Obamalog

  The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States was a historic achievement, and as such, we believed a record should be kept of the victories and accomplishments of his administration, as well as any failures or losses.  And so the Obamalog was born, and it is reproduced here.

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FIFTY-ONE

December 5, 2011     Senate Democrats offered a new proposal to extend the payroll tax holiday, a strategy designed to attract Republicans who have been cool to continuing a tax break for working Americans that expires December 31st:

  • President Obama pressed the case December 5th after Senate Republicans revolted against earlier plans last week, and House Republicans panned the tax-cut propoal--the new proposal from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, would pay for the cost of the tax break with a combination of GOP-backed proposals to increase the fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge mortgage lenders, as well as a surtax on those earning beyond $1 million a year: those revenue streams would generate almost $185 billion and replenish the Social Security trust fund.

December 6, 2011

1.     Venturing into the heartland, President Obama delivered his most pointed appeal yet from Kansas, using taxes and regulations to level the economic playing field:

  • Infusing his speech with the type of populist language that has emerged in the Occupy protests around the nation, Obama warned that growing income inequality meant the U.S. was undermining its middle class--he said it "gives lie to the promise that is at the very heart of America, that this is the place where you can make it if you try."

2.     Obama administration officials said that the U.S. will begin using U.S. foreign aid to promote gay rights abroad:

  • President Obama issued a memorandum directing U.S. agencies to look for ways to combat efforts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality--the new initiative holds the potential to irritate relations with some close U.S. allies that ban homosexuality, including Saudi Arabia.

December 7, 2011

1.     For the first time ever, the Health and Human Services secretary publically overruled the Food and Drug Administration, refusing to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold over the counter, including to young teenagers--the decision avoided what could have been a bruising battle over parental control and contraception during a presidential election season:

  • Although Kathleen Sebelius had the legal authority to overrule the FDA, no health secretary has ever done so, an FDA spokeswoman said--with Sebelius' decision, the Obama administration is taking a more socially conservative stance on the contraceptive, known as Plan B One-Step, one closer to that of the Bush administration than to any of its own liberal supporters.

2.     Top U.S. and Chinese military officials began an annual review of major issues, pledging to seek greater cooperation and trust in a relationship that, to many, more resembles a burgeoning rivalry:

  • The Defense Consultative Talks, now in their 12th year, opened on the heels of President Obama's pledge last month to bolster the U.S. military presence in the Pacific, a move seen by many in China as aimed at countering China's rise--the U.S. and China are seeking to stabilize their usually rocky relationship at a time of domestic political uncertainty, since 2012 will see a new Chinese leadership and a U.S. political election.

3.     Americans stepped up their borrowing in October to buy cars and attend college, and they charged a little more to their credit cards--the second straight monthly gain in overall borrowing suggests consumers are growing more confident in the economy ahead of the crucial holiday buying season:

  • Total consumer borrowing increased by $7.6 billion, the Federal Reserve said--September's and October's gain reversed a steep drop in August, when borrowing fell the most it had in 16 months.

December 8, 2011

1.     House Republican leaders unveiled their plan to extend a payroll-tax holiday and expiring unemployment benefits and pay for them through changes in social spending programs while adding contentious provisions opposed by Democrats:

  • In a sharp answer to a bill produced by Senate Democrats that would have cut an employee's share of the payroll tax and imposed a new surcharge on incomes above $1 million, the House Republican bill would pay for the extension through a mix of changes to entitlement programs and a pay freeze for federal workers--the Senate rejected both plans with the vote on the Democratic plan 50-48 (Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican in favor), and the Republican measure was turned aside 22-76 (a majority of Republicans opposed it, reflecting the party's internal divisions).

2.     Americans' wealth suffered its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years as stocks, pension funds, and home values all dipped--at the same time, corporations raised their cash stockpiles to record levels:

  • According to a Federal Reserve report, the four percent drop in household net worth was the sharpest drop since the tumultuous period after the September 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers--it was the second straight quarterly fall.

3.     Financial markets slumped after the head of Europe's central bank dashed hopes that the bank was prepared to help extinguish the region's debt crisis:

  • The Dow Jones industrial average dropped nearly 200 points on a day when investors around the world reacted to every word spoken and every rumor spread at a summit of European Union leaders--investors overlooked good news on the U.S. economy: claims for unemployment benefits dropped, and wholesale companies increased their inventories in expectation of stronger sales.

December 9, 2011

1.     The Obama admiistration proposed a new rule that would end a practice in which some endangered species were classified differently in neighboring states:

  • The new policy would clarify that a plant or animal could be listed as threatened or endangered if threats occur in a "significant portion of its range," even if the threat crosses state lines and does not apply in the species' entire range--the draft rule would replace a Bush-era 2007 policy that was withdrawn last spring after two federal courts rejected it.

2.     Americans' hostility toward members of Congress is at a record high, a new Gallup Poll found:

  • Seventy-six percent of those surveyed said that most representatives do not deserve to be re-elected, the highest number in the 19 years Gallup has asked the question and six points higher than in August, just after the contentious debate over raising the debt ceiling--only 20 percent said that most members should be re-elected, a record low.

3.     A deal to forge stronger ties between most of Europe's economies sent stocks sharply higher as hopes grew that the region is close to resolving its debt crisis--the Dow Jones industrial average rose 178 points:

  • All 17 nations that use the euro agreed to sign a treaty that allows a central European authority closer oversight of their budgets--nine other EU nations are considering it, with Britain as the lone holdout.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FIFTY

Novenber 28, 2011    

1.     Senate Democrats introduced legislation to extend and expand an expiring payroll-tax cut, setting the stage for a showdown with Republicans who are almost certain to reject the Democrats' proposal for paying for the cut:

  • The bill, which could be voted on as early as December 2nd, would reduce Social Security payroll tax paid by employers and the self-employed by half, to 3.1 percent of wages from 6.2 percent for 2012--those taxes were reduced to 4.2 percent of wages this year under a law set to expire at the end of the year.

2.     Ahead of a meeting December 2nd between President Obama and hundreds of Native American leaders, the administration unveiled new rules for tribal lands that officials say will expedite home building and energy development:

  • The proposed changes, the first of their kind in 50 years, would open the door to badly needed housing development on reservations and for wind and solar energy projects that tribes have been eager to launch--Obama has been winning high praise among Native Americans, and the president has appointed Native Americans to high-level positions in his administration, signed laws to improve healthcare and law enforcement for Native Americans, and resolved a long-running lawsuit over royalties for minerals on tribal lands.

3.     Stocks and the euro rose sharply as investors took heart from signs that European leaders were pushing toward new measures to rescue the currency union:

  • The surge in equities ended a seven-day losing streak for the S&P's 500 stock index, pushing it nearly three percent higher--it was a welcome change of direction from last week when Wall Street lost more than four percent as markets reacted to rising borrowing costs for European governments and the failure by a congressional committee in Washington to reach an accord on ways to cut the budget deficit.

November 29, 2011     Defying the Obama administration's threat of a veto, the Senate voted to increase the role of the military in imprisoning suspected members of al-Qaida and its allies--including people arrested inside the U.S.:

  • By a 60-38 vote (both Oregon senators voted yes), the Senate turned back an attempt to strip a major defense bill of a set of disputed provisions affecting the handling of terrorism cases--although the legislation still has several steps to go, the vote makes it likely that Congress will eventually send to President Obama's desk a bill that contains detainee-related provisions his national security team has said are unacceptable.

November 30, 2011

1,     Investors turned exuberant after a series of strong economic snapshots pointed to healthy job creation and more robust business activity nationwide--the strong data sent the Dow Jones industrial average to its best single-day performance since March 2009 and eased lingering concerns about the U.S. falling back into a recession:

  • Action taken by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to address the European debt crisis have, for the moment, lessened concerns about a financial system meltdown--Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist with Capitol Economics said that a lot of what has been happening in the U.S. markets has been affected by the European situation, and it looks like we have a bit of relief from that.

2.     The National Labor Relations Board is moving closer to approving rules that would speed the pace of union elections--but the lone Republican member on the board has threatened to resign his post and quash the entire process:

  • Republican lawmakers in the House are also poised to approve a bill aimed at short-circuiting the rules, which could make it more difficult for businesses to resist union organizing--the developments are the latest sign of how intensely business groups oppose any move that could help organized labor make new inroads at companies that have long opposed unions.

3.     The White House refused to say whether President Obama would agree to payroll tax cuts if they add to the nation's deficit, as the top Senate Republican predicted lawmakers eventually would reach an agreement to prevent taxes from increasing on 160 million Americans:

  • The tax cut is set to expire at the end of the year, raising taxes by about $1,000 on the average household unless Congress and Obama act--as the deadline approaches, political support is building for at least continuing the tax cut--and thereby heading off a politically bruising tax hike, but the holdup remains on how to offset the cost.

