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+10Shansaa jam Ungern Laogorus EddieCochran OmbreBlanche Le chanoine quantat Zed Biloulou 14 participants | |
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| | Sujet: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 8/11/2008, 13:47 | |
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| | Sujet: 2186 - 10/4/2010, 17:47 | |
| Il fait fort le Washington Post!  PollDateSampleApprove Disapprove Spread | RCP Average | 3/22 - 4/8 | -- | 47.3 | 46.3 | +1.0 | | Gallup | 4/6 - 4/8 | 1547 A | 49 | 46 | +3 | | Rasmussen Reports | 4/6 - 4/8 | 1500 LV | 48 | 52 | -4 | | FOX News | 4/6 - 4/7 | 900 RV | 43 | 48 | -5 | | CBS News | 3/29 - 4/1 | 858 A | 44 | 41 | +3 | | Marist | 3/25 - 3/29 | 860 RV | 46 | 43 | +3 | | USA Today/Gallup | 3/26 - 3/28 | 1033 A | 47 | 50 | -3 | | CNN/Opinion Research | 3/25 - 3/28 | 935 RV | 51 | 48 | +3 | | Washington Post | 3/23 - 3/26 | 1000 A | 53 | 43 | +10 | | Quinnipiac | 3/22 - 3/23 | 1552 RV | 45 | 46 | -1 |
See All President Obama Job Approval Polling Data |
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| | Sujet: 2187 - 10/4/2010, 18:13 | |
| J'aime bien Rasmussen. Il dit ce qu'il a a dire calmement, clairement et avec un certain humour (" je dirais meme un humour certain  ": Daily Presidential Tracking PollSaturday, April 10, 2010 The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 29% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13. (see trends). - Spoiler:
Over the past week, media coverage of the President has turned more negative. The Rasmussen Reports Media Meter shows that just 48% of the President’s media coverage been positive over the past seven days. That’s a sharp turnaround from 60% favorable coverage following passage of the health care legislation. Media Meter ratings for the President are updated daily. Check out our review of last week’s key polls to see “What They Told Us.”The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook. Overall, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove. In his new book, Scott Rasmussen states that “The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.” He adds that “If we had to rely on politicians to fix these problems, the outlook would be bleak indeed. Fortunately, in America, the politicians aren’t nearly as important as they think they are.” *1SUITE...*1 C'est un fait que pendant la " periode Lewinski de Clinton", le Congres etait inactif puisque le budget necessaire n'avait pas ete vote, or tout compte fait les Americains ont continue a travailler, l'economie a tourner et le ciel ne nous est meme pas tombe sur la tete! Bon evidemment, ca a eu des consequences quelque peu desastreuses pour le couple Clinton, mais ca... 
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| | Sujet: 2188 - 11/4/2010, 14:47 | |
| Casualty of ObamaCare Bart Stupak retires due to low levels of public support for health-care reform.By JOHN FUND Bart Stupak, the co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, played a pivotal role in the passage of ObamaCare last month when he announced his last-minute support for the measure. Pro-life groups that had previously supported him accused him of betrayal, claiming he accepted a watered-down compromise that allows federal funds to be used for abortions.- Spoiler:
While Mr. Stupak has expressed frustration at the anger directed against him, the political calculus of his district probably played a more important role in his decision today to retire. He faced a primary opponent from his party's left as well as other political headaches. Just last night, buses from the Tea Party Express movement rolled into Mr. Stupak's district for the first of four rallies -- presumably they will now be taking something akin to a victory lap. Their previous stop had been in Nevada for a series of rallies against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is a culturally conservative area that viewed most aspects of the health care bill with suspicion. In 2000 and 2004, the district went easily for George W. Bush, and Barack Obama barely managed 50% of the vote there in 2008. Mr. Stupak is known to have taken a private poll of his district since his health care vote, and his retirement announcement is a likely indication that he feared he might lose to a Republican challenger this fall.
Whatever political bounce Democrats thought they would get from passing health care isn't showing up in national polls. In districts like Mr. Stupak's health care appears to be a distinct liability.
To read more stories like this one, please subscribe to Political Diary.
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| | Sujet: 2189 - 12/4/2010, 03:33 | |
| Zed: au sujet de la video dont vous parliez la semaine derniere Gates Defends Soldiers in Iraq Shooting Video, Says Footage Lacks ContextFOXNews.com Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday defended the soldiers shown firing on a group of people near Baghdad in a classified military video released last week, saying the troops were caught in a "split-second" situation and the video doesn't show the "broader picture." - Spoiler:
 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks at a briefing on the new Nuclear Posture Review at the Pentagon in Washington April 6. (Reuters Photo)
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| | Sujet: 2190 - 12/4/2010, 13:21 | |
| Obamacare will be at the Center of High Court HearingBy Michael BaroneThe retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens means that in coming months we'll have another hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. But it's not likely to be the sort of hearing we got used to in the two decades after Edward Kennedy declared war on Robert Bork in 1987.- Spoiler:
Nomination fights in those years centered on the issue of abortion.
Many Republicans hoped and most Democrats feared that Republican nominees would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Democrats launched ferocious and often unfair attacks on nominees like Bork, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Republicans defended them warily, but refrained from launching similar attacks on Democratic nominees Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer.
These were arguments over a political issue of little practical impact but great moral content.
SUITE...
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| | Sujet: 2191 - 13/4/2010, 08:43 | |
| Father of Dead Marine Wages Court Battle Against Funeral ProtestsAP More than four years after his son died in a Humvee accident in Iraq, Albert Snyder's legal battle is headed to the Supreme Court.  AP photosAlbert Snyder, left, discusses the funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, center, which was picketed by members of the Westboro Baptist Church, right.- Spoiler:
Most mourners try to ignore the taunts. But Snyder couldn't let it go. He became the first to sue the church to halt the demonstrations, and he's pursued the group farther than anyone else.
Now, more than four years after his son died in a Humvee accident in Iraq, Snyder's legal battle is headed to the Supreme Court. And his tireless efforts have drawn support from across the country, including a wave of donations after he was ordered to pay the church's court costs -- a $16,500 judgment that the congregation plans to use for more protests.
Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, 20, was not gay. But for the Westboro church, any dead soldier is fair game. Pastor Fred Phelps oversees a congregation of 70 to 80 members -- mostly his children and grandchildren. They consider themselves prophets, and they insist the nation is doomed.
As Snyder sees it, Westboro isn't engaging in constitutionally protected speech when it pickets funerals. He argues that PheVirginia. The group first grabbed widespread notice in 1998, when members appeared outside the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student whose murder drew national attention.
Lawyers Sean E. Summers and Craig T. Trebilcock, both military veterans, agreed to take Snyder's case pro bono. They warned him about the emotional toll of a long legal dispute.
Snyder won the first round decisively, when a jury in federal court in Baltimore awarded him $10.9 million in damages in October 2007. A judge later reduced the award to $5 million.
Last September, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the verdict, ruling Westboro's protest was constitutionally protected speech.
The Supreme Court agreed last month to consider whether the protesters' actions, no matter how provocative and upsetting, are protected by the First Amendment. The case will be argued in the fall.
Then something unexpected happened: The appeals court ordered Snyder to pay Westboro $16,510 in court costs. While it's not unusual for the losing party in a civil case to be required to pay some costs, it rarely happens when an individual sues a private entity, especially when the case is still active, experts say.
Margie Jean Phelps, one of Fred Phelps' daughters and an attorney, will argue the case before the Supreme Court. She has said the church plans to use the money from Snyder to stage more protests. That's what's so upsetting to Snyder, who says he would drop the matter if the church stopped picketing funerals.
Snyder has received plenty of publicity since filing the lawsuit, but interest intensified after the court-ordered payment.
Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly pledged to pay the entire $16,510, and the American Legion has raised more than $20,000. Every day, hundreds of envelopes arrive at Summers' office. Snyder plans to use the money for other court fees and to donate what's left over to veterans.
Not everyone is on Snyder's side, even if they find Westboro's protests loathsome.
They point to the undisputed facts of the case. Westboro contacted police before its protest, which was conducted in a designated area on public land -- 1,000 feet from the church where the Mass was held in Westminster, Md.
The protesters -- Phelps and six family members -- broke no laws. Snyder knew they were present, but he did not see their signs or hear their statements until he turned on the news at his son's wake.
Jonathan M. Turley, a George Washington University law professor, asked his constitutional law class to grapple with the case. At first, the entire class was sympathetic to Snyder. But after they dug deeper, they concluded that Westboro's speech was protected by the First Amendment.
"Once you get down to trying to draw the line between privacy and free speech, it becomes clear that a ruling against Westboro could create the danger of a slippery slope for future courts," Turley said.
Turley, who studies the Supreme Court closely, said it's difficult to predict how the justices will rule.
Phelps-Roper has no doubt the court will favor Westboro. "If that case can prevail, there is no First Amendment left," she said.
Some military families see no reason why such protests cannot be restricted.
"I don't think these people should be allowed to come in and disrupt a family's grief," said Diane Salyers of Sims, Ark., whose son's funeral was picketed by Westboro in 2007. Snyder "speaks for all of us who've been affected by these people."
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| | Sujet: 2192 - 15/4/2010, 11:32 | |
| Neil Armstrong takes one giant swipe at Obama over Nasa cutsJacqui Goddard Jacqui Goddard When he spoke 41 years ago, the world listened — hanging on every word as he uttered one of the most inspiring phrases of the 20th century.- Spoiler:
Neil Armstrong earned himself a lifetime of respect with his one giant leap for mankind, but he has for decades refrained from exploiting it, turning down opportunities in politics and avoiding controversy.
Now the space gloves are off. The first man on the Moon has teamed up with the last man, Gene Cernan, to confront President Obama over his “devastating” plans for Nasa’s $108 billion (£70 billion) Constellation programme. Mr Obama wants to scrap Constellation, which was meant to develop new space ships to replace the shuttle, take astronauts back to the Moon and ultimately to Mars.
The death of the project would set America’s space programme on a “long downhill slide to mediocrity”, Armstrong declared yesterday. “It appears that we will have wasted our current $10-plus billion investment in Constellation and, equally importantly, we will have lost the many years required to re-create the equivalent of what we will have discarded,” he said in a statement.
Determined to regain the high ground in the increasingly embarrassing dispute, the White House wheeled out a big gun of its own: Buzz Aldrin, Armstrong’s Apollo 11 crewmate and second man on the Moon.
In a statement, Aldrin said that the President’s new vision for Nasa would leave America’s space programme better off. “It will allow us to again be pushing the boundaries to achieve new and challenging things beyond Earth,” he said.
Mr Obama will elaborate on his agenda during a visit to Kennedy Space Centre in Florida today. He will argue that America could get humans to deep-space destinations including Mars faster, cheaper and more efficiently than Constellation by outsourcing new spacecraft development to the commercial sector.
The first man on the Moon will take some convincing. “For the United States, the leading space-faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low-Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third-rate stature,” he said.
Mr Obama’s proposals contained a funding increase that will allow more research and technology development at Nasa and a four-year extension to the International Space Station. The development of spacecraft to get astronauts to low-Earth orbit will be outsourced to commercial rocketeers while Nasa focuses on developing a new heavy-lift rocket, that could one day speed man to Mars and beyond.
“This new strategy means more money for Nasa, more jobs for the country, more astronaut time in space, and more investments in innovation,” Mr Obama will say today, according to excerpts leaked before his speech.
Armstrong countered: “Although some of these proposals have merit, the accompanying decision to cancel the Constellation programme, its Ares I and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating.”
He added: “America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a programme which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal.”
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| | Sujet: 2193 - 15/4/2010, 12:30 | |
| Why Republicans Are Winning on the Tax Issue Americans understand what Obama spending means for their pocketbooks.
By KARL ROVE
Today's last-minute trip to the post office to mail in your return is a reminder of one of life's unpleasant realities: paying taxes. Always important in politics, the tax issue is likely to play a larger role this year than in any midterm election since 1994.- Spoiler:
A recent Rasmussen survey reported that 66% of Americans believe the nation is over-taxed. There's a reason. Under President Barack Obama taxes are going up—a lot.
