Les Cohortes Célestes ont le devoir et le regret de vous informer que Libres Propos est entré en sommeil. Ce forum convivial et sympathique reste uniquement accessible en lecture seule. Prenez plaisir à le consulter.
Merci de votre compréhension.
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 6/7/2009, 08:44
Rappel du premier message :
Bonjour Biloulou
Il me semblait que cette nouvelle plairait!
Auteur
Message
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Sujet: 1449 - Autisme 5/10/2009, 11:39
Studies: Autism More Widespread Than Realized
Monday, October 05, 2009
CHICAGO - Two new government studies indicate about 1 in 100 children have autism disorders — higher than a previous U.S. estimate of 1 in 150.
Greater awareness, broader definitions and spotting autism in younger children may explain some of the increase, federal health officials said.
"The concern here is that buried in these numbers is a true increase," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "We're going to have to think very hard about what we're going to do for the 1 in 100."
(...)
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Sujet: 1450 - ACORN et l'air frais 6/10/2009, 11:18
AG: ACORN Embezzlement Totaled $5M, Not $1M
An internal review by ACORN's board of directors found that $5 million was embezzled from the community organization, far more than previously reported AP Tuesday, October 06, 2009
BATON ROUGE, La. -- An internal review by ACORN's board of directors found that $5 million was embezzled from the community organization, far more than the previously reported amount of $1 million, according to documents released Monday.
Spoiler:
The new amount was reported in a subpoena from the investigation by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported. It is unclear if the money was taken from state, federal or private funds, according to the subpoena.
ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new embezzlement allegation is "completely false." She said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys have a chance to review the subpoena, which was released Monday.
Caldwell issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to ACORN International then-President Wade Rathke and his brother, Dale Rathke, who kept the group's books. Those subpoenas targeted possible violations of state employee tax law, obstruction of justice and violations of the Employee Retirement Security Act.
The attorney general made inquiries in June into alleged embezzlement within ACORN that happened 10 years ago. The group last year dealt with an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke made nearly $1 million in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. Rathke's brother and a donor repaid the money.
But Caldwell said last month that the statute of limitations prevented prosecutors from taking action on the alleged embezzlement, and that his investigation was not focused on that issue.
The subpoena issued Monday puts a new emphasis on the embezzlement issue. It appears to be in reaction to documents gathered from ACORN's board as a result of the subpoenas issued in August.
"Current high ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million," the new subpoena says.
The subpoena requests documents from Citizens Consulting Inc., which assisted ACORN, and from various accounting and legal consultants in New Orleans.
Wade Rathke could not be reached immediately for comment.
Rappel: Tout cet argent est celui des contribuables.
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Sujet: 1451 - Un autre bol 6/10/2009, 11:32
Charlie Rangel rides out storm -- so far By LISA LERER & JONATHAN ALLEN | 10/5/09 8:13 PM EDT Charlie Rangel will keep his gavel until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decides that it's time for Rangel to lose his chairmanship. Photo: John Shinkle The subject line of the e-mail said, “Heard anything about Rangel?” And the text of the message delivered: “Rumor is that he steps down as w&m chair tonight. It’s been floating around K St today.”
That one came from a lobbyist at a prominent Washington firm — about a week before a Republican financial lobbyist called POLITICO to report that Charlie Rangel was “toast” as House Ways and Means Committee chairman, to be replaced at any minute by a more junior Democrat on the panel.
A month later, Rangel still has his gavel, and Democratic insiders say that the lobbyist’s rumors — and a new Republican resolution aimed at ousting the chairman — will remain wishful thinking until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decides that it’s time for Rangel to lose his chairmanship.
And that’s not going to happen, they say, unless the House ethics committee, which has been investigating Rangel for more than a year, comes down hard against him.
(...)
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Sujet: 1452 - 6/10/2009, 12:31
October 6, 2009 Olympic Gold For Narcissism
ByGeorge Will
WASHINGTON -- In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.
(...)
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Sujet: 1453 - 6/10/2009, 12:47
Does Obama Have the Votes for Health Care Reform? October 5, 2009 - by Rich Baehr
Never has such a major piece of legislation passed with no support from the minority party and a majority of Americans opposed. This could be the first.
Last Thursday, Barack Obama tried to convince the members of the IOC that Chicago deserved the 2016 Olympics. He failed miserably, as Chicago was eliminated on the first ballot, a humiliating defeat for Obama personally and the United States. So much for the new love of America overseas.
Spoiler:
Now the president is back to home turf, where the numbers in the Senate and the House continue to favor passage of the president’s key domestic priority this year: a health care reform bill. The key numbers are these: the Democrats have a near 80-vote margin in the House and a 60-40 hold on the Senate, including the two independents who tend to vote with the Democrats. The attainment of the filibuster-proof majority in the Senate owes to the circus act just performed in Massachusetts, where the legislature and the governor agreed to change the law for the second time in five years on how to fill a Senate vacancy.
Paul Kirk, the new senator for four months, provides the 6oth Democratic vote during the period when a health care form bill is expected to be considered in the Senate. At this point the Democrats do not need a single Republican in either body of Congress to pass the health care reform bill. So what could go wrong for the administration?
My own assessment of how the bill progresses through Congress goes like this:
(...)
