Chance to Build Again NYTimes Editoral

Many of the 85,000 dams in the United States are so old — an average of half a century — that every time one is repaired, two more become dangerously weak. Cities across the country discharge billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into rivers and lakes, and more than a quarter of all bridges are either deficient or obsolete.

The statistics are both frightening and familiar, though they tend to come up only in the “crumbling infrastructure” articles that appear after major disasters. In practice, government — with its lack of cash and consensus — keeps most of these projects on distant back burners until people actually lose their lives.

And then a disaster occurs — like the one in Japan, which was a reminder that even a well-prepared small country can suffer terribly from a natural disaster. The hazards are even greater for a sprawling one with a long history of indolent maintenance and planning.

Last week, though, a bipartisan group of senators came up with a promising idea to get some of these projects started, and very possibly put thousands of people back to work by doing so. The proposal, to create an infrastructure bank that would lend out seed money, represents a refreshing break from the extremist culture of cutting for the sake of cutting that grips Washington and so many state capitals. That culture blocks vital investment just to avoid sensible tax increases.

The proposal was presented by John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas; and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. The bank would lend money to build big-ticket transportation, water and energy projects that have a clear public benefit. The loans, or loan guarantees, would be designed to attract private capital as well. In fact, at least half a project’s financing would have to come from the private sector. As much as $640 billion could be leveraged this way over the next decade, proponents say.

The bank would initially be funded with $10 billion from the treasury, which would be given out as loans, not grants. To make that possible, the bank would invest largely in projects that generate money, like toll bridges and tunnels, water systems backed by ratepayers, and energy projects built by utilities, governments or corporations. An independent, bipartisan board appointed by the president and Congress would choose the investments and oversee construction, audited by an inspector general and the Government Accountability Office.

By providing low-cost capital to states, cities and authorities, the bank would help these strapped governments kick-start projects that are now unaffordable, while attracting investments from pension and private-equity funds that are looking for stable money-generating ventures in which to invest. “We can either build, and compete, and create jobs for our people,” said Mr. Kerry, “or we can fold up, and let everybody else win. I don’t think that’s America.” The bank was backed by unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The idea builds on one that President Obama has proposed, a $30 billion bank limited to transportation projects that would also make grants. It is designed to be more palatable to lawmakers who are politically averse to spending, but already conservatives are railing against what some have called a “boondoggle,” a phrase used to demonize virtually any public investment.

What will these opponents tell voters when the dams break and the bridges fall? Before more lives are lost, lawmakers should ask themselves whether they used their public office only to slash spending (and taxes for the wealthy), or to spend money wisely.

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Sunday, March 20, 2011

TODAY ON THE SUNDAY TALK SHOWS

CNN: Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Libya: ‘It’s late, but it’s not too late’ CBS: Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.): ‘We had better get this straight from the beginning’ ABC: Gaddafi’s son: ‘You made a big mistake with supporting these people’ NBC: Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): ‘This operation was not specifically geared to get rid of Gaddafi’ FOX: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): ‘Isolate, strangle and replace’ Gaddafi C-SPAN: Nuclear Regulatory chief: ‘I can’t say I have views on nuclear power or the nuclear industry’

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): ‘Isolate, strangle and replace’ Gaddafi Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a no-fly zone over Libya has been successfully implemented. “We’ve had a very significant impact very early in establishing this no-fly zone,” Mullen said. “We’ve seen (Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi) suppressed very dramatically.” Mullen declined to say whether Gaddafi would be forcibly removed from power. “To say exactly what the outcome is right now, I can’t do that,” he said. Mullen also said that U.S. forces are not being stretched too thin by the “limited” mission in Libya. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had harsh criticism for President Obama’s actions regarding Libya. “I’m glad we’re finally doing something; I don’t know how many people have died as we wait to do something,” Graham said. “I don’t know what finally got the president to act, but I am very worried that we’re taking a back seat rather than a leadership role.” Graham said the goal should be to “isolate, strangle and replace” Gaddafi. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) defended Obama, saying the president’s actions have created a vast coalition committed to the mission in Libya. “That, I think, will send a strong signal to the Arab world that this is not about American interests,” Reed said. “It’s about democracy in Libya.” Speaking about the nuclear uncertainty after the earthquake in Japan, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said progress is being made. “Step by step, they’re making very good progress,” Chu said. Chu said the administration would review evacuation plans near existing U.S. nuclear power plants and suggested that the Indian Head plant, near New York City, might be shut down, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has requested.