House Ways and Means Committee Republicans have issued a summary of the 25 tax increases signed into law by Mr. Obama so far. They total $670 billion over the next 10 years, including 14 tax hikes (including an annual tax on every insurance policy and an annual tax on brand-name drugs) that break Mr. Obama's solemn 2008 campaign pledge never to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.
Many of these taxes are part of the ObamaCare monstrosity. New levies on investment, drugs, medical devices and insurance policies eventually will hit ordinary Americans, and the public knows it. A late March Fox News poll asked, "If major health care reform legislation is passed, do you think your taxes will increase, decrease or stay about the same?" Seventy-five percent think their taxes will increase.
Tax concerns will hurt congressional Democrats. In rural areas, their opposition to repeal of the death tax antagonizes farmers and ranchers. Then there are America's 32 million small-business owners, who feel put upon by the administration's tax everyone-and-everything philosophy.
Families, especially in the suburbs, are pressed by rising property, sales and state income taxes in addition to the federal tax increases. And don't forget the 53 million investors whose battered accounts are only now recovering. There's a new 3.8% surtax on certain kinds of investment income for high earners, but it is not indexed for inflation, so it will bite an increasing number of people over time.
Between the March 2009 CNN poll and the March 2010 Associated Press survey, Mr. Obama's approval rating on taxes dropped to 44% from 62% while his disapproval rating rose to 43% from 37%. Similarly, the Rasmussen poll of March 31-April 1 found 46% of voters believe today their taxes will increase under Mr. Obama, compared to 36% who think they will stay the same and 8% who think they will decrease.
It's somewhat unusual that so many believe themselves over-taxed when half of all Americans don't pay federal income taxes. But many of them shell out for payroll and property taxes, and virtually everyone pays sales taxes. Plenty of Americans understand higher business taxes are eventually paid by those who buy goods and services.
Politicians would be wise to remember that high taxes also are a matter of principle. The Rasmussen poll of March 31-April 1 found three-quarters of Americans believe that no one should pay more than 20% of their income in taxes—a figure we are well beyond. This makes taxation a moral issue as well as an economic one.
The public isn't stupid. They understand, like night follows day, that Mr. Obama's blizzard of spending is generating a much larger national debt, and that debt, in turn, will create enormous pressure to raise taxes.
Mr. Obama will use more spending and bigger deficits as justification for additional taxes—perhaps even a European-style value-added tax (VAT), an idea already floated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Obama economic adviser Paul Volcker. At the heart of Mr. Obama's agenda is the further empowerment of Washington, which Americans will not easily accept.
Jobs remain the No. 1 political issue, understandable when unemployment presses near double digits. Taxation as a stand-alone issue falls way below that according to most polls. But some issues are connected, and I'm convinced that Americans increasingly understand that rising spending and deficits and large tax increases will hurt the nation's ability to create jobs. This will help the GOP and hurt Democrats.
In this week's George Washington University Battleground Poll, for example, congressional Republicans lead their Democratic counterparts on which party is better able to hold down taxes (56% to 28%), control wasteful spending (44% to 32%), and control the deficit (45% to 36%). This puts the GOP within striking distance of catching the Democrats on who can turn the economy around (currently 41% to 47%) and create jobs (38% to 46%)—both issues that Democrats dominated not long ago. Historically, Republicans win—and win big—when they are within six points or less of the Democrats on the economy and jobs.
Things look bleak for Democrats right now. And if Republicans connect the dots among record spending, skyrocketing deficits, rising taxes and a weak recovery, Democrats will suffer a midterm loss from which the Obama presidency may never fully recover.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).
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| | Sujet: 2194 - 15/4/2010, 12:40 | |
| Le POTUS et les Democrates en general etaient convaincus qu'Obamacare, une fois passe, sera accepte ou au moins oublie, c'est loin d'etre le cas.
AP-GfK Poll: Standing slips for Obama, Democrats
Liz Sidoti
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows President Barack Obama's approval rating has slipped to a new low after his victory on health care, despite signs of economic revival.
The poll says 49 percent of people now approve of the job Obama is doing — and only 44 percent like how he has handled health care and the economy. His overall approval rating is down from 53 percent last month.
The numbers are worsening for congressional Democrats, too.
For the first time this year, about as many Americans approve of congressional Republicans as they do Democrats, 38 percent to 41 percent. Neither has an edge when it comes to the party voters want controlling Congress. |
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| | Sujet: 2195 - 16/4/2010, 09:29 | |
| Tea Party Protesters Descend on D.C. With New 'Contract From America'FOXNews.com Thousands of protesters descended on the nation's Capitol for April 15 tax deadline protests as activists offered up a new "Contract From America" aimed at using the winning formula of the 1994 Republican revolution while also developing a direction for the burgeoning movement.- Spoiler:
 Tea Party supporters attend a rally in Washington April 15. (AP Photo)  Pass an “all of the above” energy policy(9) Stop the 2011 tax hikes(10) Stop the pork. * The Contract from America may be an effort at organizing the party. Tea Party insiders admit organizing them is "a lot like herding cats," but they also claim that's exactly the way they like it. "Look we don't (need) leaders for this," said Dick Armey, the former Texas Republican congressman who now leads FreedomWorks and was part of both the 1994 Contract With America and the new contract. "This is endemic, it's in the DNA of the American people. We love freedom, we understand what works in the world because we are in the world and we really our government to grow up and mind its own business," Armey said. However, for a movement that prides on the absence of professional political leadership, Thursday's festivities featured some of the best known partisans on the right. Aside from Armey, a former House majority leader, Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Steve King, R-Iowa, and Jack Kingston, R-Ga. -- all reliable partisan battlers -- were in attendance. Bachmann fired up the crowd at Thursday's event in Washington. "This November, what do you say, let's take back our country," she yelled. The crowd at the earlier of two rallies scheduled for Thursday was not a huge one by Washington, D.C., standards, coming in at about 3,000 to 4,000 people. A day earlier organizers downplayed expectations, saying only about 5,000 to 10,000 people were expected to show up because they have encouraged people across the country to cultivate protests in their hometowns. Tax day protests did occur nationwide, with the D.C. rally marking the end of a 23-state Tea Party Express tour targeting vulnerable Democratic Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Arlen Specter or Pennsylvania as well as nine House members who voted for health care reform. Anti-Tea Party counter-protesters carried a huge banner that read "The Other 95 percent. Say thanks for your tax cuts Obama." They walked around the crowd but represented only a miniscule percentage of the ralliers. Speaking from the podium, Kingston welcomed the counter-protesters. "Welcome. I'm hoping that you'll learn something." Tea Party activists have been on the lookout for infiltrators. In recent weeks, Web sites such as crashtheteaparty.org have urged people to "act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them." Armey offered a message to any would-be infiltrators. "My daddy told me when I was boy, it's better to be persecuted than ignored. We must be meaning something to these folks or they wouldn't be attacking us." However, Armey did express concern about the havoc infiltrators could wreak on the movement. "Why don't you have the decency to be proud to be you for crying out loud? Just don't come in here like a bunch of juvenile delinquents on a lark and try to sabotage our event. We have a right to present ourselves to the American people without mischaracterization. It's hard enough for the conventional press in America to get it, who we are and what are the lessons of liberty that we are so committed to, without you confounding the picture with your antics." * Voila un programmme qui semble bien interessant!