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 6/10/2009, 13:31
Il etait question dernierement (au sujet du referendum irlandais/europeen) du fait que l'on fasse voter des populations jusqu'a ce que le resultat obtenu soit celui desire...
Les Democrates du Congres americain ont eux aussi trouve leurs solutions au probleme du projet de loi sur l'assurance-sante.
Normalement: Un projet de loi est prepare vote et presente par les membres des comites concernes pour debat puis vote par les Representants de la Chambre (ici: le projet a fait des petits et plusieurs centaines d'amendements ont ete annexees).
Lorqu'il y a majorite de votes POUR et donc qu'un projet est accepte, il passe au Senat pour que celui-ci legifere et vote sur le texte final (ici plusieurs textes font l'objet de revisions diverses).
Le texte repart alors a la Chambre pour vote final. Le president transforme le projet de loi en loi lors de la signature.
Ce qui semble assez extraordiinaire, mais peut-etre du au souhait de notre POTUS de voir la loi votee afin la fin de l'annee, les projets de loi continuent a etre modifies a la Chambre des Representants apres que ceux-ci ont ete remis au Senat. Resultat: les Senateurs travaillent sur un texte qui n'est pas reellement celui vote par les Comites de la Chambre...
En bout de course, selon Gingrich, nous allons retrouve 3 senateurs: Reid (Leader Democrate du Senat, le President du Comite de la Sante et Baucus (le blue-dog Democrate) reunis avec quelques assistants, aucun Republicain, pour discuter/negocier/elaborer une loi qui sera finalement mise au vote.
Plusieurs groupes ont demande a ce que cette loi soit postee sur internet afin que tous ceux qui sont interesses puissent la lire. Baucus a explique que cela prendrait 2 semaines. Ce qui semble surprenant, mais pas si l'on sait, comme Gingrich le dit, qu'en fait, on ne peut pas telecharger quelque chose qui n'existe pas, or le Senat majoritairement Democrate (60 a 40) n'a toujours pas legifere par ecrit. Ce qui, il me semble ne les empecherait pas de telecharger la loi lorsqu'elle le sera. mais bon...
Ca doit etre ce que l'on appelle la Democratie a geometrie variable, certainement pas vraiment ce que les signataires de la Constitution avaient a l'esprit.
2eme partie de l'interview de Newt Gingrich.
Hannity
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Sujet: 1455 - Guantanamo 6/10/2009, 15:31
C'est si loonng, et si... court a la fois!
Obama's Gitmo blame game
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 10/6/09 5:15 AM EDT
Greg Craig, the top in-house lawyer for President Barack Obama, is getting the blame for botching the strategy to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison by January — so much so that he’s expected to leave the White House in short order.
Spoiler:
But sources familiar with the process believe Craig is being set-up as the fall guy and say the blame for missing the deadline extends well beyond him.
Instead, it was a widespread breakdown on the political, legislative, policy and planning fronts that contributed to what is shaping up as one of Obama’s most high-profile setbacks, these people say.
The White House misread the congressional mood – as it found out abruptly in May, when the Senate voted 90-6 against funds for closing the base after Republicans stoked fears about bringing prisoners to the U.S. The House also went on record last week opposing bringing Gitmo detainees here.
The White House misread the public mood – as roughly half of Americans surveyed say they disagree with Obama’s approach. A strong element of NIMBY-ism permeates those results, as Americans say they don’t want the prisoners in their backyards.
But most of all Obama’s aides mistook that political consensus from the campaign trail for a deep commitment in Washington to do whatever it takes to close the prison.
“The administration came in reading there to be wide support for closing Guantanamo at home and abroad, and I think it misread that attitude,” said Matthew Waxman, a Columbia law professor who held Defense and State Department positions on detainee policy. “In general, they were right….but there was very little willingness to accept the costs and risks of getting it done.”
The White House declined to make Craig available for an interview, or discuss the Gitmo deliberations in detail, but several allies and even some critics scoffed at suggestions that Craig bears the main responsibility for the missteps.
“This clearly was a decision that had the full support of the entire national security team,” said Ken Gude, who tracks Guantanamo issues for the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. “It’s typical Washington that someone has their head on the chopping block, but it’s ridiculous that it’s Craig.”
“The implication that this was the brainchild of the White House counsel is not really credible,” said Elisa Massimino of Human Rights First.
When Obama signed a series of executive orders on Guantanamo during his second full day in office, what grabbed attention was not his promise to close the prison but his pledge to do it within one year.
During the presidential campaign, Obama talked almost daily about closing Guantanamo, but he rarely offered a timeline. His Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), spoke in a far greater specificity, proposing to move the Gitmo prisoners to Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas.
However, back in July 2007, Obama co-sponsored an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that called for Guantanamo to close within a year. Obama’s primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) was also a co-sponsor.
Some Bush administration officials contend that the one-year timeline was driven by a naïveté on the part of Obama’s aides.
“To a certain extent, they had drunk a lot of the far-left Kool-aid: that everybody, or most people, at Guantanamo were innocent and shouldn’t be there, and the Bush administration was not working very hard to resolve these issues, and that the issues were fairly easy to resolve once adults who were really committed to doing something about it in charge,” said one Bush official who met with Obama’s aides during the transition on Gitmo. “It became clear to me they had not really done their homework on the details.”
But even back on Jan. 22, 2009, the same day Obama signed the orders, Craig acknowledged some of the difficulties involved – including that some of the detainees can never be tried, a problem Craig called “difficult” and “most controversial.”
