Gingrich raps Obama on Chavez summit greeting
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich charged Monday that President Barack Obama's cordial greeting with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez sends a poor message to enemies of America.
In a nationally broadcast interview on NBC's "Today" show Monday, the Georgia Republican also accused the administration of being too slow to react to North Korea's launching of a rocket test and said it has reached out too much to ease relations with Cuba.
Appearing on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," Gingrich said: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead."
Chavez has been one of the harshest critics of the United States in that part of the world. Obama said at the conclusion of the Latin summit Sunday that he didn't think greeting Chavez would be "endangering the strategic interests of the United States."
Gingrich complained that the simple act of a smiling Obama shaking Chavez's hand caused a book Chavez has written to skyrocket on the best-seller lists in the United States.
"What I find distressing," he said, "is that the administration opposes opening up oil exploration," but yet Obama has "bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia" and now reached out to Chavez, whom Gingrich said has been conducting "a vicious anti-American campaign."
Gingrich, whose name has been mentioned in 2012 presidential speculation, said, "How do you mend relationships with someone who actively hates your country. ... "
"Cuba releases zero prisoners," he said, "yet we make nice with Cuba. I'm for doing things methodically and calmly ... things that will work, but I'm not for deluding myself about smiles and words."
*************************************************************************************
EDITOR NOTE(Hk):-
This is another example of child like behavior and old style politics which have no connection with people’s reality!
Gingrich is fooling himself that he is a future President!
He’s too old, voice to irritating and no originally of thought.
He has lived off the public for year’s and I just can’t forget his compassionate heart telling his first wife he was divorcing her on her cancer bed!
Don’t the Republicans have anybody but Grumpy Old People as leaders?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
MEET THE PRESS NBC-TV (edit HAROLD FORD,Jr)
Transcript from MEET THE PRESS edit by HART KIRCH giving answers to major questions of the day. You may use these to rebut your friends or others! 4-19/09
Harold Ford, Jr.
Former Representative (Democrat Tennessee)
David Gregory (Meet the Press host):
The so-called TEA parties around the countries. These were protests about tax policy in the administration. Big placards and not a lot of love for President Obama around the country as people are concerned about taxes and spending. But look at this. This is the new Gallup poll that came out this week. "Views of income taxes among the most positive since 1956." The new poll "finds 48 percent of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is `about right,' with 46 percent saying they're too high--one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956." As Dr. Summers says, the president is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans. What's everybody so upset about?
****
FORD : There was not one TEA party in the eight years that President Bush was in office. And this is not meant to litigate the last eight years. But let's be honest, there was a $5 trillion increase in the amount of the, the nation's debt under President Bush. Normally when you use a credit card and you go out and charge things, you're able to show something you got in return. For the last eight years there are no more kids with health care, there are fewer kids who are able to afford college, we have not found new energy sources, and we can make a pretty credible argument that the Middle East is less stable and more dangerous than it was before. I give the president great credit for another attack not occurring on our soil. When we look at the long-term investments and the foundational platform that this president, President Obama is trying to create, one could make a legitimate and I think a compelling argument that in the long run this will produce the new--new investments in energy will produce not only alternatives but less reliance overseas, cheaper energy here at home, a smarter electricity grid, more kids going to college, more people with access to health care, which will lower business costs and allow the economy, for that matter......the kind of prosperity that we want to come back.
Gregory: there's still this fundamental question: Where does the money come from? This is an administration that prides itself on transparency. Where's the money coming from? On tax policy you wrote this this week in your Friday column: "The old Republican fantasy was that tax cuts were the magic elixir that would solve every problem. Now that the public has finally rejected it, it's disappointing to see Democrats offering up the equally fantastic notion that Americans can have all the government they want while getting someone else to pay for it."
FORD: Two things. We use the term "bailout" when we talk about the help on the financial side. It's important to note that the TARP is designed to actually be paid back. If the banks perform at the rate that some have suggested they performed this quarter and across the year, you're looking at a dividend payment from the banks back to the taxpayer, rightly so, between $12 to $15 billion this year, number one. Number two...
Spending is large, but what is the alternative? Government's playing the role of the, the, the, the, the financial investor of last resort, the spender of last resort. We, we fought this, we fought this battle for many years in this country. Think if we'd decided not to pass the Servicemen Readjustment Act back in 1944 called the GI Bill. It was an enormous expenditure. You sent eight million veterans to college, you provided one year of unemployment compensation and you ensured they could buy a home. The impact that had on the nation's economy going forward, educating that greatest generation, has been enormous. Think if Eisenhower's national interstate, the highway system would not have passed. It cost $425 billion in real day terms. The impact it's had on commerce, prosperity and growth has been immeasurable. We face one of those moments. This is one of those 100-year flood moments. And as much as I'd like to see government not engage and involve itself in so many enterprises, I don't know the alternative. And as much as I like and respect you, I've not heard from Republicans or conservatives or the TEA party attenders, what is the alternative? If the alternative, alternative is to sit back and do nothing, the majority of Americans, evidenced by poll after poll, say, "Do something. Be active and get us out of this mess."
****
Gregory: There's still this fundamental question: Where does the money come from? This is an administration that prides itself on transparency. Where's the money coming from? On tax policy you wrote this this week in your Friday column: "The old Republican fantasy was that tax cuts were the magic elixir that would solve every problem. Now that the public has finally rejected it, it's disappointing to see Democrats offering up the equally fantastic notion that Americans can have all the government they want while getting someone else to pay for it."
****
FORD: You know, the interesting thing about your numbers as you, as you showed, from $650 to $84 billion, $85, I can't remember the exact numbers, that was not a function of taxes being too high. That was a function of revenue going down and incomes being too low. So as much as this conversation about taxes is relevant, what is more relevant is how do we drive incomes up? How do we create more jobs? And I think a legitimate argument--and I hope that people stop questioning President Obama's intentions here in calling him a socialist and suggesting he's making the nation unsafe--I think Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, said it best. His intention shouldn't be a question. I never questioned President Bush's intentions. We can debate the policy. And his policies, I think there's a legitimate debate that's under way. I happen to think the investments in these places will drive incomes up...and make the Fortune 500 list more attractive next year than it was this year.
****
Gregory: You've got the fact that Pat Leahy in the Senate is saying we need some kind of truth commission here to find out exactly what it was done and why it was done. I mean, look, this is a bigger debate about how we treat America's enemies. Is that a debate worth having, or is it just looking back?
****
FORD: Look, I think the president said it best at the, at the summit with some of the Latin American and South American leaders. He said look, the past is the past, let's move forward. He's talked about moving along the, the--with Cuba. It's important to note, as much as we want to do that, if this debate took place in Cuba right now half of us would be arrested if we disagreed with the government. So dissent is still not encouraged. I'd say this. After September the 11th we asked men and women in this country serving in our military and our intelligence agencies to go out and find bad guys. I'm always a little hesitant afterwards when we try to judge the kinds of things they did. That being said, we are America and we got to live up to a certain standard, and I think what the president did was strike the right balance in how they went about dealing with this.
**** EDITOR NOTE: you can get full transcript of MEET THE PRESS on www.nbcnews.com
Harold Ford, Jr.
Former Representative (Democrat Tennessee)
David Gregory (Meet the Press host):
The so-called TEA parties around the countries. These were protests about tax policy in the administration. Big placards and not a lot of love for President Obama around the country as people are concerned about taxes and spending. But look at this. This is the new Gallup poll that came out this week. "Views of income taxes among the most positive since 1956." The new poll "finds 48 percent of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is `about right,' with 46 percent saying they're too high--one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956." As Dr. Summers says, the president is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans. What's everybody so upset about?
