U.S. Considering Restoring N. Korea to Terror List - NYTimes.com
Will it really matter when Obama makes sure that Hamas has front row seats to his speeches? or when Known home grown terrorists like the Black Panthers are allowed to walk away from trial by the Justice Department because they served Obama's purpose?
Maybe this is like giving them a pat on the back and a welcome to team Obama?
WASHINGTON — Concerned by North Korean behavior that she called “very provocative and belligerent,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview aired Sunday that the United States was considering putting North Korea back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, a clear signal that any slim hopes once held for improved relations had been dashed.
“We’re going to look at it,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview recorded earlier for the ABC News program “This Week” when asked about returning Pyongyang to the list.
She suggested that international concern over North Korea had clearly sharpened following its recent nuclear and missile tests. She said that both China and Russia, which had balked earlier, seemed more ready now to increase pressure on North Korea. A strong sanctions resolution against the North would most likely emerge from the U.N. Security Council, backed by both countries, she said.
“What is going somewhere is additional sanctions in the United Nations — arms embargo, other measures taken against North Korea with the full support of China and Russia,” she said. “We think we’re going to come out of this with very strong resolution, with teeth, that will have consequences for the North Korean regime.”
Mrs. Clinton said that the Obama administration was still evaluating reports that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, had designated his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor.
And as the administration presses Pyongyang to release two young Americans being held as spies, she said it remained unclear who in North Korea would decide their fate. That uncertainty reflects the opaque nature of the Pyongyang government, particularly as the end of Kim Jong-il’s rule appears to be moving closer.
Regarding the terrorism list, Mrs. Clinton suggested that such an action would not be taken simply out of exasperation with North Korea.
“There’s a process for it,” she said. “Obviously we would want to see recent evidence of their support for international terrorism.” Asked whether such evidence was already in hand, she added: “We’re just beginning to look at it. I don’t have an answer for you right now.”
When the Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October, it was largely seen as a political move meant to salvage a fragile nuclear deal. The State Department said at the time that the decision had been made after Pyongyang agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow inspections to assure that it had halted its nuclear program. “Obviously they were taken off of the list for a purpose, and that purpose is being thwarted by their actions,” Mrs. Clinton said Sunday.
“If we do not take significant and effective action against the North Koreans now,” Mrs. Clinton said, “we’ll spark an arms race in Northeast Asia. I don’t think anybody wants to see that.”
Japan pressed China on Sunday to take a tough stance on North Korea, saying anything but a “strong” U.N. Security Council resolution in response to last month’s nuclear test would send the wrong message, The Associated Press reported from Tokyo.
But China supports a “moderate and balanced” resolution, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
Foreign ministers of Japan and China met on the sidelines of high-level talks held Sunday by their economic ministers. Asia’s top two economic powers agreed to strengthen cooperation in trade, technology and other areas.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Obama and the Press | vanityfair.com
Obama and the Press | vanityfair.com
The Obamas may have the smartest, most finely calibrated press operation in White House history, parceling out scoops (The New York Times), partisan talking points (the Huffington Post), and First Family tidbits (the celebrity mags) to a desperate media. Just don’t ask them to admit it.
The Obamas may have the smartest, most finely calibrated press operation in White House history, parceling out scoops (The New York Times), partisan talking points (the Huffington Post), and First Family tidbits (the celebrity mags) to a desperate media. Just don’t ask them to admit it.
Bill Burton is the baby-faced political op with a little too much junk food under his belt—and, at 31, with one of the political world’s longest résumés in media relations—who runs the pressroom at the White House. He’s got possibly the littlest office in the West Wing, but it’s where you want your West Wing office to be, guarding somebody more important than you. Burton is guarding his boss, the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs—who guards the president—from me. The Obama presidency is striving to be the most open and available in modern history, hence—and I am here on the 98th day—its first 100 days of remarkable staging, including dogs, wife, children, mother-in-law, bailouts, and handshakes and bows with dubious world leaders. But what it doesn’t want to be open about is the staging itself. One of its least favorite subjects is media. As much as the Obama-ites don’t want to be as defensive and recalcitrant as the Bushes were when it came to the press, having methodically reviewed all lessons from recent administrations, they also don’t want to seem as clever, pleased with themselves, and publicity-crazed as the Clintons, who talked endlessly of media strategies—precisely because they are much more clever and publicity-crazed.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs seems to be in total control of the media. Photo illustration by Darrow.
Even though I’ve been invited to the White House for a talk with Gibbs, there’s an abrupt cancellation when, after some chitchat with Burton, it becomes clear that my interest is in process rather than, per se, message. And then a kind of sudden vaporization—no Gibbs, according to Marissa Hopkins, his assistant, “for the foreseeable future.”
“The process aspect of media, the insider stuff, is not—it’s not our thing,” says Burton, whose entire career in the press offices of Dick Gephardt, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, and Obama during his Senate term has been about nothing but media process. “We won’t miss it if you don’t do the story.” Big cheesy smile.
There it is: the keynote affect of this most brilliant and successful and certainly calculated White House press operation is, We’re artless, really. Pay no attention to what we’re doing here—it ain’t nothin’ much.
The Clintons used the talk of great strategy as a way to mask the fact that they really had no strategy (and, too, according to one former Clintonite, because it “makes the individuals involved feel smart when they tell you how cleverly they’re manipulating the media”); the Obama team doesn’t want to talk about the meticulous calibration of everything to do with retailing its image and message because it is all so meticulously calibrated.
In part this meticulousness is just good management. The Obama administration has started with 14 professionals working in the office of the press secretary—and an astounding 47 more devoted to other aspects of media and message—which is significantly more than the communications staffs of many Fortune 500 corporations. But the media operation goes deeper than that. It’s more central than in any previous administration, and run more knowledgeably. Gibbs may be personally closer to the president than any press secretary in history; Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, is not only a press hound himself but a master at manipulating the media with juicy leaks (unlike, say, Bush’s Andy Card, who may never have had a one-on-one conversation with a reporter before becoming chief of staff); and David Axelrod, the administration’s main media strategist, is a former reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
But even a president predisposed to the press (and with a press predisposed to him) is sooner or later going to snap. And, worth noting, no president, after years of campaigning, is all that predisposed. Presidents, on a good day, regard almost all members of the press as mean-spirited, lazy, and only occasionally useful.
All presidents begin with a theory on how to tame the beast.
The Clinton administration came to Washington with the logical, if boneheaded, idea that the best way to deal with the press was to move it out of the West Wing and keep it at arm’s length—a gambit which cost the Clinton White House, from the get-go, the goodwill of the people whom, next to Congress, it needed most.
The Obama approach has been more subtle but, in its way, more threatening. Even before formally taking possession of the White House and pressroom, the team began to talk about keeping Obama’s much vaunted peer-to-peer network of millions of small contributors in place, of making it a central outlet of its communications strategy. The implication seemed clear: newspapers and networks had a swiftly declining market, while the Obama administration had created an audience that it could reach through its own distribution prowess and that hung on its every word.
Even given the isolation and provincialism of the Washington press corps, with the cracker-barrel feeling of the White House pressroom itself—the obvious languor and boredom of people hanging around the same small space and having the same conversations year after year, administration after administration—it would be impossible, at this recessionary moment, for the Fourth Estate to feel anything less than pure dread.
The pressroom is top-heavy with anachronisms. There are the urban dailies, such as the Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the L.A. Times, each a paper whose closing could be imminent. Then the networks, whose commitment to the evening news is ever less sure. There’s the newspaper division of the Washington Post Co., which lost $53.8 million in the first quarter and which is increasingly overshadowed by Kaplan, the educational-testing company that supplies most of the revenues for its parent company (“If The Washington Post still exists, that would be news to me,” said one new Web entrant in the Washington press corps). And then The New York Times, traditionally the single most important factor in the setting of the political agenda, now in the midst of a business crisis from which few expect it will emerge intact.
The balance of power has surely shifted—although you won’t get anyone in the White House to say that. Except every day you can read it in press secretary Gibbs’s cockiness and condescension.