(...)
But it’s been slow. Obama’s administration has transferred 17 Guantanamo prisoners to other countries so far – compared to 19 by the Bush administration in the first nine months of 2008.
Je ne me rappelle meme pas que ca ait jamais ete mentionne dans les media.
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Sujet: 1456 - 6/10/2009, 15:53
Rasmussen
The data shows that, after falling during June, July and August, the president’s ratings have stabilized in September.
In fact, the numbers for September are virtually unchanged from the month before. In September, 31% Strongly Approved of the president’s performance, while 39% Strongly Disapproved for a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8. In August, those numbers were 30% Strongly Approve and 39% Strongly Disapprove for a Presidential Approval Index of -9.
Also in September, the president’s total approval remained unchanged at 49%. (more below)
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Sujet: 1457 - Typique! 7/10/2009, 08:28
Les elus Democrates veulent:
- une energie alternative mais pas d'eolienne dans leur district, - fermer Guantanamo mais pas de terroristes parmi leurs electeurs, - augmenter les impots pour les autres mais ne pas payer les leurs et maintenant ils veulent une assurance sante pour tous mais refusent de partager la facture. (ben oui, quoa, puisqu'on nous dit que c'est gratuit et que ca ne couterait "pas un centime de plus" au gouvernement que ca ne coute a l'heure actuelle.
Decidement, les politiques ont une logique bien a eux.
House Dems: Don't tax 'cadillac' plans
By BEN SMITH & PATRICK O'CONNOR | 10/6/09 8:55 PM EDT
More than half of the Democrats in the House have signed on to a letter denouncing a key element of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care legislation as labor unions draw a line in the sand on paying for reform.
Spoiler:
The letter from 154 House Democrats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges her 'to reject proposals to enact an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle-class families.' Photo: AP
The Democrats are attacking a plan to finance expanded health care by taxing expensive health insurance plans. The plan, sometimes cast as a tax on “Cadillac” plans, would in fact include the health care plans of many public employees and union members and has triggered a revolt from Obama’s labor supporters and their many allies on the Hill.
The letter from 154 House Democrats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges her “to reject proposals to enact an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle-class families.”
“This is not an obscure detail of health care reform,” said Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, who drafted the letter. “Taxing health benefits was explicitly debated in the campaign by presidential candidates and people running for Congress.”
Then-candidate Barack Obama attacked Republican Sen. John McCain in a series of television ads last fall for a plan to lift the tax exemption on health insurance plans, which he cast as a radical departure and a crippling new tax.
The Senate Finance Committee proposal is more limited — it would tax insurers, not the individual with the plan — but still seems to contradict Obama’s campaign rhetoric. Labor leaders say they hope the White House — which has taken a publicly neutral posture — will back the unions as the Senate and House negotiate a final bill.
“I know for a fact that the White House believes in our principle: Make those who don’t pay, pay,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, who is among labor leaders pushing for higher taxes on employers who don’t offer health insurance to their workers.
And the labor leaders are promising a battle.
“We will fight pretty doggedly attempts to tax benefits because we’ve paid for those benefits over the years — we’ve forgone wage increases, pension increases, days off and everything else to get those medical benefits,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told POLITICO recently.
There are no easy answers on the crucial question of how to pay for a health care bill that will cost nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. President Obama has promised to veto any bill that would add to the deficit. But every attempt to pay for the legislation stirs up new problems.
Seniors are worried about the hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicare. Small-business owners have raised red flags about a House proposal to impose new taxes on people who make more than $500,000 a year. And angering the unions at a critical juncture in the health care fight opens a new front on Obama’s left flank at a time when many liberals are also fighting hard to include a government-sponsored insurance mechanism in the bill to compete with private insurers.
Under the plan offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), beginning in 2013, insurers would be taxed for any family plan that costs more than $21,000 a year and any plan for individuals that costs more than $8,000. The threshold would also be higher — $9,850 for an individual and $26,000 for a family — for older people and people in high-risk jobs, as part of a late concession by Baucus.
The threshold would increase each year by 1 percent more than general inflation — well below the recent annual increases in health care spending. Seventeen high-cost states — including Maine, the home of Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key Republican swing vote — would see much bigger annual bumps in the first three years before leveling off.
But critics don’t think that’s enough. They dismiss the suggestion that all of these plans are “gold-plated.” And they’re convinced insurance companies will pass the costs on to their customers, forcing employees to pay higher premiums or encouraging employers to cut or limit coverage, particularly for retirees who don’t yet qualify for Medicare.
Union workers are particularly vulnerable, advocates argue, because they are older, on average, than the wider work force. Teamsters President James Hoffa estimates that the tax would affect the health care plans of “hundreds of thousands” of his 1.4 million members. An analysis circulated by the Communications Workers of America says the most popular plans negotiated by their members in 26 states would exceed the current thresholds by 2013.
In addition, union representatives are making the case in the halls of Congress that their members — particularly government-sector workers, such as teachers — have traded higher wages for top-of-the-line health benefits over the years.*
“We oppose the excise tax because it will be passed on to our people,” Hoffa told POLITICO. “We will oppose it in the Senate. We will oppose it in the House. We will oppose it in conference.”