****
FORD : There was not one TEA party in the eight years that President Bush was in office. And this is not meant to litigate the last eight years. But let's be honest, there was a $5 trillion increase in the amount of the, the nation's debt under President Bush. Normally when you use a credit card and you go out and charge things, you're able to show something you got in return. For the last eight years there are no more kids with health care, there are fewer kids who are able to afford college, we have not found new energy sources, and we can make a pretty credible argument that the Middle East is less stable and more dangerous than it was before. I give the president great credit for another attack not occurring on our soil. When we look at the long-term investments and the foundational platform that this president, President Obama is trying to create, one could make a legitimate and I think a compelling argument that in the long run this will produce the new--new investments in energy will produce not only alternatives but less reliance overseas, cheaper energy here at home, a smarter electricity grid, more kids going to college, more people with access to health care, which will lower business costs and allow the economy, for that matter......the kind of prosperity that we want to come back.
Gregory: there's still this fundamental question: Where does the money come from? This is an administration that prides itself on transparency. Where's the money coming from? On tax policy you wrote this this week in your Friday column: "The old Republican fantasy was that tax cuts were the magic elixir that would solve every problem. Now that the public has finally rejected it, it's disappointing to see Democrats offering up the equally fantastic notion that Americans can have all the government they want while getting someone else to pay for it."
FORD: Two things. We use the term "bailout" when we talk about the help on the financial side. It's important to note that the TARP is designed to actually be paid back. If the banks perform at the rate that some have suggested they performed this quarter and across the year, you're looking at a dividend payment from the banks back to the taxpayer, rightly so, between $12 to $15 billion this year, number one. Number two...
Spending is large, but what is the alternative? Government's playing the role of the, the, the, the, the financial investor of last resort, the spender of last resort. We, we fought this, we fought this battle for many years in this country. Think if we'd decided not to pass the Servicemen Readjustment Act back in 1944 called the GI Bill. It was an enormous expenditure. You sent eight million veterans to college, you provided one year of unemployment compensation and you ensured they could buy a home. The impact that had on the nation's economy going forward, educating that greatest generation, has been enormous. Think if Eisenhower's national interstate, the highway system would not have passed. It cost $425 billion in real day terms. The impact it's had on commerce, prosperity and growth has been immeasurable. We face one of those moments. This is one of those 100-year flood moments. And as much as I'd like to see government not engage and involve itself in so many enterprises, I don't know the alternative. And as much as I like and respect you, I've not heard from Republicans or conservatives or the TEA party attenders, what is the alternative? If the alternative, alternative is to sit back and do nothing, the majority of Americans, evidenced by poll after poll, say, "Do something. Be active and get us out of this mess."
****
Gregory: There's still this fundamental question: Where does the money come from? This is an administration that prides itself on transparency. Where's the money coming from? On tax policy you wrote this this week in your Friday column: "The old Republican fantasy was that tax cuts were the magic elixir that would solve every problem. Now that the public has finally rejected it, it's disappointing to see Democrats offering up the equally fantastic notion that Americans can have all the government they want while getting someone else to pay for it."
****
FORD: You know, the interesting thing about your numbers as you, as you showed, from $650 to $84 billion, $85, I can't remember the exact numbers, that was not a function of taxes being too high. That was a function of revenue going down and incomes being too low. So as much as this conversation about taxes is relevant, what is more relevant is how do we drive incomes up? How do we create more jobs? And I think a legitimate argument--and I hope that people stop questioning President Obama's intentions here in calling him a socialist and suggesting he's making the nation unsafe--I think Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, said it best. His intention shouldn't be a question. I never questioned President Bush's intentions. We can debate the policy. And his policies, I think there's a legitimate debate that's under way. I happen to think the investments in these places will drive incomes up...and make the Fortune 500 list more attractive next year than it was this year.
****
Gregory: You've got the fact that Pat Leahy in the Senate is saying we need some kind of truth commission here to find out exactly what it was done and why it was done. I mean, look, this is a bigger debate about how we treat America's enemies. Is that a debate worth having, or is it just looking back?
****
FORD: Look, I think the president said it best at the, at the summit with some of the Latin American and South American leaders. He said look, the past is the past, let's move forward. He's talked about moving along the, the--with Cuba. It's important to note, as much as we want to do that, if this debate took place in Cuba right now half of us would be arrested if we disagreed with the government. So dissent is still not encouraged. I'd say this. After September the 11th we asked men and women in this country serving in our military and our intelligence agencies to go out and find bad guys. I'm always a little hesitant afterwards when we try to judge the kinds of things they did. That being said, we are America and we got to live up to a certain standard, and I think what the president did was strike the right balance in how they went about dealing with this.
**** EDITOR NOTE: you can get full transcript of MEET THE PRESS on www.nbcnews.com
History of major health coverage proposals
A look at the history of major health coverage initiatives by presidents:
___
1950: Harry Truman's proposal for national health insurance dies in Congress.
1965: Lyndon Johnson wins passage of Medicare and Medicaid.
1974: Richard Nixon's proposal to require employers to cover workers dies in Congress.
1979: Jimmy Carter's proposal for an employer requirement dies in Congress.
1994: Bill Clinton's plan, which includes an employer requirement, dies in Congress.
1997: Clinton and a Republican Congress agree to expand coverage for low-income children.
2003: George W. Bush wins passage of Medicare prescription benefit.
2009: Barack Obama proposes to cover the uninsured and contain costs.
A look at the history of major health coverage initiatives by presidents:
___
1950: Harry Truman's proposal for national health insurance dies in Congress.
1965: Lyndon Johnson wins passage of Medicare and Medicaid.
1974: Richard Nixon's proposal to require employers to cover workers dies in Congress.
1979: Jimmy Carter's proposal for an employer requirement dies in Congress.
1994: Bill Clinton's plan, which includes an employer requirement, dies in Congress.
1997: Clinton and a Republican Congress agree to expand coverage for low-income children.
2003: George W. Bush wins passage of Medicare prescription benefit.
2009: Barack Obama proposes to cover the uninsured and contain costs.
Health care: Deal or no deal?
Senators begin work
Associated Press
This time it's really going to happen. Or so they claim.
Senators get down to work this coming week on turning ideas into legislation to cover some 50 million people without health insurance and contain costs for everyone else. Hopes are high that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground for a bill to emerge by summer.
They will have to defy history.
Grand plans to revamp health care have a half-century history of collapsing. More focused proposals, such as the creation of Medicare in 1965, have succeeded.
Lawmakers are far apart on some of the most important issues today, from the reach of government to the responsibilities of employers and individuals. And guaranteeing coverage for all could cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years, an eye-popping sum in a time of recession and mounting national debt.
Yet major constituencies often at odds are now clamoring for change. They range from consumer groups to insurers, from employers to doctors and hospitals. President Barack Obama has pledged to chip away at hardened ideological positions to find compromises.
"This is the toughest issue we have ever taken on — every part has got a chance of blowing up," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley. He is the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees government health programs and taxes, and plans to start work Tuesday.
Grassley said he is reasonably confident that he and the chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., can produce a bill that appeals to the middle. "Our only hope is if we do it in a way that keeps the vast majority of both parties going in the same direction," Grassley said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sees opportunity. "There is a very appealing philosophical truce within the Senate's grasp," he said.