December 1, 2011

1,     A record one in five U.S. households saw their available household incomes decline by 25 percent or more from one year to the next from 2008 through 2010:

  • According to a study released by the Rockefeller Foundation and Yale University, this was the highest level of "economic insecurity" in the past 25 years--but the blame was not entirely due to the recent recession, for Jacob Hacker, director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale and a co-author of the report, said, "While the great recession led to a sharp increase in income instability, the share of Americans experiencing economic insecurity had already been growing for a quarter of a century."

2.     Ignoring a presidential veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Senate overwhelmingly aproved a massive, $662 billion defense bill that would require the military to hold suspected terrorists linked to al-Qaida or its affiliates, even those captured on U.S. soil, and detain some indefinitely:

  • The vote was 93-7 (with both Oregon senators voting no) for the bill authorizing money for military personnel, weapons systems, national security programs in the Energy Department, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began October 1st--reflecting a period of austerity and a winding down of decade-old conflicts, the bill is $27 billion less than what President Obama requested and $43 billion less than what Congress gave the Pentagon this year.

3.     With President Obama leading the charge in Washington and political swing states, Senate Democrats have put proudly anti-tax Republicans in the position of opposing a tax cut for more than 160 million mostly middle-income Americans because they object that it includes a tax on about 350,000 people, those with more than $1 million in annual income:

  • The Senate voted 51-49 (both Oregon senators voted yes) for the Democrats' measure to further reduce payroll taxes next year for both workers and employers and to impose the surtax, short of the 60 votes needed--the vote was 78-20 (both Oregon senators voted no) against the Republicans' alternative, extending the current tax cut, paid for by slashing the federal payroll.

4.     Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. will loosen some restrictions on international financial assistance and development programs in Myanmar, in response to a nascent political and economic opening in the country:

  • The U.S. and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, also agreed to discuss upgrading diplomatic relations, which were suspended for two decades, and exchanging ambassadors, a step that could transform U.S. diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

December 2, 2011

1.     Small businesses and startups that were skittish about the economy this summer started hiring in bigger numbers this fall, helping to drive the unemployment rate down to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest in 2-1/2 years:

  • The Labor Department said that the country added 120,000 jobs in November; the economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row--the first time that has happened since April 2006, well before the Great Recession.

2.     President Obama has won high esteem among Native Americans by breaking through a log jam of inaction on issues that matter to them:

  • The Obama administration unveiled sweeping changes to federal tribal-land leasing rules that had not been touched in 50 years;
  • Obama nominated a Native American to the federal bench;
  • The president signed a law renewing the Indian Healthcare Act; and
  • Obama settled a tribal royalties lawsuit that had dragged on over three administrations.

3.     Facing criticism from industry and lawmakers, the Obama administration is easing rules aimed at reducing toxic air pollution from industrial boilers and incinerators--but administration officials maintain the health benefits of the regulation will not change:

  • In a proposal released by the EPA, limits would be placed on the largest and most polluting boilers, and smaller ones could meet the rule through routine tune-ups--the Republican-controlled House passed a bill in October delaying the boiler regulation, and a bipartisan bill pending in the Senate would give the EPA additional time to rewrite the rule and for industry to comply.

4.     The House passed a bill to end the public financing of presidential campaigns--it would dismantle a system set up after the Watergate scandal of the 1970s that has been overshadowed in recent years by the huge sums of money pouring into elections:

  • The bill would remove from income tax forms the check-off box where taxpayers can voluntarily steer $3 into a fund for presidential primaries and general elections--the Republican-backed measure passed 235-190 on a nearly party-line vote, and it now goes to the Senate where the Democratic majority is unlikely to take it up.

5.     In a gesture to their business allies, House Republicans, on a 253-167 vote (all Oregon representatives except Walden, Oregon's lone Republican, voted no), passed legislation to reduce what the GOP calls "an avalanch" of unneeded, costly regulations--opponents call the bill an attempt to prevent the government from protecting Americans at their workplaces, in their homes, and when they want a breath of fresh air:

  • The vote sent the bill to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is likely to die--just in case it doesn't, the White House has issued a veto threat.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-NINE

November 21, 2011

1.     The failure of Congress' super-committee--the bipartisan panel that was supposed to cut at least $1.2 trillion from looming federal deficits--will trigger a fresh series of partisan clashes over taxes, spending, Social Security, and a host of other fiscal matters, clashes likely to begin immediately:

  • The collapse of the 12-member panel, announced in a joint statement by co-chairs Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, sent U.S. stock prices plunging and created at least another year's worth of fiscal uncertainty in Washington, smack in the middle of an already contentious 2012 election campaign--the Budget Control Act passed last August stipulates that failure of the super-committee and Congress to act on future deficit reduction will trigger across-the-board cuts of $1.2 trillion in both defense and non-defense programs, starting in 2013.

2.     Major Western powers took significant steps to cut Iran off from the international financial system, announcing coordinating sanctions aimed at its central bank and commercial banks--the measures, a response to a recent U.N. report warning about Iran's nuclear activities, tighten the vise on Iran but still fall short of a blanket cutoff:

  • The U.S. also imposed sanctions on companies involved in Iran's nuclear industry, as well as on its petrochemical and oil industries, adding to existing measures that seek to act on the government of Iran by depriving it of its ability to refine gasoline or invest in its petroleum industry--the U.S., Britain, and Canada each announced measures aimed at shutting off Iran's access to foreign banks and credit.

3.     A nearly 2-1 majority of voters think that President Obama inherited, rather than caused, today's slumping economy, and more Americans trust him to create jobs than they do the Republicans in Congress, according to a new McClotchy-Marist poll:

  • Half of U.S. adults think that Obama's push to create jobs will do more good than harm, while 40 percent say the opposite--the November survey of 1,026 adults, including 872 registered voters, found a populace that is still glum about the nation's economic outlook: nearly three out of four think the country is in a recession, and 53 percent think that "the worst is yet to come."

4.     The Obama administration called on a health insurance company in Pennsylvania to reduce what it's charging small businesses, using the new healthcare law for the first time to pressure insurers to restrain raising premiums:

  • The healthcare overhaul that Obama signed last year does not give federal or state insurance regulators any new authority to prohibit rate hikes like the Everence Insurance Company's increase in Pennsylvania, but the law allows government officials to require insurers seeking high increases to justify them publically, a move that proponents hope will persuade companies to think twice about proposing excessive hikes.

5.     President Obama pardoned five people convicted of charges ranging from intent to distribute marijuana to running an illegal gambling business, and he issued his first commutation, ordering the release of a woman next month after serving ten years on a 22-year sentence for cocaine distribution:

  • The actions make Obama's third set of pardons--he pardoned eight people earlier this year and issued nine pardons in December 2010.

November 22, 2011     The American Bar Association has declared a number of President Obama's judicial nominees "not qualified", following White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships--nearly all of the prospects given poor ratings were women or ethnic minorities, according to interviews;

  • The White House has chosen not to nominate any person the bar association deemed unqualified, so the negative ratings have not been made public, but the association's judicial vetting committee has opposed 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, according to a person familiar with the matter--the number of Obama prospects deemed "not qualified" already exceeds the total number opposed by the group during the eight-year administrations of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.

November 23, 2011

1.     The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit challenging Utah's immigration enforcement law, arguing that it could potentially lead to the harassment and detention of American citizens and authorized visitors:

  • Other federal agencies included in the lawsuit are Homeland Security and the State Department--even with the federal intervention, state officials remained confident the law would eventually be sustained.

2.     The number of people seeking unemployment benefits ticked up slightly last week after two months of steady declines:

  • But the increase is not enough to reverse the downward trend--the four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, fell to its lowest level since April, and the decline in the average signals that companies are laying off fewer workers--even so, weekly applications would need to stay below 375,000 consistently to push down the unemployment rate significantly, and they have not been at that level since February.

November 25, 2011     In an escalating trade conflict, Chinese officials launched an investigation of U.S. trade subsidies for the renewable energy industry, retaliating for a complaint initiated earlier this month by SolarWorld, the German company employing 1,000 in Hillsboro--Beijing's move significantly broadens trade tensions between the U.S. and China:

  • It is investigating not only solar products but hydro and wind energy goods, equipment, and programs, with an eye on imposing tariffs on U.S. exports to China--such tariffs would counter duties that SolarWorld and U.S. manufacturers or the federal government impose on Chinese solar panels sold in the U.S.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-EIGHT

November 14, 2011     The Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 healthcare overhaul law, President Obama's signature legislative achievement, setting the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June as the 2012 presidential campaign enters its crucial final months:

  • The range of issues the court agreed to address amounted to a menu of possible resolutions: the justices could uphold the law, strike down just its most controversial provision or some or all of the rest of it, or duck a definitive decision entirely as premature.