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| | Sujet: 2196 - 16/4/2010, 13:57 | |
| A tale of two Obamas: Up in D.C., down in U.S. By MIKE ALLEN & JAMES HOHMANN | 4/16/10 6:58 AM EDT  The president's Inside-the-Beltway successes don't seem to be resonating elsewhere. | AP Photos Close - Spoiler:
While Washington talks about Obama’s new mojo, polls show voters outside the Beltway are sulking — soured on the president, his party and his program. The Gallup Poll has Obama’s approval rating at an ominous 49 percent, after hitting a record low of 47 percent last weekend. A new poll in Pennsylvania, a bellwether industrial state, shows his numbers sinking, as did recent polls in Ohio and Florida.
So there are two Obamas: Rising in D.C., struggling in the U.S.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell admits that Republicans won the health-care messaging war and says he has been traveling to dinners and fundraisers across the country to implore Democrats to fight back.
“The spin took hold,” Rendell said. “I expected more of a bounce than he got, but again it all goes to 16 months in which the Republicans have dominated the spin on stimulus and health care. ... It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and say, ‘Game on.’ And the more we do that, the better it will be.”
It’s yet another deficit for Obama to tackle: The Republican Party has closed its popularity gap with the Democrats, and people say they’d be at least as happy with the GOP in charge of Capitol Hill. Wall Street sees a recovery, but everyday Americans think their country is still on the wrong track. And health reform is even less popular now in some polls than it was before it passed.
“Everyone in the pressure cooker in Washington got all excited like the millennium had arrived [when health care reform passed], but I don’t think most reasonable people read it that way,” Democratic Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said. Bredesen said people are worried about the cost and “appalled at the process in the Congress that produced it.”
Bredesen said that in the states, it’s not about power politics and who’s up and who’s down, but about the cost — an estimated $1.1 billion for the Volunteer State from 2014 to 2019, with the costs ballooning just as the state was expecting to begin recovering from the trauma of the past three years. “We haven’t given raises to state employees for three years and probably won’t for three more years,” Bredesen said.
A doomsday scenario for Democrats now has them losing control of the House by an even larger margin than the 54-seat debacle that produced Speaker Newt Gingrich. “It is well within the realm of possibility ... that Democratic losses could climb into the 80- or 90-seat range,” wrote Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics
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| | Sujet: 2107 - 16/4/2010, 19:40 | |
| Excellent! To the point. How the Democrats can avoid a November bloodbath By Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. CaddellFriday, April 16, 2010 Media reports suggest that President Obama is turning his attention toward the midterm congressional elections. There are a few things it is imperative he understand if he is to, at the least, minimize Democratic losses in November. - Spoiler:
We are Democratic pollsters who argued against the health-care legislation ["Democrats' blind ambition," Washington Forum, March 12] that the Obama administration chose to pursue. Instead, we advocated incremental health-care reform. With the passage of health reform, some harsh political realities have emerged.
Recent polling shows that despite lofty predictions that a broad-based Democratic constituency would be activated by the bill's passage, the bill has been an incontrovertible disaster. The most recent Rasmussen Reports poll, released on April 12, shows that 58 percent of the electorate supports a repeal of the health-care reform bill -- up from 54 percent two weeks earlier. Fueling this backlash is concern that health-care reform will drive up health costs and expand the role of government, and the belief that passage was achieved by fundamentally anti-democratic means. Already we are seeing the implications play out with the retirement of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) -- who had effectively become the face of the last-minute, closed-door negotiations that resulted in passage.
Put simply, there has been no bounce, for the president or his party, from passing health care.
In fact, Monday's Gallup report showed the president's weekly job approval rating at a low of 47 percent. And as the Democratic Party's favorability has dropped to 41 percent -- the lowest in Gallup's 18-year history of measuring it -- this week's Rasmussen Reports survey shows the Republican Party with a nine-point lead in the generic congressional vote. Moreover, independents, who are more energized than Democrats, are leaning Republican by a 2-to-1 margin.
What all this means is that Republicans are ripe to pick up major gains in both chambers this November.
To turn a corner, Democrats need to start embracing an agenda that speaks to the broad concerns of the American electorate. It should be somewhat familiar: It is the agenda that is driving the Tea Party movement and one that has the capacity to motivate a broadly based segment of the electorate.
To be sure, great efforts have been made recently to demonize the Tea Party movement. But polling suggests that the Tea Party movement has not been diminished but, in fact, has grown stronger. The Winston Group found, in three national surveys conducted from December through February and published April 1, that the Tea Party movement is composed of a broad cross-section of the American people -- 40 to 50 percent of its supporters are non-Republicans. Indeed, one-third of self-identified Democrats say they support the Tea Party movement.
The electorate's dissatisfaction with the established political order has led the Tea Party movement to become as potent a force as any U.S. political party.
Last week, a Rasmussen Reports survey showed that overall more Americans say that they agree with the Tea Party movement on major issues than with the president of the United States -- 48 percent with the Tea Party and 44 percent with Obama. Among independents, 50 percent said that they're closer to the Tea Party, while only 38 percent are with Obama.
