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+10Shansaa jam Ungern Laogorus EddieCochran OmbreBlanche Le chanoine quantat Zed Biloulou 14 participants | |
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| | Sujet: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 8/11/2008, 13:47 | |
| Rappel du premier message :Browse Newspapers by country
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| | Sujet: 2536 - Google Raises Eyebrows With New Gay-Only Employee Benefit 2/7/2010, 07:51 | |
| Reverse discriminationest, tout aussi injuste que la discrimination. (Reverse discrimination is discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, or in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group. Groups may be defined in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, or other factors. This discrimination may seek to redress social inequalities where minority groups have been denied access to the same privileges of the majority group. In such cases it is intended to remove discrimination that minority groups may already face. "Reverse discrimination" may also be used to highlight the discrimination inherent in affirmative action programs.)Google Raises Eyebrows With New Gay-Only Employee BenefitBy Diane MacedoPublished July 01, 2010| FoxNews.com- Spoiler:
 APGoogle says it will pay homosexual employees who include domestic partners on their health insurance plans more money to make up for the federal taxes they pay on that benefit.
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| | Sujet: 2537 - 2/7/2010, 13:28 | |
| Et cet elu Democrate arrogant, desagreable, impoli, mesquin, etc.. etc.. etc.. nous expliquait en 2533 qu'il n'y avait pas de probleme a la frontiere. Bloody Border: 21 Killed in Mexican Gang Battle Near Arizona AP |
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| | Sujet: 2538 - une autre fois, mais ca n'est toujours pas coutume... 4/7/2010, 18:21 | |
| ... et en rapport avec le message de Tsur, ce matin, concernant la chute libre d'Obama dans les sondages. Bon, ce sera tout pour aujourd'hui, meme s'il y en pas mal d'autres...  |
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| | Sujet: 2539 - Terror -- and candor in describing the Islamist ideology behind it 4/7/2010, 18:44 | |
| Terror -- and candor in describing the Islamist ideology behind itBy Charles KrauthammerFriday, July 2, 2010 The Fort Hood shooter, the Christmas Day bomber, the Times Square attacker. On May 13, the following exchange occurred at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.): Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam? Attorney General Eric Holder: There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions. . . . Smith: Okay, but radical Islam could have been one of the reasons? Holder: There are a variety of reasons why people -- Smith: But was radical Islam one of them? Holder: There are a variety of reasons why people do these things. Some of them are potentially religious-based. Potentially, mind you. This went on until the questioner gave up in exasperation. A similar question arose last week in U.S. District Court when Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square attacker, pleaded guilty. Explained Shahzad: "One has to understand where I'm coming from . . . I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier." Well, that is clarifying. As was the self-printed business card of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, identifying himself as SoA: Soldier of Allah. - Spoiler:
Holder's avoidance of the obvious continues the absurd and embarrassing refusal of the Obama administration to acknowledge who out there is trying to kill Americans and why. In fact, it has banned from its official vocabulary the terms jihadist, Islamist and Islamic terrorism.
Instead, President Obama's National Security Strategy insists on calling the enemy -- how else do you define those seeking your destruction? -- "a loose network of violent extremists." But this is utterly meaningless. This is not an anger-management therapy group gone rogue. These are people professing a powerful ideology rooted in a radical interpretation of Islam, in whose name they propagandize, proselytize, terrorize and kill.
Why is this important? Because the first rule of war is to know your enemy. If you don't, you wander into intellectual cul-de-sacs and ignore the real causes that might allow you to prevent recurrences.
The Pentagon review of the Fort Hood shooting runs 86 pages with not a single mention of Hasan's Islamism. It contains such politically correct inanities as "religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor."
Of course it is. Indeed, Islamist fundamentalism is not only a risk factor. It is the risk factor, the common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century -- from 9/11 to Mumbai, from Fort Hood to Times Square, from London to Madrid to Bali. The attackers varied in nationality, education, age, social class, native tongue and race. The one thing that united them was the jihadist vision in whose name they acted.
To deny this undeniable truth leads to further absurdities. Remember the wave of speculation about Hasan's supposed secondary post-traumatic stress disorder -- that he was so deeply affected by the heart-rending stories of his war-traumatized patients that he became radicalized? On the contrary. He was moved not by their suffering but by the suffering they (and the rest of the U.S. military) inflicted on Hasan's fellow Muslims, in whose name he gunned down 12 American soldiers while shouting "Allahu Akbar."
With Shahzad, we find the equivalent ridiculous -- and exculpating -- speculation that perhaps he was driven over the edge by the foreclosure of his home. Good grief. Of course his home went into foreclosure -- so would yours if you voluntarily quit your job and stopped house payments to go to Pakistan for jihadist training. As The Post's Charles Lane pointed out, foreclosure was a result of Shahzad's radicalism, not the cause.
There's a final reason the administration's cowardice about identifying those trying to kill us cannot be allowed to pass. It is demoralizing. It trivializes the war between jihadi barbarism and Western decency, and diminishes the memory of those (including thousands of brave Muslims -- Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghan and Western) who have died fighting it.
Churchill famously mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. But his greatness lay not in mere eloquence. It was his appeal to the moral core of a decent people to rise against an ideology the nature of which Churchill never hesitated to define and describe -- and to pronounce ("Nahhhhzzzzi") in an accent dripping with loathing and contempt.
No one is asking Obama or Holder to match Churchill's rhetoric -- just Shahzad's candor.
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| | Sujet: 2540 - NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World 5/7/2010, 22:01 | |
| Ils derapent completement! NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim WorldPublished July 05, 2010| FoxNews.co Shown here is NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. (YouTube)NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.- Spoiler:
 A AP ReutersNASA Administrator Charles Bolden says president has assigned America's space agency with the task of helping to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world. "When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview. The NASA administrator was in the Middle East last month marking the one-year anniversary since Obama delivered an address to Muslim nations in Cairo. Bolden spoke in June at the American University in Cairo -- in his interview with Al Jazeera, he described space travel as an international collaboration of which Muslim nations must be a part. "It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)," he said. He held up the International Space Station as a model, praising the contributions there from the Russians and the Chinese. However, Bolden denied the suggestion that he was on a diplomatic mission -- in a distinctly non-diplomatic role. "Not at all. It's not a diplomatic anything," he said. He said the United States is not going to travel beyond low-Earth orbit on its own and that no country is going to make it to Mars without international help. Bolden has faced criticism this year for overseeing the cancellation of the agency's Constellation program, which was building new rockets and spaceships capable of returning astronauts to the moon. Stressing the importance of international cooperation in future missions, Bolden told Al Jazeera that the moon, Mars and asteroids are still planned destinations for NASA.
