) conseille maintenant a tous d'etre fiers de leur drapeau en le faisant flotter partout ou cela est possible et.... de reciter le serment d'allegeance lors de toutes les reunions publiques.

Oui, Mr. le Pres. Bush/Obama EXTRA!!!!!

Ce pourrait-il qu'il se prenne au jeu! Ca ne va pas plaire a la gauche!AP
On Flag Day, Obama says Americans should be proud of Old Glory by flying it wherever possible, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at public gatherings.

Un article interessant qui apporte a la question de Biloulou la semaine derniere concernant la formation de l'Europe en comparaison avec celle des Etats Unis, quelques soutiens a ce que ceux qui ont participe a la conversation avait conclu.

NP veut europeaniser les Etats Unis, les standardiser (les socialiser, mais la c'est une autre question), il croit les unifier sous la grande direction de Washington, et voila le resultat.

Divided we stand
What would California look like broken in three? Or a Republic of New England? With the federal government reaching for ever more power, redrawing the map is enticing, says Paul Starobin
By PAUL STAROBIN

Remember that classic Beatles riff of the 1960s: “You say you want a revolution?” Imagine this instead: a devolution. Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world. And while we’re at it, let’s make this project bi-national—economic logic suggests a natural multilingual combination between Greater San Diego and Mexico’s Northern Baja, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed “Cascadia” by economic cartographers.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Patrick Henry declares ‘give me liberty, or give me death’ in his 1775 speech urging the colonies to fight the British.



Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition—a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future. Consider this proposition: America of the 21st century, propelled by currents of modernity that tend to favor the little over the big, may trace a long circle back to the original small-government ideas of the American experiment. The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale—too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America’s early days. The society may find blessed new life, as paradoxical as this may sound, in a return to a smaller form.

This perspective may seem especially fanciful at a time when the political tides all seem to be running in the opposite direction. In the midst of economic troubles, an aggrandizing Washington is gathering even more power in its hands. The Obama Administration, while considering replacing top executives at Citigroup, is newly appointing a “compensation czar” with powers to determine the retirement packages of executives at firms accepting federal financial bailout funds. President Obama has deemed it wise for the U.S. Treasury to take a majority ownership stake in General Motors in a last-ditch effort to revive this Industrial Age brontosaurus. Even the Supreme Court is getting in on the act: A ruling this past week awarded federal judges powers to set the standards by which judges for state courts may recuse themselves from cases.

All of this adds up to a federal power grab that might make even FDR’s New Dealers blush. But that’s just the point: Not surprisingly, a lot of folks in the land of Jefferson are taking a stand against an approach that stands to make an indebted citizenry yet more dependent on an already immense federal power. The backlash, already under way, is a prime stimulus for a neo-secessionist movement, the most extreme manifestation of a broader push for some form of devolution. In April, at an anti-tax “tea party” held in Austin, Governor Rick Perry of Texas had his speech interrupted by cries of “secede.” The Governor did not sound inclined to disagree. “Texas is a unique place,” he later told reporters attending the rally. “When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”

Polaris Images

Thousands of Texans hold a ‘Tea Party’ in downtown San Antonio in April protesting federal bailouts.



Such sentiments resonate beyond the libertarian fringe. The Daily Kos, a liberal Web site, recently asked Perry’s fellow Texas Republicans, “Do you think Texas would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America? It was an even split: 48% for the U.S., 48% for a sovereign Texas, 4% not sure. Amongst all Texans, more than a third—35%—said an independent Texas would be better. The Texas Nationalist Movement claims that over 250,000 Texans have signed a form affirming the organization’s goal of a Texas nation.

Secessionist feelings also percolate in Alaska, where Todd Palin, husband of Governor Sarah Palin, was once a registered member of the Alaska Independence Party. But it is not as if the Right has a lock on this issue: Vermont, the seat of one of the most vibrant secessionist movements, is among the country’s most politically-liberal places. Vermonters are especially upset about imperial America’s foreign excursions in hazardous places like Iraq. The philosophical tie that binds these otherwise odd bedfellows is belief in the birthright of Americans to run their own affairs, free from centralized control. Their hallowed parchment is Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, on behalf of the original 13 British colonies, penned in 1776, 11 years before the framers of the Constitution gathered for their convention in Philadelphia. “The right of secession precedes the Constitution—the United States was born out of secession,” Daniel Miller, leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement, put it to me. Take that, King Obama.