November 15, 2011

1.     Congress is fighting to keep pizza and french fries on school lunch lines, picking apart an Obama administration proposal to make school lunches healthier:

  • A spending bill released late November 14th would unravel school lunch standards proposed by the Agriculture Department earlier this year, forcing USDA to pull back an attempt to limit potatoes on the school lunch line, delay limits on sodium, and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains--the school lunch proposal was based on 2009 recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and when the guidelines were proposed in January, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the effort was necessary to stem the tide of childhood obesity and reduce future healthcare costs.

2.     House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a bundle of spending measures for the ongoing budget year, blending cuts to NASA and community development programs while averting cuts to nutrition programs:

  • The approximately $182 billion measure announced late November 14th would fund day-to-day operations at the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the space program--it also contains stop-gap spending legislation to keep the government running until December 16th and buy lawmakers more time for a raft of other spending bills, but many of those measures are freighted with controversy;
  • Without the stop-gap measure, the government would partially shut down this weekend--lawmakers face a midnight deadline November 18th to act on the measure and House and Senate leaders promised votes this week.

November 16, 2011

1.     The House voted 272-154 to require states that issue concealed gun permits to recognize similar licenses from other states--Oregon votes: Blumenauer (D), no; DeFazio (D), yes; Schrader (D), yes; and Walden (R), yes:

  • The measure did not cover machine guns or other destructive devices, and permit-holders traveling with hidden guns would be required to carry documentation and photo identification--a similar measure has not been introduced in the Senate.

2.     President Obama will get a chance to sign into law a portion of his $447 billion jobs plan after the House agreed to extend tax credits to businesses that hire unemployed veterans and to repeal a tax provision seen as a potential burden to government contractors:

  • This is the first element of Obama's jobs package to get congressional approval--the measure, passed last week by the Senate, passed 422-0, and it now heads to Obama, who has indicated he will sign it--both parties cheered the vote as a rare example of legislative cooperation.

3.     The Service Employees International Union endorsed President Obama's re-election bid, saying it would deploy its formidable political machine earlier and on a wider scale than four years ago:

  • The politically powerful union is the latest labor organization to jump in with early endorsement of the president, following the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the National Education Association, and it could signal even broader campaign spending by labor groups, which poured in about $400 million to help elect Obama in 2008.

4.     President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia announced plans for the first sustained U.S. military presence in Australia, a relatively small deployment that is still a major symbol of U.S. intentions to use regional alliances to counterbalance a rising China:

  • Obama said the basing agreement "allows us to meet the demands of a lot of partners in the region that want to feel that they are getting the exercises, and that we have the presence that is necessary to maintain the security architecture in the region"--the U.S. will not build new bases on the continent, but instead will use Australian facilites, and Obama said Marines will rotate through for joint training and exercises with Australia, and the USAF will have increased access to airfields in the nation's Northern Territory.

5.     Lobbyists for a day, a band of millionaires stormed Capitol Hill to urge Congress to tax them more:

  • They had a little trouble getting in, but once inside, their message was embraced by liberals and tolerated by some conservatives--"If you think the federal government can spend your money better than you can, then by all means," pay more taxes than you owe, said Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that has gotten almost all congressional Republicans to pledge to vote against tax hikes.

November 17, 2011

1.     Congress has approved a big compromise spending bill that averts a weekend government shutdown that neither party wanted:

  • Passage of the bill came despite conservatives' complaints about excessive spending and liberals' objections to a provision letting the government continue classifying pizza sauces served to school children as a vegetable--the Senate approved the measure shortly after the House approved it.

2.     The White House threatened to veto the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act because a series of the bill's provisions would mandate military custody for some terrorism suspects and prevent the administration from transferring detainees out of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

3.     The Obama administration has begun its promised review of backlogged deportation cases, focusing on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes or are considered public safety or national security threats:

  • The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies announced the plan in August, and an agency menu outlining the new approach says government lawyers will start with a pilot program to look at all new deportation cases in immigration courts--other illegal immigrants, including those brought to the U.S. illegally as children, probably will have their cases delayed indefinitely.

4.     Detecting "flickers of progress" in the long-shunned nation of Myanmar, President Obama announced that he will send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the repressed country next month, making her the first official in her position to visit in more than 50 years:

  • The administration sees Clinton's visit as a sign of success for Obama's policy on Myanmar, which focused on punishments and incentives to get the country's former military rulers to improve dire human rights conditions--the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Myanmar but made it clear it was open to better relations.

5.     Signalling a determination to counter a rising China, President Obama vowed to expand U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region and "project power and deter threats to peace" in that part of the world, even as he rduced spending and winds down two wars:

  • Obama's bullish speech came several hours after announcing he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia--China immediately questioned the U.S. move and said it deserved further scrutiny.

November 18, 2011     The House of Representatives voted down a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, failing to revive a long-held and persistently elusive goal for the GOP:

  • The vote came 16 years after an amendment failed to pass Congress by just one vote in the Senate, but the intervening years have put the amendment even further out of reach--the measure fell well short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass, with a vote of 261-165;
  • Oregon votes: Blumenauer (D), no; DeFazio (D), yes; Schrader (D), no; and Walden (r), yes--the White House has said it opposes the amendment, and the Senate, which is required to vote on it as part of the August debt deal, is not expected to pass it.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-SIX

November 1, 2011

1.     The Senate approved a $182 billion appropriations measure that lays out spending for some government agencies through September and could lead to an agreement with the House that would avoid a spending shutdown this month:

  • By a vote of 69-30 (both Oregon senators voted yes), the Senate agreed to the bill for agriculture, criminal justice, transportation, and housing agencies through fiscal 2012--unable to reach agreement with the House, the Senate instead bought time to continue talks with a resolution that continued last year's spending policies through November 18th.

2.     A Republican committee Halloween-themed graphic in Virginia featuring a zombie President Obama with a bleeding hole in his forehead has provoked condemnations from the left and right:

  • The montage was created to rouse interest in GOP activities at Loudoun County's Halloween night parade, and it mingles altered images, including a disfigured U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and zombie Obama supporters--the poster image, featuring Obama with a bleeding, large-caliber bullet hole an inch above his right eye, prompted Democrats to cry foul and state GOP chairman Pat Mullins to denounce it as "disgusting", but County GOP chairman Mark Sell said in an email to The Associated Press that the graphic was "a light-hearted attempt to inject satire humor into the Halloween holiday."

November 2, 2011

1.     A group of 40 House Republicans, for the first time, encouraged Congress' deficit-reduction committee to explore new revenue as part of a broad deal that would make a major dent in the nation's debt, joining 60 Democrats in a rare bipartisan effort to urge the super committee to reach a big deal that could also include entitlement cuts:

  • The letter represents a rare bi-party effort for the rancorous House, and its organizers said that they hoped it would help nudge the 12-member panel to reach a deal that would far exceed the committee's $1.5 trillion mandate--among those who signed were several dozen Republicans who had previously signed a pledge promising they would not support a net tax increase, and among the Democratic signers were some of the House's most liberal members who have opposed entitlement cuts.

2.     U.S. foreign assistance was $39.4 billion in fiscal 2010 (the highest amount since 1985) according to a congressional report released February 11th:

  • The countries receiving the most aid were Afghanistan, Israel, Pakistan, Egypt, and Haiti, which was hit by an earthquake on January 12, 2010.

3.     The Federal Reserve sketched a bleaker outlook for the economy, which it thinks will grow much more slowly and face higher unemployment than it had estimated in June:

  • The Fed's growth forecast shows that the recovery from the recession has continued to fall short of expectations--some economists said that it makes the Fed more likely to act further to try to boost the economy, though probably not until early next year.

November 3, 2011

1.     U.S. intelligence agencies, in an unusually blunt criticism of China and Russia, reported to Congress that those two foreign governments steal valuable U.S. technology over the Internet as a matter of policy:

  • For years, U.S. officials have hinted that China and Russia were leading suspects in the Internet theft of economic secrets, and those accusations have appeared as scattered commentaries in government reports, and Google has accused China twice in two years of broad Internet intrusions--the new intelligence study, compiled as a report to Congress on foreign economic and industrial espionage over the past two years, presents a pointed case that China and Russia are the leading actors in the Internet theft of economic secrets.

2.     The Senate shot down another piece of President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill, as a stalemated Congress goes through the motions of attempting legislation to spur economic growth largely as a mechanism to allow each party to blame the other for their failure to act:

  • By a vote of 51-49 (both Oregon senators voted yes), the Senate blocked a measure to spend $50 billion of highway, rail, transit, and airport improvements, and another $10 billion for a new infrastructure bank designed to spark private investment in construction--the measure needed 60 votes to proceed to a full debate, and all 47 Republicans joined Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) in opposing the Obama infrastructure measure, which would have been funded with a 0.7% surtax on those making more than $1 million a year.