"Democrats are right on the idea that we've got to cover everybody. Republicans have been right on the role of the private sector, not freezing innovation and staying away from price controls," Wyden said. "You meld those philosophical views and you are on your way to 68 to 70 votes."
Consensus is growing on many points: Changes should build on the current system, not scrap it; hospitals and doctors should be paid for quality, not quantity; insurers shouldn't be able to discriminate against people with health problems; small businesses need special attention.
But huge differences remain. Three of the hardest issues are:
Costs:
Obama set aside $634 billion in his budget as a "down payment" for health care over 10 years. Many experts believe that represents less than half the cost. Covering the uninsured could cost $100 billion to $150 billion a year, or more.
Liberal Democrats want to follow Obama's example and get half the money from tax increases and half from spending cuts. Upper-income tax increases and sales tax increases on alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and even sugary sodas are being discussed.
But Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats want most of the financing to come from spending cuts and from making the health care system less wasteful.
Mandates:
Health insurance is based on pooling risk: premiums from the vast majority of healthy people cover care for the sick. For the system to work, economists say, everyone should have health insurance from the outset so uninsured people don't end up going to the emergency room and driving up costs for everyone else.
Because insurance is expensive, requiring people and businesses to pay for it is politically difficult. Most people now get insurance from their employers, but companies aren't required to offer it and as the economy skids more have cut back.
Obama and Democrats are considering a combination of requirements on individuals, parents and employers, with exemptions for small businesses and sliding-scale subsidies for families making as much as $80,000 a year.
Republicans opposed an employer mandate in the 1990s, but have mixed views on an individual requirement. The insurance industry is supporting an individual mandate. Labor unions are pushing for employer mandates.
Public Plan:
Obama and the Democrats want to give middle-class workers and families the option of joining a government-sponsored insurance plan that would be offered alongside private ones through a new insurance clearinghouse.
Supporters say a public plan could be a testing ground for innovations and a check on private insurers. Republicans see it as a thinly disguised step toward a government-run system. Insurance companies say they wouldn't be able to compete with a government plan.
Efforts are under way to find a compromise, maybe by limiting the scope of the public plan. But Rep. Dave Camp, who is playing a leading role in the House, said he doesn't think a deal is possible. "The public plan is a bright line for us," said Camp, R-Mich.
Senators begin their work in public Tuesday at a Senate Finance Committee meeting on how to change the health care delivery system to make it more efficient. They will meet the following week in closed session to consider specific proposals that would affect doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.
Similar sessions are scheduled on expanding coverage and paying for a revamped system. Leaders are hoping the committee can vote on a bill by mid-June.
Separately, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is working on a complementary bill, with the goal of merging the two in the full Senate. It's unclear whether Senate Republicans will offer their own bill.
In the House, the Democratic leadership aims to introduce legislation by late June. The bill will be considered by three committees that share jurisdiction over health care. Republicans are planning to offer their own measure.
Democratic leaders want the full House and Senate each to pass legislation before Congress leaves town for its August break.
Democrats probably will allow the use of a legislative device that would let them pass a health bill in the Senate with 51 votes, instead of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster. Republicans say that would be an act of bad faith and could poison chances for a deal.
___
Associated Press
This time it's really going to happen. Or so they claim.
Senators get down to work this coming week on turning ideas into legislation to cover some 50 million people without health insurance and contain costs for everyone else. Hopes are high that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground for a bill to emerge by summer.
They will have to defy history.
Grand plans to revamp health care have a half-century history of collapsing. More focused proposals, such as the creation of Medicare in 1965, have succeeded.
Lawmakers are far apart on some of the most important issues today, from the reach of government to the responsibilities of employers and individuals. And guaranteeing coverage for all could cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years, an eye-popping sum in a time of recession and mounting national debt.
Yet major constituencies often at odds are now clamoring for change. They range from consumer groups to insurers, from employers to doctors and hospitals. President Barack Obama has pledged to chip away at hardened ideological positions to find compromises.
"This is the toughest issue we have ever taken on — every part has got a chance of blowing up," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley. He is the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees government health programs and taxes, and plans to start work Tuesday.
Grassley said he is reasonably confident that he and the chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., can produce a bill that appeals to the middle. "Our only hope is if we do it in a way that keeps the vast majority of both parties going in the same direction," Grassley said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sees opportunity. "There is a very appealing philosophical truce within the Senate's grasp," he said.
"Democrats are right on the idea that we've got to cover everybody. Republicans have been right on the role of the private sector, not freezing innovation and staying away from price controls," Wyden said. "You meld those philosophical views and you are on your way to 68 to 70 votes."
Consensus is growing on many points: Changes should build on the current system, not scrap it; hospitals and doctors should be paid for quality, not quantity; insurers shouldn't be able to discriminate against people with health problems; small businesses need special attention.
But huge differences remain. Three of the hardest issues are:
Costs:
Obama set aside $634 billion in his budget as a "down payment" for health care over 10 years. Many experts believe that represents less than half the cost. Covering the uninsured could cost $100 billion to $150 billion a year, or more.
Liberal Democrats want to follow Obama's example and get half the money from tax increases and half from spending cuts. Upper-income tax increases and sales tax increases on alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and even sugary sodas are being discussed.
But Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats want most of the financing to come from spending cuts and from making the health care system less wasteful.
Mandates:
Health insurance is based on pooling risk: premiums from the vast majority of healthy people cover care for the sick. For the system to work, economists say, everyone should have health insurance from the outset so uninsured people don't end up going to the emergency room and driving up costs for everyone else.
Because insurance is expensive, requiring people and businesses to pay for it is politically difficult. Most people now get insurance from their employers, but companies aren't required to offer it and as the economy skids more have cut back.
Obama and Democrats are considering a combination of requirements on individuals, parents and employers, with exemptions for small businesses and sliding-scale subsidies for families making as much as $80,000 a year.
Republicans opposed an employer mandate in the 1990s, but have mixed views on an individual requirement. The insurance industry is supporting an individual mandate. Labor unions are pushing for employer mandates.
Public Plan:
Obama and the Democrats want to give middle-class workers and families the option of joining a government-sponsored insurance plan that would be offered alongside private ones through a new insurance clearinghouse.
Supporters say a public plan could be a testing ground for innovations and a check on private insurers. Republicans see it as a thinly disguised step toward a government-run system. Insurance companies say they wouldn't be able to compete with a government plan.
Efforts are under way to find a compromise, maybe by limiting the scope of the public plan. But Rep. Dave Camp, who is playing a leading role in the House, said he doesn't think a deal is possible. "The public plan is a bright line for us," said Camp, R-Mich.
Senators begin their work in public Tuesday at a Senate Finance Committee meeting on how to change the health care delivery system to make it more efficient. They will meet the following week in closed session to consider specific proposals that would affect doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.
Similar sessions are scheduled on expanding coverage and paying for a revamped system. Leaders are hoping the committee can vote on a bill by mid-June.
Separately, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is working on a complementary bill, with the goal of merging the two in the full Senate. It's unclear whether Senate Republicans will offer their own bill.
In the House, the Democratic leadership aims to introduce legislation by late June. The bill will be considered by three committees that share jurisdiction over health care. Republicans are planning to offer their own measure.
Democratic leaders want the full House and Senate each to pass legislation before Congress leaves town for its August break.
Democrats probably will allow the use of a legislative device that would let them pass a health bill in the Senate with 51 votes, instead of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster. Republicans say that would be an act of bad faith and could poison chances for a deal.
___
BLOODSUCKER UPDATE! Credit Cards use & abuse.