You have to understand the primitiveness of the daily briefing—it’s a ritualistic sumo of dominance and submission. At least since the Bush-father administration (after the brilliance of the Reagan press operation), it’s mostly been the press dominating whoever the press secretary is, and the press secretary trying to avoid being broken as he or she does the job of trying to avoid giving out information. Among press secretaries in recent memory, there’s been the drowning George Stephanopoulos, the angry Ari Fleischer, and the hapless and tongue-tied Scott McClellan. (Exceptions include Tony Snow, the Fox News anchor, who continued to act like a television host, and Mike McCurry and Joe Lockhart, whose approach was, at nearly any cost, to please the press.)
Gibbs has reversed this dynamic. It’s not just that he successfully holds the pressroom at bay. It’s that he clearly doesn’t take the press very seriously. Gibbs is perfectly affable and even, in his way, courtly. And yet he seems to be not quite listening. Nothing touches him. This is no doubt partly because everybody understands he’s in like Flynn. Unlike with most press secretaries, where the press has the leverage of often knowing more than the press secretary, who is usually a relatively weak West Wing link, Gibbs really knows all, apparently—he’s as present as anyone in the creation of Obama policy. There is too the Obama 30-point advantage—he’s got America eating out of his hand. Gibbs has, at least so far, an easy product to sell. And then there’s the personal insecurity on the part of members of the incredible shrinking press—their days are numbered and they know it.
All of which might have something to do in the dominance-and-submission equation with why, at the president’s 100-day press conference, there were no questions about the bailouts or Afghanistan, perhaps the two most intractable issues facing the administration. When the other guy is strong and you are weak, you try to behave yourself.
Newsmax.com - Washington Post Has Become a Model for the Media
Newsmax.com - Washington Post Has Become a Model for the Media
News flash Obama, people are tired of hearing "Bush's fault"
When media executives look at their shrinking audiences, they rarely attribute the decline to their liberal bias in covering the news. But recent developments at the Washington Post demonstrate that a return to fair coverage attracts readers.
Since Katharine Weymouth became publisher more than a year ago, and she named Marcus Brauchli, a former Wall Street Journal editor, executive editor in September, the paper has been making an honest effort to be fair.
Hit jobs against Bush administration programs and Republicans in general have virtually vanished. Instead, the paper presents issues fairly. No longer is the other side suppressed or relegated to the last paragraph.
Obituaries on such conservative icons as Paul Weyrich and Jack Kemp have run on page one. In contrast, the New York Times ran Kemp’s obituary on page B10, and Weyrich’s, on B11.
As its second lead on May 21, the Washington Post ran a story saying that the “financial system, frozen solid for the past nine months, is in a spring thaw. And it’s happening even though many of the Obama administration’s major rescue programs have yet to get off the ground.”
The Washington Post gave equal display to stories on the dueling national security speeches of President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney. The New York Times relegated the story about Cheney’s speech to a brief article on page A15. The Washington Post reported that CIA records show the agency briefed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002; the New York Times initially ignored the story.
On May 29, a Post editorial described Obama’s budget, with its reliance on $9 trillion in borrowing during the next decade, as “simply unaffordable.”
For the first time, the Washington Post has an ombudsman who unambiguously tells it like it is. Andrew Alexander, the former Washington bureau chief of Cox Newspapers, has taken on two Post icons: television critic Tom Shales over his slobbering review of a President Obama news conference, and columnist Dana Milbank, who took a quote by former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer out of context.
Although the Washington Post has yet to cover its own metamorphosis, conservatives such as Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the Republican Study Committee; Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; and Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund have noticed the change and applaud it.
A granddaughter of former Post Chairman Katharine Graham, Weymouth, 43, is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School. She practiced law at Williams & Connolly in Washington before coming to the Post.
Weymouth has a self-deprecating manner and a handshake like a Marine. Understandably, she has not said anything publicly about a change in approach. But privately, editors say the tone has changed since she and her pick as editor took over.
The results are beginning to show up in circulation numbers. During the six months ending March 31, circulation has declined by just 1.2 percent, despite the fact that young people prefer reading news online,. During the first three months of the year, circulation Monday through Friday actually rose by 0.7 percent. In contrast, the New York Times, which has continued to pursue a transparently liberal agenda in its news columns, saw its circulation decline by 3.6 percent in the six-month period.
The same trend is evident in the world of television. Although Fox News prominently features conservative commentators, when it comes to news, the network has a rule that guests from opposing sides must appear on any partisan issue. As with the Washington Post, that fairness has translated to viewership. Fox News beat CNN and MSNBC combined in every hour from 6 a.m. to midnight in April.
That should not be surprising. Regardless of one’s politics, most people want to feel they are being exposed to all sides of an issue. That is one reason Newsmax.com has been so successful. With an average 4 million unique visitors a month, according to Nielsen Online, Newsmax is bigger than many news Web sites, including the Drudge Report. If ranked among the nation's top 10 newspaper Web sites, Newsmax would rank with leading brands such as The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. It is also one of the few Internet news sites to make a profit. Though it features conservative columnists and news angles that the rest of the media ignore, Newsmax prominently runs stories that are critical of Democrats and Republicans alike.
Still, most in the mainstream media pursue a double standard — as outlined in the Newsmax article "Media Ignore Obama’s Distortions" — and are in denial about their own bias.
Leonard Downie Jr., Brauchli’s predecessor as the Washington Post’s executive editor, used to say he is so nonpartisan that he doesn’t vote. Nor, he said, did he read Post editorials because he wanted to keep an “open mind.”
But, as detailed in my book, “The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack,” Downie voted every day by presenting stories slanted against the Republican administration. Having been a Washington Post reporter from 1970 to 1985, I guarantee I would have been fired for writing the kind of dishonestly slanted stories that appeared in the Post until Brauchli took over.
Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, claimed to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz that he wants to make sure readers don’t perceive Newsweek, which the Washington Post Co. owns, as being “partisan.” Yet, as Kurtz wrote, the ideas Newsweek promotes in its columns “are mainly left of center.”
Why are so many media people blind to a major reason their industry is endangered? The same reason Detroit automakers are going under.
John Fitzgerald, president of Fitzgerald Auto Malls in Rockville, Md., says he pointed out to Detroit executives for decades that Consumer Reports’ ratings have a huge impact on what consumers buy. In the 1960s, General Motors and Chrysler represented 66 percent of Consumer Reports’ recommendations, he says, compared with just 14 percent in this decade. The April issue of Consumer Reports gave Honda and Toyota cars overall scores of 78 and 74, respectively, compared with 57 for General Motors and 48 for Chrysler.
Instead of improving the quality and reliability of their cars to compete with foreign autos, “Anybody from Detroit will tell you that Consumer Reports is biased against them,” Fitzgerald says. “They simply have this closed mind-set, and it’s gotten worse and worse.”
He adds, “If you don’t give the customer what they want, they don’t buy.”
The media business works the same way. The Washington Post and Fox News show that if journalists put out an honest product that engenders trust, the public will buy it.
News flash Obama, people are tired of hearing "Bush's fault"
When media executives look at their shrinking audiences, they rarely attribute the decline to their liberal bias in covering the news. But recent developments at the Washington Post demonstrate that a return to fair coverage attracts readers.
Since Katharine Weymouth became publisher more than a year ago, and she named Marcus Brauchli, a former Wall Street Journal editor, executive editor in September, the paper has been making an honest effort to be fair.
Hit jobs against Bush administration programs and Republicans in general have virtually vanished. Instead, the paper presents issues fairly. No longer is the other side suppressed or relegated to the last paragraph.
Obituaries on such conservative icons as Paul Weyrich and Jack Kemp have run on page one. In contrast, the New York Times ran Kemp’s obituary on page B10, and Weyrich’s, on B11.
As its second lead on May 21, the Washington Post ran a story saying that the “financial system, frozen solid for the past nine months, is in a spring thaw. And it’s happening even though many of the Obama administration’s major rescue programs have yet to get off the ground.”