3.     Leaders of the world's most industrialized nations, gathered for the annual G-20 summit, scrambled to rescue a European Union deal to restructure Greek debt and prevent a regional financial crisis from creating further global economic disruption:

  • President Obama and his European Union counterparts held closed-door meetings looking for ways to salvage last week's marathon EU deal and get the world's economy back on the path of growth--they got some help when Greece's main opposition party agreed to honor an austerity program as part of a deal to provide debt relief to the country, heading off the possibility that the program would be put to a vote of Greece's people and be defeated.

4.     The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high--one in 15 people--spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income:

  • About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7% of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the official poverty level--in 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for a individual and $11,157 for a family of four.

November 4, 2011

1.     The American job market improved modestly in October, and economists looking deeper into the numbers found reasons for optimism  --or at least what counts for optimism in this slow economic recovery:

  • The nation added 80,000 jobs, fewer than the 100,000 that economists expected, but it was the 13th consecutive month of job gains--fears of a new recession have receded.

2.     Medicare says seniors with high prescription costs have saved more than $1 billion thanks to the new healthcare law:

  • President Obama's healthcare overhaul provides Medicare recipients in the coverage gap called the "doughnut hole" with a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs this year and a smaller break on generics--officials said about two million people (with Medicare) saved more than $1.2 billion on prescriptions through the end of September, averaging $550 per person.

3.     House Democrats asked secretaries of state in all 50 states to oppose new voter identification laws because they threaten the right to vote for many Americans:

  • The letter, signed by 196 House supporters (including delegates to U.S. territories), asked the secretaries of state to put aside partisan considerations and be vigilant against fraud and protect access to the polls for all citizens--several states (over the past year) have passed laws making it harder to vote by requiring specific types of voter identification to cast ballots, reductions in the number of early voting days, and tougher laws on collecting registrations.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-FOUR

October 17, 2011

1.     The Occupy Wall Street movement has close to $300,000, as well as storage space in lower Manhattan loaded with donated supplies--it stared down city officials to hang onto its makeshift headquarters, showed its muscle October 15th with a big Times Square demonstration, and found leagues of activists demonstrating in solidarity across the country and around the world:

  • There are signs of confidence, but also signs of tension, among the demonstrators at Zuccotti Park (the epicenter of the movement that began a month ago), but Wall Street protesters are intent on hanging onto the momentum they gained from October 15th's worldwide demonstrations, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the U.S. and Europe--they are filling a cavernous space a block from Wall Street, donated by the United Federation of Teachers, with donated goods to help sustain their nearly month-long occupation of a private park nearby, and they have an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as "the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the U.S."

2.     The chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee has ordered his staff to begin an investigation into allegations that some of the nation's largest lending institutions have cheated veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars by charging illegal fees in home refinancing loans:

  • Committee staff members met October 14th with officials from the Department of Veterans' Affairs to discuss the charges, which are made in a whistle-blowing lawsuit unsealed this month by a federal court in Atlanta--under a V.A. program, veterans are able to refinance with loans guaranteed by the government, enabling them to lower their interest rates or shorten the terms of their mortgages, and the rules prohibit lenders from charging attorney fees.

3.     A federal judge has thrown out a key part of an Interior Department rule concerning the threat to polar bears caused by global warming:

  • U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the Bush administration did not complete a required environmental review when it said that the bears' designation as threatened in 2008 could not be used as a back-door way to control greenhouse gases blamed for global warming--the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that filed a lawsuit over the 2008 rule, said that the decision puts the fate of polar bears back in the hands of the Obama administration and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

4.     Bowing to political necessity, President Obama pushed Congress to pass his jobs plan in what he called "bite-size pieces" that might prove tougher for Republican lawmakers to reject than the $447 billion package voted down by the Senate last week:

  • Obama's advisors had initially presented the jobs plan as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, but that strategy collapsed last week after Senate Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes necessary to break a filibuster and force a vote on a plan that has become the centerpiece of Obama's agenda--Obama rolled out a new message at the opening of his three-day bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia: pass specific elements of the bill, one by one.

5.     A week ago markets were soaring on hopes that a fix for Europe's debt crisis was near, but today, stocks had their worst drop in two weeks after German leaders cast doubt on how fast that process would be:

  • Expectations that resolution to the crisis could be reached at a European summit in Brussels on October 23rd helped lift the S&P's 500 index to its biggest gain in two years last week, but Germany's finance chief, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said that those expectations were too optimistic--it was the worst day for U.S. stock indices since October 3rd, when each hit a low for the year, and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 247.49 points.

6.     A bill to toughen federal safety regulations of oil and gas pipelines has passed the Senate after a Republican senator opposed to government regulation dropped his opposition to the measure:

  • The bill was approved only a few hours after Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky abruptly announced that he was ending his opposition--the bill would increase penalties for safety violations, require the installation of automatic shut-off valves on new transmission lines, and authorize more safety inspections, among other provisions.

October 18, 2011     The Obama administration moved to roll back numerous rules that apply to hospitals and other healthcare providers after concluding that the standards were obsolete or overly burdensome to the industry:

  • Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that the proposed changes, which would apply to more than 6,000 hospitals, would save providers nearly $1.1 billion a year without creating any "consequential risks for patients"--in January, President Obama ordered his appointees to modify or revoke rules that were outmoded, ineffective, or "excessively burdensome".

October 19, 2011

1.     Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has managed to raise far more money from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate, according to new fundraising data:

  • Obama's key advantage is his ability to collect bigger checks from fewer donors, because he raises money for both his own campaign committee and for the Democratic National Committee, which will aid in his re-election effort--Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among a number of Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate, and he can also draw upon the unique abilities of an incumbent president to raise money from avid supporters.

2.     President Obama's top political advisor is giving GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney credit for something he would rather not be thanked for--inspiring the national healthcare overhaul:

  • David Axelrod says that the Obama health plan was largely modeled on the system Romney shepherded into place as Massachusetts' governor--Romney says the plan was specific to Massachusetts and not meant to work on a national scale.

3.     In a rare display of U.S. muscle, the U.S.'s top diplomat, senior-most military officer, and its spy chief will arrive in Islamabad today for a tense two-day visit that is likely to focus on U.S. accusations of Pakistani support for an Afghan insurgent group that the U.S. blames for thousands of deaths inside Afghanistan:

  • The atmosphere is already poisonous between the two "allies", and there is little expectation that the visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and CIA Director David Petraeus, the former military commander in Afghanistan, will change that--the visit comes as the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan has launched a new campaign in that country's eastern Khost province, which borders Pakistan's North Waziristan region, where the U.S. says the Haqqanis (a network of insurgents) are based.

4.     Raising hopes for a new era of rapprochement with nuclear-armed North Korea, the Obama administration said that it would sit down with the reclusive regime for a fresh round of atomic weapons' talks and appoint a full-time envoy with the task of persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program:

  • As Washington intensifies its engagement of Pyongyang, it is turning to seasoned diplomat Glyn Davies to lead the efforts--Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, will replace Stephen Bosworth, though both will meet next week with the North Korean delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.

5.     President Obama is promoting parts of his jobs bill that could help veterans and wounded troops find jobs:

  • Obama wants Congress to approve a separate tax credit worth thousands of dollars for businesses that hire veterans who have been out of work for at least six months, including those with disabilities--Obama was joined at a military facility in Hampton, Virginia, by his wife, Michelle, who anounced that the American Logistics Assn. has committed to hiring 25,000 veterans and military spouses by the end of 2013.

October 20, 2011

1.     The secular and the religious, the politicians and the militants, all celebrated the demise of a dictator after fighters killed Moammar Gadhaffi and ended once and for all his four decades of repression in Libya, but while congratulations poured in from around the world, the Obama administration and others tempered the celebrations with a dose of caution, conscious that Libya's formerly ragtag band of rebels must now avoid falling prey to extremists among themselves or the type of political infighting that has highjacked the hopes of previous revolutions:

  • Gadhaffi's death clears a cloud over Libya's shaky interim government while focusing new scrutiny on the former rebels and exiles now in charge and on possible candidates to lead a permanent government--despite a public embrace of Libya's transitional leadership, the U.S. remains leery of some of the motives of those who have promised a quick move to elections and democracy.

2.     At least $7 million in federal stimulus money intended to provide jobs to unemplolyed Oregonians instead paid wages to 254 foreign workers, federal investigators have concluded:

  • The money was for forest cleanup jobs in central Oregon where thousands of experienced workers were idle, but the contractors told federal regulators they could not find enough local workers for the jobs;
  • In a report on the investigation this week, the Department of Labor inspector general found that contractors who brought in foreign workers violated no laws or regulations, but used legal loopholes to hire them--the federal investigation looked at 14 contractors to clear federal forests in central Oregon, and the contractors were controlled by four Oregon companies, Medford Cutting Edge Forestry, Ponderosa Reforestations, Summit Forestry, and G.E. Forestry, and all hired foreign workers, according to the report, though they did not all handle hiring in the same way.