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.../...

Today’s devolutionists, of all stripes, can trace their pedigree to the “anti-federalists” who opposed the compact that came out of Philadelphia as a bad bargain that gave too much power to the center at the expense of the limbs. Some of America’s most vigorous and learned minds were in the anti-federalist camp; their ranks included Virginia’s Patrick Henry, of “give me liberty or give me death” renown. The sainted Jefferson, who was serving as a diplomat in Paris during the convention, is these days claimed by secessionists as a kindred anti-federal spirit, even if he did go on to serve two terms as president.

The anti-federalists lost their battle, but history, in certain respects, has redeemed their vision, for they anticipated how many Americans have come to feel about their nation’s seat of federal power. “This city, and the government of it, must indubitably take their tone from the character of the men, who from the nature of its situation and institution, must collect there,” the anti-federalist pamphleteer known only as the Federal Farmer wrote. “If we expect it will have any sincere attachments to simple and frugal republicanism, to that liberty and mild government, which is dear to the laborious part of a free people, we most assuredly deceive ourselves.”

In the mid-19th century, the anti-federalist impulse took a dark turn, attaching itself to the cause of the Confederacy, which was formed by the unilateral secession of 13 southern states over the bloody issue of slavery. Lincoln had no choice but to go to war to preserve the Union—and ever since, anti-federalism, in almost any guise, has had to defend itself from the charge of being anti-modern and indeed retrograde.
Jack Molloy

The U.S., as envisioned by some percolating secessionist movements.



But nearly a century and a half has passed since Johnny Rebel whooped for the last time. Slavery is dead, and so too is the large-scale industrial economy that the Yankees embraced as their path to victory over the South and to global prosperity. The model lasted a long time, to be sure, surviving all the way through the New Deal and the first several decades of the post-World War II era, coming a cropper at the tail end of the 1960s, just as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith was holding out “The New Industrial State,” the master-planned economy, as a seemingly permanent condition of modern life.

Not quite. In a globalized economy transformed by technological innovations hatched by happily-unguided entrepreneurs, history seems to be driving one nail after another into the coffin of the big, which is why the Obama planners and their ilk, even if they now ride high, may be doomed to fail. No one anymore expects the best ideas to come from the biggest actors in the economy, so should anyone expect the best thinking to be done by the whales of the political world?

A notable prophet for a coming age of smallness was the diplomat and historian George Kennan, a steward of the American Century with an uncanny ability to see past the seemingly-frozen geopolitical arrangements of the day. Kennan always believed that Soviet power would “run its course,” as he predicted back in 1951, just as the Cold War was getting under way, and again shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, he suggested that a similar fate might await the United States. America has become a “monster country,” afflicted by a swollen bureaucracy and “the hubris of inordinate size,” he wrote in his 1993 book, “Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy.” Things might work better, he suggested, if the nation was “decentralized into something like a dozen constituent republics, absorbing not only the powers of the existing states but a considerable part of those of the present federal establishment.”

Kennan’s genius was to foresee that matters might take on an organic, a bottom-up, life of their own, especially in a society as dynamic and as creative as America. His spirit, the spirit of an anti-federalist modernist, can be glimpsed in an intriguing “mega-region” initiative encompassing greater San Diego County, next-door Imperial County and, to the immediate south of the U.S. border, Northern Baja, Mexico. Elected officials representing all three participating areas recently unveiled “Cali Baja, a Bi-National Mega-Region,” as the “international marketing brand” for the project.

The idea is to create a global economic powerhouse by combining San Diego’s proven abilities in scientific research and development with Imperial County’s abundance of inexpensive land and availability of water rights and Northern Baja’s manufacturing base, low labor costs and ability to supply the San Diego area with electricity during peak-use terms. Bilingualism, too, is a key—with the aim for all children on both sides of the border to be fluent in both English and Spanish. The project director is Christina Luhn, a Kansas native, historian and former staffer on the National Security Council in Ronald Reagan’s White House in the mid-1980s. Contemporary America as a unit of governance may be too big, even the perpetually-troubled state of California may be too big, she told me, by way of saying that the political and economic future may belong to the megaregions of the planet. Her conviction is that large systems tend not to endure—“they break apart, there’s chaos, and at some point, new things form,” she said.