ABC: THIS WEEK

Gaddafi’s son: ‘You made a big mistake with supporting these people’ Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, said Obama, “a friend of the Arab world, is bombing Libya.” He accused the United States and other coalition forces of “supporting terrorists and armed militias.” He also suggested that the actions in Libya would come to resemble the fumbled quest for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “Believe me, one day you will wake up and you made a big mistake with supporting these people.” Mullen said the United States, which is currently leading the coalition efforts in Libya, will “in the next few days” take on a supporting role instead. He said the Libyan response to the coalition forces has not been significant. “He still has, from what I’ve seen this morning, has some surface-to-air capability,” Mullen said. “He clearly has the ability to continue attacking his own people.” Former Libyan Ambassador to the United States Ali Suleiman Aujali, who until recently was a Gaddafi ally, said the Libyan leader will fight until the end and will not cede power. “There is one thing in the mind of Gaddafi – that he will not step down at all,” Aujali said. “He has no other choice; he will never give up.” Aujali said that Gaddafi is using his ministers as a human shield, but that, if given the chance, they will defect.

NBC: MEET THE PRESS

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): ‘This operation was not specifically geared to get rid of Gaddafi’ Mullen said that the mission in Libya could be a success while also leaving Gaddafi in power. He said that initial operations on Saturday “went very well.” Mullen said the strikes took out Gaddafi’s radars and most of his ability to shoot at aircraft and that there is no indication that Gaddafi has been attacking his people on a grand scale. “We don’t see any indications of any kind of large-scale massacre at this time,” Mullen said. Mullen also said he personally has no qualms about the mission – “none, whatsoever.” There have been some reports that the Pentagon wasn’t on-board as much as Obama’s foreign policy advisors. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the operation in Libya doesn’t amount to a war. “There’s a lot of room here for a lot of different initiatives, but this operation was not specifically geared to get rid of Gaddafi,” Kerry said. Kerry said the United States is “not policing Libya.” Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said there is no risk of “mission creep” – the scope of the mission’s goals being increased as operations progress – because the Obama Administration has been clear about the limited nature of the effort. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said it was possible that the operations are too little, too late. “Maybe this will be successful,” Sessions said. “I don’t see the certainty of it, for sure.”

CNN: STATE OF THE UNION

Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Libya: ‘It’s late, but it’s not too late’ Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen provided an update regarding the military situation in Libya. “I would say that the no-fly zone is effectively in place,” said Mullen, outlining the ultimate goal as being threefold: successfully establishing the no-fly zone, arresting Gaddafi’s ability to massacre his own people, and making possible the entry of humanitarian assistance into Libya. “While the United States leads this right now,” said Mullen, “we expect in the next few days to hand that leadership off to a coalition-led operation, and the United States recede somewhat to the background in support.” Both Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), giving their assessment of the situation in Libya, said president Obama waited too long to act in Libya. “It’s late, but it’s not too late,”Lieberman said, “if we act quickly together.“ “I regret that.?.?. we didn’t act much more quickly,” said McCain, going on to say “that’s not the point now. The point now is, let's get behind this effort, do everything we can to support it.” Conversation turned to Japan, with Energy Secretary Steven Chu providing an update regarding the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Asked whether the worst was over, Chu said, “We believe so, but I don’t want to make a blanket statement.” On the subject of whether U.S. coastal nuclear plants would be able to withstand a 9.0-level earthquake, Chu could not be pinned down, saying that a number of factors must be considered, not just a Richter Scale measurement. “A 9 does not come from the type of faults around that reactor site,” said Chu, “That’s the other thing you have to consider. The very large earthquakes that Japan saw are what are known as subduction zone earthquakes, where one piece of ground goes under another.”

C-SPAN NEWSKAMERS

Nuclear Regulatory chief: 'I can’t say I have views on nuclear power or the nuclear industry' “I think we’re getting good information, “said Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the nuclear regulatory commission, regarding the situation at the beleaguered Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. “I think there are some differences here in the United States,” he said,adding that the United States would take both a short term and long-term look at U.S. nuclear facilities in light of the situation in Japan. “It’s important for us to do this in a methodical way,” Jaczko reiterated, saying that regulators would wait until the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had more fully developed before making an assessment of domestic preparedness. “We don’t have good estimates yet,” Jackzo said referring the long-term side-effects that workers at the Japanese plant may be subject to over the short and long term. “We always have more conflicting information than we would like,” said Jaczko, when asked what surprised him most about the Japan disaster. “I can’t say I have views on nuclear power or the nuclear industry,” he said, when asked how his time working for Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had shaped his views. “I have views on nuclear safety.”