3.     Despite a campaign-style push this week by President Obama, the Senate shuttled pared-back jobs legislation aimed at helping state and local governments avoid layoffs of teachers and firefighters:

  • The 50-50 vote came in relation to a motion to simply take up the bill and fell well short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster--Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Independent Joe Leiberman of Connecticut broke with Obama on the vote.

4.     The Obama administration delivered a blunt warning that the U.S. will do what it must to go after militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, whether Pakistan helps or not:

  • Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led an unusually large U.S. delegation for two days of talks with civilian and military leaders who have resisted previous U.S. demands to take a harder tack against militants who attack American soldiers and interests in Afghanistan--she said that the U.S. expects the Pakistani government, military, and intelligence services to take the lead in fighting Pakistan-based militants and in encouraging Afghan militants to reconcile.

5.     The U.S. military closed the second of its three regional headquarters in Iraq, redeploying 750 soldiers, consolidating command of countrywide operations under a single Army unit, and maintaining a rapid pace of withdrawal ten weeks before the expiration of its security agreement with Baghdad.

6.     The economy appears slightly healthier than many had feared it was a few weeks ago, raising hopes that it can end the year on an upward slope:

  • Most economists now expect modest growth for the rest of the year, but they caution that it's unlikely to be strong enough to significantly lower the unemployment rate.

7.     Fifty percent of U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 last year, reflecting a growing income gap between the nation's rich and poor, the government reported:

  • There were fewer jobs, and overall pay was trending down, except for the nation's wealthiest--the number of people making $1 million or more soared by more than 18 percent from 2009, the Social Security Administration said, citing payroll data based on W-2 forms submitted by empoyers to the IRS.

October 21, 2011

1.     President Obama said that the last U.S. soldier will leave Iraq by the end of the year, bringing to an end a nearly nine-year military engagement that cost the lives of 4,400 troops and more than $1 trillion, divided the U.S. public, and came to define America's role in the world:

  • In a video conference with Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, Obama told him of the administration's decision, which grows out of an inability of the U.S. and Iraq to come to an agreement on leaving a few thousand military trainers in the country--if Obama's announcement was not a surprise, it was freighted with symbolism, drawing a line under a conflict that has engaged the U.S. for close to a decade and fulfilling a pledge that the president made during the 2008 campaign to wind down the war.

2.     A federal judge dismissed Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's lawsuit that accused the Obama administration of failing to enforce immigration laws or maintain control of her state's border with Mexico:

  • The dismissal by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton comes in a counter-lawsuit filed by Brewer as part of the Justice Department's challenge to Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement law--the Republican governor was seeking a court order that would require the federal government to take extra steps, such as more border fencing, to protect Arizona until the border is controlled.

3.     Democrats and Republicans are in rare accord on one thing: growers with million-dollar incomes should not reap farm subsidies:

  • Eighty-four senators, including both Oregon senators, voted to discontinue certain farm subsidies for people who make more than a million dollars in adjusted crop income--direct payments, which have long been criticized because they are paid regardless of crop prices and yields, are the subsidy targeted in the vote.

4.     The blue-chip Dow Jones index rose for a fourth straight week, boosted by a strong rally as money poured in despite uncertainty over Europe's plan to contain its government-debt crisis:

  • The Dow jumped 267.01 points, the index's highest closing levels since August 3rd--what's more, Wall Street knows that November and December historically have been strong months for the market as investors look ahead to the new year.

5.     The Senate voted to reject a Republican effort to prohibit the U.S. from prosecuting foreign terrorist suspects in civilian courts, handing a victory to President Obama:

  • By a vote of 52-47, senators turned aside a proposal by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) that would have forced such trials to occur before military tribunals or commissions--the Obama administration has fought to continue bringing such cases in federal courts, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Attorney General Eric Holder writing Senate leaders October 20th that the measure would deprive them of a potential weapon against terrorism and increase the risk of terrorists escaping justice.

6.     The Obama administration intensified pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on Islamist militants destabilizing Afghanistan, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a tough public message that extremists have been able to operate in and from Pakistan for too long:

  • For the second time in two days, Clinton pressed Pakistani authorities to step up efforts against the Haqqani militant network, which is based in the country's rugged tribal region and is blamed for attacks both inside Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan--the U.S. has gotten increasingly impatient with Pakistan's refusal to take military action against the Taliban-linked Haqqani network and its ambivalence, if not hostility, to supporting Afghanistan's attempts to reconcile Taliban fighters into society.

7.     U.S. officials confirmed that an American Predator drone took part in the airstrike that hit the convoy carrying ousted leader, Moammar Gadhaffi, but it's still unclear how he got his fatal wounds:

  • The officials said the Predator fired on the convoy as it was fleeing Sirte, and French aircraft launched guided missiles--the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operations, and NATO's top commander said that he will recommend ending the alliance's seven-month mission in Libya.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-THREE

October 10, 2011     Just last week, a bear market seemed inevitable, but since then, stocks have surged four of the past five days, bringing the S&P's 500 index up 8.7%:

  • The latest jump came after the leaders of France and Germany pledged to come up with a far-reaching solution to the region's debt crisis by the end of the month--analysts said that the volatile period is probably going to continue as people try to work things out and get some sense of where we're heading in the future.

October 11, 2011

1.     President Obama's $447 billion jobs plan foundered in the Senate as a unified Republican caucus and a pair of Democrats voted 50-49 to deny the proposal the 60 votes necessary to allow it to proceed to full consideration:

  • Senior White House officials said that the vote was the first step to spur action on job creation, and next, they said, Obama will work with Senate leaders to break the jobs bill down into its parts, which polls show are very popular with voters, and challenge Republicans to reject each individually--Republicans said that they have always preferred negotiating the package piece by piece and said the vote was an effort to turn the debate into a political bludgeon.

2.     Five health and evironmental groups sued the Obama administration over its rejection of a proposed stricter standard for ozone pollution, saying the decision was driven by politics and ignored public health concerns:

  • The current EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, wanted to set the standard at 70 parts per billion, near the maximum level recommended by the advisory panel, but Obama rejected that proposal September 2nd, saying that compliance would be too costly and create too much regulatory uncertainty for industry--the decision infuriated environmental groups, who called it a betrayal, but it was cheered by business leaders, who said the ozone rule was one of the most onerous of the administration's proposed environmental regulation.

3.     The Senate voted to threaten China with higher tariffs on Chinese products made cheap through an artificially undervalued currency, which lawmakers blame for destroying U.S. jobs:

  • The 63-35 vote showed a broad bipartisan concensus that it's time to confront China over its aggressive trade policies--still the bill could die in the House, where a companion measure has the support of more than half the members but lacks the support of the GOP leadership;
  • Advocates of the bill say that it will make American goods more competitive and support more than one million new jobs--critics warn that it will provoke Chinese retaliation and hurt Americans in one of their fastest growing markets.

October 12, 2011

1.     President Obama's top strategist accused former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney of changing positions on a series of issues, offering a preview of what could be the campaign's central argument against the Republican presidential candidate next year:

  • David Axelrod, the Obama campaign's senior strategist, said that Romney had shifted his stance on taxes, health care, and trade with China, raising questions about what he would do if elected president--the stepped-up criticism by Obama's campaign staff signalled that they increasingly view Romney as being in command of the Republican race, and the flip-flopping charges could serve as a key argument against the Republican's campaign next year, if he lands the nomination.

2.     The Obama administration was taking its case against Iran to the world, trying to stir up an international response to charges that the Islamic republic plotted to assassinate the Saudi Arabian amabassador to the U.S.:

  • The State Department sent a cable to all American embassies and consulates around the world, telling them to put the Iran case before their host governments--Obama's top national security aides have said that the administration will lobby for the imposition of new international sanctions as well as for individual nations to expand their own penalties against Iran.

October 13, 2011

1.     Senate Republicans introduced legislation aimed at creating jobs, overhauling the nation's tax laws, cutting business rules, and boosting offshore oil exploration:

  • The GOP bill is called the Jobs Through Growth Act and doesn't include a single item in President Obama's jobs legislation, which Senate Republicans killed in a vote October 11th--one idea that could win bipartisan support is a proposal to bring home $14 trillion in overseas profits that are kept offshore because of high corporate taxes, and lawmakers in both parties support revamping the tax code by getting rid of deductions and using the revenue to lower rates on individuals and businesses.

2.     The House returned to an abortion issue that nearly sank President Obama's healthcare law last year with legislation that bars an insurance plan regulated under the new law from covering abortion if any of its cusomers receive federal subsidies:

  • The legislation, which passed 251-172 (all Oregon representatives except Walden, Oregon's only Republican, voted no), is unlikely to be considered by the Democratic-led Senate and faces a veto threat from Obama, but it gives House Republicans, focused this year on cutting spending and reducing the size of the federal government, a chance to reaffirm their credentials on social conservative issues--opponents warn that millions of middle- and low-income women who receive partial subsidies to buy insurance would be denied abortion coverage.