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 Nombre de messages : 54566
Localisation : Jardins suspendus sur la Woluwe - Belgique
Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 5/7/2010, 22:24 | |
|  Ah oui, le croissant, probablement.... | |
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| | Sujet: 2542 - 5/7/2010, 23:26 | |
|  des verts dans l'ame, ils ont besoin de moins d'energie que les autres excites auxquels il faut une pleine lune pour entrer dans un etat second; du coup, ils sont actifs bien plus souvent et bien plus longtemps!  ===== Le fait que dans les pays Musulmans on refuse de croire que l'homme ait marche sur la lune, ca entre ou dans le programme de la NASA de Monsieur Bolden? |
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| | Sujet: 2544 - With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 6/7/2010, 11:24 | |
| With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 9:33PM BST 04 Jul 2010 The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation.- Spoiler:
 People queue for a job fair in New York. The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Photo: EPA
"The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession," said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. "All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Comment"Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing," he said. California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit. Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene." Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high. Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP. The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost. The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s. "Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted. By our math the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2m." Republicans on Capitol Hill are filibustering a bill to extend the dole for up to 1.2m jobless facing an imminent cut-off. Dean Heller from Vermont called them "hobos". This really is starting to feel like 1932. Washington's fiscal stimulus is draining away. It peaked in the first quarter, yet even then the economy eked out a growth rate of just 2.7pc. This compares with 5.1pc, 9.3pc, 8.1pc and 8.5pc in the four quarters coming off recession in the early 1980s. The housing market is already crumbling as government props are pulled away. The expiry of homebuyers' tax credit led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers signing contracts in May. "It is cataclysmic," said David Bloom from HSBC. Federal tax rises are automatically baked into the pie. The Congressional Budget Office said fiscal policy will swing from
a net +2pc of GDP to -2pc by late 2011. The states and counties may have to cut as much as $180bn. Investors are starting to chew over the awful possibility that America's recovery will stall just as Asia hits the buffers. China's manufacturing index has been falling since January, with a downward lurch in June to 50.4, just above the break-even line of 50. Momentum seems to be flagging everywhere, whether in Australian building permits, Turkish exports, or Japanese industrial output. On Friday, Jacques Cailloux from RBS put out a "double-dip alert" for Europe. "The risk is rising fast. Absent an effective policy intervention to tackle the debt crisis on the periphery over coming months, the European economy will double dip in 2011," he said. It is obvious what that policy should be for Europe, America, and Japan. If budgets are to shrink in an orderly fashion over several years – as they must, to avoid sovereign debt spirals – then central banks will have to cushion the blow keeping monetary policy ultra-loose for as long it takes. The Fed is already eyeing the printing press again. "It's appropriate to think about what we would do under a deflationary scenario," said Dennis Lockhart for the Atlanta Fed. His colleague Kevin Warsh said the pros and cons of purchasing more bonds should be subject to "strict scrutiny", a comment I took as confirmation that the Fed Board is arguing internally about QE2. Perhaps naively, I still think central banks have the tools to head off disaster. The question is whether they will do so fast enough, or even whether they wish to resist the chorus of 1930s liquidation taking charge of the debate. Last week the Bank for International Settlements called for combined fiscal and monetary tightening, lending its great authority to the forces of debt-deflation and mass unemployment. If even the BIS has lost the plot, God help us.
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| | Sujet: 2545 - WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama: The great jobs killer 6/7/2010, 14:09 | |
| WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama: The great jobs killer
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT
As former President Ronald Reagan might have said, "Obama, there you go again."- Spoiler:
The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 -- a blowout.
Obama is as hopeless, helpless, clueless and bankrupt of good ideas as the manager of the Chicago Cubs in late September. This "community organizer" knows as much about private-sector jobs as Pamela Anderson knows about nuclear physics.
It's time to call Obama what he is: The Great Jobs Killer. With his massive spending and tax hikes -- rewarding big government and big unions, while punishing taxpayers and business owners -- Obama has killed jobs, he has killed motivation to create new jobs, he has killed the motivation to invest in new businesses, or expand old ones. With all this killing, Obama should be given the top spot on the FBI's Most Wanted List.
Meanwhile, he has kept the union workers of GM and Chrysler employed (with taxpayer money). He has made sure that most government employee union members got their annual raises for sleeping on the job (with taxpayer money). He made sure that his voters got handouts mislabeled as "tax cuts" even though they never paid taxes (with taxpayer money). And he made sure that major campaign contributors collected billions off government stimulus (with taxpayer money).
As far as the taxpayers -- the people who actually take risks with our own money to create small businesses and jobs and pay most of the taxes -- we require protection under the Endangered Species Act.
You won't find proof of the damage Obama is doing on Wall Street, but rather on Main Street. My friends are all part of the economic engine of America: Small business. Small business creates 75 percent of new jobs (and a majority of all jobs). I called one friend who was a wealthy restaurant owner. He says business is off by 60 percent. He's drowning in debt. He won't last much longer. His wealth is gone.
I called another friend in the business of home improvement. He says business is off 90 percent from two years ago. My contractor just filed personal bankruptcy. She won't be building any more homes. The hair salon where I've had my hair cut for years closed earlier this year. Bankrupt. But here's the clincher -- ESPN Zone just closed all their restaurants across the country. If they can't make it selling cheap food and overpriced beer with 100 big screens blaring every sporting event on the planet to a sports-crazed society, we are all in deep, deep trouble.
I've polled all my friends who own small businesses -- many of them in the Internet and high-tech fields. They all agree that in this new Obama world of high business taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and workers compensation taxes, the key to success is to avoid employees. The only way to survive as a business owner today is by keeping the payroll very low and by hiring only independent contractors or part-time employees provided by temp agencies.
The days of jobs in the private sector with big salaries, full benefits, and pensions are over. We've all seen where those kinds of jobs get you as a business owner -- in Bankruptcy Court or surviving on government welfare like GM and Chrysler. Or in the case of government itself -- completely insolvent, but surviving by ripping off taxpayers and fraudulently running printing presses at the Fed all day and night to print money by the trillions.
Unfortunately, small businesses don't have the power to impose taxes or print money. So unlike government, we'll just have to cut employees and run lean and mean.
It has now become clear that, outside of the burgeoning field of Census takers, there will be no major increase in new jobs for years to come. Outside government, Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like the landscape of Mel Gibson's first movie "Mad Max." Without a printing press in Obama's world, you're just plain out of luck.
The days of believing the Obama propaganda about a jobs recovery are over. The trillion-dollar corporate handouts (neatly named "stimulus") may have kept big business in the money for the past 18 months, and artificially propped up the stock market, but small business is the real canary in the coal mine.
My small business-owning friends aren't creating one job. Not one. They are shedding jobs. They are learning to do more with fewer employees. They are creating high-tech businesses that don't need employees. And many business owners are making plans to leave the country. In a high-tech world where businesses can be run from anywhere, Obama has a problem. His one-trick pony -- raise taxes, raise taxes, raising taxes -- is chasing away the business owners he desperately needs to pay his bills.
So who is going to pay Obama's taxes? Not his voters. They want government to pay them. Who is going to create Obama's jobs? Not his voters -- they've never created a job in their lives.
So what is Obama going to do? Maybe he can get Pamela Anderson on the line.
Wayne Allyn Root, a former vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, writes from Henderson. His column appears every other week.
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| | Sujet: 2546 - NASA's new mission: Building ties to Muslim world 6/7/2010, 15:42 | |
| Meme sujet qu'en 2540 NASA's new mission: Building ties to Muslim worldBy: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
July 6, 2010
You'd be hard-pressed to find an American who doesn't know that the "S" in NASA stands for "Space." Since the race to the moon in the 1960s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been one of the most storied agencies in the U.S. government. Now, under President Obama, its mission is changing -- and space isn't part of the story.- Spoiler:
 NASA Administrator Charles Bolden prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in February. (Gerald Herbert/AP) 
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 7/7/2010, 09:25 | |
| La justice d'Obama envahie par la politique et l'ideologie.. The Black Panthers and Illegal Aliens
O'Reilly |
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| | Sujet: 2548 - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html 7/7/2010, 09:46 | |
| Secret donors make Thomas's wife's group tea party playerBy KENNETH P. VOGEL | 7/6/10 6:31 PM EDTWhen Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife announced in 2008 that she was going to help run Washington operations for a Michigan college once described as “a citadel of American conservatism,” she said the move was her “way of pulling away from politics” and the “safest place for me to be when it comes to conflicts” with her husband’s position on the court.