CBS: FACE THE NATION

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.): ‘We had better get this straight from the beginning’ Admiral Mike Mullen “he has not flown anything for the last couple of days, we’ve taken out his aid defense systems…and some of his air fields,” said Mullen. “I don’t have all of the damage assessments at this point,” said Mullen, calling military offensive to this point “very, very effective.” “It’s hard to know exactly how this turns out,” said Mullen, when asked what Gaddafi’s fate would ultimately be. “He’s a thug, he’s a cagey guy, he’s a survivor,” said Mullen. Asked about the “end game” in Libya, Mullen limited kept his focus narrow, but did not commit to any specifics regarding how the overall situation would end. “From the military perspective, the mission is very clear and it’s limited in scope,” said Mullen, “I can’t say exactly how long the military part of this will be in effect.” According to Mullen, it would be “up to others,” to say when all involvement in Libya would end. “It will be very uncertain on how this ends,” said Mullen. Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar continued to express doubts about the United States’ involvement in Libya. “We are not declaring war at this point,” said Lugar. “We really have not discovered who it is in Libya we are trying to support. We had better get this straight from the beginning,” Lugar said, or we are going to end up in a situation “where war lingers on.” Lugar confirmed that he was just as doubtful about the situation as he was before military action started. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) joined to discuss the situation in Japan and his doubts regarding nuclear energy development in the United States. “Obviously, there’s a tragedy, but at the same time it is calling in to question the viability of nuclear power in the United States,” Markey said. “We should ensure that we act cautiously given the Japanese meltdown,” he continued, citing the “technological equivalency” between both the Untied States and Japan. By Aaron Blake & Emi Kolawole

Counterfeit Money Minter Convicted

He probably can't pay his bail in “Liberty Dollars.” A North Carolina man was found guilty of minting his own currency and distributing it throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, activity the U.S. Attorney called “a unique form of domestic terrorism.” “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” added U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins. Bernard von NotHaus, 67, is the founder of an organization called the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code, also known as NORFED, and Liberty Services. He's been minting the coins since 2005, and apparently has quite a lot of them: he's been ordered to hand over 16,000 pounds of Liberty Dollars and precious metal valued at $7 million. Oh, and he also faces up to 25 years in prison.

Obama's Smart Crisis Management

Speaking from Brazil on Saturday, President Obama confirmed America's military intervention in Libya and said that the U.S. is working with a "broad coalition" in its fight against Libya's leader. "We will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground," the president emphasized, calling the strikes "limited military" intervention.

Critics have slammed Obama for visiting Brazil while the U.S. strikes Libya—not to mention discussing basketball during Japan's tragedy—but Howard Kurtz says he's juggling it all with skill.
With key parts of the world in turmoil, the criticism of President Obama is growing louder: Why doesn't he do something?
Shouldn't he have sent American fighter jets to Libya right away, rather than waiting for the Europeans to join in the bombing this weekend? And what about the Japanese nuclear catastrophe? What if a dangerous amount of radiation reaches our shores? Can't we take matters into our own hands?

Audio: Obama Addresses Air Strikes from Brazil

The conservative critique was captured by Sean Hannity: "The president received that dreaded 3 a.m. phone call this weekend when the quake struck. How did he respond? He went golfing."
The nerve of that guy, indulging in recreation on a Saturday when he could be saving the world.
Let's get this straight: Obama is not Superman. He can't solve every global crisis. It is a conceit of our media-political culture to believe that the Oval Office occupant must always be ready to put on a cape and swoop in to save the day.

It's doubtful that a single voter will be swayed by whether he took the time to work on his Final Four picks.

Obama has taken some fair hits for hanging back on budget negotiations and entitlement reform, not to mention his tepid approach to modest gun control, delivered through an op-ed piece. But averting a nuclear meltdown halfway around the globe? Here the president's sin was to talk about his March Madness brackets.
"While Japan Burns, Obama Fills Out His Bracket," said a National Reviewheadline on a Jim Geraghty story. Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus tweeted his reaction: "How can @BarackObama say he is leading when puts his NCAA bracket over the budget & other pressing issues?" (It so happens that Obama made an appeal at the start of his ESPN hoops interview for people to visit the USAID website to learn how to help Japan, greatly boosting traffic for the site.)
Ari Fleischer, a White House spokesman for George W. Bush, says every president has "a right to have a normal life," But, he says, "making such a whoop-de-do about the bracket didn't serve him well. Bad timing, looks bad."