April 19, 2009
White House: Obama to address credit card abuses
The White House said Sunday that it will back congressional efforts to clamp down on credit card abuses in an effort to address the recession's effect on Main Street.
The House and Senate are considering a credit card bill of rights to limit the ability of credit card companies to raise interest rates on existing balances and to require greater disclosure. White House economic adviser Larry Summers said people need to save more, but that the government also needs to curb credit card pitches that addict people to plastic.
President Barack Obama is "going to be very focused, in a very near term, on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses, having to do with the way people have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn't have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into," Summers said.
Summers said the administration wants to see a better-regulated financial system, encourage savings and eventually get back to a situation where government spending is not a drain on the economy.
"Individuals are going to have to save more, that's why savings incentives are so important," he said. "That's why we need to do things to stop the marketing of credit in ways that addicts people to it — so that our households are again saving, and families are again preparing to send kids to college, for their retirement, and so forth."
Summers made the comments Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" while attending a summit of Western Hemispheric leaders in Trinidad and Tobago.
White House: Obama to address credit card abuses
The White House said Sunday that it will back congressional efforts to clamp down on credit card abuses in an effort to address the recession's effect on Main Street.
The House and Senate are considering a credit card bill of rights to limit the ability of credit card companies to raise interest rates on existing balances and to require greater disclosure. White House economic adviser Larry Summers said people need to save more, but that the government also needs to curb credit card pitches that addict people to plastic.
President Barack Obama is "going to be very focused, in a very near term, on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses, having to do with the way people have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn't have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into," Summers said.
Summers said the administration wants to see a better-regulated financial system, encourage savings and eventually get back to a situation where government spending is not a drain on the economy.
"Individuals are going to have to save more, that's why savings incentives are so important," he said. "That's why we need to do things to stop the marketing of credit in ways that addicts people to it — so that our households are again saving, and families are again preparing to send kids to college, for their retirement, and so forth."
Summers made the comments Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" while attending a summit of Western Hemispheric leaders in Trinidad and Tobago.
Nice Party, But Not So Revolutionary
WASH POST By Benjamin L. Carp
April 19, 2009
The night turned chilly as dusk settled into darkness, and a dampness hung in the air from the rain that had fallen earlier in the day. In a sea of citizens who said they were fighting for freedom, I saw young men dressed as American Indians. I saw tea being brandished in protest. And I heard plenty of anger about taxes and tyranny.
This wasn't Boston on Dec. 16, 1773. I was in New York City on April 15, 2009.
In fact, I was right next to the site where New Yorkers themselves had hoisted a Liberty Pole in 1766 to protest British taxes, in what is now Manhattan's City Hall Park.
I was at one of a series of "tea parties" being held across the country to protest the Obama administration's policies and the high taxes the protesters envision they will spawn. They were meant to replicate the famous Boston Tea Party that precipitated the American Revolution. Although I study early American history, I wasn't trying to check the protesters' creative interpretations against my footnotes. Instead, I tried to appreciate the bizarre nature of a day that began for me with work on a chapter on tea boycotts for my new book and ended with a modern crowd's interpretation of the historical period I study. It was a great reminder that the original Tea Party had made this civilized re-enactment possible and, ultimately, anti-climactic by comparison.
Still, I wanted to hear the protesters' grievances. Phyllis Thies, who is 50 years old and out of a job, came toting a replica of Christopher Gadsden's "Don't tread on me" flag. She joined the crowd last week because in her view, "high taxes" are the problem, as they were in the 18th century. There was much more to it than that, of course, but for the protesters last week, it was the feisty rebelliousness of the Tea Party tale that made it so appealing. As 21-year-old Jacob Dievendorf said, it was the "first real galvanizing moment" of the Revolution.
He's right. It's a great story. As hundreds watched that day in 1773, men with blackened faces, dressed in ersatz Indian disguises, boarded three ships docked at Griffin's Wharf. They hoisted 342 chests of tea onto the ships' decks. With hatchets aloft, they chopped open the chests and emptied 90,000 pounds of loose tea into the muck below. They were protesting the Tea Act, a recent British law designed to help the monopolistic East India Company unload its excess tea onto the American market. The men aboard the ships kept their identities secret for 50 years or more, and not one was ever punished.
We like the spectacle of drowning tea for the same reason kids like knocking over building blocks. Furthermore, the Boston Tea Party sparked a legacy of relatively nonviolent civil disobedience. Even John Adams, who was hardly a fire-breathing radical, called it "the most magnificent Moment of all," both daring and intrepid. Although many of last week's protesters are interpreting history loosely at best, the issues at stake in 1773 and today are similar in some ways.
In both cases, reckless financial speculation and a credit crunch had led to a painful recession.
The British government, like the administration today, was saddled with debt arising in part from recent wars -- and tax revenues were the principal way to pay it down.
In 1773, like today, the government tried to bail out companies that were deemed too big to fail: Back then, the British government rescued the East India Company, which had a monopoly on all trade east of South Africa, including the Chinese tea trade.
In both cases, taxes were a source of fear, but they were not the immediate source of the problem. The British Parliament had passed a tax on tea in 1767, six years before the tea party. Although the American colonists were angry about having to pay taxes without being represented in Parliament, New Englanders had been sheepishly paying the tax for a few years.
The Tea Act -- what the Tea Party was protesting -- would have lowered the cost of tea for Americans (as Newt Gingrich, the former history professor and speaker of the House, pointed out in his speech to the crowd) by giving a tax break to the East India Company for its colonial tea shipments. Samuel Adams and his allies were worried that the lower cost would seduce Americans into paying an unjust tax.
In 2009, most American families will be paying as much as $800 less in federal income tax than last year. But many of the protesters fear that they are being tricked into supporting "big government," which might mean higher taxes down the road.
The similarities between the past and the present only go so far. For one thing, last week's tea parties were more about words than action.
The United States is not a monarchy -- if we don't like our tax rates or how the revenue is spent, we have the power to peaceably "throw the bums out." Colonial Americans lacked that power -- and the Revolution was born of the resulting discontent.
But the fact that we now have taxation with representation wasn't enough to satisfy some of the protesters. They argued that our lawmakers aren't effective at representing our interests and that the influence of lobbyists can get in the way.
The tea bag -- which wasn't even around in 1773 -- has become one of tax reformers' most prominent symbols. On April 16, 1990, Peter Hendrickson wrapped a tea bag around a bomb that he placed in a post office bin in Michigan as part of his protest against paying income taxes.
Yet the Boston Tea Party has also inspired other Americans: senior citizen activists, the Arizona Minutemen, women's suffragists, advocates for D.C. statehood and people on both sides of the slavery question before the Civil War. Even beyond America's shores, the Tea Party has been invoked by Sun Yat-sen in China, Mahatma Gandhi in India and supporters of the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.
The April 15 protests seemed to represent a divergent set of views, too: I spoke with Lawrence Arzu and Irving Morales, two young Ron Paul supporters in war paint and feathers, who told me that they ended up voting for Ralph Nader last year. I met an outreach coordinator for the Brooklyn Young Republicans, and others who mentioned issues ranging from abortion to education. I didn't see much unity of purpose, but perhaps that wasn't the point. Gingrich urged the crowd to reach out to friends and pointed to the rise of committees of correspondence in 1774.
The Boston Tea Party does offer some other lessons that we ought never to forget. First, the real Tea Party was not just noble, but also frightening and dangerous: The protest walked a fine line between civil disobedience and violent uprising. King George III's anger at the Tea Party led to harsh punishments, the closing of the port of Boston and then a bloody civil war that lasted for eight years.