The notion that small is better and even inevitable no doubt has some flavor of romance—even amounting to a kind of modern secular faith, girded by a raft of multi-disciplinary literature that may or may not be relevant. Luhn takes her philosophical cue not only from Kennan but also from the science writer and physicist M. Mitchell Waldrop, author of “Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos.”

.../...

June 14, 2009

McConnell: Obama wants a 'national rationing board' on health care
Politico

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says President Barack Obama wants to ration health care for Americans and involve the government in decisions on what treatments individual citizens can receive.

During an appearance Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," McConnell said Obama supports "a national rationing board, to determine what kind of treatments would be available for American citizens. Typically, those in single payer countries like Canada and Britain involve delays in treatment, denial of care, those kind of things."

McConnell said Senate Republicans would oppose government-run health care programs. The White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have stated that they are not endorsing any such effort, but do want to expand coverage to the uninsured as a way to hold down costs.

"I don't think having more government, in effect, putting Washington between you and your doctor, is the way to go," McConnell said. The Kentucky Republican backed "litigation reform and wellness programs," but would not back mandatory insurance coverage.

McConnell said that a so-called "public option," a government-backed health insurance plan that is being suggested by the White House, would force private insurance companies out of the market, despite claims from administration to the opposite.

"I know they say that, but if the government is in the insurance business, there won't be any other insurers. It's inevitable because taxpayers will be backing the program," McConnell said. "We know if the government gets in this business, pretty soon nobody else will be in this business."

n'a jamais cache son degout et sa haine pour les Republicains en general et pour Pres. Bush en particulier (en fait il existe une longgguuueee liste dont Dick Cheney est un favori)

Lors des elections presidentielles, Sarah Palin a ete attaquee de facon vehemente, comme Pres. Bush, il n'y a rien qu'elle puisse faire qui soit acceptable.

Etant encore parmi les espoirs de 2012, elle est toujours regulierement attaquee par les comediens des shows nocturnes. Letterman est loin d'etre le dernier mais cette fois-ci son "humour" a depasse les limites, lorsqu'il a fait un commentaire degradant au sujet d'une des filles de Sarah Palin la semaine derniere.

Il a vaguement tente un minimum d'excuse, mais apres que des demandes de renvoi aient ete demande aux responsables de la chaine, il fait une deuxieme tentative.

On m'a toujours dit qu'une excuse veritable ne s'accompagnait pas d'explication. Letterman aura eu une autre education.

Letterman Apologizes to Palin for 'Bad Joke'

Hamas has discovered two roadside bombs planted near a crossing between Israel and Gaza on a path Former President Jimmy Carter's convoy took to meet with the group's leaders, a Palestinian source tells FOX News.

According to the source, the aim of the bombs was to hit Carter's vehicle as he exited Gaza. There is some suspicion that Hamas extremists identified with Al Qaeda may be behind the attempt.
The former president says he's trying to persuade Hamas leaders to accept the international community's conditions for ending its boycott of the Islamic militant group.

Carter says that after his talks in Gaza, he will meet with officials in the Obama administration.
Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. and Europe and has been shunned by much of the world. Israel and Egypt have kept Gaza's borders virtually closed since Hamas overran the territory in 2007, a year after winning parliament elections.

The international community has asked Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous peace deals. Hamas has said such concessions cannot be made up front.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

avait ete promise. La Maison Blanche refuse de donner la liste des visiteurs...

White House Blocks Access to Visitor List

The U.S. Secret Service is refusing to release the list of guests to the White House since Jan. 20, 2009, prompting a lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
By Eve Zibel
FOXNews.com
Tuesday, June 16, 2009

In a move that puts a cloud over transparency, White House officials are blocking access to the lists of the names of visitors to the White House.

The practice, carried over from the Bush administration, argues the public does not need to know who comes calling at the Executive Mansion, even for policy purposes.

"We are deeply disappointed," said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington spokeswoman Anne Weismann, whose group is suing to get the records.

"The president, who has committed his administration to transparency and accountability, now takes the position of the Bush administration that the public is not entitled to know who visits the White House. These are not the actions of a pro-transparency administration," she said.
CREW requested the records through the Freedom of Information Act. The U.S. Secret Service denied the request, citing the presidential communications privilege.