* En fait c'est assez faux cette generalisation, je connais des professeurs pour qui l'assurance privee de leur mari est bien plus avantageuse que celle proposee par les syndicats d'enseignants. Comme quoi...
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Sujet: 1458 - The "Cadillac" Plan 7/10/2009, 09:06
Qu'est-ce qu'un plan Cadillac?
Donc en plus des primes on paierait jusqu'a 1/3 du montant de l'assurance en gros pour les assures a l'heure actuelle, la pillule sera tres dure a avaler, mais bon, si c'est pour aider notre prochain... What's Really In A 'Cadillac' Plan Rebecca Ruiz, 09.25.09, 05:30 PM EDT
The term being tossed around in the health care reform debate may not mean what you think.
Spoiler:
"Generous"; "unlimited"; "gold-plated": Each has been used to describe so-called "Cadillac" health plans. To some, such programs conjure images of deluxe checkups and endless prescriptions for Viagra, and for some well-compensated professionals, that's exactly what's covered. Yet for many Americans, the benefits offered by Cadillac plans come in the form of very low deductibles and co-pays.
But to congressional leaders working on health care reform, the perks are not as important as cost, and legislators have defined Cadillac plans by their price tags. The goal is to fund reform and curb runaway spending by imposing an excise tax--35% or more--on total coverage worth $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family (in 2013 dollars). This year, the average cost for insuring an individual and family was $4,824 and $13,375, respectively. 1)
The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would generate more than one-fourth of the funding for health care reform legislation that is expected to cost $774 billion over the next decade. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington, estimates that by 2013, 90% of families will have coverage valued at less than $21,000. 2)
Prodding Employers Baucus' proposal seems to target onlyextravagant plans 3), such as the oft-cited example of the Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ) package, which according to the latest proxy was worth $40,543 each for four of the investment bank's top managers.
David McSweeney, chief operating officer of King-of-Prussia, Pa.-based Healthcare Data Management, a firm that audits health benefits, characterized the tax as a way of prodding employers to redesign high-cost packages and therefore drive down the overall cost of health care. "This is the government saying 'Feel free to keep it, but it will be taxed,'" he says.
If the proposal is part of the final legislation, McSweeney says companies might tamp down on which procedures are considered medically necessary. This may be particularly true for firms that consider generous health benefits as a retention tool and are less likely to closely manage procedures and treatments.
For example, a physician might classify a tummy tuck as a ventral hernia or cosmetic tightening of the eye area as a treatment for dropping eyelids in order to get reimbursement for the procedure. Employees may also find that prescription drugs like Viagra are covered without limit by their insurance. By taxing these high-cost plans, the government is treating such coverage as additional income, says McSweeney.
Insulating Employees From Cost
But wide-ranging benefits play only one part in increasing the value of a plan.
Take the 1.6 million members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). They enjoy not unlimited benefits, but low deductibles and co-pays, says Steven Kreisberg, director of collective bargaining and health care policy for the union.
Typical coverage for an AFSCME employee costs between $6,000 and $7,000, while a family policy is $15,000. The average deductible, however, is between $250 and $400. By comparison, the average U.S. employee paid between $600 and $1,800 in deductibles this year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. AFSCME employees also don't pay much for hospital stays and in-network doctor's visits.
"The term 'Cadillac' is in the eye of the beholder," says Kreisberg. "I would call our benefits 'comprehensive.'"
As an example, he says an AFSCME employee undergoing open-heart surgery that costs $25,000 might only pay a $1,000 deductible, while those with a less expensive plan would be responsible for three times that amount.
Expensive Demographics Beyond generous benefits and low deductibles and co-pays, age and geography also play a significant role in determining the value of a health plan, says David Ermer.
Ermer, a health benefits lawyer who blogs about the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, says older workers with chronic diseases and employees who live in more expensive states like Florida and California are more likely to have coverage that reaches the threshold set by Sen. Baucus.
Legislators tried to compensate for that imbalance earlier this week by proposing to increase the excise tax to 40% for those under 45 and decreasing it for those over 55 and by adjusting the baseline value of coverage in the 17 least-affordable states.
Despite all the tweaks, McSweeney says the excise tax will, in a few years' time, collide with the "law of unintended consequences."
It has the potential to become a surcharge unfairly weighted toward sick people, he says, but inevitable loopholes will allow firms to continue compensating their employees with generous benefits.
"A creative insurance broker will come up with a plan," McSweeney predicts. "But meanwhile, the 55-year-old is going to wind up with a tax on them, and that's the person who can least afford it."
(...)
1) Donc plus les primes sont elevees plus on paiera d'impots, pardon, de taxe de participation.
Donc, il va falloir accepter des couvertures moindre que ce que nous avons a l'heure actuelle pour eviter d'etre penalises, ce qui veut dire que le prix de la co-pay (la visite) va augmenter en fleche; donc en gros si vous n'etes pas malade, pas de probleme, si vous l'etes, tough luck!, en plus, votre porte-monnaie le sera egalement!
2) 21,000.00 par an et ils trouvent ca une amelioration? Les familles ne paient pas ce montant a l'heure actuelle.
3) Apparemment pas, lire message precedent.
Il faut arreter de cibler et denigrer les "riches" pour faire passer la couleuvre. Les riches ne sont pas assez nombreux et pas assez... riche pour payer la facture, d'ailleurs, la preuve, qui va la payer et en plus, il faudra dire merci a ce gouvernement pour avoir "donner" a tous une assurance sante!