The Washington Post gave equal display to stories on the dueling national security speeches of President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney. The New York Times relegated the story about Cheney’s speech to a brief article on page A15. The Washington Post reported that CIA records show the agency briefed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002; the New York Times initially ignored the story.
On May 29, a Post editorial described Obama’s budget, with its reliance on $9 trillion in borrowing during the next decade, as “simply unaffordable.”
For the first time, the Washington Post has an ombudsman who unambiguously tells it like it is. Andrew Alexander, the former Washington bureau chief of Cox Newspapers, has taken on two Post icons: television critic Tom Shales over his slobbering review of a President Obama news conference, and columnist Dana Milbank, who took a quote by former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer out of context.
Although the Washington Post has yet to cover its own metamorphosis, conservatives such as Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the Republican Study Committee; Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; and Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund have noticed the change and applaud it.
A granddaughter of former Post Chairman Katharine Graham, Weymouth, 43, is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School. She practiced law at Williams & Connolly in Washington before coming to the Post.
Weymouth has a self-deprecating manner and a handshake like a Marine. Understandably, she has not said anything publicly about a change in approach. But privately, editors say the tone has changed since she and her pick as editor took over.
The results are beginning to show up in circulation numbers. During the six months ending March 31, circulation has declined by just 1.2 percent, despite the fact that young people prefer reading news online,. During the first three months of the year, circulation Monday through Friday actually rose by 0.7 percent. In contrast, the New York Times, which has continued to pursue a transparently liberal agenda in its news columns, saw its circulation decline by 3.6 percent in the six-month period.
The same trend is evident in the world of television. Although Fox News prominently features conservative commentators, when it comes to news, the network has a rule that guests from opposing sides must appear on any partisan issue. As with the Washington Post, that fairness has translated to viewership. Fox News beat CNN and MSNBC combined in every hour from 6 a.m. to midnight in April.
That should not be surprising. Regardless of one’s politics, most people want to feel they are being exposed to all sides of an issue. That is one reason Newsmax.com has been so successful. With an average 4 million unique visitors a month, according to Nielsen Online, Newsmax is bigger than many news Web sites, including the Drudge Report. If ranked among the nation's top 10 newspaper Web sites, Newsmax would rank with leading brands such as The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. It is also one of the few Internet news sites to make a profit. Though it features conservative columnists and news angles that the rest of the media ignore, Newsmax prominently runs stories that are critical of Democrats and Republicans alike.
Still, most in the mainstream media pursue a double standard — as outlined in the Newsmax article "Media Ignore Obama’s Distortions" — and are in denial about their own bias.
Leonard Downie Jr., Brauchli’s predecessor as the Washington Post’s executive editor, used to say he is so nonpartisan that he doesn’t vote. Nor, he said, did he read Post editorials because he wanted to keep an “open mind.”
But, as detailed in my book, “The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack,” Downie voted every day by presenting stories slanted against the Republican administration. Having been a Washington Post reporter from 1970 to 1985, I guarantee I would have been fired for writing the kind of dishonestly slanted stories that appeared in the Post until Brauchli took over.
Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, claimed to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz that he wants to make sure readers don’t perceive Newsweek, which the Washington Post Co. owns, as being “partisan.” Yet, as Kurtz wrote, the ideas Newsweek promotes in its columns “are mainly left of center.”
Why are so many media people blind to a major reason their industry is endangered? The same reason Detroit automakers are going under.
John Fitzgerald, president of Fitzgerald Auto Malls in Rockville, Md., says he pointed out to Detroit executives for decades that Consumer Reports’ ratings have a huge impact on what consumers buy. In the 1960s, General Motors and Chrysler represented 66 percent of Consumer Reports’ recommendations, he says, compared with just 14 percent in this decade. The April issue of Consumer Reports gave Honda and Toyota cars overall scores of 78 and 74, respectively, compared with 57 for General Motors and 48 for Chrysler.
Instead of improving the quality and reliability of their cars to compete with foreign autos, “Anybody from Detroit will tell you that Consumer Reports is biased against them,” Fitzgerald says. “They simply have this closed mind-set, and it’s gotten worse and worse.”
He adds, “If you don’t give the customer what they want, they don’t buy.”
The media business works the same way. The Washington Post and Fox News show that if journalists put out an honest product that engenders trust, the public will buy it.
How Fox News defies ratings gravity
How Fox News defies ratings gravity
Fox news gaining ground. MSNBC failing again. Maybe they should start telling some truth, fire Matthews and Olberman would be a start..
Forget about political winds and social trends. The dominance of Fox News in the cable ratings race has lasted through wartime and peacetime, boom and recession, Republican and Democrat. It's not a product of circumstance -- it's a law of nature: irresistible, irreducible and seemingly immutable.
In the just-ended May ratings period, Fox once again manhandled the competition, posting big gains in both primetime and full-day while MSNBC stumbled and CNN plunged headlong. Fox's primetime audience in the demographic of adults 25-to-54 (the ratings group that ad buys are based on) was up 30 percent versus May 2008; MSNBC's was down 9 percent, while CNN, which seems increasingly out of step with the cable news audience, tumbled a vertiginous 37 percent.
All three networks, to be sure, are down from their levels at the beginning of the year, when the excitement of the Inauguration drove boffo viewership. But as the pie has shrunk, only Fox has managed to grab a bigger slice.
It's tempting to ascribe Fox's surge to the change in administration. There's something to this. Political media outlets, whether print, web or broadcast, tend to flourish in opposition. Certainly that was the case with MSNBC, which rode the crests of Obamamania to new highs last fall, only to settle to earth once campaigning gave way to governing. Even the network's powerhouse, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was down in May (a 20 percent drop among viewers 25-54), the first time that's happened in almost three years.
But Fox has never fit comfortably into this mold. When George Bush took office, analysts and competitors predicted Fox would fizzle without Bill Clinton to beat up on. Instead, it merely opened up an ever-growing lead on CNN. Just a few months ago, the chin-strokers were thinking that maybe it was actually Bush and his War on Terror that had been propping up Fox and that the dawn of the Obama era would prove Fox's undoing. That's clearly not happening.
Fox news gaining ground. MSNBC failing again. Maybe they should start telling some truth, fire Matthews and Olberman would be a start..
Forget about political winds and social trends. The dominance of Fox News in the cable ratings race has lasted through wartime and peacetime, boom and recession, Republican and Democrat. It's not a product of circumstance -- it's a law of nature: irresistible, irreducible and seemingly immutable.
In the just-ended May ratings period, Fox once again manhandled the competition, posting big gains in both primetime and full-day while MSNBC stumbled and CNN plunged headlong. Fox's primetime audience in the demographic of adults 25-to-54 (the ratings group that ad buys are based on) was up 30 percent versus May 2008; MSNBC's was down 9 percent, while CNN, which seems increasingly out of step with the cable news audience, tumbled a vertiginous 37 percent.
All three networks, to be sure, are down from their levels at the beginning of the year, when the excitement of the Inauguration drove boffo viewership. But as the pie has shrunk, only Fox has managed to grab a bigger slice.
It's tempting to ascribe Fox's surge to the change in administration. There's something to this. Political media outlets, whether print, web or broadcast, tend to flourish in opposition. Certainly that was the case with MSNBC, which rode the crests of Obamamania to new highs last fall, only to settle to earth once campaigning gave way to governing. Even the network's powerhouse, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was down in May (a 20 percent drop among viewers 25-54), the first time that's happened in almost three years.
But Fox has never fit comfortably into this mold. When George Bush took office, analysts and competitors predicted Fox would fizzle without Bill Clinton to beat up on. Instead, it merely opened up an ever-growing lead on CNN. Just a few months ago, the chin-strokers were thinking that maybe it was actually Bush and his War on Terror that had been propping up Fox and that the dawn of the Obama era would prove Fox's undoing. That's clearly not happening.