Moreover, the most recent Gallup poll shows that the Tea Party movement is at least as popular as the Democratic Party. And the Tea Party movement stands for fiscal discipline, limited government and balancing the budget -- an agenda that has broad public support extending well beyond the movement. Polling conducted by one of us (Schoen) found that 55 percent of respondents endorse that agenda. More important, a solid majority of swing voters endorse it.
The swing voters, who are key to the fate of the Democratic Party, care most about three things: reigniting the economy, reducing the deficit and creating jobs.
These voters are outraged by the seeming indifference of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, who they believe wasted a year on health-care reform. These voters will not tolerate more diversion from their pressing economic concerns. They view the Obama administration as working systematically to protect the interests of public-sector employees and organized labor -- by offering specific benefits such as pension protection and tax reductions at the expense of all taxpayers.
Democrats must understand that voters will not accept seeing their tax dollars used to pay for higher wages and better benefits for public-sector employees when they themselves are getting higher taxes and lower wages.
Winning over swing voters will require a bold, new focus from the president and his party. They must adopt an agenda aimed at reducing the debt, with an emphasis on tax cuts, while implementing carefully crafted initiatives to stimulate and encourage job creation. This is the agenda that largely motivated the Clinton administration from 1995 through 2000 and that led to a balanced budget and welfare reform. It promoted a modest degree of social welfare spending. This agenda is enormously popular with the electorate and could eventually turn around Democratic fortunes.
Democrats can avoid the electoral bloodbath we predicted before passage of the health-care bill, but in one way: through a bold commitment to fiscal discipline and targeted fiscal stimulus of the private sector and entrepreneurship.
Douglas E. Schoen, a pollster, is the author of "The
Political Fix." Patrick H. Caddell is a political commentator and a pollster. |
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| | Sujet: 2108 - 17/4/2010, 11:19 | |
| Tea Party Getting Under Skin of Liberals
O'Reilly - Video |
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| | Sujet: 2199 - 17/4/2010, 20:10 | |
| Sens. Lieberman, Collins To Subpoena Obama Admin Over Nidal Hasan Investigation (video) |
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| | Sujet: 2200 - 18/4/2010, 09:48 | |
| Gates Warns U.S. Lacks Strategy on Iran NukesAssociated Press WASHINGTON Memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the White House warns the United States lacks a nimble long-term plan for dealing with Iran's nuclear program, according to a published report.- Spoiler:
Gates wrote the three-page memo in January and it set off efforts in the Pentagon, White House and intelligence agencies to come up with new options, including the use of the military, The New York Times said in its Sunday editions, quoting unnamed government officials.
White House officials Saturday night strongly disagreed with the comments that the memo caused a reconsideration of the administration's approach to Iran.
"It is absolutely false that any memo touched off a reassessment of our options," National Security Council spokesman Benjamin Rhodes told The Associated Press. "This administration has been planning for all contingencies regarding Iran for many months."
One senior official described the memo as "a wake-up call," the paper reported.
But the recipient of the document, Gen. James Jones, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, told the newspaper in an interview that the administration has a plan that "anticipates the full range of contingencies."
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, who did not confirm the memo Saturday night, said the White House has reviewed many Iran options.
"The secretary believes the president and his national security team have spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort considering and preparing for the full range of contingencies with respect to Iran," Morrell said.
The U.S. is pressing for new international sanctions against Iran. The memo contemplates a situation in which sanctions and diplomacy fail to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear capability, the Times said.
Obama set a deadline of the end of 2009 for Iran to respond to his offer of dialogue to resolve concerns about Iran's accelerated nuclear development.
Iran spurned the offer, and since then the administration has pursued what it calls the "pressure track," a combination of stepped-up military activity in Iran's neighborhood and a hard push for a new round of international sanctions that would pinch Iran economically.
Gates and other senior members of the administration have issued increasingly stern warnings to Iran that its nuclear program is costing it friends and options worldwide, while sticking to the long-held view that a U.S. or Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would be counterproductive.
Obama and other administration figures have drawn a line that says Iran will not be allowed to become a nuclear state, but they have not spelled out what the United States would do if Iran gained the ability to produce a weapon but does not actually field one.
Four senior administration officials told Congress last week that Iran is perhaps a year away from being able to build a weapon but that it would take two- to five additional years to turn the device into an effective weapon that could be launched against an enemy.
Iran claims its nuclear program is intended for energy production, not a weapon.
"All we really know is that Iran is widening and deepening its nuclear weapons capabilities, David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, told the AP. "We don't have any insight into what they're thinking about doing -- whether they'll just live with a nuclear weapons capability which will probably include learning more about nuclear weapons themselves, or they'll actually build them."
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| | Sujet: 2201 - 18/4/2010, 13:23 | |
| Nuclear posturing, Obama-styleBy Charles KrauthammerFriday, April 9, 2010 Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place.
- Spoiler:
During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge conventional military advantage and invaded Western Europe, they risked massive U.S. nuclear retaliation. Goodbye, Moscow.
Was this credible? Would we have done it? Who knows? No one's ever been there. No one's ever had to make such decisions. A nuclear posture is just that -- a declaratory policy designed to make the other guy think twice.
Our policies did. The result was called deterrence. For half a century, it held. The Soviets never invaded. We never used nukes. That's why nuclear doctrine is important.
The Obama administration has just issued a new one that "includes significant changes to the U.S. nuclear posture," said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First among these involves the U.S. response to being attacked with biological or chemical weapons.
Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.
Again: Credible? Doable? No one knows. But the threat was very effective.
Under President Obama's new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is "in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," explained Gates, then "the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it."
Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up to date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)
However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT-noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.
This is quite insane. It's like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.
Apart from being morally bizarre, the Obama policy is strategically loopy. Does anyone believe that North Korea or Iran will be more persuaded to abjure nuclear weapons because they could then carry out a biological or chemical attack on the United States without fear of nuclear retaliation?
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======= Obama's nuclear posturing, Part DeuxObama's nuclear strutting and frettingBy Charles KrauthammerFriday, April 16, 2010 There was something oddly disproportionate about the just-concluded nuclear summit to which President Obama summoned 46 world leaders, the largest such gathering on American soil since 1945. That meeting was about the founding of the United Nations, which 65 years ago seemed an event of world-historical importance. - Spoiler:
But this one? What was this great convocation about? To prevent the spread of nuclear material into the hands of terrorists. A worthy goal, no doubt.