Photos: Intervention in Libya

Democratic analyst Donna Brazile says conservatives have "figured out how to get the media's attention—say the most outrageous things, inject it in the middle of any situation, and get the Obama administration to react. They want him to walk, chew gum, spit on the sidewalk, and clean it up all at the same time. There's a limited toolbox we have as Americans intervening in other people's affairs."
And politically, says Republican campaign advisor Alex Castellanos, this may amount to a no-fly strategy. "When you're shooting off like that, it means the president is up so high he's a hard target to reach," he says. "To take shots at someone for not being a strong enough chief executive is tough. Those things hardly ever have impact. If the narrative begins to develop that says Barack Obama is not a strong leader, that's a different story, but I don't know that that's happened."
Obama must be feeling the pressure, though; he came out to the cameras on Thursday to say he does not expect radiation from the crippled Japanese reactors to reach the United States and that Americans are sharing their expertise with Tokyo. And on Friday, he was back before the cameras to deliver a tough statement on Libya after getting the U.N. to agree to enforce a no-fly zone.
The debate over Libya has given several Republicans who are interested in Obama's job a license to whack him, without spelling out what they would do differently. Newt Gingrich called him the "spectator-in-chief."
"What the president is doing is sitting there, looking on, just fretting, and not acting, and just being as indecisive as I've ever seen a president in dealing with a crisis," says former senator Rick Santorum.
"A known psychopath is gunning down his own people in the streets of Libya, and the leader of the free world is muted for the better part of a week," former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty told The Wall Street Journal. He added that "if there is a plausible way to help those who are trying to take out Muammar Khadafy, we should"—note the emphasis on if.
John McCain, among others, felt the United Nations move on the no-fly zone came way too late and represented a change of heart by Obama. But the international backing avoids the stigma of Bush-style unilateralism, and an international effort is exactly what happened yesterday, when American and Allied forces launched strikes on Libya. An America-only attack on Libya's air defenses could have involved civilian casualties--raising the specter of the United States, on its own, getting embroiled in a third war.
That isn't how conservatives see it.
"I find the president's inaction, matched by his macho statements about putting all options on the table, so disheartening because Khadafy has prevailed," Fleischer said before the U.N. vote. "It's created the very unsettling feeling that America is asleep as the chance to get rid of Khadafy has passed us by."
Bill Burton, a former White House spokesman, calls the GOP carping "ridiculous."
"All the Republicans running for president in 2012, if they're got a plan on Libya or the budget, they should offer it," he says. "Until then, they should consider shutting their mouths."
In the end, Obama probably won't be judged by what happens at the Fukushima nuclear reactor or even on the streets of Tripoli, unless that turns into a military debacle. And it's doubtful that a single voter will be swayed by whether he took the time to work on his Final Four picks.
Castellanos, for one, says that every day the Republicans aren't scoring points on the economy is a wasted day.
"Barack Obama is very happy to be talking about Libya and Japan and things where the country usually comes together and is less polarized, rather than why we've had fewer housing starts," he says.
Howard Kurtz is The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief

AP Photo

Electric power partially restored at Japan nuclear plant

Engineers restore power to cooling pumps at two of the buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but not to the most troublesome reactors yet. Meanwhile, manual spraying of seawater seems to be reducing radiation levels.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on northern Japan's Pacific coast. Workers are trying to restore electrical power at the plant, which has been on the brink of full-scale meltdown since the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan. (Google / GeoEye / DigitalGlobe / March 18, 2011)

Working overnight into Sunday, engineers have successfully restored power to cooling pumps in two reactors at the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the first genuinely hopeful sign in the week-long battle to prevent a full-scale meltdown at any of the six reactors at the site.

Although power has so far been restored only at reactor buildings 5 and 6, which were not considered a particular threat, that success suggests that workers are finally beginning to make some headway in their effort to prevent more radiation from escaping the plant.

The two reactors had been shut down at the time the magnitude 9 earthquake struck a week ago, but spent fuel rods in an upper level of the reactor buildings were still generating heat and required cooling. When electricity at the site was lost and the tsunami damaged backup generators, the pools holding the fuel rods began to grow warmer.

Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the plant, said water in the no. 5 pool had already cooled by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit since the cooling pumps had started working.

Engineers said they hoped to have the power connected to the remaining reactor buildings sometime Sunday or early Monday.

Meanwhile, workers had jury-rigged an unmanned device that could spray seawater on the No. 3 reactor for up to seven hours at a time and they hoped to install similar devices at other buildings. Police and military were also spraying water manually on the other buildings at the site in an effort to keep the reactor cores and the spent fuel pools cooled and prevent a meltdown that would release large amounts of radiation into the environment.

The most recent reports suggest that the heavy spraying is working and has reduced radiation levels at the plant.

Engineers had run a power line to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, from the country's electrical grid Friday night, but connecting it to the buildings at the facility has been a bigger problem than anticipated. Workers have been able to spend only limited amounts of time in the facility to make the connections, and engineers have had to laboriously go through and check all the circuitry before power is turned on to ensure that a surge of current does not create more problems than it solves.

Officials of the company had said they hoped to get power restored to all of the six buildings at the facility by Sunday, but that estimate now seems overly optimistic. Engineers have been focusing their efforts on reactors No. 2 and 3 and the building housing reactor No. 4, which also houses a damaged spent fuel pool, but the need to build shelters to protect workers and equipment from the water that was being sprayed, as well as the radiation, delayed efforts.

Reactor No. 2 is thought to have a cracked containment vessel and is thus believed to be potentially the most problematic reactor. Reactor No. 3 is not known to be damaged, but its fuel rods contain a mixture of uranium and plutonium. Plutonium is highly carcinogenic in even very small quantities, and a leak of the material would be considered disastrous.

The pool at reactor No. 4 has the hottest spent fuel and is thought to have either holes in the walls of the pool or some other type of leak that is allowing water to run out. It is thus imperative to cool those heat sources first.

Even if electricity is restored, it is not clear how much benefit that will provide. It will certainly bring power to valves and controls in the reactor buildings, but most experts believe the cooling pumps in reactors No. 1, 2 and 3 were damaged, both by the hydrogen explosions that occurred in the first four days after the earthquake and by corrosion from the seawater and boron that have been pumped into the reactor.

Experts do not believe the cooling pumps at reactors No. 4, 5 and 6 had been damaged, and the success in restoring power at No. 5 and 6 suggests that assessment was correct. Many U.S. experts think that bringing power back online at Fukushima will mark a major turning point in the effort to bring the situation back under control.

The seawater that authorities are pumping into the plant is laced with boron, which serves to absorb neutrons released during the fissioning, or splitting, of uranium atoms, and thus serves to tamp down chain reactions and reduce heat production. But Japan is running short of the crucial element. South Korea and France said Friday that they would ship 150 tons of boron to Japan to assist in the battle.

What is the Libya endgame?