Obama's 180 on Islam
Obama's 180 on Islam
One year ago, in June 2008, Floyd produced a television ad that asked the simple question, "Was Barack Obama ever a Muslim?" The Obama campaign came unglued. It earned Floyd prominent placement on a special Obama website called "Fight the Smears."
The news media jumped on the bandwagon. Newsweek reported: "Barack Obama has never been Muslim and never practiced Islam. But rumors about his religion intended to frighten some voters persist, and they mostly return to one point of fact: his name." The Boston Globe wrote: "Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ. His Kenyan paternal grandfather and Indonesian stepfather were Muslim, but he attended secular and Catholic schools and was never a practicing Muslim."
The attacks on Floyd grew personal; Chris Matthews on MSNBC, all but called Floyd a racist, saying, "This guy hides under a rock every couple generations, shows up again with another ad against a black candidate." (There never was a black nominee to do ads against before Obama, but facts are not important to Matthews.) Obama even blamed Floyd for breaking his pledge to use public financing for his campaign, saying, "527s pop up pretty quickly and have enormous influence and we've seen them – there was an ad, one in South Dakota by Floyd Brown I think where it took a speech that I had made extolling faith and made it seem as if I had said that America was a Muslim nation."
Now all has changed with Barack Obama's coming out to the Muslim world. Jake Taper of ABC News reports, "The other day we heard a comment from a White House aide that never would have been uttered during the primaries or general election campaign. During a conference call in preparation for President Obama's trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he will address the Muslim world, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Denis McDonough said 'the president himself experienced Islam on three continents before he was able to – or before he's been able to visit, really, the heart of the Islamic world – you know, growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father – obviously Muslim Americans (are) a key part of Illinois and Chicago.'"
Tapper also reported, "In his April 6 address to the Turkish Parliament, President Obama referenced how many 'Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim majority country. I know, because I am one of them.'"
It is time for the Obama team to apologize for their attacks of last year. Obama's official website said, "But shameful, shadowy attackers have been lying about Barack's religion, claiming he is a Muslim instead of a committed Christian. When people fabricate stories about someone's faith to denigrate them politically, that's an attack on people of all faiths."
Media reporting on these issues was inaccurate and biased. The best reporting disclosed that Obama regularly attended Friday prayers at the mosque with his adopted Muslim stepfather in Indonesia. He attended both Roman Catholic and public schools in Indonesia, but by Indonesian law the religious training he received in both schools was Islamic. Despite this information, Newsweek's Richard Wolffe disingenuously wrote the following sentence: "In five years there, Obama attended a Roman Catholic school, then a public elementary school, where he sat through a class each week of religious studies." The only religion Wolffe mentioned is not the religion Obama studied, giving the reader an inaccurate impression.
A few moments of candor did appear in 2008, like when Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times reported, "He told me last year, on the record, that the Muslim call to prayer is 'one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset.'" This is the same call to prayer that denounces all other religions with this sentence, "I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah." Inside the Islamic world, the "call to prayer" frightens minority groups and is a symbol of oppression because these nations have strictly limited religious freedom.
So when Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, says Iran has a right to nuclear reactors, tells Hamas and the PLO that Israel should give up large portions of Jerusalem, nobody should be surprised. However, many Americans seemed shocked by the dramatic policy shifts.
We wonder what Donna Caskey thinks now. Caskey, a 62-year-old retired schoolteacher in South Carolina, told the Boston Globe she researched the issue of Obama's Muslim roots, saying, "I did a lot of research, and that is such bunk." She e-mailed around findings. "We do have a lot of people in our state, bless their darling hearts, they're gullible." Sorry, Donna, you're the gullible one. Obama's now changed his story.
One year ago, in June 2008, Floyd produced a television ad that asked the simple question, "Was Barack Obama ever a Muslim?" The Obama campaign came unglued. It earned Floyd prominent placement on a special Obama website called "Fight the Smears."
The news media jumped on the bandwagon. Newsweek reported: "Barack Obama has never been Muslim and never practiced Islam. But rumors about his religion intended to frighten some voters persist, and they mostly return to one point of fact: his name." The Boston Globe wrote: "Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ. His Kenyan paternal grandfather and Indonesian stepfather were Muslim, but he attended secular and Catholic schools and was never a practicing Muslim."
The attacks on Floyd grew personal; Chris Matthews on MSNBC, all but called Floyd a racist, saying, "This guy hides under a rock every couple generations, shows up again with another ad against a black candidate." (There never was a black nominee to do ads against before Obama, but facts are not important to Matthews.) Obama even blamed Floyd for breaking his pledge to use public financing for his campaign, saying, "527s pop up pretty quickly and have enormous influence and we've seen them – there was an ad, one in South Dakota by Floyd Brown I think where it took a speech that I had made extolling faith and made it seem as if I had said that America was a Muslim nation."
Now all has changed with Barack Obama's coming out to the Muslim world. Jake Taper of ABC News reports, "The other day we heard a comment from a White House aide that never would have been uttered during the primaries or general election campaign. During a conference call in preparation for President Obama's trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he will address the Muslim world, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Denis McDonough said 'the president himself experienced Islam on three continents before he was able to – or before he's been able to visit, really, the heart of the Islamic world – you know, growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father – obviously Muslim Americans (are) a key part of Illinois and Chicago.'"
Tapper also reported, "In his April 6 address to the Turkish Parliament, President Obama referenced how many 'Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim majority country. I know, because I am one of them.'"
It is time for the Obama team to apologize for their attacks of last year. Obama's official website said, "But shameful, shadowy attackers have been lying about Barack's religion, claiming he is a Muslim instead of a committed Christian. When people fabricate stories about someone's faith to denigrate them politically, that's an attack on people of all faiths."
Media reporting on these issues was inaccurate and biased. The best reporting disclosed that Obama regularly attended Friday prayers at the mosque with his adopted Muslim stepfather in Indonesia. He attended both Roman Catholic and public schools in Indonesia, but by Indonesian law the religious training he received in both schools was Islamic. Despite this information, Newsweek's Richard Wolffe disingenuously wrote the following sentence: "In five years there, Obama attended a Roman Catholic school, then a public elementary school, where he sat through a class each week of religious studies." The only religion Wolffe mentioned is not the religion Obama studied, giving the reader an inaccurate impression.
A few moments of candor did appear in 2008, like when Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times reported, "He told me last year, on the record, that the Muslim call to prayer is 'one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset.'" This is the same call to prayer that denounces all other religions with this sentence, "I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah." Inside the Islamic world, the "call to prayer" frightens minority groups and is a symbol of oppression because these nations have strictly limited religious freedom.
So when Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, says Iran has a right to nuclear reactors, tells Hamas and the PLO that Israel should give up large portions of Jerusalem, nobody should be surprised. However, many Americans seemed shocked by the dramatic policy shifts.
We wonder what Donna Caskey thinks now. Caskey, a 62-year-old retired schoolteacher in South Carolina, told the Boston Globe she researched the issue of Obama's Muslim roots, saying, "I did a lot of research, and that is such bunk." She e-mailed around findings. "We do have a lot of people in our state, bless their darling hearts, they're gullible." Sorry, Donna, you're the gullible one. Obama's now changed his story.
D.C. Couple's Disdain for U.S. Policies May Have Led to Alleged Spying for Cuba - washingtonpost.com
D.C. Couple's Disdain for U.S. Policies May Have Led to Alleged Spying for Cuba - washingtonpost.com
We know of two more people who have a great disdain for America. They have said so in the past.
He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. "We were all appalled by the Bush years," one said.
What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country, an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three decades.
"I have become so bitter these past few months. Watching the evening news is a radicalizing experience," he wrote in his diary in 1978, referring to what he described as greedy U.S. oil companies, inadequate health care and "the utter complacency of the oppressed" in America. On a trip to Cuba, federal law enforcement officials said in legal filings, Myers found a new inspiration: the communist revolution.
Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of conspiracy, being agents of a foreign government and wire fraud. Their arrest left friends and former colleagues slack-jawed, unable to square the man depicted in the indictment with the witty intellectual with a prep-school background they knew. The Myerses never talked about Cuba or gave any hint of subversive activities, acquaintances said.
"Anyone who knows him finds it baffling and finds this completely out of character," said David P. Calleo, director of European studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a friend of Myers for nearly 40 years. "He has this amazing intellectual curiosity. He is open to all kinds of ideas."
Larry MacDonald, who lives at the marina in Anne Arundel County where the Myerses docked their 38-foot sloop, said the couple were admired for their intelligence and graciousness: "When I heard they were arrested, I felt like they had arrested Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny."
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in an article published yesterday on the CubaDebate Web site that, if news reports about the Myerses were true, "I can't help but admire their disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba."
The State Department and intelligence community are investigating how much damage the alleged spying may have done. Myers had worked as a European political expert for more than 20 years at the State Department, and had been associated with its Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1988 until his retirement in 2007.
James Cason, who headed the U.S. interests section in Cuba from 2002 to 2005, said the case is serious because Myers had one of the highest clearances. "If you can get someone into the intelligence bureau, you can have access to everyone's intelligence, not only ours but of allies. The question is, what did they [Cuba] do with it?" he said. "Did it stay with them, or was it given to other countries, as well?"
But an official who previously worked in the bureau said the case is probably not as damaging as that of Aldrich Ames, the CIA counterintelligence chief who passed along extensive information about U.S. intelligence operations to Russia. Myers would not have had access to the names of U.S. spies in Cuba, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
Falling in Love With Cuba
Myers, who goes by Kendall, grew up in Washington, the eldest of five children. His father, Walter, was a renowned heart surgeon; his mother, Carol, was the daughter of Gilbert H. Grosvenor, the longtime former president of the National Geographic Society, and was the granddaughter of inventor Alexander Graham Bell.
Myers went to prep school at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania and graduated from Brown University. He went on to get a doctorate in European history from the Johns Hopkins SAIS.
He got a taste of spying while serving in the U.S. Army from 1959 through 1962, according to friends. Fluent in Czech, he was stationed in Germany, where he monitored broadcasts from what was then known as Czechoslovakia, which was under communist rule. He went on to teach at the SAIS and in 1977 became a contract instructor at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute.
During those years, his life was rocked by tragedy and difficulties, friends said. Late one November night in 1975, Myers was driving a car that slammed into a 16-year-old girl in Northwest Washington, near his childhood home, killing her. Myers felt terrible about the crash, friends said. His marriage to his first wife, Maureen Walsh, ended in divorce in 1977. They have a son and daughter, Myers's only children.
In 1978, Myers visited Cuba for two weeks, authorities said. He told his supervisors that he had been invited there for an academic trip by the country's United Nations mission. But his guide while on the island was a Cuban intelligence officer, authorities said.
The son of privilege fell in love with the communist revolution, according to diary entries released in court.
"Everything I hear about Fidel suggests that he is a brilliant and charismatic leader," Myers wrote, according to the documents.
The diary entries record his impressions of a visit to a museum, where Myers learned about "the historic interventions of the U.S. into Cuban affairs, including the systematic and regular murdering of revolutionary leaders." It "left me with a lump in my throat," he wrote.
The following year, Myers moved to South Dakota, apparently to teach, friends said. He lived with a woman who would soon become his second wife, Gwendolyn Trebilcock, a legislative aide for then-Sen. John Abourezk (D) in her home town of Aberdeen.
Abourezk said in an interview yesterday that he liked both of them. "She is a very good woman," he said. "And I always thought he was a decent human being."
An official from the Cuban mission visited the couple in South Dakota and recruited them, officials say. He asked Myers to join the State Department or the CIA, authorities said. Gwendolyn Myers would later tell an undercover FBI agent, posing as a Cuban operative, that her husband chose State because he was not "a very good liar." The CIA required regular polygraph tests, Myers said.
Worries About Being Caught
In the succeeding years, as the couple were allegedly passing information to the Cubans, they never indicated any interest in the island, according to friends and colleagues -- even at long dinner parties in which guests discussed world affairs.
"I never heard him say anything about Latin America at all -- ever, ever," said a retired Foreign Service officer who worked with Myers and who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
It was not clear whether the Myerses ever learned Spanish.
The couple told the FBI agent during a series of meetings two months ago that they were worried about being caught. They allegedly used code IDs: Kendall Myers was "202," while his wife, who went to work for a bank, was "123."
"We have been very cautious, careful with our moves and, uh, trying to be alert to any surveillance," Kendall Myers told the agent, according to court papers.
They thought going to New York to meet Cuban agents was "dangerous," apparently because of U.S. monitoring of the country's U.N. mission. Instead, they allegedly met their handlers in third countries, including Brazil, Ecuador, Jamaica and Italy. In 1995, they flew to Mexico and then used fake identification to fly to Cuba, where they met Castro, they told the agent.
Myers and his wife told the agent they passed along information over a shortwave radio given to them by the Cuban government, and by exchanging shopping carts with handlers in grocery stores, the documents said. But Gwendolyn Myers told the agent they had stopped using that tactic -- it had become too risky with so many security cameras in stores. In recent years, they used encrypted e-mails sent from Internet cafes, they told the agent.
In November 2006, Kendall Myers's frustration with U.S. policy boiled over. In what he apparently thought was an off-the-record gathering at Johns Hopkins, he assailed the Bush administration's treatment of one of its closest allies, Britain.
"We typically ignore them and take no notice. . . . It's a sad business," Myers told the audience. The British press reported it.
Living under such secrecy had taken a toll, the Myerses allegedly told the agent.
Kendall Myers had been worried for some time that his name was on a list of suspect employees. In fact, it wasn't until 2006 that the FBI approached the State Department with word of a suspected spy. By the time Myers retired, authorities had strong suspicions.
The couple had found an outlet from stress in recent years. They would drive to a marina in the Anne Arundel County town of Galesville on weekends and set out on their yacht. Two years ago, they traded up to a boat with teak decks, according to Nancy Bray, general manager of Hartge Yacht Harbor.
"Every weekend and holiday, they were off sailing," said Jacqui Gallagher, a neighbor of the Myerses'. The couple worked out frequently so they would be strong enough to manage their boat, she said.
Despite what the couple described as their paranoia about detection, court documents reveal that they readily opened up to an FBI undercover agent who approached Kendall Myers on Massachusetts Avenue NW in April. The agent told Myers that a Cuban intelligence agent had sent him. They went on to meet another three times, along with Myers's wife.
The couple told the agent they eventually wanted to sail to Cuba, according to the court documents.
"Our idea," said Kendall Myers, "is to sail home."
'Single-Payer' Supporters Challenge Democrats
'Single-Payer' Supporters Challenge Democrats
When President Obama convened a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, N.M., last month, he wanted to talk about credit card reform. But many in the crowd had a different agenda.
"So many people go bankrupt using their credit cards to pay for health care," the first questioner said to applause. "Why have they taken single-payer off the plate?"
The "single-payer" activists had struck again. As Obama and congressional Democrats work to hammer out landmark health-care legislation, they face increasingly noisy protests from those on the left who complain that a national program like those in Europe has been excluded from the debate.
The White House and Democratic leaders have made clear there is no chance that Congress will adopt a single-payer approach -- named for the idea that a single government-backed insurance plan would pay for all Americans' medical costs -- because it is too radical a change.
That has not dissuaded single-payer activists, who have spent months hounding Democratic lawmakers and organizing demonstrations, including one that resulted in 13 arrests at a Senate hearing last month. The offensive continues this weekend with plans to swamp a series of "house parties" on health care hosted by Organizing for America, an Obama-backed project at the Democratic National Committee.
Opportunity and Challenge
The movement poses both an opportunity and a challenge for Obama, who is able to position himself as a centrist by opposing a single-payer plan but who risks angering a vocal part of the Democratic base.
