Oba-20
Wages of Tax Sin, Circa 2009 - Floyd Norris Blog - NYTimes.com
ome of this may be the traditional early-April efforts of the I.R.S. to remind us to pay our taxes. But they also signal an upsurge — the first since the Enron and WorldCom scandals faded — in anger over rich crooks.
White House Town Hall a Bust for Some Entrepreneurs - BusinessWeek
Some 64,000 people tuned in to the event via the Web and submitted about 90,000 questions. Hofmeister says the President, whom he found sincere and engaged, had time to answer only about 10 people during the hour-and-a-half exchange. Still, “most of the questions were softballs,” Hofmeister says.
MIT to Republicans: Lay off the Scaremongering on Climate Costs - Environmental Capital - WSJ
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the nuts-and-bolts of the just-proposed energy and climate bill, such as its heavy reliance on often-dubious “carbon offsets” or all the convoluted ways it tries to shield big swathes of American industry from the cost of the program.
But when both President Obama and the U.S. Senate are bending over backwards to insulate regular families from the cost of the bill, that may not be the best avenue of attack.
Note to Europe: Shut up! - The Bing Blog
At the same time, come on, ladies and gentlemen. The large companies that caused the worldwide collapse of global capitalism, at least at this horrendous point in time, recognize no national boundaries. They have gleaned the benefits of a wide world market, reaping vast harvests wherever they went, except possibly in countries that do not pay their bills or that insist on paying them in vodka. When our corporations plied the seas like responsible merchant vessels that was one thing. But it’s pretty obvious that quite a few of them, particularly the ones that shape the markets themselves, have been operating more like a cross between cruise ships registered in Liberia and privateers that recognize no national laws but those of the sea on which they float.
It just may be that, you know, if we want to operate in the world theater, we might have to obey some of the world’s laws and regulations. Just possibly, is what I’m saying. Unless we can get out of it in some way. Good luck, Mr. Obama. Win one for the team, will ya?
Karl Rove Says Barack Obama Has Moved Chicago Politics to the White House - WSJ.com
"Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." That's what President Barack Obama said to Rep. Peter DeFazio in a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus last week, according to the Associated Press.
House approves $3.6 trillion budget blueprint
"The administration's budget simply taxes too much, spends too much and borrows too much at a moment when we can least afford it,"
Congress resurrecting 'hate crimes' plan?
"The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law," he said. "Hate crimes legislation is … [a] violation of the Fourteenth Amendment in that it elevates one class of citizen based upon their chosen sexual behaviors above other people."
Coral Ridge Ministries, launched by the late D. James Kennedy, has published a book on the issue by John Aman, who says such laws put into doubt "the future of religious liberty and freedom of speech for Christians."
Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Obama’s Weakness Endangers Us All
Countries like North Korea, which are the pinnacle of tyranny in the modern world, commit atrocities all the time. What they don’t do is challenge America directly - unless they perceive weakness. The consequence of having a weak president in office is that countries like North Korea are more apt to challenge our resolve. There is no question that by his actions in the last few weeks, taping a message for Iran which legitimized the Islamic government, sending Secretary of State Clinton to Russia with a mislabeled ‘reset’ button, and sending Clinton to Mexico where she blamed the United States for Mexican drug violence, Barack Obama has emboldened all of America’s enemies and emboldened North Korea in this particular case.
IRIN Africa | East Africa Great Lakes Horn of Africa North Africa Southern Africa West Africa |
“The parties must be confident that their opponents will honour their promises; and stable governance in the long term depends on the ongoing cooperation of the parties. Given these factors, confidence-building is not a luxury or a distraction. It is a pragmatic imperative and should be the paramount goal of the mediator,”
RealClearPolitics - Articles - Obama's Ultimate Agenda
Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.
Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism. (Asked by Charlie Gibson during a campaign debate about his support for raising capital gains taxes — even if they caused a net revenue loss to the government — Obama stuck to the tax hike "for purposes of fairness.") The elements are highly progressive taxation, federalized health care and higher education, and revenue-producing energy controls. But first he must deal with the sideshows. They could sink the economy and poison his public support before he gets to enact his real agenda.
IRIN Africa | East Africa Great Lakes Horn of Africa North Africa Southern Africa West Africa |
“It’s about the substance, the real issues, because it’s easy to say, ‘You take that, I’ll take this’; but that’s not a sustainable peace.”
IRIN - Print Report
"We are happy that Ms Lacaba is back with us and we hope the ASG (Abu Sayyaf group) will also release the other two hostages very soon," Arroyo said in a statement on 2 April.
Pakistan is at war with itself, says media
"It should be clear by now that we are at war with ourselves as the enemy within grows more audacious by the day. Yet there are educated people in this country who continue to blame American foreign policy and the ever-potent 'foreign hand' for the wave of terrorism sweeping the country," the Dawn newspaper said in its editorial.
US confident new Af-Pak strategy would work
"It's my view [that] if we don't get Afghanistan right, Afghanistan becomes a safe haven again for the same group. That's why defeating Al Qaeda is the single most important part of this strategy."
The commander of US Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus, told the conference, counter-proliferation issues in the region cannot be ignored.
While Iran's nuclear ambitions obviously are the greatest challenge, he said, Pakistan is a nuclear power that has proliferated weapons technology in the past.
"We should be open and honest about that," the general said. "My view is that they are very well controlled, and there are exceptional safeguards
. But we have to be concerned, because were extremists to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, it would obviously be potentially catastrophic."
Al Qaeda operates in limited numbers in southern and eastern Afghanistan, but larger numbers of the terror group are in safe havens they have established in western Pakistan, Petraeus said.
World Leaders Lay Out Tests for Obama - WSJ.com
"This is a very difficult situation, because the U.S. is still the global leader, and problems aren't going to be solved without the U.S. leading the efforts to solve them, but other countries are not in the mood to do what the United States says,"
A Slate of G-20 Rivals Is Waiting in the Wings - WSJ.com
"They put the G-8 on an uninhabited rock," Mr. Bergsten says. "That's symbolic of what's happening to the G-8."
It's too early to dismiss the G-7 or G-8 as history. Probably the most significant international agreement since the global crisis began was forged at a G-7 session in Washington on Oct. 10, 2008, when the members' finance ministers pledged that they would prevent "systemically important financial institutions" from going broke. That pledge was ratified by the IMF's 185 member nations the next day and by G-20 leaders in November.
Onus of Obama's anti-terror strategy's success lies with State Department_English_Xinhua
While U.S. and NATO forces will target the hardcore Taliban in the short run, a long term strategy has been drawn out to raise 1,34,000-strong Afghan army and 80,000-strong Afghanistan national police. Besides the 17,000 fresh U.S. soldiers, 4,000 more would be sent this year to build the capacity of Afghan security forces for meeting the Taliban challenge.
Further more, stringent steps would be taken to end poppy cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan, which, according to Western media reports, constitutes the major portion of Taliban's financial support.
Sphere: Related Content