French jets and American missiles began the international war on Col. Muammar Qadhafi Saturday with a pinpoint allied fusillade against Libyan air defense targets, but the mission’s explosive initial salvo did little to make clearer its actual goal - or how it ends. The first strikes, by air and sea, reflected the overwhelming military mismatch, as an international coalition appeared to dominate the skies over Libya’s Mediterranean coast. French and British planes are expected to take the lead in enforcing a no-fly zone and other measures, even as Qadhafi’s forces attempt to crush an opposition that had – before the United Nations-sanctioned intervention – been hard-pressed. But the first shots fired didn’t appear to produce an immediate collapse in the rule of Qadhafi, who has surprised his enemies with his resilience. Qadhafi’s tenacity, both in his present circumstance and as evidenced over decades of survival in a very tough neighborhood, begs the question of what happens if this self-consciously limited allied response does not succeed in chasing him from power. Allied leaders so far haven’t provided defining answers; in fact, quite the contrary. In a series of comments and communiques over the weekend, American, British, and French officials stressed that they aren’t attacking Qadhafi’s forces to achieve “regime change” – while at the same time maintaining, as British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted, that Qadhafi “needs to go.” President Barack Obama’s remarks Saturday seemed carefully calibrated. “I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it,” he said. “But we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and his forces step up their assaults on cities like Benghazi and Misurata, where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.” Analysts said the overwhelming military superiority enjoyed by allied forces makes Qadhafi’s ouster reasonably likely, but they also voiced concern about the Libyan leader’s proven ability to hang on. “There are expectations about how quickly this moves that are out of line with reality,” said Heather Hurlburt, who heads the National Security Network, a group allied with the White House, and who said she expects that “this is going to be more like Kosovo than like Baghdad in 2003.” National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has had his staff review the history of American intervention in civil conflicts, and while American’s memory of the Balkans may be hazy, the White House is full of Democrats with painful recollections of the excruciating months of bombing, and then the year between the end of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s massacres and the moment his domestic rivals finally forced him aside. “The endgame is not any time soon,” Hurlburt said, adding that Western leaders have a good reason not to telegraph that expectation. “The problem is if Obama goes out and says to the public this may take months and months, you’re also saying to Qadhafi that we know we can’t come get you. You don’t want to convey to the target that we think this is difficult and may take a while.” And yet Obama, if only by implication, does appear to be committed to whatever it takes to push Qadhafi aside. “Given what the president has said in recent weeks – I don’t see how we can get ourselves out of this without Qadhafi going,” said Jamie Fly, the executive director of the right-leaning Foreign Policy Initiative, which lobbied for American action. “The one concern I have about [Obama’s] statement yesterday is that his endgame or his goal seems to be more limited than his rhetoric.” What the Western powers and other Arab leaders hope for is clear: A show of force, followed by a swift collapse in Qadhafi’s inner circle. “The best case scenario [is that] you see the forces loyal to Qadhafi continue to abandon him and eventually give him up,” said Stephen McInerney, the executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington. And analysts said that best-case outcome could still be in the cards. Other Middle Eastern regimes have proven shockingly brittle in the “Arab Spring,” with military leaders in Egypt and Tunisia abruptly turning away from their longtime dictators. But Libya’s inner leadership, far more than those regimes, has been a black box to its Western enemies, and who could lead a coup against Qadhafi remains unclear. “Nobody believes – at least among the people who planned it – that it’s going to be a prolonged affair,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official now at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “They intend shock and awe in an effort to strike so persistently and in such a sustained fashion that the regime cracks.” Miller said the limited language of official communiques likely masked an informal understanding among the powers leading the mission. “It’s hard for me to believe that the French or the Brits would have signed up for something that could end up being a prolonged, sustained stalemate with the coalition of the willing having to enforce, for a long period of time, military sanctions,” he said. The White House flatly rejects any suggestion of a tension between a limited mission of protecting civilians and demands that Qadhafi step aside. “We still believe that Qaddafi has lost his legitimacy to lead and must go,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told POLITICO. “However the goal of this resolution is not regime change. Rather it authorizes the use of force with an explicit commitment to pursue all necessary measures to stop the killing.” “These two things aren’t contradictory,” he said. Obama has also been at great pains to avoid the appearance of American leadership, which could limit American exposure to a stalemate, but also limits American control of a mission whose face is primarily French President Nicolas Sarkozy - a Gallic image that has done little to quiet nerves within the Pentagon and State Department, where many veterans remember France’s lack of constancy in previous conflicts. Other observers worry about something else: that the U.S. – which faced broad domestic and international pressure to intervene – could find itself with no obvious exit. “I don’t suspect that there is an easy way out of it – unless you get a miracle in which part of Qadhafi’s command staff turns on him further,” said Steve Clemons, a fellow at the New America Foundation. “We’re in a situation now where I see a lot of downside risk, and the chances of it going badly are high.”

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Health Law Waivers Draw Kudos, and Criticism

WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials say they were expecting praise from critics of the new health care law when they offered to exempt selected employers and labor unions from a requirement to provide at least $750,000 in coverage to each person in their health insurance plans this year.

Instead, Republicans have seized on the waivers as just more evidence that the law is fundamentally flawed because, they say, it requires so many exceptions. To date, for example, the administration has relaxed the $750,000 standard for more than 1,000 health plans covering 2.6 million people.
The waivers have become a flash point as supporters and opponents try to shape public perceptions of the law, the Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama last March 23.

Administration officials, labor unions and consumer advocates plan to celebrate the first anniversary with a week of events highlighting benefits of the law to consumers. But Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the senior Republican on the Senate health committee, asked, “If the law is so good, why are so many waivers needed?”

Waivers are usually seen as a way to deal with exceptional circumstances in which the enforcement of a law or policy might cause hardship. But with the new health care law, exceptions like these have become increasingly common. They provide wiggle room in a law originally thought to be strict and demanding.
Maine has just won a three-year reprieve from a provision of the law stipulating that insurers selling coverage to individuals and families must spend at least 80 percent of premium revenues on medical care and efforts to improve it. The White House had described this as one of the law’s most beneficial provisions, guaranteeing that consumers would get “more value for your dollars.”