3.     Leading members of Congress joined the defense secretary and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in arguing against any additional cuts in military spending as a special committee seeks to find more than a trillion dollars in new savings in the overall budget:

  • Some experts predict that a middle ground may emerge: the budget panel may find nearly all the required savings, and to avoid the pain of sequestration, the Defense Department will be ordered to find additional savings, but less than $600 billion--according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, even that would be unacceptable, and he said that President Obama agreed with him.

4.     According to a new government report, refunding tens of billions of dollars in federal worker retirement accounts back to the U.S. Postal Service would not address its long-term debt problems and would shift unfunded liabilities onto taxpayers:

  • The conclusions published by the Government Accountability Office run counter to the opinions of postal regulators, the postal inspector general, and congressional Democrats, who say Congress should refund as much as $75 billion to the Postal Service for overpaying federal retirement accounts since the 1970s.

5.     The Republican-controlled House is continuing its campaign against environmental regulations, this time passing a bill to delay rules that curb toxic air pollution from industrial boilers and incinerators:

  • The regulation passed 274-142--it joins a host of other measures aimed at delaying or scrapping EPA regulations that Republicans view as job killers.

6.     A deeply divided House panel approved a Republican bill that would slash U.S. contributions to the U.N., rejecting Democratic complaints that the measure would end American involvement in the world peacekeeping body and deliver a devastating blow:

  • One week after cutting $50 million for a U.N. organization that helps women and children in developing countries, the House Foreign Affairs Committee targeted the billions of dollars that the U.S. contributes to the U.N.--the committee chairwoman, Rep. Leana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) argued that the legislation would give the U.S. leverage in pushing for change at the U.N.

7.     President Obama pledged to hold Iran accountable for "dangerous and reckless behavior" in pursuing an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.:

  • In his first comments on the purported murder-for-hire scheme unveiled October 12th by the Justice Department, Obama described the U.S. allegations as well-supported by evidence and said that they would contribute to stronger enforcement of existing sanctions against Iran--U.S. authorities have identified two officials in Iran's elite special operations Quds Force as being behind the plot, and one of them was formally charged, but neither the Justice Department nor Obama would say how high in the Iranian leadership the alleged plot is believed to reach.

8.     President Obama has surged far ahead of his Republican rivals in raising money for the 2012 election, bringing in more than $150 milion for his campaign and the Democratic Party from nearly one million donors, according to new figures:

  • The numbers put Obama comfortably ahead of his leading GOP rivals, who together appear unlikely to match his total for the third quarter--aides to Texas Gov. Rick Perry have said that he will report raising $17 million through September, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is expected to come in at around $13 million, and pizza magnate Herman Cain, who has vaulted to the front of recent polls, has raised relatively little money.

9.     Congress flooded its super-committee with a jumble of advice about taming the government's out-of-control debt, with top agriculture lawmakers readying a bipartisan plan to pare food and farm aid while others waged an aggressive hunt for savings coupled with warnings against cutting cherished programs:

  • Most of the suggestions came from Democrats on 16 Republican-run House committees who sent letters to the special debt-cutting panel--generally, their advice was to create jobs, raise revenue, and avoid damaging cuts to public works, healthcare, and other programs they said are crucial to an economic recovery.

October 14, 2011

1.     The Obama administration told congressional leaders that it cannot implement a new program to provide Americans with long-term care insurance, abandoning a controversial part of the healthcare law the president signed last year:

  • The move will not affect implementation of other parts of the sweeping healthcare law, including preparations for a major expansion of health insurance coverage starting in 2014, according to administration officials--in a letter to senior Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said that such a benefit remains crucial, but she said that the program envisioned in the healthcare law, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Support (or CLASS) program, could not have been structured to collect enough in premiums to remain solvent.

2.     In a blow to Alabama's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, a federal appeals court sided with the Obama administration when it blocked public schools from checking students' immigration status:

  • The decision from the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals also said that police cannot charge immigrants who are unable to prove their citizenship, but it let some of the law stand, giving supporters a partial victory--the decision was only temporary, and a final ruling was not expected for months.

3.     A second Bush administration gun-trafficking investigation has surfaced using the same controversial tactic for which congressional Republicans have been criticizing the Obama administration:

  • The tactic, called "gun walking", is under investigation by the Justice Department inspector general and by congressional Rpublicans, who have criticized the administration of Democratic President Obama for letting it happen in an operation called "Fast and Furious"--Justice Department policy has long required that illicit arms' shipments be intercepted whenever possible.

4.     The federal government ran a $1.3 trillion deficit for the budget year that ended last month, the third straight year it has operated more than $1 trillion in the red:

  • The 2011 budget deficit was the second highest on record, slightly larger than the previous budget year's $1.29 trillion deficit, but below the $1.41 trillion imbalance record in 2009--a decade ago, the government was running surpluses, and trillion-dollar deficits seemed unimaginable.

5.     President Obama will send about 100 U.S. troops to Uganda and nearby countries to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army and kill or capture its leader, Joseph Kony, who has been charged with war crimes for a decades-long campaign against civilians in Central Africa:

  • In a letter to Congress, Obama outlined a strictly advisory role for U.S. forces, who, he said, would engage in combat only in self-defense--the decision follows more than a year of study within the White House on how to support the intent of a bill passed by Congress to help several Central African nations defeat a destabilizing guerilla movement.

6.     A senior U.S. official said that terrorist groups have expressed interest in obtaining some of the thousands of shoulder-launched missiles that have gone missing in Libya, and the issue has become a priority for the Obama administration:

  • Andrew J. Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, said that the missiles "could pose a threat to civil aviation"--Libya was believed to have about 200,000 such missiles in its arsenals before civil war began in March, Shapiro said, and although many were destroyed by NATO air strikes, thousands are missing.

October 15, 2011     Two U.S. officials said that an Obama administration proposal to keep a few thousand U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of the year to train the Iraqi military is being scaled back, as the administration has concluded that the Iraqi parliament would not give the troops legal protection:

  • Both countries are still discussing whether to keep some trainers in Iraq, although the number of troops would probably be far fewer than the 3,000 to 5,000 that the administration had talked about with Iraqi leaders, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the negotiations.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-TWO

October 2, 2011

1.     Since Republicans won control of many state houses last November, more than a dozen states have passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification at polls, cutting back early voting periods, or imposing new restrictions on voter registration drives:

  • State officials, political parties, and voting experts have all said that the impact could be sizeable, and a new study to be released October 3rd by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has tried to tally how many voters stand to be affected--the center, which has studied the new law and opposed some of them in court and other venues, analyzed 19 laws that passed and two executive orders that were issued in 14 states this year and concluded that they "could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012."

2.     The protesters who have camped out in Manhattan's Financial District for more than two weeks eat donated food and keep their laptops running with portable gas-powered generators--they have a newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal, and a makeshift hospital:

  • They lack a clear objective, though they speak against corporate greed, social inequality, global climate change, and other concerns, but they're growing in numbers, getting more organized, and show no signs of quitting--the Occupy Wall Street demonstration started out last month with fewer than a dozen college students spending days and nights in Zuccotti Park, a private plaza off Broadway, but it has grown sizeably, both in New York City and elsewhere, as people across the country, from Boston to Los Angeles, display their solidarity in similar protests.

October 3, 2011

1.     America's budget crisis at home is forcing the first significant cuts in overseas aid in nearly two decades, a retrenchment that officials and advocates say reflects the country's diminishing ability to influence the world:

  • As lawmakers scramble to trim the swelling national debt, both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate have proposed slashing financing for the State Department and its related aid agencies at a time of disparate humanitarian crises and uncertain political developments--the financial crunch threatens to undermine a foreign policy described as "smart power" by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, one that emphasizes diplomacy and development as a complement to U.S. military power, and it would also begin to reverse the increase in foreign aid that President George W. Bush supported after the attacks of September 11, 2001, as part of an effort to combat the roots of extremism and anti-American sentiment, especially in the most troubled countries.

2.     The federal government has decided to uphold the sale of nearly 500 leases to drill for oil in Arctic waters near Alaska, in reponse to a successful lawsuit by environmentalists and Native Alaskan organizations that had thrown the contracts into jeopardy:

  • The move by the Interior Department was celebrated by Shell Oil Company and other firms that snapped up some of the 487 leases to drill in the Chukchi Sea during a government auction in 2008--the decision was panned by conservationists who blasted the Obama administration for bypassing calls for more scientific research on the region's marine life and better studies of how to clean up oil spills in remote, icy waters.

3.     With Republicans killing prospects for a comprehensive jobs bill, the White House is planning a fall strategy it hopes will wrangle enough GOP votes for a package some economists say would add as many as 1.9 million jobs to a sagging economy--at least temporarily:

  • The White House's new 60-day legislative-political strategy is designed to pressure Republicans in Obama-friendly districts to support his proposed $447 billion jobs bill and accompanying tax increases, or face blame at home heading into the 2012 election year--the need for a Plan B was evident as House Republicans said flatly that they won't approve the entire jobs bill as Obama has demanded.