Unfortunately, the two greatest such threats were not even on the agenda.
The first is Iran, which is frantically enriching uranium to make a bomb, and which our own State Department identifies as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world.
Nor on the agenda was Pakistan's plutonium production, which is adding to the world's stockpile of fissile material every day.
Pakistan is a relatively friendly power, but it is the most unstable of all the nuclear states. It is fighting a Taliban insurgency and is home to al-Qaeda.
Suicide bombs go off regularly in its major cities. Moreover, its own secret service, the ISI, is of dubious loyalty, some of its elements being sympathetic to the Taliban and thus, by extension, to al-Qaeda.
So what was the major breakthrough announced by Obama at the end of the two-day conference? That Ukraine, Chile, Mexico and Canada will be getting rid of various amounts of enriched uranium.
What a relief. I don't know about you, but I lie awake nights worrying about Canadian uranium. I know these people. I grew up there. You have no idea what they're capable of doing. If Sidney Crosby hadn't scored that goal to win the Olympic gold medal, there's no telling what might have ensued.
Let us stipulate that sequestering nuclear material is a good thing. But, it is a minor thing, particularly when Iran is off the table and Pakistan is creating new plutonium for every ounce of Canadian uranium shipped to the United States.
Perhaps calculating that removing relatively small amounts of fissile material from stable, friendly countries didn't quite do the trick, Obama proudly announced that the United States and Russia were disposing of 68 tons of plutonium. Unmentioned was the fact that this agreement was reached 10 years ago -- and, under the new protocol, doesn't begin to dispose of the plutonium until 2018. Feeling safer now?
The appropriate venue for such minor loose-nuke agreements is a meeting of experts in Geneva who, after working out the details, get their foreign ministers to sign off. Which made this parade of world leaders in Washington an exercise in misdirection -- distracting attention from the looming threat from Iran, regarding which Obama's 15 months of terminally naive "engagement" has achieved nothing but the loss of 15 months.
Indeed, the Washington summit was part of a larger misdirection play -- Obama's "nuclear spring." Last week: a START treaty, redolent of precisely the kind of Cold War obsolescence Obama routinely decries. The number of warheads in Russia's aging and decaying nuclear stockpile is an irrelevancy now that the existential U.S.-Soviet struggle is over. One major achievement of the treaty, from the point of view of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, is that it could freeze deployment of U.S. missile defenses -- thus constraining the single greatest anti-nuclear breakthrough of our time.
This followed a softening of the U.S. nuclear deterrent posture (sparing non-proliferation compliant states from U.S. nuclear retaliation if they launch a biochemical attack against us) -- a change so bizarre and literally unbelievable that even Hillary Clinton couldn't get straight what retaliatory threat remains on the table.
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| | Sujet: 2202 - 19/4/2010, 11:40 | |
| Poll: Trust in Big Government Near Historic LowAssociated Press The poll illustrates the ominous situation facing President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections.- Spoiler:
 APApril 16: President Obama speaks at the White House Conference on America's Great Outdoors.
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| | Sujet: 2203 - 19/4/2010, 16:18 | |
| Breaking News: Al Qaeda leader in Iraq has been killed, Reuters reports |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 19/4/2010, 16:26 | |
| There you go...
Obamacare n'obtient toujours pas la reaction positive que le POTUS et les Democrates de Washington etaient certains d'obtenir!
Most voters nationwide (53%) believe any changes to Medicare or Social Security should be approved by a vote of the American people.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows 29% do not think such changes require a national vote, while another 17% are not sure.
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et...
Support for repeal of the recently-passed national health care plan is proving to be just as consistent as opposition to the plan before it was passed.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of likely voters nationwide favor repeal, while 41% are opposed. Those figures include 48% who Strongly Favor repeal and 29% who Strongly Oppose it.
Over the past four weeks, support for repeal has remained in a very narrow range from a low of 54% to a high of 58%.
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| | Sujet: 2205 - 19/4/2010, 17:21 | |
| 2 Most Wanted Al Qaeda Leaders in Iraq Killed by U.S., Iraqi ForcesFOXNews.com Iraq's two most wanted Al Qaeda terrorists were killed in a joint operation with the U.S., Fox News confirmed Monday.- Spoiler:
DEVELOPING: Iraq's two most wanted Al Qaeda terrorists were killed in a joint operation with the U.S., Fox News confirmed Monday.
The U.S. military said Monday that Al Qaeda leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Umar al-Baghdadi were killed over the weekend when a joint operation of U.S. and Iraqi forces rocketed a home where they were hiding.
Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki showed reporters at a news conference on Monday pictures of two dead bodies he identified as al-Baghdadi and al-Masri.
The U.S. military said that the two terrorists were killed just southwest of Tikrit.
"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," the U.S. top commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, said in a press release Monday.
"The government of Iraq intelligence services and security forces supported by U.S. intelligence and special operations forces have over the last several months continued to degrade AQI. There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq of terrorists," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| | Sujet: 2206 - 19/4/2010, 20:14 | |
| Celle-la, c'est pour Lawrence, Ombre, Ungern sans s'y limiter parce que c'est la meilleure!  Apparemment, l'administration Obama a realise que ridiculiser la Tea Party n'etait pas la meilleure strategie. Administration to Tea Parties, We're on Your SideFOXNews.com Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in an interview Sunday, when asked about the Tea Party protests, that the Obama administration is paying more attention to the deficit than the Bush administration did. - Spoiler:
 AP2010FILE - In this March 8, 2010 file photo, Tea Party member Greg Hernandez, of Quicksburg, Va., wearing a tri-corner hat and tea bag, listens to speakers during a rally at the Capitol in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber/file)Tea Partiers, the Obama administration is on your side.