CREW was requesting a list with logs of executives from coal companies. MSNBC was also denied a FOIA request asking for a list of every visitor to the White House since Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
CREW received a letter from the Secret Service saying it was unable to provide the records due to pending litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that CREW already filed.

The letter goes on to say, "It is the government's position that the vast majority, if not all, of the records that would have to be searched to determine whether any records responsive to your request exist are not agency records subject to FOIA."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted Tuesday that the policy is still under review and reiterated that this has been going on longer than Obama has been in office, in fact, all the way back to 2006.

"The goal is, and I think the president underscored his commitment to transparency on his first full day in office," Gibbs said. "This is not a contest between this administration or that administration or any administration. It's to uphold the principle of open government."

In terms of organizations like CREW getting the access they want, Gibbs said certain meetings are meant to be private because the matters discussed are of "great national importance."

Groups like CREW argue it's of critical importance to know the names of White House visitors because those visitors could have a huge impact on all sorts of policy matters. Logs that were released in isolated cases in the past included records of visits by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who frequently visited the Bush White House, and those involved in "filegate" in the Clinton era, when FBI files of 900 Republicans were found in the White House.
- Bouffee d'Air

Citation :

Participants will present a broad range of "divergent opinions in this historic debate," according to the press release announcing the event. Viewers will also be able to submit questions via ABCNews.com.

But critics of Obama's health care reform are asking that they be allowed to voice their side of the national debate.

C'est toujours plus payant de demander l'obtention d'une possibilité que l'on possède : on peut imaginer que si les tenants des divers corants d'opinions sont invités à participer, les opposants au projet présidentiel sont en bonne logique de la partie.

Evidemment, quand on n'a rien à dire sur un sujet c'est de bonne petite guéguerre de faire croire que ceux qui ont des choses concrètes à proposer vous refusent l'accès à la parole.

En matière de santé gageons que les Democrates n'ont pas le monopole des idées à la condition que les Gopistes démantèlent leur oligopsones de critiques systématiques stériles.

Eddie vous avez releve

But critics of Obama's health care reform are asking that they be allowed to voice their side of the national debate.

Toute personne objective a le droit de penser que le GOP ait des propositions a faire ou du moins un point de vue a defendre. (surtout si elle n'a pas oublie le programme propose par Pres. Bush auquel les Democrates n'ont objecte a l'epoque que des critiques systematiques steriles justement: "Seuls les Democrates sont capables de mettre sur pied un programme d'assurance sante")

or vous avez ecrit:

En matière de santé gageons que les Democrates n'ont pas le monopole des idées à la condition que les Gopistes démantèlent leur oligopsones de critiques systématiques stériles.

L'orsqu'une machine infernale comparable au systeme de sante canadien et anglais est prete a etre imposee aux Americains, il semble un peu normal que ceux qui vont la faire tourner (les contribuables) et ceux qui vont la subir (les patients) soient prevenus de ce qui les attend sans pour autant que cela soit considere comme des critiques systematiques steriles. Enfin, il me semble.

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Si NP parle de debat, de bi-partisme, d'echanges democratiques il semble surprenant qu'il evince l'opposition.

Une chose est certaine, NP avec l'aide de media sait parfaitement bien kidnapper son audience pour imposer ses programmes. Ca rappelle plus l'URSS que les USA que j'ai connus jusqu'en janvier dernier.

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En matière de santé gageons que les Democrates n'ont pas le monopole des idées à la condition que les Gopistes démantèlent leur oligopsones de critiques systématiques stériles.

En reprenant votre phrase, j'avoue avoir du mal a comprendre:

... Les gopistes demantelent leur oligorpsones de critiques ...

oligopsone: situation d'un marche sur lequel la concurrence est faussee du cote de la demande, du fait de la presence d'un tres petit nombre d'acheteurs par rapport au grand nombre de vendeurs.

887 -

Vous ne dormez donc jamais !?

Getting personal, hey?

Apparemment vous non plus, Eddie ?

Pour etre polie et repondre a votre question (meme si elle me semble rhetorique): juste ce quil faut.

et ne lui donne meme pas son mois...

Il aurait voulu proteger les dollars des contribuables, en effet quelle folie!!!