Carl Bowen, 42, an accountant from Baldwin, N.Y., acknowledged that the original Tea Party was an act of "vandalism" and warned, "A lot of people would like to vent their frustration more than they're allowed to today." One woman's sign seemed to bear this out: "Tea Party Today, Tar and Feather Tomorrow."
But how far should anyone be allowed to vent?
The memory of the Boston Tea Party surely should not be used to justify the bullying nullification of any law that an outspoken group dislikes.
In Boston in 1773, the men who boarded the tea ships had to conceal their identity or risk punishment -- perhaps even being hanged for treason. Last week, the merry protesters chatted with journalists about their complaints, then folded up their "Welcome to the Second American Revolution" signs and went home. The original Tea Party had helped make free speech possible, but these modern protests didn't seem likely to change the world just yet.
A representative government, unlike a monarchy, must listen to the people -- otherwise we are indeed poorly represented. But it should also be careful not to overreact -- either by punishing dissidents or by conceding too much.
April 19, 2009
The night turned chilly as dusk settled into darkness, and a dampness hung in the air from the rain that had fallen earlier in the day. In a sea of citizens who said they were fighting for freedom, I saw young men dressed as American Indians. I saw tea being brandished in protest. And I heard plenty of anger about taxes and tyranny.
This wasn't Boston on Dec. 16, 1773. I was in New York City on April 15, 2009.
In fact, I was right next to the site where New Yorkers themselves had hoisted a Liberty Pole in 1766 to protest British taxes, in what is now Manhattan's City Hall Park.
I was at one of a series of "tea parties" being held across the country to protest the Obama administration's policies and the high taxes the protesters envision they will spawn. They were meant to replicate the famous Boston Tea Party that precipitated the American Revolution. Although I study early American history, I wasn't trying to check the protesters' creative interpretations against my footnotes. Instead, I tried to appreciate the bizarre nature of a day that began for me with work on a chapter on tea boycotts for my new book and ended with a modern crowd's interpretation of the historical period I study. It was a great reminder that the original Tea Party had made this civilized re-enactment possible and, ultimately, anti-climactic by comparison.
Still, I wanted to hear the protesters' grievances. Phyllis Thies, who is 50 years old and out of a job, came toting a replica of Christopher Gadsden's "Don't tread on me" flag. She joined the crowd last week because in her view, "high taxes" are the problem, as they were in the 18th century. There was much more to it than that, of course, but for the protesters last week, it was the feisty rebelliousness of the Tea Party tale that made it so appealing. As 21-year-old Jacob Dievendorf said, it was the "first real galvanizing moment" of the Revolution.
He's right. It's a great story. As hundreds watched that day in 1773, men with blackened faces, dressed in ersatz Indian disguises, boarded three ships docked at Griffin's Wharf. They hoisted 342 chests of tea onto the ships' decks. With hatchets aloft, they chopped open the chests and emptied 90,000 pounds of loose tea into the muck below. They were protesting the Tea Act, a recent British law designed to help the monopolistic East India Company unload its excess tea onto the American market. The men aboard the ships kept their identities secret for 50 years or more, and not one was ever punished.
We like the spectacle of drowning tea for the same reason kids like knocking over building blocks. Furthermore, the Boston Tea Party sparked a legacy of relatively nonviolent civil disobedience. Even John Adams, who was hardly a fire-breathing radical, called it "the most magnificent Moment of all," both daring and intrepid. Although many of last week's protesters are interpreting history loosely at best, the issues at stake in 1773 and today are similar in some ways.
In both cases, reckless financial speculation and a credit crunch had led to a painful recession.
The British government, like the administration today, was saddled with debt arising in part from recent wars -- and tax revenues were the principal way to pay it down.
In 1773, like today, the government tried to bail out companies that were deemed too big to fail: Back then, the British government rescued the East India Company, which had a monopoly on all trade east of South Africa, including the Chinese tea trade.
In both cases, taxes were a source of fear, but they were not the immediate source of the problem. The British Parliament had passed a tax on tea in 1767, six years before the tea party. Although the American colonists were angry about having to pay taxes without being represented in Parliament, New Englanders had been sheepishly paying the tax for a few years.
The Tea Act -- what the Tea Party was protesting -- would have lowered the cost of tea for Americans (as Newt Gingrich, the former history professor and speaker of the House, pointed out in his speech to the crowd) by giving a tax break to the East India Company for its colonial tea shipments. Samuel Adams and his allies were worried that the lower cost would seduce Americans into paying an unjust tax.
In 2009, most American families will be paying as much as $800 less in federal income tax than last year. But many of the protesters fear that they are being tricked into supporting "big government," which might mean higher taxes down the road.
The similarities between the past and the present only go so far. For one thing, last week's tea parties were more about words than action.
The United States is not a monarchy -- if we don't like our tax rates or how the revenue is spent, we have the power to peaceably "throw the bums out." Colonial Americans lacked that power -- and the Revolution was born of the resulting discontent.
But the fact that we now have taxation with representation wasn't enough to satisfy some of the protesters. They argued that our lawmakers aren't effective at representing our interests and that the influence of lobbyists can get in the way.
The tea bag -- which wasn't even around in 1773 -- has become one of tax reformers' most prominent symbols. On April 16, 1990, Peter Hendrickson wrapped a tea bag around a bomb that he placed in a post office bin in Michigan as part of his protest against paying income taxes.
Yet the Boston Tea Party has also inspired other Americans: senior citizen activists, the Arizona Minutemen, women's suffragists, advocates for D.C. statehood and people on both sides of the slavery question before the Civil War. Even beyond America's shores, the Tea Party has been invoked by Sun Yat-sen in China, Mahatma Gandhi in India and supporters of the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.
The April 15 protests seemed to represent a divergent set of views, too: I spoke with Lawrence Arzu and Irving Morales, two young Ron Paul supporters in war paint and feathers, who told me that they ended up voting for Ralph Nader last year. I met an outreach coordinator for the Brooklyn Young Republicans, and others who mentioned issues ranging from abortion to education. I didn't see much unity of purpose, but perhaps that wasn't the point. Gingrich urged the crowd to reach out to friends and pointed to the rise of committees of correspondence in 1774.
The Boston Tea Party does offer some other lessons that we ought never to forget. First, the real Tea Party was not just noble, but also frightening and dangerous: The protest walked a fine line between civil disobedience and violent uprising. King George III's anger at the Tea Party led to harsh punishments, the closing of the port of Boston and then a bloody civil war that lasted for eight years.
Carl Bowen, 42, an accountant from Baldwin, N.Y., acknowledged that the original Tea Party was an act of "vandalism" and warned, "A lot of people would like to vent their frustration more than they're allowed to today." One woman's sign seemed to bear this out: "Tea Party Today, Tar and Feather Tomorrow."
But how far should anyone be allowed to vent?
The memory of the Boston Tea Party surely should not be used to justify the bullying nullification of any law that an outspoken group dislikes.
In Boston in 1773, the men who boarded the tea ships had to conceal their identity or risk punishment -- perhaps even being hanged for treason. Last week, the merry protesters chatted with journalists about their complaints, then folded up their "Welcome to the Second American Revolution" signs and went home. The original Tea Party had helped make free speech possible, but these modern protests didn't seem likely to change the world just yet.
A representative government, unlike a monarchy, must listen to the people -- otherwise we are indeed poorly represented. But it should also be careful not to overreact -- either by punishing dissidents or by conceding too much.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
How to Raise Our I.Q.