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| | Sujet: 2207 - 19/4/2010, 21:41 | |
| The Beholden StateSteven MalangaHow public-sector unions broke CaliforniaThe camera focuses on an official of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), California’s largest public-employee union, sitting in a legislative chamber and speaking into a microphone. “We helped to get you into office, and we got a good memory,” she says matter-of-factly to the elected officials outside the shot. “Come November, if you don’t back our program, we’ll get you out of office.’ - Spoiler:
Cette caricature semble admirablement bien represente ce qu'exprimait Malba il y a quelques semaines. The video has become a sensation among California taxpayer groups for its vivid depiction of the audacious power that public-sector unions wield in their state. The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support. Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized masters of California’s unsustainable government.California’s government workers took longer than many of their counterparts to win the right to bargain collectively. New York City mayor Robert Wagner started a national movement back in the late 1950s when he granted negotiating rights to government unions, hoping to enlist them as allies against the city’s Tammany Hall machine. The movement intensified in the early sixties, after President John F. Kennedy conferred the right to bargain on federal workers. In California, a more politically conservative environment at the time, public employees remained without negotiating power through most of the sixties, though they could join labor associations. In 1968, however, the state legislature passed the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, extending bargaining rights to local government workers. Teachers and other state employees won the same rights in the seventies.These legislative victories happened at a time of surging prosperity. California’s aerospace industry, fueled by the Cold War, was booming; investments in water supply and infrastructure nourished the state’s agribusiness; cheaper air travel and a famously temperate climate burnished tourism. The twin lures of an expanding job market and rising incomes pushed the state’s population higher, from about 16 million in 1960 to 23 million in 1980 and nearly 30 million by 1990. This expanding population in turn led to rapid growth in government jobs—from a mere 874,000 in 1960 to 1.76 million by 1980 and nearly 2.1 million in 1990—and to exploding public-union membership. In the late 1970s, the California teachers’ union boasted about 170,000 members; that number jumped to about 225,000 in the early 1990s and stands at 340,000 today.Suite..
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| | Sujet: 2208 - 20/4/2010, 09:43 | |
| Big Government and Its Discontents By David Paul KuhnTrust in government is not at new lows. It was this bad in the early 1990s. Who knows what the public thought of Washington when Herbert Hoover or Andrew Johnson were president. The American tension with government long precedes us. "I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least," wrote Henry David Thoreau in the mid-19th century.- Spoiler:
Yet, once more, here we are. Another chapter in America's storied distrust in government.
This fait accompli was avoidable. President Obama had a brief window. The public did not suddenly trust government. But the market crash meant they no longer knew what to trust. Polls captured a public willing to give big government a (little) chance.
A progressive test case could follow. The public was, however, clearly between Obama and Reagan's government. Logic dictated the right case was crucial. It must meet the times. Otherwise the precedent could go awry.
The White House chose healthcare first. The recession gave the public no choice.
The economy and jobs dominated American anxieties. This was the critical divergence. Healthcare was the wrong war because it was the wrong time for this war. The flawed stimulus was Obama's only economic fight. The great jobs bill never came. Liberals missed their moment.
The president proceeded as if there was a progressive realignment. As if he had redrawn the electoral map. Full throttle. Yellow lights be damned. Obama forced change. And he came out looking like the same old liberal.
The liberal mistakes of old made. Americans spoke again of the "nanny state."
The mommy party was losing the public all over again.
Why? A new Pew Research Center study offers answers. The findings bolster what we have known since at least last summer -- Americans' tension with government has reemerged. And that picture is best seen with the barometer of modern politics, independents.
Only 18 percent of independents trust government. Half believe the government presents a "major threat" to "personal rights and freedoms."
In 1996, 70 percent of independents said the poor get too little government attention. Little more than half say the same today. Thirty-seven percent of independents are "highly dissatisfied" with government; they are far more likely to vote than others and two-thirds are siding with Republicans, Pew found.
The electoral repercussions are equally stark. Independents' favorable view of Democrats has fallen by more than half, 58 to 27 percent, since Obama took office. They now have a slightly more favorable view of Republicans. A plurality of independents favors electing a Republican in their congressional district. The lost middle has, foreseeable though it was, cost Obama his majority support. It was Yeats who wrote of how "things fall apart" when "the centre cannot hold."
The stewardship of government explains why things fell apart. The promised change has, ironically, brought us to a familiar place.
This distrust in government might be the American norm. Modern polling only began mid-century. This was a time defined by giants, FDR and Ike. Uncle Sam had resolved much of the Great Depression and won World War II. There was the GI Bill and federal highways. By 1958, when the American National Election Study first asked, 73 percent of Americans trusted government. This might have been the exception to the rule.
Yet, something is amiss when Watergate captures a more trusting time. Trust in government stood at 53 percent in 1972. After the Vietnam War, the rapid rise in crime, urban upheaval, great division on race and culture -- a majority still trusted Washington. Then came Richard Nixon's great scandal. By 1974, only 36 percent trusted Washington almost always or most of the time.
Liberals cheered Nixon's fall. But as H.W. Brands put it, liberalism fell with him.
Trust in government never knew a sustainable recovery thereafter. And so neither would liberalism. Today, only 22 percent have faith in government.
There were brief reprieves. The 9-11 attacks rallied Americans toward government. But that fell away with Iraq and all the mistakes of George W. Bush's presidency. The financial crisis followed. A new president came in. And he had unusual good will behind him.
Exit polls recorded a small chance to restart big government. On Election Day 2008, a slim majority -- 51 percent -- said, "government should do more to solve problems." It was the opposite of 2000. But only 38 percent wanted the government to do more by Labor Day, according to Gallup.
Government was not doing what Americans wanted. Therefore Americans wanted government to do less.
Healthcare reform instigated the larger fight. It brought the president back to the reformers' oldest fight. But Obama realized it too late. His big issue was ultimately about big government's old issues.
The PBS documentary "Obama's Deal" has a revealing moment. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer is discussing how the president decided to focus on healthcare.
Pfeiffer: We were sitting in the Oval Office, and we were sort of having a debate around health care at one point, and the president said, "It's about health care, but it's not really about health care. It's also about proving whether we can still solve big problems in this country." And this was going to be the test case for that.
But the test case did not meet the times. The recession carried on. A pyrrhic victory followed. And as for those big problems? Americans again consider government to be one.
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David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics and the author of The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma. He can be reached at david@realclearpolitics.com and his writing followed via RSS.