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The White House Fires a Watchdog

The curious case of the inspector general and a Presidential ally.

President Obama swept to office on the promise of a new kind of politics, but then how do you explain last week's dismissal of federal Inspector General Gerald Walpin for the crime of trying to protect taxpayer dollars? This is a case that smells of political favoritism and Chicago rules.

A George W. Bush appointee, Mr. Walpin has since 2007 been the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that oversees such subsidized volunteer programs as AmeriCorps. In April 2008 the Corporation asked Mr. Walpin to investigate reports of irregularities at St. HOPE, a California nonprofit run by former NBA star and Obama supporter Kevin Johnson. St. HOPE had received an $850,000 AmeriCorps grant, which was supposed to go for three purposes: tutoring for Sacramento-area students; the redevelopment of several buildings; and theater and art programs.

Associated Press

Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation For National and Community Service, was fired by President Barack Obama.

Mr. Walpin's investigators discovered that the money had been used instead to pad staff salaries, meddle politically in a school-board election, and have AmeriCorps members perform personal services for Mr. Johnson, including washing his car.

At the end of May, Mr. Walpin's office recommended that Mr. Johnson, an assistant and St. HOPE itself be "suspended" from receiving federal funds. The Corporation's official charged with suspensions agreed, and in September the suspension letters went out. Mr. Walpin's office also sent a civil and/or criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California.

So far, so normal. But that all changed last fall, when Mr. Johnson was elected mayor of Sacramento. News of the suspension had become public, and President Obama began to discuss his federal stimulus spending. A city-hired attorney pronounced in March that Sacramento might be barred from receiving stimulus funds because of Mr. Johnson's suspension.

The news caused a public uproar. The U.S. Attorney's office, which since January has been headed by Lawrence Brown -- a career prosecutor who took over when the Bush-appointed Attorney left -- had already decided not to pursue criminal charges. Media and political pressure then mounted for the office to settle the issue and lift Mr. Johnson's suspension. Mr. Walpin agreed Mr. Johnson should pay back money but objected to lifting the suspension. He noted that Mr. Johnson has never officially responded to the Corporation's findings and that the entire point of suspension is to keep federal funds from individuals shown to have misused them.

Mr. Brown's office responded by cutting off contact with Mr. Walpin's office and began working directly with the Corporation, the board of which is now chaired by one of Mr. Obama's top campaign fundraisers, Alan Solomont. A few days later, Mr. Brown's office produced a settlement draft that significantly watered down any financial repayment and cleared Mr. Johnson. Mr. Walpin told us that in all his time working with U.S. Attorneys on cases he'd referred, he'd never been cut out in such fashion.

Mr. Walpin brought his concerns to the Corporation's board, but some board members were angry over a separate Walpin investigation into the wrongful disbursement of $80 million to the City University of New York. Concerned about the St. HOPE mess, Mr. Walpin wrote a 29-page report, signed by two other senior members of his office, and submitted it in April to Congress. Last Wednesday, he got a phone call from a White House lawyer telling him to resign within an hour or be fired.

We've long disliked the position of inspectors general, on grounds that they are creatures of Congress designed to torment the executive. Yet this case appears to be one in which an IG was fired because he criticized a favorite Congressional and executive project (AmeriCorps), and refused to bend to political pressure to let the Sacramento mayor have his stimulus dollars.

There's also the question of how Mr. Walpin was terminated. He says the phone call came from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, who said the President felt it was time for Mr. Walpin to "move on," and that it was "pure coincidence" he was asked to leave during the St. HOPE controversy. Yet the Administration has already had to walk back that claim.

That's because last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the President to give Congress 30 days notice, plus a reason, before firing an inspector general. A co-sponsor of that bill was none other than Senator Obama. Having failed to pressure Mr. Walpin into resigning (which in itself might violate the law), the Administration was forced to say he'd be terminated in 30 days, and to tell Congress its reasons.

White House Counsel Gregory Craig cited a complaint that had been lodged against Mr. Walpin by Mr. Brown, the U.S. Attorney, accusing Mr. Walpin of misconduct, and of not really having the goods on Mr. Johnson. But this is curious given that Mr. Brown himself settled with St. HOPE, Mr. Johnson and his assistant, an agreement that required St. HOPE (with a financial assist from Mr. Johnson) to repay approximately half of the grant, and also required Mr. Johnson to take an online course about bookkeeping.

Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, a co-sponsor of the IG Reform Act, is now demanding that the Corporation hand over its communications on this mess. He also wants to see any contact with the office of First Lady Michelle Obama, who has taken a particular interest in AmeriCorps, and whose former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, recently arrived at the Corporation as a "senior adviser."

If this seems like small beer, keep in mind that Mr. Obama promised to carefully watch how every stimulus dollar is spent. In this case, the evidence suggests that his White House fired a public official who refused to roll over to protect a Presidential crony.

Il y a deux jours, une supporter de NP expliquait que si Ahmadinejad demeurait bien l"'interlocuteur" (???) de NP, ce dernier ferait de son mieux pour continuer a "negocier" (???) avec lui meme s'il devait se pincer le nez pour le faire.

A lire cette affaire, NP, habitue a la politique de Chicago doit avoir un pince-nez en or...

J'allais presqu'oublier..

Citation :

A lire cette affaire, NP, habitue a la politique de Chicago doit avoir un pince-nez en or...

Idem, mais en plus mesquin chez nous, notre Marmouset Ier vient de limoger le préfet du département du Var* parce qu'il n'avait pas pris toutes les dilligences nécessaires pour faire avancer le dossier du raccordement au tout-à-l'égout des 50 villas de luxe dont fait partie une des résidences de la maman de la Feurst Laidie de France au Cap-Nègre sur la Commune du Lavandou.

C'est aussi un dossier qui pue au propre comme au figuré. Je veux dire c'est aussi un dossier politique, remuer de la marde ça les connaît !

* le brave haut fonctionnaire va réintégrer son Corps d'origine comme conseiller référendaire à la Cour des Comptes et son traitement de base de misère de 3200 € par mois hors indemnités et avantages en tous genres. Pas vraiment un SDF.

Un rappel: NPD (notre premiere dame) avait assure que son seul souci a la Maison Blanche etait de s'assurer que leurs filles etaient confortables et qu'elle n'aurait aucune activite officielle...

Republican Senator Seeks Details on Possible First Lady Involvement in IG Firing
The White House insists the first lady had nothing to do with the firing of Gerald Walpin, former inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service who was summarily dismissed by President Obama last week.

By Judson Berger
FOXNews.com

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A top Republican senator is asking whether First Lady Michelle Obama's office played any role in last week's firing of former service program Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

The concern, one of several surrounding Walpin's sudden dismissal, stems from the timing of a staff switch in the first lady's office. Just days before Walpin got the boot, the White House announced Michelle Obama's chief of staff would be appointed senior adviser to the agency Walpin was responsible for monitoring. Michelle Obama said at the time she and her outgoing staffer, Jackie Norris, would work closely going forward.

With accusations now flying that the Walpin firing was politically motivated, the personnel change only adds to the list of questions Republicans have for the president.

The White House insists the first lady had nothing to do with the firing.

"She was not involved in any way in the decision to remove Mr. Walpin," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told FOXNews.com.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is looking for more documentation.

He has sent a letter to Alan Solomont, board chairman for the Corporation for National and Community Service, asking that he provide all relevant correspondence from several offices and individuals. Included in that list was "contacts with officials in the Office of the First Lady."

The letter did not elaborate on why the senator is seeking that information, but a Grassley aide confirmed that the Republican asked because of the recent staff switch in the first lady's office.

...

"Inspectors general have a statutory duty to report to Congress. Intimidation or retaliation against those who freely communicate their concerns to members of the House and Senate cannot be tolerated," Grassley wrote. "This is especially true when such concerns are as legitimate and meritorious as Mr. Walpin's appear to be."

Walpin told FOX News Tuesday that he was fired for "doing my job" and suggested "political pressure" was behind it

Passons a ce qui est important, pour Politico par exemple:



Un senateur Republicain (John Ensign) reconnait avoir eu une affaire avec une aide durant sa campagne.

Il a fait au moins 1 chose correcte: il n'a pas cede aux maitres chanteurs.

Aie aie aie... faut vraiment aimer le risque pour faire des aneries pareilles ou alors se croire invincible.