C'est comme la GGGrise, elle n'est plus due aux fameux sub-primes (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, c'est comme ACORN, un peu trop chaud pour le confort), non, non, elle est du aux gros bonus de l'elite corporatrice et le pire c'est que ca marche. Meme O'Reilly, le dit maintenant...
Comme des crepes, ils nous retournent.
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Sujet: 1459 - 8/10/2009, 09:17
October 07, 2009
Pelosi's epic eye roll
A YouTube of Nancy Pelosi's appearance alongside Harry Reid at the White House yesterday is making the rounds today -- painting a vivid picture of the two leaders' differing approaches to Afghanistan.
Pelosi, who has said she's "agnostic" about President Obama's unannounced new strategy, seemed way less than comfortable when the Senate majority leader put his arm around her. Reid then announced:
""Madam Speaker, the one thing that I think was interesting is that everyone, Democrats and Republicans, said that, “whatever decision you make, we'll support it.” Basically. So we will see."." This didn't sit terribly well with the speaker. Check out her reaction...
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Sujet: 1460 - 8/10/2009, 13:00
Un tournant dans le traitement mediatique du POTUS? Peu de chance. Comme le disait Ann Coulter chez Larry King, Michele se retournera contre Obama avant que Saturday Night Live ne le fasse!
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Sujet: 1461 - 9/10/2009, 17:08
Le proprietaire d'une maison tuee par la police qu'il a appelee, un cambrioleur s'etant introduit chez lui.
S'il avait ete afro-americain on en aurait parle encore dans 3 semaines (le professeur ami du POTUS embarque par la police d'une ville universitaire).
La.... ce n'est pas grave alors c'est en tout petit sur page du site FOX News... (et je n'ai pas vu l'information ailleurs)
Cops shoot homeowner, not intruder
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Sujet: 1462 - 9/10/2009, 17:15
AP Car blast near market in northwest Pakistan wounds more than 100, moving country closer to offensive against militants along Afghan border.
C'est avec les gens responsables de ca, que le POTUS et Hillary veulent negocier?
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Sujet: 1463 - 9/10/2009, 17:28
Young Hamlet's Agony By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 9, 2009
The genius of democracy is the rotation of power, which forces the opposition to be serious -- particularly about things like war, about which until Jan. 20 of this year Democrats were decidedly unserious.
Spoiler:
When the Iraq war (which a majority of Senate Democrats voted for) ran into trouble and casualties began to mount, Democrats followed the shifting winds of public opinion and turned decidedly antiwar. But needing political cover because of their post-Vietnam reputation for weakness on national defense, they adopted Afghanistan as their pet war.
"I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as 'the right war' to conventional Democratic wisdom," wrote Democratic consultant Bob Shrum shortly after President Obama was elected. "This was accurate as criticism of the Bush administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy."
Which is a clever way to say that championing victory in Afghanistan was a contrived and disingenuous policy in which Democrats never seriously believed, a convenient two-by-four with which to bash George Bush over Iraq -- while still appearing warlike enough to fend off the soft-on-defense stereotype.
Brilliantly crafted and perfectly cynical, the "Iraq war bad, Afghan war good" posture worked.
Democrats first won Congress, then the White House. But now, unfortunately, they must govern.
No more games. No more pretense.
So what does their commander in chief do now with the war he once declared had to be won but had been almost criminally under-resourced by Bush?
Perhaps provide the resources to win it?
You would think so. And that's exactly what Obama's handpicked commander requested on Aug. 30 -- a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops to stabilize a downward spiral and save Afghanistan the way a similar surge saved Iraq.
That was more than five weeks ago. Still no response. Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches. Why? Because, explains national security adviser James Jones, you don't commit troops before you decide on a strategy.
No strategy? On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.
And to emphasize his seriousness, the president made clear that he had not arrived casually at this decision. The new strategy, he declared, "marks the conclusion of a careful policy review."
Conclusion, mind you. Not the beginning. Not a process. The conclusion of an extensive review, the president assured the nation, that included consultation with military commanders and diplomats, with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, with our NATO allies and members of Congress.
The general in charge was then relieved and replaced with Obama's own choice, Stanley McChrystal. And it's McChrystal who submitted the request for the 40,000 troops, a request upon which the commander in chief promptly gagged.
(...)
Less than two months ago -- Aug. 17 in front of an audience of veterans -- the president declared Afghanistan to be "a war of necessity." Does anything he says remain operative beyond the fading of the audience applause?
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Sujet: 1464 - 10/10/2009, 15:53
An Award Often Tinged by Politics
From Teddy Roosevelt to Al Gore, Panel Has Sought to Influence World Opinion By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS and GUY CHAZAN
19th century dynamite magnate Alfred Nobel envisioned the Peace Prize that bears his name as honoring those "who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations."
Spoiler:
But the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee, which Friday named President Barack Obama as the 2009 laureate, has throughout its history been captive to the politics of the time.
Past Winners
In October 1989, for example, with China's Tiananmen Square uprising still fresh, the committee announced it was awarding the prize to Beijing's nemesis, the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. It was, ostensibly, recognition of the Dalai Lama's struggle against more than 30 years of Chinese occupation -- but also a slap at Beijing.