- Spoiler:
Ginni Thomas has to partisan politics as a fully engaged opponent of the president. AP
The two donations are the only sources of money the group, which she established in November, reported to the Internal Revenue Service in 2009, according to a recently released report, which blocks out the donors’ names, as allowed by the section of the tax code under which the group is registered, 501(c)4. Yet, its size sets Liberty Central apart from other new tea party groups that have struggled to raise money from mostly small, grass-roots contributions.
In interviews with popular conservative media outlets, Thomas described her still-evolving vision for Liberty Central, which she recently said she envisions forming a bridge between the conservative establishment and the anti-establishment tea party.
“I’m getting to know the Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” Thomas told Human Events late last month. “What I think I can bring to the table is a connective (t)issue between the new people and the old people.”
The group appears to be positioning itself as a hybrid think tank/advocacy group/campaign arm for the tea party movement. Last month, it endorsed its first candidate, Mike Lee, who defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah in a Republican primary, and it intends to roll out a larger round of endorsements this month, according to Sarah Field, its policy director and general counsel.
In the meantime, it’s been providing legislative analysis intended to help tea party activists lobby Congress against initiatives pushed by the Obama administration.
Neither a Liberty Central official, nor a Supreme Court spokeswoman would say whether the group would disclose the names of its donors to the Supreme Court legal office or to Thomas’s husband so he can avoid ruling on cases in which a major Liberty Central donor is a party.
“Liberty Central has been run past the Supreme Court ethics office and they found that the organization meets all ethics standards,” Field said. “As she has throughout her 30-year history in the policy community, Ginni will address any potential conflicts on a case-by-case basis.”
As Ginni Thomas has begun to emerge as a high-profile political player in her own right, friends and allies say has bristled at the focus on her husband, and questions about whether her involvement with Liberty Central could compromise his impartiality.The Thomases last faced conflict questions in 2000 when Ginni Thomas, then working for the conservative Heritage Foundation, solicited resumes for potential transition team members for George W. Bush, while Justice Thomas was part of the court majority that sided with Bush over Democratic rival Al Gore in the historic case of [i]Bush v. Gore.
While she brushed off those questions as well the ones about Liberty Central, it is clear that her famous husband has helped distinguish the group from the crowd of organizations jockeying for prominence in the new conservative order.
“Her association with Justice Thomas clearly provides a level of credibility that others wouldn’t be able to have, just because of the beliefs that he has and the stands that he has on the different positions that align with our own,” said Carl Graham, president of the Montana Policy Institute, one of the more than 30 state and national think tanks and advocacy groups listed as partners in Liberty Central’s fledgling network.
Before affiliating with Liberty Central, Graham said his group “looked at their mission and we looked at the people involved and we looked at how they are going to try to appeal to people, and it’s similar to what we do.” But, he added, the connection to Justice Thomas “gets you to open the e-mail, if nothing else, as opposed to some other one that you may not even open.”
Liberty Central spent $27,000 last year developing its website, according to its IRS report, and officially launched in May touting partnerships with a slew of prominent establishment groups and the backing of big-name conservatives including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, who serves on Liberty Central’s board and who Justice Thomas has called “my good friend.”
As the group prepares to ramp up its profile even more in the coming weeks, it has relied on the services of CRC Public Relations, a top conservative Beltway communications shop, and CMDI, a leading political data firm that has reaped at least $15 million in the past decade from clients including the top national Republican Party committees and the presidential campaigns or political committees of George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain, among others.
“Ginni was able to raise the seed capital to have a real launch” because of her connections in small-government conservative circles, said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a small-government non-profit that pre-dates the year-old tea party movement, but has positioned itself as perhaps the leading national tea party group and has partnered with Liberty Central.
“In my experience working with her, people usually didn’t know (she was married to Clarence Thomas), because she doesn’t wear it on her sleeve,” said Kibbe, who worked with Thomas at the right-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce while her husband was a federal appeals court judge rumored to be on then-President George H.W. Bush’s shortlist for the Supreme Court.
After the Chamber, Ginni Thomas, who has a law degree, went on to work for Bush’s Labor Department and later for then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texas Republican who now chairs Kibbe’s group, as well as the Heritage Foundation, a pillar of the Washington conservative establishment. That was followed by the job as a Washington coordinator for Hillsdale College
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| | Sujet: 2549 - Justice Department Files Suit Against Arizona Immigration Law 7/7/2010, 11:59 | |
| Justice Department Files Suit Against Arizona Immigration LawPublished July 06, 2010| FoxNews.comAccusing Arizona of trying to "second guess" the federal government, the Justice Department on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the state's immigration policy -- claiming the "invalid" law interferes with federal immigration responsibilities and "must be struck down." - Spoiler:
The suit names the state of Arizona as well as Gov. Jan Brewer as defendants. In it, the Justice Department claims the federal government has "preeminent authority" on immigration enforcement and that the Arizona law "disrupts" that balance. It urges the U.S. District Court in Arizona to "preliminarily and permanently" prohibit the state from enforcing the law, which is scheduled to go into effect at the end of the month.
"Arizonans are understandably frustrated with illegal immigration, and the federal government has a responsibility to comprehensively address those concerns," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a written statement. "But diverting federal resources away from dangerous aliens such as terrorism suspects and aliens with criminal records will impact the entire country's safety."
Holder also warned of "a patchwork of state laws" that "will only create more problems than it solves."
Brewer responded by accusing the Obama administration of a "massive waste of taxpayer funds."
"It is wrong that our own federal government is suing the people of Arizona for helping to enforce federal immigration law. As a direct result of failed and inconsistent federal enforcement, Arizona is under attack from violent Mexican drug and immigrant smuggling cartels," she said in a written statement. "Now, Arizona is under attack in federal court from President Obama and his Department of Justice."
She went on to point out "the irony" of suing Arizona for its immigration enforcement law but ignoring cities and other local governments whose "patchwork local ‘sanctuary’ policies instruct the police not to cooperate with federal immigration officials."
The Justice Department's lawsuit argues the state law focuses only on getting rid of illegal immigrants and "ignores" other immigration objectives.
"The United States Constitution forbids Arizona from supplanting the federal government's immigration regime with its own state-specific immigration policy," the suit says. "A policy that, in purpose and effect, interferes with the numerous interests the federal government must balance."
Click here to read the lawsuit.
Brewer wasn't the only Arizona leader slamming the Obama administration.
"This is the wrong direction to go," Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., said in a statement, calling on the administration to devote its resources to border security.
And in Washington, 20 House Republicans wrote a letter to Holder in protest of the decision. Republican Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl released a joint statement calling the suit "premature."
"The Obama administration has not done everything it can do to protect the people of Arizona from the violence and crime illegal immigration brings to our state. Until it does, the federal government should not be suing Arizona on the grounds that immigration enforcement is solely a federal responsibility," the senators said.
The court action comes just days after President Obama delivered a speech calling on Congress to tackle a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration system. In the speech, he criticized Arizona's law and warned that national legislation is needed to prevent other states from following suit.
The president did not mention the lawsuit, but one had been widely expected for weeks. After the administration initially said it would take the law under review, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed last month in an interview with a foreign television network that the administration intended to challenge the Arizona policy.
The Arizona law, passed in April, makes illegal immigration a state crime and requires local law enforcement to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant on their residency status.
Several civil rights and law enforcement officials lauded the administration's actions Tuesday.
Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project, called it a "critical step" to undo Arizona's "unconstitutional usurpation of federal authority and its invitation to racial profiling."