NY TIMES By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics.
After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart, for example, have I.Q.’s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of fraternal twins who grow up together.
If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.
Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity — but focuses on how to raise America’s collective I.Q. That’s important, because while I.Q. doesn’t measure pure intellect — we’re not certain exactly what it does measure — differences do matter, and a higher I.Q. correlates to greater success in life.
Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and that’s the reason for the findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back.
“Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s,” Professor Turkheimer said.
One gauge of that is that when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.’s rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study. For example, a French study showed that children from poor households adopted into upper-middle-class homes averaged an I.Q. of 107 by one test and 111 by another. Their siblings who were not adopted averaged 95 on both tests.
Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says.
Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).
Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes. The Milwaukee Project, for example, took African-American children considered at risk for mental retardation and assigned them randomly either to a control group that received no help or to a group that enjoyed intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade.
By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q.
Professor Nisbett suggests putting less money into Head Start, which has a mixed record, and more into these intensive childhood programs. He also notes that schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program (better known as KIPP) have tested exceptionally well and favors experiments to see if they can be scaled up.
Another proven intervention is to tell junior-high-school students that I.Q. is expandable, and that their intelligence is something they can help shape. Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better grades. That’s particularly true of girls and math, apparently because some girls assume that they are genetically disadvantaged at numbers; deprived of an excuse for failure, they excel.
“Some of the things that work are very cheap,” Professor Nisbett noted. “Convincing junior-high kids that intelligence is under their control — you could argue that that should be in the junior-high curriculum right now.”
The implication of this new research on intelligence is that the economic-stimulus package should also be an intellectual-stimulus program. By my calculation, if we were to push early childhood education and bolster schools in poor neighborhoods, we just might be able to raise the United States collective I.Q. by as much as one billion points.
That should be a no-brainer.
Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics.
After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart, for example, have I.Q.’s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of fraternal twins who grow up together.
If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.
Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity — but focuses on how to raise America’s collective I.Q. That’s important, because while I.Q. doesn’t measure pure intellect — we’re not certain exactly what it does measure — differences do matter, and a higher I.Q. correlates to greater success in life.
Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and that’s the reason for the findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back.
“Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s,” Professor Turkheimer said.
One gauge of that is that when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.’s rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study. For example, a French study showed that children from poor households adopted into upper-middle-class homes averaged an I.Q. of 107 by one test and 111 by another. Their siblings who were not adopted averaged 95 on both tests.
Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says.
Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).
Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes. The Milwaukee Project, for example, took African-American children considered at risk for mental retardation and assigned them randomly either to a control group that received no help or to a group that enjoyed intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade.
By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q.
Professor Nisbett suggests putting less money into Head Start, which has a mixed record, and more into these intensive childhood programs. He also notes that schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program (better known as KIPP) have tested exceptionally well and favors experiments to see if they can be scaled up.
Another proven intervention is to tell junior-high-school students that I.Q. is expandable, and that their intelligence is something they can help shape. Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better grades. That’s particularly true of girls and math, apparently because some girls assume that they are genetically disadvantaged at numbers; deprived of an excuse for failure, they excel.
“Some of the things that work are very cheap,” Professor Nisbett noted. “Convincing junior-high kids that intelligence is under their control — you could argue that that should be in the junior-high curriculum right now.”
The implication of this new research on intelligence is that the economic-stimulus package should also be an intellectual-stimulus program. By my calculation, if we were to push early childhood education and bolster schools in poor neighborhoods, we just might be able to raise the United States collective I.Q. by as much as one billion points.
That should be a no-brainer.
Week of Change for Obama
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a whirlwind week of change, President Barack Obama jettisoned Bush administration policy on greenhouse gases, shone an unforgiving light on its support for torture as an interrogation tactic and eased its restrictions on Cuba.
But there are limits, even to this new president's power, and a campaign pledge to seek a ban on assault weapons is an early casualty as a result.
And while the promise of change was arguably Obama's single most powerful asset in last year's campaign, the week demonstrated anew how carefully he calibrates its impact.
''We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history,'' the president said in a statement that accompanied the release of once-secret memos outlining torture techniques the Bush administration allowed.
''But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.''
That was designed as a reassurance to the CIA employees who carried out waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and the other harsh interrogation techniques that former President George W. Bush once sanctioned and that Obama has now banned -- much as his decision to leave combat troops in Iraq a few months longer than he once promised was a bow to the Pentagon.
''I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States,'' he said in a statement on the torture memos that could easily have been written about the troop withdrawal.
Attorney General Eric Holder added one more assurance, announcing the administration would pay legal expenses for anyone in the intelligence agency who needs a lawyer as a result of carrying out interrogations covered by the memos.
Holder also formally revoked every legal opinion or memo issued during Bush's presidency that justified interrogation programs, a largely symbolic step since Obama had already said his administration would not rely on them.
The release of the documents had been the subject of a long, fierce debate, with a deadline looming as the result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
No lawsuit drove the timing of the new Cuba policy, which was released in the run-up to Obama's first presidential trip to Latin America and the Caribbean. And here again, Obama went further than some wanted and not as far as others had hoped.
Under the new policy, the administration lifted restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to travel and send money to their island homeland and freed U.S. telecommunications companies to seek business there.
Some of the changes specifically undid what Bush had imposed: tightened travel restrictions on Americans wishing to visit relatives in Cuba; limiting payments to immediate family; and bans on seeds, clothing, personal hygiene items, veterinary medicines and -- later -- cell phones from humanitarian parcels.
But the broader embargo remains in place as it has since the Kennedy administration, its existence meant now as then to prod the Cuban government into democratic reforms.
In response to the announcement, Cuban President Raul Castro said he is ready to put ''everything'' on the table in talks with Americans, including questions of human rights and political prisoners. If so, that would mark a change from decades of Cuban insistence that those issues were not subject for discussion.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pronounced Castro's comments an overture, and said, ''We are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond.''
Still, despite sentiment within the 15-member Caribbean Community to lift the U.S. embargo, Jamaica's prime minister, Bruce Golding, said the organization had agreed not to push Obama too hard on the issue.
By contrast, there was little that was nuanced about the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement Friday that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases emitted by cars and many industrial plants ''endanger public health and welfare.''
It was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that said greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated if found to be a danger to human health or public welfare.
Confronted with the high court's decision, the Bush administration stalled, leaving for Obama an issue he was only too happy to seize. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said while the agency is prepared to move forward with regulations under the Clean Air Act, the administration would rather defer to Congress.
''The (EPA) decision is a game changer,'' said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who is involved in drafting legislation to limit greenhouse emissions.
For all the changes Obama has piled up since taking office 87 days ago, his retreat on assault weapons is hardly unique. He has already yielded on other relatively minor issues, giving in to veterans groups during the budget debate, for example.
Pressed by Mexican President Felipe Calderon to help stem the flow of military-style assault weapons from the United States, Obama said he still believed that the ban made sense. And yet, he added: ''None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy.'' He said he would focus instead on using existing laws to stop the flow of weapons prized by elements of the Mexican drug trade.
If anything, Obama's closest allies in Congress are probably relieved.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California signaled as much several weeks ago after Holder said the administration wanted to renew a ban that lapsed and that the powerful National Rifle Association opposes strenuously.
''One good place to start would be to enforce the laws that are on the books right now,'' she said on Feb. 26. ''And I think the evidence points this out, that the Bush administration was not enforcing law.''