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| | Sujet: 2209 - 20/4/2010, 10:33 | |
| Why Americans do not trust the federal government
O'Reilly - Video |
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| | Sujet: 2210 - 20/4/2010, 14:00 | |
| Obama administration subpoenaed in Fort Hood probe U.S. soldiers pay their respects in front of fallen soldier memorials for the shooting victims after the III Corps and Fort Hood Memorial Ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas, November 10, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi - Spoiler:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. lawmakers subpoenaed the Obama administration on Monday for information sought in a congressional probe of last year's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 soldiers dead and an Army psychiatrist charged with murder.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Susan Collins, the panel's top Republican, took the action after the departments of Justice and Defense failed to provide the materials by Monday's deadline.
The two senators have been trying for months to obtain documents and be provided access to witnesses that they say are critical to their investigation of the shooting spree at Fort Hood in November that ended with 13 soldiers killed and dozens wounded.
An Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, has been charged by the military with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder. The case drew heavy criticism after it became known Hasan had been in contact with an anti-American Muslim figure sympathetic to al Qaeda.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads the Justice Department, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Lieberman and Collins wrote: "It is impossible for us to avoid reaching the conclusion that the departments simply do not want to cooperate with our investigation."
"It is with great disappointment and reluctance that we have directed service of subpoenas to you which demand disclosure of the requested information by Monday, April 26, 2010," they added.
The Justice and Defense departments sent a letter last week to Lieberman and Collins saying that turning over the information could compromise the case against Hasan.
On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, "We will obviously be reviewing it (the subpoenas) and determining the department's next steps."
"We will continue to cooperate with the committee in every way with that caveat, that single caveat, that whatever we provide does not impact on our ability to prosecute," Whitman said.
If the two departments stand firm and refuse to provide the requested information, they could end up facing a contempt of Congress citation and a court fight.
This could all provide an unwanted distraction for a White House already under election-year pressure on a number of fronts, including pressure to cut unemployment.
(Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Jeremy Pelofsky)
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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| | Sujet: 2211 - 20/4/2010, 15:12 | |
| Dilemma as Texas Says Gays Can't Get DivorceAssociated Press Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is appealing a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, saying protecting the "traditional definition of marriage" means doing the same for divorce.- Spoiler:
DALLAS -- After the joy of a wedding and the adoption of a baby came arguments that couldn't be resolved, leading Angelique Naylor to file for divorce.That left her fighting both the woman she married in Massachusetts and the state of Texas, which says a union granted in a state where same-sex marriage is legal can't be dissolved with a divorce in a state where it's not.A judge in Austin granted the divorce, but Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is appealing the decision. He also is appealing a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, saying protecting the "traditional definition of marriage" means doing the same for divorce.A state appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments in the Dallas case on Wednesday.The Dallas men, who declined to be interviewed for this story and are known only as J.B. and H.B. in court filings, had an amicable separation, with no disputes on separation of property and no children involved, said attorney Peter Schulte, who represents J.B. The couple, who married in 2006 in Massachusetts and separated two years later, simply want an official divorce, Schulte said.The drawn-out process has been frustrating for Naylor, who says she didn't file for divorce as an equal rights statement -- she just wants to get on with her life."We didn't ask for a marriage; we simply asked for the courtesy of divorce," said Naylor, 39, of Austin, who married Sabina Daly in Massachusetts in 2004.That year, Massachusetts became the first state to let same-sex couples tie the knot. Now, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia also allow them.Gay and lesbian couples who turn to the courts when they break up are getting mixed results across the nation. A Pennsylvania judge last month refused to divorce two women who married in Massachusetts, while New York grants such divorces even though the state doesn't allow same-sex marriage."The bottom line is that same-sex couples have families and their families have the same needs and problems, but often don't have the same rights," said Jennifer Pizer, a lawyer for Lambda Legal, a national legal organization that promotes equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."It really is an unenviable position that the courts have put these couples in," said Karen Loewy, an attorney at the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.Abbott, a Republican seeking re-election, declined to be interviewed for this story. He has argued in court filings that because the state doesn't recognize gay marriage there can be no divorce, but a gay or lesbian Texas couple may have a marriage voided. Attorneys representing such couples argue that voiding a marriage here could leave it intact in other states, creating problems for property divisions and other issues."OK, you're recommending voidance, but how does that work?" asked Jennifer Cochran, Naylor's attorney. "Is it only void in Texas and can you void a marriage that's valid in another state? The attorney general I feel didn't answer those questions."In 2005, Texas voters passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage by a 3-to-1 margin even though state law already prohibited it. Abbott has said he is appealing the Dallas divorce ruling for two men to "defend the traditional definition of marriage that was approved by Texas voters."Abbott disagrees with the judge in that case, who ruled in October that the same-sex marriage ban violates equal rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel for the conservative Liberty Institute in Plano, called that decision "outrageous judicial activism." The institute has filed a friend of the court brief to the appeals court on behalf of the two Republican state lawmakers who co-sponsored the amendment banning gay marriage: state Rep. Warren Chisum and former state Sen. Todd Staples."It's a backdoor run at establishing same-sex so-called marriage against the people's vote," Shackelford said. "Once you grant the divorce, you are recognizing that there was a marriage."Dallas divorce attorney Tom Greenwald said he's advising gay couples to wait and see how things play out in the courts."Getting the court of appeals to even accept the issue is a step in the right direction in getting some clarity on this," he said. "We just don't know how to treat it."As for Naylor and Daly -- the latter declined to comment -- they've been trying to figure out what to do since separating in 2007 amid escalating arguments.The couple, who had real estate-related businesses and renovated homes, toyed with the idea of one of them moving to a state where gay marriage is legal until a divorce is finalized, but that didn't seem practical.Naylor said that eventually, she and Daly worked out a custody arrangement for their now 4 1/2-year-old son. Naylor said that when she heard about the Dallas divorce, she thought it was worth a try and filed for her own, even though several attorneys she spoke with weren't so sure."They said it's too up in the air, wait and see for appeals," Naylor said. "I didn't have a lot of time to wait and see."Ma question: Pourquoi ne divorcent-ils pas la ou ils se sont maries, dans le Machachuchet! Serait-ce trop simple?
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