"The Norwegians know they have the opportunity to influence world opinion twice a year" -- when they announce the prize and when they award it, said Scott London, co-author of a new book on Nobel lectures with his historian grandfather, Irwin Abrams. "And they want to make the most of it."
Such early laureates as Mr. Nobel's friend Baroness Bertha von Suttner were activists in idealistic, if ineffectual, peace groups. "It is erroneous to believe that the future will of necessity continue the trends of the past and the present," the baroness said in her 1905 acceptance speech, four years after the first prize was given and nine years before the start of World War I.
President Theodore Roosevelt, who received the 1906 prize for his mediation of the Russo-Japanese war, was the first person with political power to be tapped. Gunnar Knudsen, president of the Norwegian parliament, praised Mr. Roosevelt's "happy role in bringing to an end the bloody war."
Mr. Roosevelt was hardly a pacifist. He had earned his stripes as an enthusiastic cavalry commander fighting Spanish troops in Cuba. Some argued the Norwegians chose Mr. Roosevelt to curry favor with the U.S.
The New York Times said, "A broad smile illuminated the face of the globe when the prize was awarded...to the most warlike citizen of these United States, of whom a national poet had declared, 'His sword within its scabbard sleeps/But goodness, how it snores,' " according to a 2001 book by Mr. Abrams.
In 1935, the prize went to Carl von Ossietzky, a German journalist imprisoned for his opposition to Hitler. The Nazi government protested to the Norwegians and banned Germans from receiving Nobel prizes in 1937 as Europe sped towards war. In 1940, the Germans invaded Norway; no prizes were awarded between 1939 and 1943.
The committee has failed to give the prize to some notable figures, including India's nonviolent independence leader, Mohandas Gandhi. Some Nobel watchers believe the committee had this oversight in mind when it picked American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to receive the prize a few months after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Mr. Obama is not the first person rewarded for potential, more than actual, achievements. In 1960, the prize went to Albert Luthuli, a South African activist who struggled against apartheid. His movement did not triumph until 32 years later, when South Africa embraced black majority rule.
The committee's most-controversial prize was probably the 1973 selection of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his counterpart, Le Duc Tho, for their efforts to end the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese negotiator declined the award, the only recipient to do so in the prize's 108-year history.
Mr. Kissinger, who guided war policy in the Nixon administration, accepted, prompting musical satirist Tom Lehrer to respond: "It was at that moment that satire died. There was nothing more to say after that."
Another controversy came in 1994, when the prize went jointly to Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasir Arafat, despite the PLO's history of terror attacks. Apparently aware of the tensions that remained, the committee noted in its announcement that it was listing the recipients in alphabetical order.
In the early part of this decade, some of the committee's citations became pointedly aimed at the George W. Bush administration. In 2002, it gave the peace prize to former President Jimmy Carter. In praising Mr. Carter's lifetime of work on peace and social justice issues, committee member Gunnar Berge made reference to the fact that the U.S. government was fighting in Afghanistan and gearing up for war in Iraq at the time.
"In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development," Mr. Berge said.
The committee followed in 2005 with Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the organization at odds with the Bush administration over the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In 2007, it picked Democrat Al Gore, the man Mr. Bush had narrowly defeated in the 2000 election, for his work on climate change.
—Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com and Guy Chazan at guy.chazan@wsj.com Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A4
jam
Nombre de messages : 1404 Age : 69 Localisation : saint-nectaire land Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 16:27
sylvette votre dicton m'amuse depuis un moment et je cherchais un fil pour vous en parler "I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive" je dis qu'il m'amuse parce qu'il est exactement dans la ligne ce que je crois être vos idées un "very energetic government" c'est (j'imagine) un gouvernement qui agit d'abord et réfléchi éventuellement ensuite un gouvernement non énergique il réfléchi beaucoup d'abord et agit peu ensuite
je vous laisse trouver des exemples
jam,
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 17:03
O'Reilly
(toujours pragmatique)
jam
Nombre de messages : 1404 Age : 69 Localisation : saint-nectaire land Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 17:13
Sylvette a écrit:
O'Reilly
(toujours pragmatique)
deux choses: 1/ une des choses que je déteste sur internet, c'est les sites qui redimensionnent ma fenêtre de navigation fox news l'a fait, je m'en souviendrai: un site de merde (je parle du site, pas de son contenu) 2/ un truc qui m'étonne dans cette histoire de nobel, c'est la réaction américaine "normalement" les américains sont "patriotes" et devraient s'en féliciter là, on a visiblement une perte de patriotisme qui ne peut signifier qu'une seule chose: racisme (à moins que quelqu'un arrive à trouver une autre justification de ce revirement)
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 17:15
Jam
Lorsque Jefferson parle de gouvernement energique, il ne parle pas de la rapidite de celui-ci a prendre des decisions pour faire face aux probleme(s) mais de son besoin de s'immiscer a tous les niveaux dans la vie de la population, meme la ou il n'a rien a faire.
Ex: l'embrigadement des eleves dans les ecoles, la reprise de societes privees par le gouvernement, la nationalisation de la sante, etc.. etc.. etc..
jam
Nombre de messages : 1404 Age : 69 Localisation : saint-nectaire land Date d'inscription : 02/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 17:33
Sylvette a écrit:
Jam
Lorsque Jefferson parle de gouvernement energique, il ne parle pas de la rapidite de celui-ci a prendre des decisions pour faire face aux probleme(s) mais de son besoin de s'immiscer a tous les niveaux dans la vie de la population, meme la ou il n'a rien a faire.