"The administration's lawsuit is a cannon shot across the bow of other states that may be tempted to follow Arizona's misguided approach," he said. The ACLU had already filed a legal challenge, which Guttentag said it would continue to pursue.
The Arizona law touched off an intense national debate over immigration. The results of any court challenge would have wide-ranging implications, as a number of other states and jurisdictions have taken up tough immigration policies similar to Arizona's.
The Obama administration has meanwhile tried to use the law as the impetus to prod Congress into tackling an immigration bill. While Arizona lawmakers defend their law as necessary to patrol the border, Obama described it last week as "unenforceable" and a vehicle for civil rights abuse. He said a "national standard" is needed and that he won't "kick the can down the road" any longer.
Republicans bristled at the speech, though, and continued to urge the administration to better secure the border before tackling a comprehensive bill -- which would likely include a pathway to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants.
Brewer told Fox News in June that Arizona would not back down from its law.
"We'll meet them in court ... and we will win," she said, calling the administration's actions a "disappointment."
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| | | | jam
Nombre de messages : 1404
Age : 69
Localisation : saint-nectaire land
Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 7/7/2010, 22:51 | |
| - Sylvette a écrit:
- WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama: The great jobs killer
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT
As former President Ronald Reagan might have said, "Obama, there you go again."
- Spoiler:
The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 -- a blowout.
Obama is as hopeless, helpless, clueless and bankrupt of good ideas as the manager of the Chicago Cubs in late September. This "community organizer" knows as much about private-sector jobs as Pamela Anderson knows about nuclear physics.
It's time to call Obama what he is: The Great Jobs Killer. With his massive spending and tax hikes -- rewarding big government and big unions, while punishing taxpayers and business owners -- Obama has killed jobs, he has killed motivation to create new jobs, he has killed the motivation to invest in new businesses, or expand old ones. With all this killing, Obama should be given the top spot on the FBI's Most Wanted List.
Meanwhile, he has kept the union workers of GM and Chrysler employed (with taxpayer money). He has made sure that most government employee union members got their annual raises for sleeping on the job (with taxpayer money). He made sure that his voters got handouts mislabeled as "tax cuts" even though they never paid taxes (with taxpayer money). And he made sure that major campaign contributors collected billions off government stimulus (with taxpayer money).
As far as the taxpayers -- the people who actually take risks with our own money to create small businesses and jobs and pay most of the taxes -- we require protection under the Endangered Species Act.
You won't find proof of the damage Obama is doing on Wall Street, but rather on Main Street. My friends are all part of the economic engine of America: Small business. Small business creates 75 percent of new jobs (and a majority of all jobs). I called one friend who was a wealthy restaurant owner. He says business is off by 60 percent. He's drowning in debt. He won't last much longer. His wealth is gone.
I called another friend in the business of home improvement. He says business is off 90 percent from two years ago. My contractor just filed personal bankruptcy. She won't be building any more homes. The hair salon where I've had my hair cut for years closed earlier this year. Bankrupt. But here's the clincher -- ESPN Zone just closed all their restaurants across the country. If they can't make it selling cheap food and overpriced beer with 100 big screens blaring every sporting event on the planet to a sports-crazed society, we are all in deep, deep trouble.
I've polled all my friends who own small businesses -- many of them in the Internet and high-tech fields. They all agree that in this new Obama world of high business taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and workers compensation taxes, the key to success is to avoid employees. The only way to survive as a business owner today is by keeping the payroll very low and by hiring only independent contractors or part-time employees provided by temp agencies.
The days of jobs in the private sector with big salaries, full benefits, and pensions are over. We've all seen where those kinds of jobs get you as a business owner -- in Bankruptcy Court or surviving on government welfare like GM and Chrysler. Or in the case of government itself -- completely insolvent, but surviving by ripping off taxpayers and fraudulently running printing presses at the Fed all day and night to print money by the trillions.
Unfortunately, small businesses don't have the power to impose taxes or print money. So unlike government, we'll just have to cut employees and run lean and mean.
It has now become clear that, outside of the burgeoning field of Census takers, there will be no major increase in new jobs for years to come. Outside government, Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like the landscape of Mel Gibson's first movie "Mad Max." Without a printing press in Obama's world, you're just plain out of luck.
The days of believing the Obama propaganda about a jobs recovery are over. The trillion-dollar corporate handouts (neatly named "stimulus") may have kept big business in the money for the past 18 months, and artificially propped up the stock market, but small business is the real canary in the coal mine.
My small business-owning friends aren't creating one job. Not one. They are shedding jobs. They are learning to do more with fewer employees. They are creating high-tech businesses that don't need employees. And many business owners are making plans to leave the country. In a high-tech world where businesses can be run from anywhere, Obama has a problem. His one-trick pony -- raise taxes, raise taxes, raising taxes -- is chasing away the business owners he desperately needs to pay his bills.
So who is going to pay Obama's taxes? Not his voters. They want government to pay them. Who is going to create Obama's jobs? Not his voters -- they've never created a job in their lives.
So what is Obama going to do? Maybe he can get Pamela Anderson on the line.
Wayne Allyn Root, a former vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, writes from Henderson. His column appears every other week.
hum.... donc, la crise financière et économique ... c'est la faute à obama si elle a eu lieu? et c'est la faute à obama s'il y a du chomage en france aussi bien hou là ça peut aller loin ce genre de raisonnement | |
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| | Sujet: 2551 - Ex-Official Accuses Justice Department of Racial Bias in Black Panther Case 8/7/2010, 14:18 | |
| Ex-Official Accuses Justice Department of Racial Bias in Black Panther CasePublished July 06, 2010| FoxNews.comShown here is former Justice official J. Christian Adams. (FNC)In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.- Spoiler:
Shown here is former Justice official J. Christian Adams. (FNC) J. Christian Adams, testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said that "over and over and over again," the department showed "hostility" toward those cases. He described the Black Panther case as one example of that -- he defended the legitimacy of the suit and said his "blood boiled" when he heard a Justice official claim the case wasn't solid. "It is false," Adams said of the claim. "We abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens," he later testified. The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place, dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick. The Bush Justice Department brought the first case against three members of the group, accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voter Rights Act. The Obama administration initially pursued the case, winning a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panther members did not appear in court. But then the administration moved to dismiss the charges the following month after getting one of the New Black Panther members to agree to not carry a "deadly weapon" near a polling place until 2012. In a statement Tuesday, a Justice spokesman said the civil rights division determined "the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims" against the two other defendants and denied Adams' allegations. "The department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved. We are committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of the federal laws that prohibit voter intimidation," the spokesman said. The Civil Rights Commission, which subpoenaed Adams, has been probing the incident since last year. Adams said he ignored department directives not to testify and eventually quit after he heard Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez testify that there were concerns the Black Panther case was not supported by the facts. Adams has described the case as open-and-shut and said Tuesday that it was a "very low moment" to hear Perez make that claim. But he described the department's hostility toward that and other cases involving black defendants as "pervasive." Adams cited hostility in the department toward a 2007 voting rights case against a black official in Mississippi who was accused of trying to intimidate voters. Adams said that when the Black Panther case came up, he heard officials in the department say it was "no big deal" and "media-generated" and point to "Fox News" as the source. But as the investigation unfolded, he said he discovered "indications" that the Black Panther Party was doing the "same thing" to supporters of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary season in early 2008. He urged the commission to pursue testimony from other Justice officials to corroborate his story. It's unclear how far the commission will get. The commissioners want to hear from Christopher Coates, the former chief of the Justice Department's voting section, but the commission claims the Justice Department is blocking Coates from testifying about why the case was dropped. In a written statement last week, the department questioned the motives of Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a blogger for Pajamas Media. "It is not uncommon for attorneys with the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda," the statement said. Adams said Tuesday that his personal views played no part in his handling of the case. He also said he did not fight to testify before the commission but resigned after the department would not take action to quash the subpoena.