"Obama is really the one who is puzzling to us," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, a union that has been leading many of the single-payer protests. "We were all supporters of him. . . . It's hard to understand how he can expect to rally support around a plan that will leave the big insurance companies in charge and keep hurting patients."
Many Republicans see the movement as evidence that Democrats are setting the country on the path to "government-run health care," as they describe it. Conservatives for Patients' Rights, an advocacy group bankrolled by ousted Columbia/HCA chief Rick Scott, unveiled a $1.2 million ad campaign Thursday that portrays Democratic plans as a "bulldozer" aimed at eliminating private insurance companies.
"It's just one step removed from a single-payer system," Scott said in an interview, referring to current Democratic proposals. "The goal is to get rid of the insurance companies, and then the government makes all the decisions."
Obama and other Democrats dispute such characterizations, saying they favor a plan that would marry private and public resources to control costs and expand coverage for 46 million uninsured Americans. Obama wrote in a letter to Democrats this week that he "strongly" backs creating a public insurance option to compete with private carriers, and also signaled that he is open to the idea of requiring coverage for all Americans.
Obama has rejected the idea of establishing a single government insurance program, however, saying the U.S. tradition of providing health care through employers would make such a shift politically and practically impossible.
"If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense," Obama said in response to the questioner in New Mexico, echoing comments he made during his presidential campaign. "The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. . . . We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health-care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy."
Advocates of a single national program argue that its benefits would far outweigh the drawbacks, noting that most other industrialized nations guarantee coverage for all at far lower costs with generally better health outcomes. They also dispute allegations by Scott and other conservatives that such a system would lead to rationing and waiting lists, saying that Americans face the same problems and worse now.
"Single-payer on its merits can win," said Tim Carpenter, national director of Progressive Democrats of America. "But we've been cut out by the doctors, the insurance companies and other special interests."
A Small Victory
The single-payer activists won a small victory this week when Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading health-care negotiations as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, agreed to meet with them after months of tension. Those in attendance said Baucus apologized for not including single-payer advocates more prominently in earlier hearings, but he also said it is too late to change direction.
Polling on single-payer insurance varies widely, based largely on how the issue is framed. In an April Kaiser Family Foundation poll about ways to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance, the option finished last on an eight-item list, with 49 percent in favor and 47 percent opposed. Moreover, about a third of those who support a public insurance option would turn against the idea if it were an initial step toward single-payer care, the poll found.
Most mainstream progressive groups, including some that have previously advocated a single-payer approach, think Obama's strategy has the best hope for success. Many groups draw lessons from the Clinton administration, which buckled under attacks from Republicans and the medical lobby when it proposed a more centralized approach.
This time around, unions and groups such as Health Care for America Now plan to spend more than $80 million on ad buys, outreach and other efforts to support Obama and the Democrats. The DNC, using Obama's campaign e-mail list of 13 million names, kicks off its effort today with thousands of "house parties" focused on "the urgency of passing health care reform this year," according to a news release.
In an e-mail this week, Progressive Democrats of America urged its supporters to "take the single-payer message" to the meetings.
DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said the gatherings are open to all. "Their voices, energy and passion are welcome, and no one is looking at them as the enemy," he said. "It's just that with the system we have, single-payer is not something that's likely to happen."
When President Obama convened a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, N.M., last month, he wanted to talk about credit card reform. But many in the crowd had a different agenda.
"So many people go bankrupt using their credit cards to pay for health care," the first questioner said to applause. "Why have they taken single-payer off the plate?"
The "single-payer" activists had struck again. As Obama and congressional Democrats work to hammer out landmark health-care legislation, they face increasingly noisy protests from those on the left who complain that a national program like those in Europe has been excluded from the debate.
The White House and Democratic leaders have made clear there is no chance that Congress will adopt a single-payer approach -- named for the idea that a single government-backed insurance plan would pay for all Americans' medical costs -- because it is too radical a change.
That has not dissuaded single-payer activists, who have spent months hounding Democratic lawmakers and organizing demonstrations, including one that resulted in 13 arrests at a Senate hearing last month. The offensive continues this weekend with plans to swamp a series of "house parties" on health care hosted by Organizing for America, an Obama-backed project at the Democratic National Committee.
Opportunity and Challenge
The movement poses both an opportunity and a challenge for Obama, who is able to position himself as a centrist by opposing a single-payer plan but who risks angering a vocal part of the Democratic base.
"Obama is really the one who is puzzling to us," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, a union that has been leading many of the single-payer protests. "We were all supporters of him. . . . It's hard to understand how he can expect to rally support around a plan that will leave the big insurance companies in charge and keep hurting patients."
Many Republicans see the movement as evidence that Democrats are setting the country on the path to "government-run health care," as they describe it. Conservatives for Patients' Rights, an advocacy group bankrolled by ousted Columbia/HCA chief Rick Scott, unveiled a $1.2 million ad campaign Thursday that portrays Democratic plans as a "bulldozer" aimed at eliminating private insurance companies.
"It's just one step removed from a single-payer system," Scott said in an interview, referring to current Democratic proposals. "The goal is to get rid of the insurance companies, and then the government makes all the decisions."
Obama and other Democrats dispute such characterizations, saying they favor a plan that would marry private and public resources to control costs and expand coverage for 46 million uninsured Americans. Obama wrote in a letter to Democrats this week that he "strongly" backs creating a public insurance option to compete with private carriers, and also signaled that he is open to the idea of requiring coverage for all Americans.
Obama has rejected the idea of establishing a single government insurance program, however, saying the U.S. tradition of providing health care through employers would make such a shift politically and practically impossible.
"If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense," Obama said in response to the questioner in New Mexico, echoing comments he made during his presidential campaign. "The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. . . . We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health-care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy."
Advocates of a single national program argue that its benefits would far outweigh the drawbacks, noting that most other industrialized nations guarantee coverage for all at far lower costs with generally better health outcomes. They also dispute allegations by Scott and other conservatives that such a system would lead to rationing and waiting lists, saying that Americans face the same problems and worse now.
"Single-payer on its merits can win," said Tim Carpenter, national director of Progressive Democrats of America. "But we've been cut out by the doctors, the insurance companies and other special interests."
A Small Victory
The single-payer activists won a small victory this week when Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading health-care negotiations as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, agreed to meet with them after months of tension. Those in attendance said Baucus apologized for not including single-payer advocates more prominently in earlier hearings, but he also said it is too late to change direction.
Polling on single-payer insurance varies widely, based largely on how the issue is framed. In an April Kaiser Family Foundation poll about ways to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance, the option finished last on an eight-item list, with 49 percent in favor and 47 percent opposed. Moreover, about a third of those who support a public insurance option would turn against the idea if it were an initial step toward single-payer care, the poll found.
Most mainstream progressive groups, including some that have previously advocated a single-payer approach, think Obama's strategy has the best hope for success. Many groups draw lessons from the Clinton administration, which buckled under attacks from Republicans and the medical lobby when it proposed a more centralized approach.
This time around, unions and groups such as Health Care for America Now plan to spend more than $80 million on ad buys, outreach and other efforts to support Obama and the Democrats. The DNC, using Obama's campaign e-mail list of 13 million names, kicks off its effort today with thousands of "house parties" focused on "the urgency of passing health care reform this year," according to a news release.
In an e-mail this week, Progressive Democrats of America urged its supporters to "take the single-payer message" to the meetings.
DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said the gatherings are open to all. "Their voices, energy and passion are welcome, and no one is looking at them as the enemy," he said. "It's just that with the system we have, single-payer is not something that's likely to happen."
Irked Grassley Tweets Vacationing Obama, 'You Got Nerve' - Health-Care Reform 2009 - Tracking the National Health-Care Debate
Irked Grassley Tweets Vacationing Obama, 'You Got Nerve' - Health-Care Reform 2009 - Tracking the National Health-Care Debate
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said that President Obama has “nerve” to tell lawmakers that "it’s time to deliver" on a health care overhaul while he spent Saturday in Paris.
Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee -- a key panel as Congress considers Obama's demand -- issued two angry text messages on Twitter on Sunday morning as the president wrapped up an overseas tour
Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to call on Congress to enact legislation to reform the health-care system.
Grassley responded by texting, “Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us ‘time to deliver’ on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.”
A short time later, Grassley sent, “Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a ‘hammer’ u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL.”
A Grassley spokeswoman verified that the senator wrote the messages.
Asked to respond to Grassley, White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said: “President Obama is gratified that the Senate is working hard to bring a health reform bill to the floor on schedule. He looks forward to continuing his work with them upon his return from the commemoration of Allied heroism at D-Day.”
The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Max Baucus (D-Mont.), has been laboring to come up with a health care bill that Democrats and Republicans can support.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said that President Obama has “nerve” to tell lawmakers that "it’s time to deliver" on a health care overhaul while he spent Saturday in Paris.
Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee -- a key panel as Congress considers Obama's demand -- issued two angry text messages on Twitter on Sunday morning as the president wrapped up an overseas tour
Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to call on Congress to enact legislation to reform the health-care system.
Grassley responded by texting, “Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us ‘time to deliver’ on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.”
A short time later, Grassley sent, “Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a ‘hammer’ u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL.”
A Grassley spokeswoman verified that the senator wrote the messages.
Asked to respond to Grassley, White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said: “President Obama is gratified that the Senate is working hard to bring a health reform bill to the floor on schedule. He looks forward to continuing his work with them upon his return from the commemoration of Allied heroism at D-Day.”
The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Max Baucus (D-Mont.), has been laboring to come up with a health care bill that Democrats and Republicans can support.
ThreatsWatch.Org: DailyBriefings: June 7, 2009 Archives
ThreatsWatch.Org: DailyBriefings: June 7, 2009 Archives
1. IAEA reports that Iran has 7,200 centrifuges ready for production, with 4,900 operating and 2,300 installed but inactive. This is enough, according to the report, to create enough weapons grade uranium for two nuclear weapons per year.
2. President Obama is reportedly nonetheless prepared to move ahead with talks with Iran "without preconditions," while others question the wisdom of such a move at this late stage in Iranian nuclear development.
3. Pentagon reports that Pakistan diverted massive funds intended for counterinsurgency capabilities against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and instead used them for maintaining its conventional forces for defense against India. Not without irony, Pakistan has asked the US to forgive outstanding debts.
4. Palestinian news reported that Fatah says Hamas is preparing for a coup in the West Bank.
5. In Somalia, a Minnesota Somali youth has been reported killed fighting against government forces there, while top al-Qaeda linked insurgent leader, Sheikh Aweys, is believed to have been wounded but not killed.
1. IAEA reports that Iran has 7,200 centrifuges ready for production, with 4,900 operating and 2,300 installed but inactive. This is enough, according to the report, to create enough weapons grade uranium for two nuclear weapons per year.
2. President Obama is reportedly nonetheless prepared to move ahead with talks with Iran "without preconditions," while others question the wisdom of such a move at this late stage in Iranian nuclear development.
3. Pentagon reports that Pakistan diverted massive funds intended for counterinsurgency capabilities against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and instead used them for maintaining its conventional forces for defense against India. Not without irony, Pakistan has asked the US to forgive outstanding debts.
4. Palestinian news reported that Fatah says Hamas is preparing for a coup in the West Bank.
5. In Somalia, a Minnesota Somali youth has been reported killed fighting against government forces there, while top al-Qaeda linked insurgent leader, Sheikh Aweys, is believed to have been wounded but not killed.
The Right Side of Life » WND: CBS Outdoor Bans Buys from $65,000 Billboard Initiative
The Right Side of Life » WND: CBS Outdoor Bans Buys from $65,000 Billboard Initiative
CBS refusing to rent sign space for "Where's the birth certificate" adds. CBS will show all kinds of questionable material to anyone, but will not under any circumstances question Obama.
As WorldNetDaily had begun their billboard campaign of buying up space to display the message, “Where’s The Birth Certificate?”, they now report that CBS Outdoor corporate has chosen to not accept money for billboard buys:
The company touting itself as the “world’s largest out-of-home media”enterprise has banned WND’s national billboard campaign that asks one simple question: “Where’s the birth certificate?”
CBS Outdoor, a division of CBS Corp. that sells more outdoor advertising than any other billboard company in North America, refuses to accept purchases of space on any of its 550,000 displays nationwide, media buyers for WND report.
The billboard campaign was begun last month by Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, due to his frustration with media colleagues not giving attention to what he sees as critical questions about Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president.
“Here we have one of the largest media companies in the U.S. now not only refusing to allow news coverage of a vitally important national question being asked by millions of Americans, but one that won’t even permit the purchase of space to raise the question,” said Farah. “What is the value of a First Amendment in a country when this kind of self-censorship is at work – self-censorship specifically geared to stifle inquiry and debate about the most powerful person in the country.” …
CBS also owns one of the three major broadcast TV networks and radio networks, an online advertising division, television stations, Showtime and Simon & Schuster, one of the largest book publishers in the world. The billboard division manages $2 billion in annual revenues, according to company statements. It also boasts controlling more billboard space than any other company in North America, with 1,600 employees in more than 50 offices nationwide. It controls billboard space in every major American city.
“We are the premier out-of-home provider to outdoor advertising agencies in the United States,” the company’s website says. “In addition to our overall advertising agency client base, we also sell and service more out-of-home media to local clients than any other outdoor company. During the company’s seven decades, its sole focus has been providing the very best out-of-home media opportunities to marketers across the country.”
Farah says CBS obviously has a focus beyond making money by selling signs.
“CBS is a company that is not squeamish about feeding America’s children a steady diet of offensive movies, obscene rap music and even TV commercials that push the cultural and moral envelope,” said Farah. “But CBS is afraid to put up a sign containing four innocent words of constitutionally protected, non-inflammatory speech. You explain that to me. This is a giant media conglomerate unworthy of operating under the protection of the First Amendment.”
Nevertheless, Farah remains undaunted in his quest to post the eligibility issue on billboards across the country and insists CBS billboards are not needed to fulfill the mission. His media buyer, who had no opinion on the campaign when she became involved, says she has had her eyes opened.
“They (CBS) already knew about this campaign when approached,” she said. “Being involved in this campaign has not only opened my eyes but has disillusioned my faith in Americans standing up for what’s right and equal in the eyes of our forefathers who wrote the Constitution for this very reason. It has made me feel sad.”
The local account executive at CBS was shocked by the response from the top levels of the corporation.
“We just received an e-mail from CBS Corporate,” he wrote. “They are aware of this campaign and we are not allowed to install it. This came straight from corporate. Sorry!”
Launched just two weeks ago, the campaign has raised about $65,000 and begun erecting billboards that ask the question, “Where’s the birth certificate?” [emphasis mine]
At first glance, my libertarian streak compells me to say, “CBS Outdoor is a private entity and they have every right to choose the transactions in which they intend to do business.” On the other hand, businesses such as CBS Outdoor are facing certain ordinance fights over exactly how many billboards as well as what kinds of advertising they can put into a given geographical area.
So, even though CBS Outdoor can legitimately determine what ads they’ll allow, the real question is why they’re rejecting these buys. And if it is true that corporate was aware of this initiative, who else on up the proverbial food chain knew about this and maybe decided to squash it?
I agree with Mr. Farah and I’m glad he’s not stopping by any means. In fact, the billboard campaign is a very creative way to deal with a very controversial issue — controversial only for the fact that some do not believe this President should even be questioned. If there’s an encumbrance popping up here, we’ll find another way around it and proceed forward.
And in case you haven’t seen them yet, here’s the link to Mr. Obama’s background documentation that continues to be kept sealed from public view and here’s the link to what the eligibility issue is all about.
CBS refusing to rent sign space for "Where's the birth certificate" adds. CBS will show all kinds of questionable material to anyone, but will not under any circumstances question Obama.