Ex: l'embrigadement des eleves dans les ecoles, la reprise de societes privees par le gouvernement, la nationalisation de la sante, etc.. etc.. etc..
la reprise de sociétés privées, c'est possible dans la mesure où le gouvernement leur donne beaucoup de pognon, il est logique qu'en échange il contrôle ce qui sera fait avec mais je suis d'accord que ça soit un processus temporaire car selon moi les sociétés dirigées par les état ne peuvent pas avoir autant de réactivité que des sociétés dirigées par un entrepreneur compétent
pour ce qui est de la santé, c'est différent étant donné que c'est un "devoir" de la société, je pense qu'il est au contraire très logique que ça soit entièrement contrôlé par les états sinon on en arrive à des dérives inadmissibles comme par exemple le prix exorbitant (et injustifié) des médicaments et l'industrie pharmaceutique qui non seulement n'en invente pas (puisque c'est la recherche publique qui le fait) mais qui se permet des bénéfices de 15 à 25% sur le dos des malades selon moi, la santé ça ne devrait pas être "négociable" et je considère le système actuel (y compris en france) comme étant un véritable scandale "a shame" comme on dit chez vous
pour ce qui est de l'embrigadement des élèves dans les écoles, je pense que les conservateurs n'ont pas de leçons à donner eux qui enseignent le créationnisme (et veulent faire interdire celui de l'évolution des espèces) et interdisent l'éducation sexuelle (usa, premier pays occidental pour le nombre de filles mineures enceintes) sans parler bien entendu de l'embrigadement religieux et du bourrage de crane guerrier,
jam,
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 17:55
Une fois de plus, vous reagissez comme un Francais, rien de surprenant la.
La sante n'a jamais ete un devoir gouvernemental aux Etats Unis. C'est tout. La grande majorite des Americains est contre. Ce qui VOUS en pensez n'entre pas en ligne de compte.
L'ecole: vous confondez, comme vous le faites tres souvent, le gouvernemental federal et les gouvernements des etats. Chaque etat et meme chaque district decide des programmes appliques.
En ce qui concerne les odes a Obama, pour autant que je sache, il n'a jamais existe des odes a Bush.
====
Il fut un temps ou vous essayiez de faire croire que vous aimiez les Etats Unis, je m'apercois que vous ne faites meme plus l'effort.
Vous passez une vilaine journee Jam et vous cherchez quelqu'un sur qui deverser?
Tomorrow will be a better day, si, si..
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 18:04
sinon on en arrive à des dérives inadmissibles comme par exemple le prix exorbitant (et injustifié) des médicaments et l'industrie pharmaceutique qui non seulement n'en invente pas (puisque c'est la recherche publique qui le fait) mais qui se permet des bénéfices de 15 à 25% sur le dos des malades
La recherche n'est absolument pas faite uniquement avec des fonds publics, bien loin de la.
C'est la meme erreur que lorsqu'on dit que les Etats Unis ne font pas de dons internationaux a la mesure de leurs revenus; en fait lorsqu'on ajoute les dons prives, les Etats Unis reprennent leur premiere place dans la liste des pays charitables. mais bon
Une fois de plus, vous utilisez des valeurs et des experiences francaises pour juger les Etats Unis, ce qui rend votre vision brouillee, votre appreciation largement erronee et pourtant votre condamnation est sans recours.
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 10/10/2009, 18:36
Ce message aurait du se placer avant les 2 precedents. Il etait reste coince et je ne m'en etais pas apercue.
[quote="jam"]
Sylvette a écrit:
O'Reilly
(toujours pragmatique)
deux choses: 1/ une des choses que je déteste sur internet, c'est les sites qui redimensionnent ma fenêtre de navigation fox news l'a fait, je m'en souviendrai: un site de merde (je parle du site, pas de son contenu) 1/ une des choses que je déteste sur internet, c'est les sites qui redimensionnent ma fenêtre de navigation fox news l'a fait, je m'en souviendrai: un site de merde (je parle du site, pas de son contenu) 2/ un truc qui m'étonne dans cette histoire de nobel, c'est la réaction américaine "normalement" les américains sont "patriotes" et devraient s'en féliciter là, on a visiblement une perte de patriotisme qui ne peut signifier qu'une seule chose: racisme (à moins que quelqu'un arrive à trouver une autre justification de ce revirement)quote]
1/ desolee que FOX News vous cree ce probleme, si ca me l'avait fait je ne posterais plus de lien vers ce site.
Vous devez etre un privilegie.
2/ de toute evidence:
- "normalement" les américains sont "patriotes" et devraient s'en féliciter là, on a visiblement une perte de patriotisme qui ne peut signifier qu'une seule chose: racisme (à moins que quelqu'un arrive à trouver une autre justification de ce revirement)
Si vous aviez suivi le lien, vous vous seriez apercu, que O'Reilli justement est tres content de voir Etats Unis et Paix dans la meme phrase, meme si lui non plus n'est pas tres sur de la raison pour laquelle le prix a ete administre au POTUS, il en est tres content. mais bon...
Racisme, dites-vous? le meme alors que celui dans lequel les anti-Condolleezza faisaient baigner la Secretaire d'Etat de Pres. Bush.