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a whirlwind week of change, President Barack Obama jettisoned Bush administration policy on greenhouse gases, shone an unforgiving light on its support for torture as an interrogation tactic and eased its restrictions on Cuba.
But there are limits, even to this new president's power, and a campaign pledge to seek a ban on assault weapons is an early casualty as a result.
And while the promise of change was arguably Obama's single most powerful asset in last year's campaign, the week demonstrated anew how carefully he calibrates its impact.
''We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history,'' the president said in a statement that accompanied the release of once-secret memos outlining torture techniques the Bush administration allowed.
''But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.''
That was designed as a reassurance to the CIA employees who carried out waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and the other harsh interrogation techniques that former President George W. Bush once sanctioned and that Obama has now banned -- much as his decision to leave combat troops in Iraq a few months longer than he once promised was a bow to the Pentagon.
''I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States,'' he said in a statement on the torture memos that could easily have been written about the troop withdrawal.
Attorney General Eric Holder added one more assurance, announcing the administration would pay legal expenses for anyone in the intelligence agency who needs a lawyer as a result of carrying out interrogations covered by the memos.
Holder also formally revoked every legal opinion or memo issued during Bush's presidency that justified interrogation programs, a largely symbolic step since Obama had already said his administration would not rely on them.
The release of the documents had been the subject of a long, fierce debate, with a deadline looming as the result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
No lawsuit drove the timing of the new Cuba policy, which was released in the run-up to Obama's first presidential trip to Latin America and the Caribbean. And here again, Obama went further than some wanted and not as far as others had hoped.
Under the new policy, the administration lifted restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to travel and send money to their island homeland and freed U.S. telecommunications companies to seek business there.
Some of the changes specifically undid what Bush had imposed: tightened travel restrictions on Americans wishing to visit relatives in Cuba; limiting payments to immediate family; and bans on seeds, clothing, personal hygiene items, veterinary medicines and -- later -- cell phones from humanitarian parcels.
But the broader embargo remains in place as it has since the Kennedy administration, its existence meant now as then to prod the Cuban government into democratic reforms.
In response to the announcement, Cuban President Raul Castro said he is ready to put ''everything'' on the table in talks with Americans, including questions of human rights and political prisoners. If so, that would mark a change from decades of Cuban insistence that those issues were not subject for discussion.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pronounced Castro's comments an overture, and said, ''We are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond.''
Still, despite sentiment within the 15-member Caribbean Community to lift the U.S. embargo, Jamaica's prime minister, Bruce Golding, said the organization had agreed not to push Obama too hard on the issue.
By contrast, there was little that was nuanced about the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement Friday that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases emitted by cars and many industrial plants ''endanger public health and welfare.''
It was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that said greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated if found to be a danger to human health or public welfare.
Confronted with the high court's decision, the Bush administration stalled, leaving for Obama an issue he was only too happy to seize. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said while the agency is prepared to move forward with regulations under the Clean Air Act, the administration would rather defer to Congress.
''The (EPA) decision is a game changer,'' said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who is involved in drafting legislation to limit greenhouse emissions.
For all the changes Obama has piled up since taking office 87 days ago, his retreat on assault weapons is hardly unique. He has already yielded on other relatively minor issues, giving in to veterans groups during the budget debate, for example.
Pressed by Mexican President Felipe Calderon to help stem the flow of military-style assault weapons from the United States, Obama said he still believed that the ban made sense. And yet, he added: ''None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy.'' He said he would focus instead on using existing laws to stop the flow of weapons prized by elements of the Mexican drug trade.
If anything, Obama's closest allies in Congress are probably relieved.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California signaled as much several weeks ago after Holder said the administration wanted to renew a ban that lapsed and that the powerful National Rifle Association opposes strenuously.
''One good place to start would be to enforce the laws that are on the books right now,'' she said on Feb. 26. ''And I think the evidence points this out, that the Bush administration was not enforcing law.''
Next Choler, Please WPost-Dana Milbank
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Dear Reader:
I wish to apologize to you for my behavior last week.
On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack.
On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to fall on its face. I am part of the ObamaMedia. I am pimping for the left. I am carrying water for Obama. Lord, am I an idiot.
I discovered all this from the helpful feedback provided to me in the "reader comments" section at the end of my past four columns on washingtonpost.com. I undertook this exercise on the advice of former washingtonpost.com editor Doug Feaver, who wrote on these pages recently that journalists need to take the comments seriously ["Listening to the Dot-Comments," op-ed, April 9]. Further, he added in his blog, "those who don't are making a mistake."
Now, I may be a pimp and an idiot -- but I did not want to make a mistake. So I reviewed all 1,800 comments posted on my columns over the course of a week. As a sociological experiment, it was fascinating.
The comments are naturally an unscientific indicator, but the impression I got is consistent with what I've heard from colleagues: The vitriol of last year's presidential campaign has outlasted the election. For the right, this isn't terribly surprising; their guys lost the White House in 2008 and control of both chambers of Congress in 2006, so lashing out in frustration is to be expected. The left, however, is more difficult to explain. It made sense for them to be angry when George W. Bush was in the White House. But now, even under Obama, the anger on the left is, if anything, more personal and vitriolic than on the right.
A reader in an online chat brought this to my attention a couple of months ago, noting the animosity in the comments following a column. "Did you torture their cats and grandmothers? Most of the truly unhinged comments appear to come from Democrats, who apparently think you're Cindy McCain in reverse drag."
I replied that, to keep my blood pressure under control, I don't read the comments, and that I did, in fact, torture their cats.
Well, last week I read the comments. On April 10, I wrote a column about an Obama appearance urging Americans to refinance their mortgages -- a fairly gentle piece pointing out that the president sounded like a LendingTree.com pitchman. The comments compared me to Bernard Goldberg and Glenn Beck. One complained that "I gave Bush and the Republicans a pass."
Actually, a National Review column called me "the most anti-Bush reporter" in the White House press corps, but never mind that. "Uh oh, Milbank," wrote commenter "farfalle44." "Now the Obamabots have labeled you an Obama hater -- watch out!"
For Thursday's column, I criticized the "tea party" outside the White House. Conservatives left hundreds of indignant comments -- I was an Obama "lap dog" and "licking Obama's shoes" -- but that didn't buy me credibility with the left. "You do a real good job of attracting all the ill-informed, mathematically challenged, left-wing haters," said one reader. "I bet ya mom's really proud!"
So why is the left so angry? I don't know (I'm an idiot), so I put the question to the readers in my weekly online chat on Friday.
A reader from Rockville described it as a "sore winner" phenomenon. "People get used to being angry and when things change, they don't. So they find stuff to be mad about." Another said that some on the left "feel obligated to stay in the fight" because of the harsh treatment of Obama by the right.
But many focused on a frustration on the left caused by Obama's centrism -- his opposition to prosecuting those involved with torture, for example. "I am angry because the whole Republican party has not been rounded up and thrown into a black site," one wrote. A reader in Evanston, Ill., took a similar view, that true believers on the left don't want "b.s. rhetoric about looking forward." Okay, but why wouldn't this be directed at Obama? Readers explained that some of it is. But, "if we yell obscenities at Obama," replied a reader in Dunnellon, Fla., "we get a visit from the Secret Service. Yelling them at you is worry-free."
So the angry left should thank me: I'm taking one for the team.
Dear Reader:
I wish to apologize to you for my behavior last week.
On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack.
On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to fall on its face. I am part of the ObamaMedia. I am pimping for the left. I am carrying water for Obama. Lord, am I an idiot.