Civil Rights Panel to Renew Subpoenas, Pursue Federal Probe in Black Panther CasePublished July 07, 2010FoxNews.com The bipartisan panel investigating allegations that the Justice Department wrongly abandoned a case against the New Black Panther Party plans to issue a new round of subpoenas and call for a separate federal probe following explosive testimony from an ex-Justice official, a commissioner said.- Spoiler:
As the case heats up, members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rightsmay even travel to South Carolina to track down one witness.
Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams on Tuesday testified before the commission that his former employer not only abandoned the voter intimidation case for racial reasons, but had instructed attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.
Commissioner Ashley Taylor said the panel will send out a letter as early as Wednesday calling for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the charge. The letter will go to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who in May told the panel to bring any such claims "to our attention" if there's evidence.
"I think (the testimony) provided the evidence of the policy he said he was unaware of," Taylor said, calling Adams' allegations "serious" and "shocking."
Further, after Adams repeatedly urged the commission to pursue testimony from former voting section chief Christopher Coates -- whom the Justice Department is accused of shielding -- Taylor said the commission will renew its subpoenas for Coates and others. He expressed optimism that the attention and interest building in the case would put pressure on Justice to free Coates to testify.
"I could tell just from the reaction of the other commissioners, we want to hear from him," he told FoxNews.com on Wednesday. "I am confident that if we just keep asking the right questions ... all the facts will come out."
Taylor said the Coates subpoena would go out within the month, and that commissioners may even travel to South Carolina, where Coates has been transferred, to issue the subpoena. The rules require that the commission be within 100 miles of a witness in order to issue one.
Adams, who has been accused by the Justice Department of distorting the facts and promoting his own "agenda," repeatedly claimed Tuesday that Coates would be able to corroborate his story.
The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.
The Bush Justice Department brought the first case against three members of the group, accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voter Rights Act. The Obama administration initially pursued the case, winning a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panther members did not appear in court. But then the administration moved to dismiss the charges the following month after getting one of the New Black Panther members to agree to not carry a "deadly weapon" near a polling place until 2012.
In a statement Tuesday, a Justice spokesman said the civil rights division determined "the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims" against the two other defendants and denied Adams' allegations.
"The department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved. We are committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of the federal laws that prohibit voter intimidation," the spokesman said.
Taylor, a Republican, served as Virginia's deputy attorney general from 1998 to 2001.
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| | Sujet: 2552 - Civil Rights Panel to Renew Subpoenas, Pursue Federal Probe in Black Panther Case 8/7/2010, 15:56 | |
| Civil Rights Panel to Renew Subpoenas, Pursue Federal Probe in Black Panther CasePublished July 07, 2010FoxNews.com The bipartisan panel investigating allegations that the Justice Department wrongly abandoned a case against the New Black Panther Party plans to issue a new round of subpoenas and call for a separate federal probe following explosive testimony from an ex-Justice official, a commissioner said.- Spoiler:
As the case heats up, members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rightsmay even travel to South Carolina to track down one witness.
Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams on Tuesday testified before the commission that his former employer not only abandoned the voter intimidation case for racial reasons, but had instructed attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.
Commissioner Ashley Taylor said the panel will send out a letter as early as Wednesday calling for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the charge. The letter will go to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who in May told the panel to bring any such claims "to our attention" if there's evidence.
"I think (the testimony) provided the evidence of the policy he said he was unaware of," Taylor said, calling Adams' allegations "serious" and "shocking."
Further, after Adams repeatedly urged the commission to pursue testimony from former voting section chief Christopher Coates -- whom the Justice Department is accused of shielding -- Taylor said the commission will renew its subpoenas for Coates and others. He expressed optimism that the attention and interest building in the case would put pressure on Justice to free Coates to testify.
"I could tell just from the reaction of the other commissioners, we want to hear from him," he told FoxNews.com on Wednesday. "I am confident that if we just keep asking the right questions ... all the facts will come out."
Taylor said the Coates subpoena would go out within the month, and that commissioners may even travel to South Carolina, where Coates has been transferred, to issue the subpoena. The rules require that the commission be within 100 miles of a witness in order to issue one.
Adams, who has been accused by the Justice Department of distorting the facts and promoting his own "agenda," repeatedly claimed Tuesday that Coates would be able to corroborate his story.
The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.
The Bush Justice Department brought the first case against three members of the group, accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voter Rights Act. The Obama administration initially pursued the case, winning a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panther members did not appear in court. But then the administration moved to dismiss the charges the following month after getting one of the New Black Panther members to agree to not carry a "deadly weapon" near a polling place until 2012.
In a statement Tuesday, a Justice spokesman said the civil rights division determined "the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims" against the two other defendants and denied Adams' allegations.
"The department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved. We are committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of the federal laws that prohibit voter intimidation," the spokesman said.
Taylor, a Republican, served as Virginia's deputy attorney general from 1998 to 2001.
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| | Sujet: 2553 - Appeals Court Rejects U.S. Bid to Keep Drilling Moratorium 9/7/2010, 08:46 | |
| Appeals Court Rejects U.S. Bid to Keep Drilling MoratoriumPublished July 08, 2010| Associated PressNEW ORLEANS -- A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the federal government's effort to restore an offshore deepwater drilling moratorium, opening the door to resumed drilling in the Gulf while the legal fight continues.- Spoiler:
 APJuly 8, 2010: A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the federal government's effort to restore an offshore deepwater drilling moratorium..
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| | Sujet: 2554 - Former transit officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in train station killing 9/7/2010, 09:19 | |
| Former transit officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in train station killingPublished July 08, 2010| Associated PressLOS ANGELESA white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform, a verdict that touched off protests in Oakland that led to at least 50 arrests.- Spoiler:
Prosecutors had wanted Johannes Mehserle convicted of murdering 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot once in the back as he lay face-down.
The jury's conviction on the lesser charge raised concerns of a repeat of the days of rioting that followed the shooting on New Year's Day in 2009. The incident is among the most racially polarizing cases in California since four Los Angeles officers were acquitted in 1992 in the beating of Rodney King.
Near Oakland City Hall, a crowd moaned and cursed Thursday when they heard the verdict, decrying what they called a lack of justice.
Several business were damaged after 9 p.m., including a Foot Locker store that was looted and a jewelry store that was ransacked. Windows were also smashed at several other businesses.Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts said that at least 50 people had been arrested and expected the number to double. He said officers are "focused on arrests at this point in time."
Batts says officers from 15 different agencies responded to help Oakland police.
Firefighters were also called out to put out fires in several trash bins and at least one dumpster.
Batts said earlier one person suffered a leg injury when some protesters started throwing rocks and bottles.
Before the incidents, Batts had described a mostly peaceful protest, although a small incendiary device had been set off near his department's downtown station.
The chief's briefing came as lines of police in riot gear worked to keep the crowd confined to a two-block area in the city's downtown area.
"There is no need for this. This makes us look like animals. We came here for peace," said Jonathan Trotter, 34, who watched the Foot Locker looters with disappointment. "This is a justification for the verdict."
Some streets in Oakland had been deserted after workers went home early in anticipation of possible riots.
The anger is directed at the involuntary manslaughter conviction — the lowest offense Mehserle faced. The charge carries a sentence of two to four years, although the judge could add 10 more years because a gun was used in the killing.