4.     The latest setback in Greece's financial crisis sent major stock market indices to loss readings for the year and put the S&P's 500 index on the verge of a bear market--the euro fell to a nine-month low against the dollar, and the yield on the ten-year Treasury note sank as investors piled money into lower-risk imvestments:

  • The slump came on the first day of trading for the fourth quarter and followed the weakest quarter the market has had since the financial crisis began.

6.     The nation's economy is managing to grow modestly, reports showed, despite high U.S. unemployment and growing alarm about Europe's debt crises:

  • Manufacturing expanded in September more than in August, though the pace of growth remains weak, and construction spending rose modestly in August--in addition, U.S. auto sales rose in September, largely because consumers bought more pickups and SUVs, U.S. automakers said.

October 4, 2011

1.     With limited discussion and zero fanfare, the House approved (by a vote of 352-66, with all Oregon representatives voting yes) and sent to President Obama a measure to keep the government operating through mid-November, and avoided, for now, the threat of any shutdown:

  • Although the debate over the bill was so short (roughly ten minutes) that the House whip's office was caught by surprise and briefly delayed the vote, 53 Republicans opposed the measure, in a show of displeasure that the bill did not have deeper cuts to government spending--13 Democrats also rejected it.

2.     Federal Reserve leaders have downgraded their expectations for economic growth, Chairman Ben Bernanke said, and he called on Congress to address both long-term budget deficits and short-term economic troubles:

  • The Fed chief, testifying before the Joint Economic Committee, urged Congress to avoid actions that might "impede the ongoing economic recovery" while simultaneously putting in place a plan to reduce future deficits over time, adding that "the federal budget is clearly not on a sustainable path at present" and that the deficit reduction targets that the so-called super-committee of Congress is charged with meeting will not be enough to make the nation's finances sustainable--Bernanke also signalled that the Fed will consider further action if the economy continues to worsen.

3.     A late afternoon surge capped another wild day on Wall Street and prevented the S&P 500 stock index from entering a bear market--stocks jumped on reports that European officials were working to prop up the region's struggling banks:

  • Concerns about Europe's debt crises have been the root of much of the market's recent volatility--investors are worried that Greece's government will be unable to make payments on its loans, triggering a default, and that would lead to sharp losses for banks and other institutions that hold Greece's debt and possibly cause banks to stop lending to each other.

4.     President Obama said that Americans are not better off than they were four years ago as the struggling economy and high unemployment have taken a toll:

  • Looking ahead to next year's election, Obama called himself the underdog in the 2012 presidential campaign, saying it's a role that he is used to--in response to a question during an ABC News interview about how he planned to convince people they are better off now than they were four years ago, the president said, "I don't think they're better off than they were four years ago.  They're not better off than they were before Lehman's collapse, before the financial crisis, before this extraordinary recession that we're going through.  I think that what we have seen is that we've been able to make steady progress to stablilize the economy, but the unemployment rate is still way too high."

October 5, 2011

1.     Senate Democrats, divided over how to pay for President Obama's jobs plan, tossed out the White House tax proposals and replaced them with one of their own: a tax increase on millionaires:

  • Obama's $447 billion proposal still faces huge trouble in the Democrat-run Senate, where it's expected to be considered next week, and 60 votes are needed to cut off extended debate, and Democrats control 53 of the 100 seats--in addiiton, the package as a whole is "dead" in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) said.

2.     Federal energy regulators announced plans to accelerate permitting all seven major electric transmission projects, including lines in Oregon proposed by Portland General Electric and Idaho Power:

  • Better coordination between agencies is part of the Obama administration's efforts to catalyze job growth and modernize the electrical grid to speed the country's transition to green energy, federal officials said--the pilot project, which the feds are calling the Rapid Response Team for Transmission, will coordinate efforts among federal agencies to get the projects across the construction starting line faster.

October 6, 2011

1.     After crisscrossing the country for weeks pushing his jobs plan directly to the American people, President Obama turned his attention to congressional Republicans, promising to target them in 2012 if they stand in the way of his economic agenda:

  • "If Congress does something, then I can't run against a do-nothing Congress," Obama said in response to a question at a morning news conference.  "If Congress does nothing, then it is not a matter of me running against them, I think the American people will run them out of town, because they are frustrated, and they know we need to do something big and something bold"--the president vowed that if Congress does not approve the legislation as a package, he would seek to present the elements individually and demand an explanation for Republican opposition to each.

2.     Unions lent their muscle to the long-running protest against Wall Street and economic inequality, with their members joining thousands of protesters in a lower Manhattan march as similar demonstrations flourished across the country:

  • The protesters have varied causes but have spoken largely about unemployment and economic inequality and reserved most of their criticism for Wall Street, chanting, "We are the 99 percent," contrasting themselves with the wealthiest one percent of Americans--some of the union members traveled from other states to march.

October 7, 2011

1.     A suicide bomber and rocket fire struck U.S.-run outposts near the Pakistani border as the war in Afghanistan hit the ten-year mark--no deaths were reported among U.S. service members at the three outposes in Paktiki province, and it was unclear if the attacks were timed to coincide with the anniversary of the war:

  • In Washington, President Obama noted the anniversary in a quiet style, offering a written statement and holding no public events to mark the moment--Obama saluted the more than 1,700 U.S. troops who have died, along with coalition and Afghan forces killed:  he said that because of the effort, "our citizens are safer and our nation is more secure."

2.     U.S. companies are adding jobs slowly and unevenly, just enough to plug the dike against fears that the economy could slip back into recession:

  • The Labor Department said that U.S. employers added 103,000 net new jobs in September, indicating that the economy is at least not weakening and that businesses have wintered oil price shocks and the Japanese disaster-related supply chain disruptions earlier this year --the government also revised its estimates upward for the previous two months, suggesting that job growth in the summer was better than originally reported.

 

Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY-ONE

September 26, 2011

1.     The Senate reached a bipartisan spending agreement to avert a government shutdown, side-stepping a bitter impasse over disaster financing after federal authorities said that they could most likely squeak through the rest of this week with the $114 million they have on hand.

  • After blocking one Democratic proposal, the Senate voted 79-12 to approve a straight-forward, six-week extension of funding for government agencies that were due to run out of money at the end of September, simultaneously replenishing accounts at FEMA that this summer's string of national disasters nearly exhausted--Democrats said that they expected the House Republicans to concur with the Senate's overall solution.

2.     The Obama administration's proposal to raise the security fee for travelers--part of its overall plan to reduce the federal deficit--has reignited a debate over who should pay the bill for aviation security: airlines and their passengers or all taxpayers:

  • About $15 billion of the additional revenue collected over a decade would go toward deficit reduction, but the administration said that another reason for the increase was to raise to 75 percent the portion of aviation security paid for by airlines and their passengers, rather less than half the budget as has been the case for years--the airlines' response was that "Security should be a federal function, and it should be funded as such."

3.     The Obama administration has decided not to ask a federal appeals court in Atlanta for further review of a ruling striking down the centerpiece of President Obama's sweeping healthcare overhaul:

  • The administration's decision makes it more likely that the U.S. Supreme Court would hear a case on the healthcare overhaul in the court's term starting next month, and render its verdict on the law in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign--the Atlanta circuit ruling sided with 26 states that had sought to stop the law from taking effect.

4.     Stocks had their biggest gains in more than two weeks after European officials pledged to take action to resolve the region's debt problems:

  • The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 272 points, making up about a third of last week's losses--European ministers told a meeting of global finance leaders in Washington over the weekend that they would take bolder steps to fight the debt crisis, which threatens to slow the global economy.

September 27, 2011     Home prices rose for a fourth straight month in most major U.S. cities in July, buoyed by the peak buying season, but the housing market remains depressed, and prices are expected to decline in the coming months:

  • Analysts cautioned that the price increases are temporary and not evidence of a housing recovery, and prices are expected to drop again this fall and winter, based on poor sales and expectations that banks will resume processing a raft of foreclosures that have been in limbo.

September 28, 2011

1.     The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to hear a case concerning the 2010 healthcare overhaul law--the development, which came unexpectedly quickly, makes it all but certain that the court will soon agree to hear one or more cases involving challenges to the law, with arguments by the spring and a decision by June, in time to land in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign:

  • The three federal courts of appeal that have issued decisions on the law so far have all reached different conclusions, with one upholding it, a second (the 11th Circuit) striking it down in part, and a third saying that threshold legal issues barred an immediate ruling--a fourth challenge to the law was heard last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

2.     U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a roundtable of Oregon business leaders that President Obama's jobs plan would create 5,500 construction jobs in this state:

  • The pitch was part of Vilsack's nationwide tour in support of the jobs plan which Obama sent to Congress on September 12th--a major part of the plan is its incentives for businesses to hire the long-term unemployed, and Oregon has 100,000 people who have been without work for six months or longer.