All Obama TV, all the time
By CAROL E. LEE & AMIE PARNES | 6/17/09 12:04 AM EDT
Updated: 6/17/09 10:22 AM EDT


Photo: Reuters
There is little disputing that right now Barack Obama is the world’s biggest celebrity. Movie stars want to meet him. Foreign leaders want his autograph. Americans just want to shake his hand.

But lately it seems the popular president has become a one-man stimulus plan for the television industry.

Obama did a recent promo for “The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien” during the host's first week on the job. He participated in a skit via video on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” NBC was taking pre-orders for its “Inside the Obama White House” DVD ($19.99) the day after the two-part special aired. Now ABC is promoting its special Obama access June 24: shooting “Good Morning America” from the North Lawn — including exclusive interviews with the president and the first lady — holding a prime-time health care Q & A with Obama in the East Room and anchoring “Nightline” from the Blue Room in the executive mansion.

And on Tuesday, Mariah Carey’s husband, Nick Cannon, was using the White House as a backdrop for a promo of the NBC reality show “America’s Got Talent,” which he hosts.

The White House had cleared Cannon in to do the spot. The rapper/actor was on the North Lawn giving his pitch while the president of South Korea’s motorcade rolled by in the background.

“Talent is taking over the world,” he shouted, as the pillars of White House gleamed in the distance.

The president and first lady have been vocal since the election about wanting a more accessible White House that’s open to the public. But when Cannon showed up, it all started to feel like too much to some White House observers, who groaned that this sort of on-site mish-mashing of pop culture and government is cheapening the executive office. TV host Bill Maher summed it up this week when he accused Obama of being obsessed with his television appearances.

“I don’t want my president to be a TV star,” Maher said on his HBO television show.

“You don’t have to be on television every minute of every day — you’re the president, not a rerun of ‘Law & Order,' ” he continued. “TV stars are too worried about being popular and too concerned about being renewed.”

But, in addition to getting to showcase his image and his message on the tube, Obama sells.
These days an endorsement from the popular commander in chief is as good as it gets. After Obama said he was reading the novel Netherland, sales of the book increased 40 percent. In fact, it’s been doing so well the publisher, Vintage Books, moved up the paperback release date and launched an advertising campaign highlighting Obama’s readership. Michelle Obama, too, holds her own — selling out cardigans just by wearing them to lunch. And more than 9 million viewers tuned in for “Inside the Obama White House.”

...
Quelle tristesse!

Sylvette a écrit:

Passons a ce qui est important, pour Politico par exemple:



Un senateur Republicain (John Ensign) reconnait avoir eu une affaire avec une aide durant sa campagne.

Il a fait au moins 1 chose correcte: il n'a pas cede aux maitres chanteurs.

Aie aie aie... faut vraiment aimer le risque pour faire des aneries pareilles ou alors se croire invincible.

d'un autre côté, faudrait quand même que ce pays évolue un peu au niveau des moeurs
ça permettrait aux politiciens de se concentrer sur leur travail plutôt que sur leur image
que je sache, l'activité sexuelle c'est "normal" (au moins pour des êtres normalement constitués)
alors que la "morale" c'est un processus mental totalement stérile (on en revient au "faites ce que je dis mais pas ce que je fais")
puisque, jusqu'à preuve du contraire, la morale n'a jamais réglé un seul problème ni sauvé une seule vie
c'est juste des mots
rien que des mots

De tous les media, la chaine FOX News (c'est un fait qu'elle ait la plus grande ecoute) est la seule a ne pas etre en pamoison devant NP (et encore, ce n'est pas toujours le cas pour le site internet), chose qui semble etre difficile a supporter pour NP.

Inversement, Pres. Bush avait tous les media contre lui, seul FOX News etait majoritairement juste, ce qui n'empechait ni Hannity, ni Cavuto, ni O'Reilly etc.. de critiquer certaines de ses decisions politiques.

Le jour ou Hillary a perdu la candidature du Parti Democrate a la presidentielle, j'etais tres heureuse, que dis-je comblee!!! 6 mois apres la prise du pouvoir par NP, je me dis qu'elle ne serait jamais parvenue a faire passer la moitie de ce qui est accepte de lui.

En Iran, si je souhaite que Mahmoud se prenne une deconfiture (et je suppose que les hotages qu'il avait "aide" a surveiller dans une cave de Teheran en '79 aussi), je ne peux pas plus esperer que son opposant gagne ces elections. Selon Kissinger, aux Iraniens de choisir leur poison...