A nouveau: que d'etiquettes ne sont pas apposees par certains sur ceux qui osent avoir un avis contraire au leur, dans le but de les faire taire: imbeciles ou plus directement c/K, racistes, fascistes, etc..
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Sujet: 1473 - 10/10/2009, 22:55
Ah ben tiens, Ahmadinejad refait surface, maintenant qu'il a la paix avec l'histoire des installations nucleaires et qu'il a fait la bise a ElBaradei (qui s'en est retourne a New York, content comme tout), il peut retourner a son sport favori: se debarasser de ses opposants.
Iran Sentences 3 to Death in Post-election Unrest Trial Saturday, October 10, 2009
TEHRAN, Iran — Three defendants in Iran's mass trial of opposition figures accused of fueling the country's postelection unrest have been sentenced to death, an Iranian news agency reported Saturday.
Spoiler:
Two of them were convicted of membership in a monarchist group seeking to topple Iran's Islamic Republic and restore a monarchy, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported, quoting judiciary official Zahed Bashiri Rad.
The third defendant was convicted of having ties to a terrorist group for his alleged links to the People's Mujahedeen, an armed opposition group, ISNA quoted Rad as saying.
The three are the first defendants to be sentenced to death since the trial began in August.
More than 100 prominent opposition figures and activists are accused of offenses ranging from rioting to spying and seeking to topple Iran's Islamic rulers through what authorities have called a planned "soft overthrow."
The days of street protests were triggered by allegations of fraud in the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The judiciary official would only identify the three sentenced to death by their initials, the news agency reported. He said their lawyers have been informed of the rulings and that they can appeal the sentences, ISNA reported.
On Friday, Amnesty International identified one of those sentenced to death as Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani.
Amnesty said the 37-year-old was convicted of "enmity against God" through membership in a monarchist group. It also said he was convicted of making propaganda against the ruling regime and of leaving the country illegally to meet with U.S. military officials in Iraq.
Amnesty said it was concerned that the ruling against Zamani could open the way for more death sentences for those accused of similar crimes, and the rights group appealed to the authorities to rescind the ruling.
Zamani testified in August that he met with a U.S. intelligence agent called "Frank" in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's self-governing Kurdish region, and received money and a phone from him in return for information on the Iranian government and student movements, according to state media reports at the time.
Rights groups and opposition figures in Iran have criticized the proceedings, calling them a "show trial" and saying such confessions are coerced.
Zed
Nombre de messages : 16907 Age : 59 Localisation : Longueuil, Québec, Canada, Amérique du nord, planète Terre, du système solaire Galarneau de la voie lactée Date d'inscription : 13/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 11/10/2009, 01:44
Sylvette a écrit:
Ah ben tiens, Ahmadinejad refait surface, maintenant qu'il a la paix avec l'histoire des installations nucleaires et qu'il a fait la bise a ElBaradei (qui s'en est retourne a New York, content comme tout), il peut retourner a son sport favori: se debarasser de ses opposants.
Iran Sentences 3 to Death in Post-election Unrest Trial Saturday, October 10, 2009
TEHRAN, Iran — Three defendants in Iran's mass trial of opposition figures accused of fueling the country's postelection unrest have been sentenced to death, an Iranian news agency reported Saturday.
Spoiler:
Two of them were convicted of membership in a monarchist group seeking to topple Iran's Islamic Republic and restore a monarchy, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported, quoting judiciary official Zahed Bashiri Rad.
The third defendant was convicted of having ties to a terrorist group for his alleged links to the People's Mujahedeen, an armed opposition group, ISNA quoted Rad as saying.
The three are the first defendants to be sentenced to death since the trial began in August.
More than 100 prominent opposition figures and activists are accused of offenses ranging from rioting to spying and seeking to topple Iran's Islamic rulers through what authorities have called a planned "soft overthrow."
The days of street protests were triggered by allegations of fraud in the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The judiciary official would only identify the three sentenced to death by their initials, the news agency reported. He said their lawyers have been informed of the rulings and that they can appeal the sentences, ISNA reported.
On Friday, Amnesty International identified one of those sentenced to death as Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani.
Amnesty said the 37-year-old was convicted of "enmity against God" through membership in a monarchist group. It also said he was convicted of making propaganda against the ruling regime and of leaving the country illegally to meet with U.S. military officials in Iraq.
Amnesty said it was concerned that the ruling against Zamani could open the way for more death sentences for those accused of similar crimes, and the rights group appealed to the authorities to rescind the ruling.
Zamani testified in August that he met with a U.S. intelligence agent called "Frank" in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's self-governing Kurdish region, and received money and a phone from him in return for information on the Iranian government and student movements, according to state media reports at the time.
Rights groups and opposition figures in Iran have criticized the proceedings, calling them a "show trial" and saying such confessions are coerced.
Selon moi le danger ne vient pas d'Iran, mais du Pakistan, eux ils l'ont l'arme nucléaire
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Les Cohortes Célestes ont le devoir et le regret de vous informer que Libres Propos est entré en sommeil. Ce forum convivial et sympathique reste uniquement accessible en lecture seule. Prenez plaisir à le consulter.
Merci de votre compréhension.
avec l'histoire des installations nucleaires et qu'il a fait la bise a ElBaradei (qui s'en est retourne a New York, content comme tout), il peut retourner a son sport favori: se debarasser de ses opposants.