"My son was murdered! He was murdered! He was murdered," said Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, who earlier stared at jurors when the verdict was read.
Mehserle was taken away in handcuffs. He turned to his family and mouthed, "I love you, guys," as his parents wept.
One female juror wiped tears with a tissue when the panel was polled on its decision.
The verdict followed a three-week trial in which prosecutors played videos by bystanders, and witnesses recounted hearing the frightening gunshot that killed Grant.
At least five bystanders videotaped the incident
Mehserle, 28, testified that he struggled with Grant and saw him digging in his pocket as officers responded to reports of a fight at a train station. Fearing Grant may have a weapon, Mehserle said he decided to shock Grant with his Taser but pulled his .40-caliber handgun instead.
Grant has become a martyr of sorts in a city where more than a third of residents are black. His omnipresent image on buildings and storefront windows arguably rivals that of slain hometown rapper Tupac Shakur.
The trial was moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles because of racial tension and extensive media coverage in Oakland.
Alameda County District Attorney Nance E. O'Malley said in a statement that while the jury did not agree with the prosecution's belief that it was murder, the panel also rejected the defense contention that Mehserle had no criminal liability.
"The case is a tragedy in every respect. Oscar Grant should never have been killed at the hands of a sworn officer," O'Malley said.
The case was a rare instance in which a police officer stood trial for an on-duty killing and that was captured on video from so many different angles.
The jury had a choice between murder and lesser charges of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. The jury found that Mehserle didn't mean to kill Grant, but that his behavior was still so negligent that it was criminal.
"It's not real, it's not real. Where's the justice? He was killed in cold blood," 23-year-old Amber Royal of Oakland said as a crowd near City Hall moaned and cursed when they heard the verdict. A dozen people gathered in a semicircle to pray.
Grant family attorney John Burris said they were "extremely disappointed" with the verdict.
"This verdict is not a true representation of what happened to Oscar Grant. This was not an involuntary manslaughter case," Burris said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement urging Californians to remain calm and not resort to violence. Schwarzenegger said he had informed Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums the state was well prepared to assist in maintaining order.
"As we have come to notice, and we as a family has been slapped in the face by a system that has denied us a right to true justice," said Cephus Johnson, Grant's uncle. "We truly do not blame the jury, but we blame the system."
Legal experts said the verdict shows the jury sympathized with Mehserle's version of events.
Prosecutors had a huge hurdle to overcome in convincing a jury that an officer with a spotless record meant to kill, even with video of the killing, said University of California, Berkeley, law school professor Erin Murphy.
"I think it's a lesson that video can only get us so far," Murphy said.
Defense attorney Michael Rains contended the shooting was a tragic accident. Mehserle had no motive to shoot Grant, even though he was resisting arrest, the lawyer argued.
Rains also said Mehserle told a colleague before the shooting: "Tony, Tony, Tony, I can't get his hands. I'm going to Tase him."
Rains did not respond to calls seeking comment.
Fallout from the shooting was swift in Oakland after the videos were shown on television and the Internet. The shooting and the nearly two weeks it took to arrest Mehserle sent the city into a tailspin of violence as downtown businesses were damaged, cars were set ablaze and clashes erupted between protesters and police.
Grant had recently been released from jail after being sentenced to 16 months for a gun possession charge filed after he ran from police and was subdued by an officer with a stun gun.
The jury included eight women and four men. None listed their race as black. Seven said they were white, three were Latino, and one was Asian-Pacific. One declined to state their race.
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Associated Press Writer Terry Collins in Oakland contributed to this report.
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| | Sujet: 2555 - Obama Faces Left Wing Spiral Trap 9/7/2010, 15:48 | |
| Obama Faces Left Wing Spiral Trap
By Dick Morris
Barack Obama faces about the same problem that confronted Bill Clinton in 1994 when he lost control of Congress. In both cases, the Democratic presidents had alienated moderate and conservative voters and found themselves increasingly isolated with a political base of liberals and minorities. In each instance, the president worried that off-year election turnout among their base would be attenuated both because it always is in non-presidential years and because their policy failings had reduced the enthusiasm they found among their base voters. And both men found themselves forced to escalate their rhetoric and move their ideological positions to the left in order to try to drum up the kind of turnout they needed to keep power in Congress.
Clinton failed and Obama will too.- Spoiler:
When President Clinton asked me to help him to move to the center to win re-election in 1996, he said "I've moved so far to the left that I don't even recognize myself." At heart a moderate while Obama is, at core, a leftist, Clinton was alluding to the positions he had to take to keep the support of his liberal House majority. Obama -- for whom the further left he drifts the better -- has no such qualms but the political impact of his move to the left will be just as fatal for his Congressional majority as it was for Clintons'.
When a president moves leftward, a vicious cycle begins to set in. Driven to raise the intensity of his rhetoric and to take positions further to the extreme, he alienates more and more centrists and moderates, forcing himself to rely more and more on left wing voters. This reliance, in turn, fuels an ever more pronounced leftward drift until he ends up with a vastly diminished political base.
In Obama's case, his reliance on minority voters adds to the difficulty as he drives racially fair whites to see him as governing primarily in the interests of minority voters.
Obama's decision to have his Justice Department sue Arizona over its immigration law -- despite the fact that American voters back the statute by 2:1 -- is the latest illustration of that leftward drift. So is Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to prosecute the Black Panthers who posted themselves at a mixed-race polling place in military uniform with clubs to deter white voters.
The further Obama moves to the left, the more he has to move to the left. And the worse it is for his ability to control Congress.
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Outrage." To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.
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| | Sujet: 2556 - U.S., Russia Complete Largest Spy Swap Since Cold War 9/7/2010, 18:11 | |
| U.S., Russia Complete Largest Spy Swap Since Cold WarPublished July 09, 2010Associated Press VIENNAMOSCOW -- The U.S. and Russia orchestrated the largest spy swap since the Cold War, exchanging 10 spies arrested in the U.S. for four convicted in Russia in a tightly choreographed diplomatic dance Friday at Vienna's airport.- Spoiler:
 July 9: A Russian plane believed to be carrying candidates for a 14-person spy swap as part of the largest spy swap since the Cold War is parked on the tarmac at Vienna's Schwechat airport (AP).