The Obama administration lowered the requirement to 65 percent for Maine, after finding “a reasonable likelihood” that the tougher standard would drive one big carrier out of the market for individuals, leaving thousands without insurance.

Five other states — Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada and New Hampshire — have requested similar waivers, and at least a dozen other states are considering whether to apply.
President Obama recently embraced legislation that would let states opt out of the law’s most contentious provisions, including a requirement for most Americans to carry insurance, if the states come up with alternatives that cover at least as many people.

And Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, has introduced a bill that would allow people to seek exemptions from major provisions of the law if they could show they would be harmed.
Under the law and rules issued by the administration, health plans this year must generally provide at least $750,000 in annual coverage for essential benefits like hospital care, doctors’ services and prescription drugs. The government may grant a one-year exemption from the requirement if it is shown that compliance would cause a significant increase in premiums or a significant decrease in access to benefits.

Such waivers have gone to entities as diverse as the Waffle House and Ruby Tuesday, health plans run by Aetna and Cigna, and labor unions representing Teamsters, electrical workers, plumbers, carpenters and food and commercial workers.

Administration officials said the waivers showed a pragmatic, flexible approach to carrying out the law. Without the waivers, said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, many employers would have increased premiums, and some would have dropped coverage altogether.
Edmund F. Haislmaier, a health policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the waivers “result in unequal application of the law and create a temptation to engage in political favoritism.”
Republicans like Representative Darrell Issa of California said that in granting waivers, the administration had favored political allies, including labor unions.

Tom Leibfried, a lobbyist for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said: “This is just union bashing. The numbers do not show a pro-union bias.”
Mr. Leibfried said some union health plans had a legitimate need for waivers because they had annual coverage limits lower than $750,000. If they had to increase coverage to that level, he said, they would incur significant new costs. But, Mr. Leibfried said, the main source of financing for such health plans — employer contributions — will not immediately increase because they are set by collective bargaining agreements, which are typically in effect for several years.

Steven B. Larsen, director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, which carries out many of the health law’s provisions, said the waivers provided a “bridge to 2014,” when more affordable insurance options should be available. He denied that unions had received “special treatment.” Indeed, he said, the center has granted waivers to 94 percent of all applicants.

“That strikes me as a very high percentage,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. He suggested that the waivers were meant to limit political damage — “the amount of griping and complaining” about the law — before the 2012 elections.

The need for waivers is likely to continue. Federal rules require health plans to provide at least $1.25 million in coverage next year and $2 million in 2013. After that, the law generally prohibits annual dollar limits on coverage of essential health benefits.
In issuing the rules, the administration estimated that 18 million people were in health plans with annual limits.
Consumers have indisputably benefited from some provisions of the law. But for Democrats, the political benefits have been less than they expected.

“A lot of Americans just don’t know about some of the benefits,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, who helped write the law as chairman of the Finance Committee.
A poll conducted this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 42 percent of Americans had favorable views of the law while 46 percent viewed it unfavorably. Public perceptions of the law were slightly more negative than when it was passed. People most likely to benefit from the law — the uninsured and low-income households — were more likely to say they had too little information to know how it would affect them.

Under one of the law’s more popular provisions, young adults can stay on their parents’ insurance policies to age 26. Insurers generally cannot charge co-payments for preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies; cannot rescind coverage after a person becomes ill; and cannot deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.

Medicare beneficiaries who use large amounts of prescription drugs can get discounts on their medicines. And some small businesses can obtain tax credits to help them pay premiums.
The biggest changes, including the requirement for people to carry insurance, take effect in 2014, when each state is supposed to have an insurance exchange, or market, where consumers can compare policies and buy coverage.

Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, said the law had already produced “miracles in the lives of people all over America,” enabling them to obtain health care that would otherwise have been out of reach.

At the same time, the State of Nevada has asked the Obama administration to relax the provision requiring insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care. Brett J. Barratt, the state’s insurance commissioner, said that several carriers were likely to withdraw from Nevada’s individual insurance market if the federal government did not grant such relief.

By ROBERT PEAR NYTimes

"I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice, and it's not a choice that I make lightly. But we can't stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy."

PRESIDENT OBAMA, on the American decision to use military force against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.