Raison pour laquelle, une fois de plus, il est deja suffisamment difficile de comprendre la politique de son propre pays, prendre partie pour l'un des candidats surtout lorsque les media l'ont faussement presente (le "modere" ayant ete en fait un tyran sanguinaire, surprise, surprise, surprise!) est inacceptable et tres dangereux.

Les Republicains n'auraient pas que des critiques systématiques stériles...

THE GOP Can Stop ObamaCare
The public is in no mood for drastic changes in current coverage.
By KARL ROVE

It's extremely unlikely that Republicans will be able to pass their own health-care plan in this Congress. But in politics you can't beat something with nothing, so it is critical that the GOP offers an alternative to President Barack Obama's government-run monstrosity.

Americans will listen more closely to Republicans if they make empirical and specific arguments against Mr. Obama's attempted government takeover of the nation's health system. But they must also offer proposals that families, small-businesspeople and health-care providers will applaud.

Fortunately, Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Richard Burr of North Carolina, and Reps. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Devin Nunes of California have devised a plan that will likely appeal to anyone interested in making health insurance more affordable and portable.

Their proposal -- called the Patients' Choice Act -- is to leave in place the tax deduction companies receive for providing employees with health insurance and to create a "Medi-Choice" tax rebate that will give individuals $2,200 and families $5,700 to spend on health insurance.

The rebate will make health insurance more affordable, especially for young people. It also will make health insurance portable, which will free people from being locked into jobs they hate because they are afraid of losing their health insurance.

The Coburn-Ryan plan also helps the hard-to-insure and chronically ill because it shares their risk across all insurance companies, providing lower premiums than they might find now. It would help those in Medicaid because they receive private insurance rather than being forced into a one-size-fits-all government program in which doctors are increasingly refusing to participate.

The House GOP also formed a Health Care Solutions Group that unveiled proposals yesterday. The group wanted to make health care more affordable, expand availability, and promote healthier life choices. It did this by proposing two-dozen ways to improve existing law to make it easier and more cost-effective to buy health insurance.

One proposal is to give families who purchase their own insurance a tax benefit similar to the one companies get for providing health benefits. Another proposal is to pass medical liability reforms that will reduce costly junk lawsuits. Still another would allow small businesses to team up to buy insurance at a group discount. The group also wants to allow families to save money tax-free for a wide range of health expenses and permit children to stay on their parents' policies until age 25.

Under the group's proposals, Medicaid beneficiaries would get the flexibility to choose private coverage, rather than being locked into a government-run program. The group is also calling for stepping up efforts to detect and punish Medicare and Medicaid fraud, which costs an estimated $60 billion a year.

Individual Republicans are also stepping forward with health-reform ideas, such as creating a national health-insurance market that would allow Americans to buy insurance across state lines. Sens. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) and Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) have offered other ideas, including expanding community health centers.

This is the first time congressional Republicans as a group have been comfortable talking about health care. It may be the product of necessity, but it is also necessary to get a robust debate on health-care reform.

Republican efforts will be helped by a recent Congressional Budget Office report that found that Sen. Ted Kennedy's health-care reform would cost at least $1 trillion over the next 10 years and still leave 36 million Americans uninsured (it may be slightly more once all the details are released). Estimates for the health-care bill that the Senate Finance Committee is drafting with help from the White House are coming in around $1.6 trillion over 10 years.

As the debate now shifts from broad generalities to the specifics of how health-care reform would work and how the government will pay for it, the GOP has an opportunity to stop the nationalization of the health-care industry. The more scrutiny it gets, the less appealing Obama-Care will become. And the more Democrats have to talk about creating a new value-added tax or junk food taxes to pay for it, the more Americans will recoil.

Republican credibility on health care depends on whether the party offers positive alternatives that build on the strengths of American medicine. As long as the choice was between reform and the status quo, the public was likely to go with the reformers. But if the debate is whether to go with costly, unnecessary reforms or with common-sense changes, then Republicans have a chance to appeal to fiscally conservative independents and Democrats and win this one. It is still possible to stop ObamaCare in its tracks. If Republicans can do that, they will win public confidence on an issue that will dominate politics for decades.