The U.S. charter landed briefly at RAF Brize Norton air base in southern England, where a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two of the four Russians were dropped off before the plane headed back across the Atlantic.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had signed a decree pardoning the four Thursday after officials forced them to sign confessions. The Kremlin identified them as Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin, Gennady Vasilenko and Sergei Skripal.Sutyagin, an arms researcher convicted of spying for the United States, had told relatives earlier he was being sent to Britain. Skripal was convicted of spying for Britain, but there was no confirmation he was left in the U.K.Both the U.S and Russia won admissions of crimes from the subjects of the exchange -- guilty pleas in the U.S. and signed confessions in Russia.In exchange for the 10 Russian agents, the U.S. won freedom for and access to two former Russian intelligence colonels who had been convicted in their home country of compromising dozens of valuable Soviet-era and Russian agents operating in the West. Two others also convicted of betraying Moscow were wrapped into the deal.U.S. officials said some of those freed by Russia were ailing, and cited humanitarian concerns for arranging the swap in such a hurry. They said no substantial benefit to U.S. national security was seen from keeping the captured low-level agents in U.S. prisons for years."This sends a powerful signal to people who cooperate with us that we will stay loyal to you," said former CIA officer Peter Earnest. "Even if you have been in jail for years, we will not forget you."The 10 Russian agents arrested in the U.S. had tried to blend into American suburbia but been under watch by the FBI. Their access to top U.S. national security secrets appeared spotty at best, although the extent of what they passed on is not publicly known.The lawyer for one of them, Vicky Pelaez, said the Russian government had offered her $2,000 a month for life, housing and help with her children -- rather than the years behind bars she could have faced in the U.S. if she had not agreed to the deal.Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, sentenced in 2003 to 18 years in prison for espionage on behalf of the United States, passing secret information about undercover Russian agents working in the United States and about Americans working for Russian intelligence.Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was found guilty of passing state secrets to Britain and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006. He was accused of revealing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe.Sutyagin asserts his innocence despite the forced confession. He worked with the U.S.A. and Canada Institute, a respected Moscow-based think-tank, before being sentenced to 15 years in 2004 on charges of passing information on nuclear submarines and other weapons to a British company that Russia claimed was a CIA cover. Sutyagin says the information he provided was available from open sources.Gennady Vasilenko, a former KGB officer employed as a security officer by Russia's NTV television, was sentenced in 2006 to three years in prison on illegal weapons possession and resistance to authorities. It was not exactly clear why he was involved in the spy swap.The U.S. deported agents using the names Anna Chapman, Tracey Lee Ann Foley, Donald Howard Heathfield, Juan Lazaro, Patricia Mills, Richard and Cynthia Murphy, Vicky Pelaez, Mikhail Semenko and Michael Zottoli. All pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiring to act as unregistered foreign agents.Several of the agents had children, both minors and adults, and it was not clear yet exactly which country the children would end up in.Chapman, 28, whose active social life was splashed all over the tabloids, was accused of using a special laptop to transmit messages to another computer of an unnamed Russian official. Chapman is her married name, her maiden name was Kushchenko. She is now divorced from a British man who says his Russian father-in-law used to be a high-ranking KGB official.Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley were the aliases for Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, who lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had two sons, 20 and 16. She posed as a real estate agent around Boston, he worked as a sales consultant at Global Partners Inc., a Cambridge-based international management consulting firm and also had his own consulting company.Another convicted couple, Mikhail Kutsik and Natalia Pereverzeva, had been living in Seattle and Arlington, Virginia, under the aliases Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills. They had two children, ages 1 and 3, and before the plea bargain were already planning to send the children to live with relatives in Russia.Vladimir and Lydia Guryev, had been living in Montclair, New Jersey, under the names Richard and Cynthia Murphy. While he stayed at home with their two daughters aged 7 and 11, she had a well-paying job as a tax consultant in New York City. It was not clear where the girls, who had always lived in the United States, would live now.Lazaro, 66, whose real name is Mikhail Vasenkov, brought his wife, Vicky Pelaez, into the conspiracy by having her pass letters to the Russian intelligence service on his behalf. She was a journalist for a Spanish newspaper in New York. Pelaez is her real name. She has two sons, 38-year-old and a 17-year-old, and her lawyer said the youth might remain in the United States living with his brother.Semenko of Arlington, Virginia, worked at the Travel All Russia agency.The fugitive who jumped bail in Cyprus after being arrested on an Interpol warrant is the suspected paymaster for the U.S. spy ring. Canadian authorities say he was traveling as Christopher Metsos, a 54-year-old tourist on a Canadian passport that stole the identity of a dead child. Authorities have not released any other identity for him and his whereabouts were not known.The exchange Friday allowed Vienna to add yet another event to its long history as a key Cold War diplomatic site, the capital of neutral Austria being a preferred place to work on treaties and agreements meant to reduce U.S.-Soviet tensions.
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| | Sujet: 2557 - The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy 10/7/2010, 01:34 | |
| De pietres democrates ces Democrates!  The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy Union 'card-check,' cap and trade, and so much more. By JOHN FUND Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they're leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won't return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal's Charlie Cook, the Beltway's leading political handicapper, predicted last month "the House is gone," meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority. - Spoiler:
The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That's why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation. John Fund discusses the Democratic agenda for the lame duck Congress, including cap and trade, card-check, and pork.
"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.
In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like "card check"—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—"the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.
Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.
Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. "Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session," Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.
It's been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn't faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.
Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate "Blue Dogs" in the House would support on the campaign trail. "We have a lot of wiggle room in conference," a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month.
Many Democrats insist there will be no dramatic lame-duck agenda. But a few months ago they also insisted the extraordinary maneuvers used to pass health care wouldn't be used. Desperate times may be seen as calling for desperate measures, and this November the election results may well make Democrats desperate.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
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| | Sujet: 2558 - 56% Oppose Justice Department Challenge of Arizona Law; 61% Favor Similar Law In Their State 10/7/2010, 23:25 | |
| 56% Oppose Justice Department Challenge of Arizona Law; 61% Favor Similar Law In Their StateSimilar Law In Their StateVoters by a two-to-one margin oppose the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to challenge the legality of Arizona’s new immigration law in federal court. Sixty-one percent (61%), in fact, favor passage of a law like Arizona’s in their own state, up six points from two months ago. - Spoiler:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 28% of voters agree that the Justice Department should challenge the state law. Fifty-six percent (56%) disagree and another 16% are not sure.
These findings are unchanged from late May when the possibility of such a challenge first surfaced in news reports.
Eighty-six percent (86%) of all Likely Voters say the immigration issue is at least somewhat important to how they will vote for Congress this November, with 55% who say it is Very Important.
Those who say the issue is Very Important to their vote are even more likely to oppose the government action. Seventy-two percent (72%) of those who rate the immigration issue Very Important to their vote disagree with the Justice Department challenge.
On the other hand, the nation’s Political Class thinks the legal challenge is a great idea. Seventy-three percent (73%) of Political Class voters agree with the Justice Department decision to challenge the Arizona law, while 67% of Mainstream voters disagree and oppose that challenge.
But then 71% of Mainstream voters favor passage of an Arizona-like immigration law in their home state. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Political Class voters oppose passage of such a law.
Among all voters nationwide, just 28% oppose passage of an immigration law like Arizona’s in their state.