I discovered all this from the helpful feedback provided to me in the "reader comments" section at the end of my past four columns on washingtonpost.com. I undertook this exercise on the advice of former washingtonpost.com editor Doug Feaver, who wrote on these pages recently that journalists need to take the comments seriously ["Listening to the Dot-Comments," op-ed, April 9]. Further, he added in his blog, "those who don't are making a mistake."
Now, I may be a pimp and an idiot -- but I did not want to make a mistake. So I reviewed all 1,800 comments posted on my columns over the course of a week. As a sociological experiment, it was fascinating.
The comments are naturally an unscientific indicator, but the impression I got is consistent with what I've heard from colleagues: The vitriol of last year's presidential campaign has outlasted the election. For the right, this isn't terribly surprising; their guys lost the White House in 2008 and control of both chambers of Congress in 2006, so lashing out in frustration is to be expected. The left, however, is more difficult to explain. It made sense for them to be angry when George W. Bush was in the White House. But now, even under Obama, the anger on the left is, if anything, more personal and vitriolic than on the right.
A reader in an online chat brought this to my attention a couple of months ago, noting the animosity in the comments following a column. "Did you torture their cats and grandmothers? Most of the truly unhinged comments appear to come from Democrats, who apparently think you're Cindy McCain in reverse drag."
I replied that, to keep my blood pressure under control, I don't read the comments, and that I did, in fact, torture their cats.
Well, last week I read the comments. On April 10, I wrote a column about an Obama appearance urging Americans to refinance their mortgages -- a fairly gentle piece pointing out that the president sounded like a LendingTree.com pitchman. The comments compared me to Bernard Goldberg and Glenn Beck. One complained that "I gave Bush and the Republicans a pass."
Actually, a National Review column called me "the most anti-Bush reporter" in the White House press corps, but never mind that. "Uh oh, Milbank," wrote commenter "farfalle44." "Now the Obamabots have labeled you an Obama hater -- watch out!"
For Thursday's column, I criticized the "tea party" outside the White House. Conservatives left hundreds of indignant comments -- I was an Obama "lap dog" and "licking Obama's shoes" -- but that didn't buy me credibility with the left. "You do a real good job of attracting all the ill-informed, mathematically challenged, left-wing haters," said one reader. "I bet ya mom's really proud!"
So why is the left so angry? I don't know (I'm an idiot), so I put the question to the readers in my weekly online chat on Friday.
A reader from Rockville described it as a "sore winner" phenomenon. "People get used to being angry and when things change, they don't. So they find stuff to be mad about." Another said that some on the left "feel obligated to stay in the fight" because of the harsh treatment of Obama by the right.
But many focused on a frustration on the left caused by Obama's centrism -- his opposition to prosecuting those involved with torture, for example. "I am angry because the whole Republican party has not been rounded up and thrown into a black site," one wrote. A reader in Evanston, Ill., took a similar view, that true believers on the left don't want "b.s. rhetoric about looking forward." Okay, but why wouldn't this be directed at Obama? Readers explained that some of it is. But, "if we yell obscenities at Obama," replied a reader in Dunnellon, Fla., "we get a visit from the Secret Service. Yelling them at you is worry-free."
So the angry left should thank me: I'm taking one for the team.
from the NEW YORK TIMES 'climate change'
A Danger to Public Health and Welfare
In what could be a historic moment in the struggle against climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday confirmed what most people have long suspected but had never been declared as a matter of federal law: carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases constitute a danger to public health and welfare.
The formal “endangerment finding” names carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases as pollutants subject to regulation under the federal Clean Air Act. This in turn sets the stage — after a 60-day comment period — for broad new rules touching major sectors of the American economy and profoundly influencing how Americans use and generate energy.
The finding is also likely to accelerate the progress of climate legislation in Congress and will give the United States the credibility it lost in international climate negotiations during the Bush administration. The next round of talks is scheduled for Copenhagen in December.
The decision has been a long time coming. Two years ago, the United States Supreme Court ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases harmed the environment and public health and, if so, to regulate them. Scientists at former President George W. Bush’s E.P.A. largely agreed that greenhouse gases are harmful and should be regulated. In December 2007, the agency forwarded an endangerment finding to the White House, where senior officials promptly suppressed it, refusing even to open the e-mail to which it was attached.
Though they put greater emphasis on the health effects, the E.P.A.’s scientists came to much the same conclusions: that concentrations of greenhouse gases had reached unprecedented levels and had already contributed to increased drought, more frequent and intense heat waves, rising sea levels and damage to water resources, food supplies and ecosystems.
This time, fortunately, the findings were not ignored at the White House. Nor should they be ignored anywhere, most especially in Congress, which is where the solution may ultimately lie.
The E.P.A.’s new administrator, Lisa Jackson, is to be applauded for moving so quickly, and she should move as aggressively as she can to develop whatever rules she thinks are necessary. But as Ms. Jackson is the first to say, legislation addressing climate change would be more effective and inclusive than top-down regulation. It would require broad consensus in Congress and command a wider political consensus going forward. It would also be less vulnerable to legal challenge.
Whether Congress can rise to the challenge this year is an open question. Mr. Obama hopes it can, and so do we. In the House, Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts have crafted an ambitious, many-layered bill that would impose a price on older, dirtier fossil fuels while encouraging newer, cleaner fuels. Though it lacks many important details, the bill provides a plausible framework for the urgent discussion that Congress needs to have and the urgent action it needs to take.
In what could be a historic moment in the struggle against climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday confirmed what most people have long suspected but had never been declared as a matter of federal law: carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases constitute a danger to public health and welfare.
The formal “endangerment finding” names carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases as pollutants subject to regulation under the federal Clean Air Act. This in turn sets the stage — after a 60-day comment period — for broad new rules touching major sectors of the American economy and profoundly influencing how Americans use and generate energy.
The finding is also likely to accelerate the progress of climate legislation in Congress and will give the United States the credibility it lost in international climate negotiations during the Bush administration. The next round of talks is scheduled for Copenhagen in December.
The decision has been a long time coming. Two years ago, the United States Supreme Court ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases harmed the environment and public health and, if so, to regulate them. Scientists at former President George W. Bush’s E.P.A. largely agreed that greenhouse gases are harmful and should be regulated. In December 2007, the agency forwarded an endangerment finding to the White House, where senior officials promptly suppressed it, refusing even to open the e-mail to which it was attached.
Though they put greater emphasis on the health effects, the E.P.A.’s scientists came to much the same conclusions: that concentrations of greenhouse gases had reached unprecedented levels and had already contributed to increased drought, more frequent and intense heat waves, rising sea levels and damage to water resources, food supplies and ecosystems.
This time, fortunately, the findings were not ignored at the White House. Nor should they be ignored anywhere, most especially in Congress, which is where the solution may ultimately lie.
The E.P.A.’s new administrator, Lisa Jackson, is to be applauded for moving so quickly, and she should move as aggressively as she can to develop whatever rules she thinks are necessary. But as Ms. Jackson is the first to say, legislation addressing climate change would be more effective and inclusive than top-down regulation. It would require broad consensus in Congress and command a wider political consensus going forward. It would also be less vulnerable to legal challenge.
Whether Congress can rise to the challenge this year is an open question. Mr. Obama hopes it can, and so do we. In the House, Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts have crafted an ambitious, many-layered bill that would impose a price on older, dirtier fossil fuels while encouraging newer, cleaner fuels. Though it lacks many important details, the bill provides a plausible framework for the urgent discussion that Congress needs to have and the urgent action it needs to take.
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