September 29, 2011

1.     The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark--from the melodic golden-winged warbler and slow-moving gopher tortoise to the slimy American eel and tiny Texas kangaroo rat:

  • Compelled by a pair of recent legal settlements, the effort in part targets species that have been mired in bureaucratic limbo even as they inch toward potential extinction--with a deadline of September 30th to act on more than 700 pending cases, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already has issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act.

2.     The economy grew slightly more than previously estimated in the last quarter and weekly jobless claims fell to their lowest number in five months, signs the nation may not be heading into another recession yet:

  • Federal officials said that the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.3% from April through June, an anemic but marginally better pace than the most recent estimate of one percent--the Labor Department also reported weekly claims for unemployment insurance dropped 37,000 last week to 391,000, the lowest figure since early April.

September 30, 2011

1.     The killings of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and another American al-Qaida propagandist in a U.S. airstrike wipe out the decisive factor that made the terrorist group's Yemen branch the most dangerous threat to the U.S.: its reach into the West:

  • This drone attack was believed to be the first instance in which a U.S. citizen was tracked and killed based on secret intelligence and the president's say-so; al-Awlaki was placed on the CIA "kill or capture" list by the Obama administration in April 2010, the first American to be so targeted;
  • President Obama heralded the strike as a "major blow to al-Qaida's most active operational affiliate," saying the 40-year-old al-Awlaki was the group's "leader of external operations"--al-Awlaki's leadership since the May killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and the pursuit of al-Awlaki and this strike were directed by the same U.S. special unit that directed the Navy SEALs raid on bin Laden's hide-out.

2.     Americans earned less in August than in July, the first decline in nearly two years--with less income, consumers could cut back on spending and weaken an already-fragile economy:

  • The lower pay explains why consumers increased spending at a slower pace in August, and most of the increase went to pay higher prices for food and gas--when adjusted for inflation, spending was flat.

3.     A federal magistrate recommended that a Bush administration plan to double logging on some federal lands in western Oregon should be vacated:

  • U.S. Magistrate Judge James Hubel found that the BLM failed to properly consult federal biologists over the potential harm to endangered species like the northern spotted owl before adopting the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, known as the WOPR--BLM did not immediately comment, but has said it would adopt a new approach that emphasizes restoring healthy forests that are less prone to wild fires.
Tags: 
Obamalog

WEEK ONE HUNDRED & FORTY

September 19, 2011

1.     In a blunt rejoinder to congressional Republicans, President Obama called for $1.5 trillion in new taxes, part of a total ten-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion--he vowed to veto any deficit reduction package that cuts benefits to Medicare recipients but does not raise taxes on the wealthy and on big corporations:

  • The president's proposal would predominantly hit upper income taxpayers but would also reduce spending in mandatory benefit programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, by $580 billion--it also counts savings of $1 trillion over ten years from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

2.     The House Republican Speaker says that they are rejecting President Obama's jobs proposal to rebuild schools and blighted neighborhoods and to help keep state and federal employees on the job:

  • The Ohio Republican also said that he is willing to negotiate on extending payroll tax cuts for both workers and employers--John Boehner and his GOP colleagues say that Obama's move to tax wealthier people claiming itemized deductions will hurt churches and other nonprofits.

3.     President Obama said that the U.S. Postal Service should be allowed to reduce mail delivery to five days a week to help cut its massive losses:

  • While the post office has cut more than 100,000 workers in the last few years, it needs to cut more, close offices, and find other ways to reduce costs so it can keep operating--Obama agreed that nearly $7 billion the post office has overpaid into their federal retirement system should be refunded to the agency, he urged that its payments for advance funding of retiree medical benefits be restructured, and he said that the post office should be allowed to sell non-postal products and to raise postal rates.

September 21, 2011

1.     President Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals--he would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services and he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid:

  • The White House said that Obama's proposal would cut $248 billion from the projected growth of Medicare in the next ten years, while shaving $72 billion from Medicaid and other health programs--the proposals are part of a package to reduce deficits by more than $3 trillion over ten years, beyond the $1 trillion in savings already assumed under the debt limit law that Obama signed in early April.

2.     Seeking to bolster a nation in transition, President Obama promised the Libyan people that the world will stand with them as they reshape their country following the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime:

  • Speaking at a high-level U.N. meeting, the president warned that there would still be difficult days ahead in Libya as Gadhafi loyalists make a final stand and the country's provisional leadership grapples with the complex task of setting up a new government, but Obama said that it was clear that Libya was now in the hands of the people--the U.S. now recognizes the National Transitional Council as Libya's legitimate government, and Obama announced that the U.S. ambassador was heading back to Tripoli to lead a newly reopened American embassy there.

September 22, 2011

1.     The potential of a government shutdown at the end of the month loomed slightly larger after a crucial measure to fund the government through mid-November was defeated in the House:

  • Republican leaders were unable to overcome objections from Democrats who said the bill did not do enough for disaster victims and from conservative Republicans who wanted to use the bill to cut spending more deeply--the vote was a significant defeat for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders, who had been confident they could muscle the bill over to the Senate despite protests from both sides of the aisle;
  • All Oregon representatives, except Oregon's lone Republican, voted no.

2.     Digging deep into its bank of leftover economic spark plugs, the Federal Reserve launched an unorthodox operation aimed at lowering long-term lending rates and thus sparking more spending and investment in an economy flirting with recession:

  • Specifically, the Fed announced it would sell $400 billion in short-term government bonds and replace them with longer-term bonds of equal value--the controversial action is dubbed Operation Twist II because it's patterned after a similar move in the 60s named after the then-popular dance craze.

3.     Sales of previously owned U.S. homes were up sharply in August, a ray of light for the nation's bitten-down housing market, but economists are sceptical the gains will last:

  • The number of homes sold rose 7.7% from July and were up 18.6% from August 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors--although economists had expected an increase in sales last month, many were surprised they rose as much as they did, but most economists doubt that last month's gain signals a turnaround.

4.     The nation's top military official said that Pakistan's spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul last week--it was the most serious charge that the U.S. has leveled against Pakistan in the decade that the U.S. has been at war in Afghanistan:

  • In comments that were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the U.S., Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further than any other U.S. official in blaming the ISI for undermining the U.S. effort in Afghanistan--his remarks were certain to further fray the U.S.' shaky relationship with Pakistan, a nominal ally.

5.     President Obama was back on the road to sell his jobs plan--at an aging and overtaxed bridge connecting the home states of chief Republican antagonists in Congress, Speaker John Boehner and the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky:

  • The event was Obama's fourth trip outside Washington since announcing his $447 billion stimulus package of tax cuts, state aid, and infrastructure financing two weeks ago--while administration officials have taken issue with Republicans' criticism that Obama is waging "class warfare" by proposing to raise taxes on the wealthy, the president virtually embraced the term.

5.     Confirmation of a $5.8 billion package of weapon sales by the U.S. to Taiwan drew a angry reaction from China, with newspaper editorials accusing the Obama administration of betrayal and the Foreign Affairs Ministry warning of serious harm to relations:

  • But news of the deal, confirmed by White House officials, appears to have set in motion a familiar slate of responses by Beijing, which has long considered arms sales to the self-governing island a affront to its sovereignty and a slight to its dignity--diplomats and analysts say that the Chinese government recognizes the deal could have been worse since Taiwain had asked for a new batch of five dozen F-16s and, instead, got $5.3 billion worth of upgrades to improve the capabilities of an aging fleet bought in 1992.

September 23, 2011

1.     American diplomats led a walkout at the U.N. General Assembly as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fiercely attacked the U.S. and major European nations as "arrogant powers" ruled by greed and eager for military advancement:

  • The two U.S. diplomats, who specialize in the Middle East, were followed out of the chamber by diplomats from more than 30 countries and included the 27 European Union members, Australia, New Zealand, Somalia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Macedonia, a U.N. diplomat said--Israel boycotted the speech.

2.     Decrying the state of American education, President Obama said that states will get unprecedented freedom to waive basic elements of the sweeping Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, calling it an admirable but flawed effort that has hurt students instead of helping them:

  • Obama's announcement could fundamentally affect the education of tens of millions of children, allowing states to scrap the requirements that all children must show they are proficient in reading and math by 2014 (a cornerstone of the law) if states meet conditions designed to better prepare and test students--"Congress hasn't been able to do it, so I will," Obama said, "our kids only get one shot at a decent education."

3.     A dispute over disaster aid has quickly grown into another partisan standoff that threatens to shut down the federal government, with no clear indication of how Congress will end the stalemate:

  • The Senate overwhelmingly rejected a House-passed bill to temporarily fund the government and provide emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other recent disasters, but also cut green energy programs supported by Democrats--the Senate voted 59-36 against the measure.
Tags: 
Obamalog

Pages