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| | Sujet: 2559 - Liberals analyze their Obama 'despair' 11/7/2010, 01:21 | |
| Ca en dit long sur la mentalite des "liberaux" Democrates (une fois encore, a gauche aux Etats Unis) 22% de l'electorat dont les idees sont loin de faire l'unanimite chez les Americains meme Democrates et pourtant ils trouvent normal de vouloir imposer leur programme. Liberals analyze their Obama 'despair'By ABBY PHILLIP | 7/10/10 6:44 PM EDTFor many liberals, it is the summer of their discontent. Already disappointed with President Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on his campaign promises, they now contemplate a slowing economic recovery and a good chance of Republican gains in November. Such developments would make enacting Obama’s agenda even more difficult. - Spoiler:
Many liberals are disappointed with President Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on his campaign promises. AP
Two recent essays framed the debate raging within the progressive community over why the promise of Obama’s candidacy has not lived up to their expectations — and how liberals should proceed in what they fear will be difficult months ahead. In a 17,000-plus word piece published in The Nation on Thursday, journalist Eric Alterman calls the Obama presidency “a big disappointment” for progressives and blamed a broken system in Washington that he says allows the minority party to rule with impunity, and special interests and big money to dictate legislative policy. “Face it,” he concludes, “the system is rigged, and it’s rigged against us.” His essay is subtitled “Why a progressive presidency is impossible for now.” But writing in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Michael Tomasky, the editor, counsels patience, arguing that American history has shown that change always takes time and continued effort against entrenched conservative opposition. “The changes we want to see won’t happen in 18 months, or in two years, or four, or probably even eight,” he concludes in his article, which is entitled: “Against Despair.” The essays suggest it is a time of reckoning for a liberal community whose relationship with Obama has had a series of ups and downs since the climactic moment of hope and expectation when he claimed the presidency in Chicago’s Grant Park on Nov. 4th, 2008. “It’s not just really about Obama, it’s about the state of our country. Every day, you have a sense that people are wondering where this country is headed,” says Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation.The elation of that night in 2008 quickly gave way to the realization that issue Number One, the economy, and the ensuing fight over an $800 billion stimulus bill, would make his agenda different from the one he had described in his campaign. From the beginning, the stimulus bill was viewed as containing too many compromises in a futile attempt to garner Republican support. Economist and columnist Paul Krugman led the charge, arguing that the bill was not ambitious enough, containing too many tax cuts and not enough funding for infrastructure projects. But the bill’s $800 billion price tag created a toxic environment for congressional Democrats when they began the long debate over health care, and many liberals viewed Obama’s compromises on the legislation as a betrayal. The low point may have been after the special election victory of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in January, when the possibility of any health care legislation seemed lost. “It’s open season on Obama, whom so many hoped would lead us out of the neo-liberal wilderness,” Firedoglake blogger Les Leopold declared not long afterward. “He once was a community organizer and ought to know how working people have suffered through a generation of tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation and unfair competition. When the economy crashed, he was in the perfect position to limit the unjustified pay levels on Wall Street. …”“Instead we got a multitrillion dollar bailout for Wall Street, no health care reform, no serious financial reforms whatsoever, record unemployment and political gridlock that will be with us for years to come.”The bill’s passage was viewed as a major victory for the White House, but the reaction among progressives was mixed, at best. Only 10 days after the House bill passed, Tomasky writes, “things on the liberal side were more or less back to the dour normal.” “It simply took too long to pass health care,” says Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. “What should have been seen as an important progressive victory didn’t feel like it was as much of a victory because it just took so damn long.” But the worst seems yet to come. “The bad economy creates a mood in which everything looks a bit more bleak than it did before,” Dionne said. “The economy helps to create the less-than-wonderful poll numbers for Democrats, and it conditions the national mood — and all of that affects the way that progressives feel.” The list of grievances includes a slew of agenda items yet to be meaningfully addressed: a climate change bill, immigration reform, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and the Employer Free Choice Act, not to mention a war in Afghanistan that many liberals oppose. Yet, some of the blame that once was put squarely on Obama and his White House staff has now shifted to a broken system where congressional Republicans have exerted power that does not rightfully belong to them.“Whatever the motivation, it has become easier and easier for a determined minority to throw sand in the gears of the legislative process,” Alterman writes. “It is therefore no coincidence that the 40 Republican senators with the ability to bottle up almost anything in the Senate represent barely a third of the U.S. population.”Tomasky sees this shift as an inevitable one that will eventually bring liberals around to the realization that the great periods of change — Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society — took place after years of effort and many setbacks along the way. Slower to come around to this view, Tomasky acknowledges, have been the vanguards of the liberal blogosphere: the Huffington Post, Firedoglake and, to an arguably lesser extent, The Daily Kos.“People have to work through stages like that before they get to the point where they say that ‘this is not exactly what we thought it would be, but let’s just deal with it,’” Tomasky said in an interview with POLITICO. “I don’t know that the progressive community is at that stage yet, but people are getting there.” Ironically, given the generally more pessimistic tone of his essay, Alterman sees a more immediate time of possibility than Tomasky — Obama’s second term, assuming there is one. “This would be consistent with FDR’s strategy during his second term and makes a kind of sense when one considers the nature of the opposition he faces today and the likelihood that it will discredit itself following a takeover of one or both houses in 2010,” Alterman writes in his piece. Still, others are wary of putting too much stock in the promise of 2012. “I think that depends on what we build,” says Bob Borosage, president of the liberal Institute for America’s Future. Borosage says that over the past 18 months, progressives have learned the hard way that they need to be more independent of the White House to realize the change that they are seeking. The remedy for the problems that progressives face, Borosage says, lies in the need to create an equal and opposite force that can rival the enthusiasm of the tea party movement. “If there is a progressive movement that is demanding change, driving the debate, challenging conservative Democrats and Republicans and challenging the White House, you might see a bolder agenda,” he says. “But it’s equally possible that this reform moment … that we miss it and conservatives come back with the same ideas they had when they drove us off a cliff.” “It was always naive to expect a president to start a movement,” says Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor and co-editor of the liberal magazine, Dissent. “It’s a little bit like expecting a chief executive to start a union.”
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| | Sujet: 2560 - Governors Voice Great Concern on Immigration 12/7/2010, 07:48 | |
| Governors Voice Great Concern on ImmigrationBy ABBY GOODNOUGH Published: July 11, 2010 BOSTON — In a private meeting with White House officials this weekend, Democratic governors voiced deep anxiety about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, worrying that it could cost a vulnerable Democratic Party in the fall elections. - Spoiler:
 Michael Dwyer/Associated PressGov. Jan Brewer of Arizona at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.
Republican governors at the Boston meeting were also critical of the lawsuit, saying it infringed on states’ rights and rallying around Ms. Brewer, whose presence spurred a raucous protest around the downtown hotel where the governors gathered.
“I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona’s,” said Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican seeking re-election. But the unease of Democratic governors, seven of whom are seeking re-election this year, was more striking.
“I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” said Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, a Democrat who was facing a tough fight for re-election and pulled out of the race earlier this year. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”
The White House would not directly respond to reports of complaints from some Democratic governors.
But David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the president remained committed to passing an immigration overhaul, and that addressing the issue did not mean he was ignoring the economy.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good, healthy debate about the economy and other issues,” Mr. Axelrod said.
Mr. Obama addressed the economy last week during stops in Kansas City and Las Vegas, and has been calling on Congress to offer additional tax relief to small businesses.
And the heads of Mr. Obama’s national debt commission — Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles — were on hand here on Sunday to press the economic issue.
The nation’s total federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14 trillion, and Mr. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Mr. Bowles, a Democrat and the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, offered a gloomy assessment if spending is not brought under control even more.
“This debt is like a cancer,” Mr. Bowles said. “It is truly going to destroy the country from within.”
Still, the issue of immigration commanded as much attention as anything here this weekend.
Ms. Brewer, who was trailed by television cameras all weekend, called the lawsuit “outrageous” and said the state was receiving donations from around the country to help fight it.
“I think Arizona will win,” she said, “and we will take a position for all of America.”
Immigration was not the only topic at the Saturday meeting between Democratic governors and two White House officials — Patrick Gaspard, Mr. Obama’s political director, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs. But several governors, including Christine Gregoire of Washington, said it was a particularly heated issue.
Ms. Gregoire, who does not face an election this year, said the White House was doing a poor job of showing the American public that it was working on the problem of illegal immigration.
“They described for me a list of things that they are doing to try and help on that border,” Ms. Gregoire said of the White House officials at the closed-door meeting. “And I said, ‘The public doesn’t know that.’ ” Enlarge This Image Michael Dwyer/Associated PressJanet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security, met privately in Boston on Sunday with Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona.
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| | Sujet: 2561 - 12/7/2010, 08:53 | |
| Ombre se refusait a croire les resultats de sondage qui montraient une forte chance de degringolade pour le parti du POTUS en novembre prochain, et sans vouloir jouer a Perette... 'No Doubt' Republicans Can Retake House in Fall, Gibbs Says AP
In remarks that could be intended to light a fire under dispirited Democrats, the White House press secretary warns the party could lose its majority in the House in November elections where Republicans need to gain about 40 seats to take control. |
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