As WorldNetDaily had begun their billboard campaign of buying up space to display the message, “Where’s The Birth Certificate?”, they now report that CBS Outdoor corporate has chosen to not accept money for billboard buys:
The company touting itself as the “world’s largest out-of-home media”enterprise has banned WND’s national billboard campaign that asks one simple question: “Where’s the birth certificate?”
CBS Outdoor, a division of CBS Corp. that sells more outdoor advertising than any other billboard company in North America, refuses to accept purchases of space on any of its 550,000 displays nationwide, media buyers for WND report.
The billboard campaign was begun last month by Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, due to his frustration with media colleagues not giving attention to what he sees as critical questions about Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president.
“Here we have one of the largest media companies in the U.S. now not only refusing to allow news coverage of a vitally important national question being asked by millions of Americans, but one that won’t even permit the purchase of space to raise the question,” said Farah. “What is the value of a First Amendment in a country when this kind of self-censorship is at work – self-censorship specifically geared to stifle inquiry and debate about the most powerful person in the country.” …
CBS also owns one of the three major broadcast TV networks and radio networks, an online advertising division, television stations, Showtime and Simon & Schuster, one of the largest book publishers in the world. The billboard division manages $2 billion in annual revenues, according to company statements. It also boasts controlling more billboard space than any other company in North America, with 1,600 employees in more than 50 offices nationwide. It controls billboard space in every major American city.
“We are the premier out-of-home provider to outdoor advertising agencies in the United States,” the company’s website says. “In addition to our overall advertising agency client base, we also sell and service more out-of-home media to local clients than any other outdoor company. During the company’s seven decades, its sole focus has been providing the very best out-of-home media opportunities to marketers across the country.”
Farah says CBS obviously has a focus beyond making money by selling signs.
“CBS is a company that is not squeamish about feeding America’s children a steady diet of offensive movies, obscene rap music and even TV commercials that push the cultural and moral envelope,” said Farah. “But CBS is afraid to put up a sign containing four innocent words of constitutionally protected, non-inflammatory speech. You explain that to me. This is a giant media conglomerate unworthy of operating under the protection of the First Amendment.”
Nevertheless, Farah remains undaunted in his quest to post the eligibility issue on billboards across the country and insists CBS billboards are not needed to fulfill the mission. His media buyer, who had no opinion on the campaign when she became involved, says she has had her eyes opened.
“They (CBS) already knew about this campaign when approached,” she said. “Being involved in this campaign has not only opened my eyes but has disillusioned my faith in Americans standing up for what’s right and equal in the eyes of our forefathers who wrote the Constitution for this very reason. It has made me feel sad.”
The local account executive at CBS was shocked by the response from the top levels of the corporation.
“We just received an e-mail from CBS Corporate,” he wrote. “They are aware of this campaign and we are not allowed to install it. This came straight from corporate. Sorry!”
Launched just two weeks ago, the campaign has raised about $65,000 and begun erecting billboards that ask the question, “Where’s the birth certificate?” [emphasis mine]
At first glance, my libertarian streak compells me to say, “CBS Outdoor is a private entity and they have every right to choose the transactions in which they intend to do business.” On the other hand, businesses such as CBS Outdoor are facing certain ordinance fights over exactly how many billboards as well as what kinds of advertising they can put into a given geographical area.
So, even though CBS Outdoor can legitimately determine what ads they’ll allow, the real question is why they’re rejecting these buys. And if it is true that corporate was aware of this initiative, who else on up the proverbial food chain knew about this and maybe decided to squash it?
I agree with Mr. Farah and I’m glad he’s not stopping by any means. In fact, the billboard campaign is a very creative way to deal with a very controversial issue — controversial only for the fact that some do not believe this President should even be questioned. If there’s an encumbrance popping up here, we’ll find another way around it and proceed forward.
And in case you haven’t seen them yet, here’s the link to Mr. Obama’s background documentation that continues to be kept sealed from public view and here’s the link to what the eligibility issue is all about.
370 Could Be Cut From Sheriff's Department - Sacramento News Story - KCRA Sacramento
370 Could Be Cut From Sheriff's Department - Sacramento News Story - KCRA Sacramento
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department could lose 370 of its employees, including 300 deputies, because of severe county budget cuts.
Spokesman Sgt. Tim Curran called the move a worst-case scenario, depending on how the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors allocates money in its budget.
Sheriff John McGinness is set to appear at a budget workshop next Tuesday.
"There will obviously be a discernable difference in the quality of life in these communities if these numbers hold," McGinness said.
Sacramento County's top law enforcement officials warned earlier that a dire budget situation could have devastating effects to public safety.
McGinness said at a public budget workshop in May that people would wait "long, long periods of time for the most basic public safety services, specifically uniformed officers in the field."
Rank-and-file officers would need to be cut, the sheriff said, and investigations would be gutted.
"Not only are people going to suffer in terms of their quality of life, but business is never going to thrive," McGinness said.
The county's budget hole is nearing $190 million, and it could be $30 million bigger next Tuesday if voters shoot down statewide budget propositions.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department could lose 370 of its employees, including 300 deputies, because of severe county budget cuts.
Spokesman Sgt. Tim Curran called the move a worst-case scenario, depending on how the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors allocates money in its budget.
Sheriff John McGinness is set to appear at a budget workshop next Tuesday.
"There will obviously be a discernable difference in the quality of life in these communities if these numbers hold," McGinness said.
Sacramento County's top law enforcement officials warned earlier that a dire budget situation could have devastating effects to public safety.
McGinness said at a public budget workshop in May that people would wait "long, long periods of time for the most basic public safety services, specifically uniformed officers in the field."
Rank-and-file officers would need to be cut, the sheriff said, and investigations would be gutted.
"Not only are people going to suffer in terms of their quality of life, but business is never going to thrive," McGinness said.
The county's budget hole is nearing $190 million, and it could be $30 million bigger next Tuesday if voters shoot down statewide budget propositions.
Suit alleges civil rights violations by Metro Police - Las Vegas Sun
Suit alleges civil rights violations by Metro Police - Las Vegas Sun
Family members of a man shot and killed in 2007 by a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer have filed a civil rights complaint against the department and the officer.
The parents and sisters of Ronald Neal Joseph Jr. last week sued Metro and Sgt. Sara Bradshaw over the incident in which police said Joseph had just robbed a man at a convenience store and was running, with his gun raised, toward Bradshaw when she shot him.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Baton Rouge, La., attorney Alfreda Tillman Bester and Las Vegas attorney Alda Anderson. Joseph's family members live in Louisiana, Bester said.
Metro at the time said that at 1:47 p.m. on June 6, 2007, dispatch received a call about a man with a firearm in the parking lot of the Terrible Herbst at 5485 West Flamingo Ave.
"Officers arrived to an armed robbery in progress of a citizen, who was in the parking lot, seated in his car. Officers confronted the suspect, who turned and started moving towards the officers. The suspect had a firearm in his hand and ignored officers’ commands. One officer fired at the suspect, striking him," Metro said at the time.
Joseph, 24, was armed with a fully loaded .45-caliber firearm at the time of the shooting, Metro said.
A Clark County Coroner's Inquest jury later found the shooting justified, though three of the eight jurors refused to sign the verdict form. Several witnesses agreed Joseph was running with his weapon raised, but one thought he was running from the officer, news accounts at the time said.
A Metro Police spokesman on Monday said the department had not been served with the suit and had no other comment except that the results of the coroner's inquest speak for themselves.
Bester on Monday raised familiar complaints about the Coroner's Inquest system, saying "The (Clark County) coroner's inquests always find the shootings by the police are justifiable."
The suit charged: "Neither Bradshaw nor any other officer of the LVMPD at the site of the shooting of Ronald Neal Joseph Jr. had probable cause to believe that he posed a threat of death or serious physical harm to the officer(s), or to any other person."
The suit claims Bradshaw had been involved in another shooting about three months prior to the shooting of Joseph and because of that wasn't fit for duty the day of the Joseph shooting.
The suit also raises Joseph's race -- he is black -- and Bester said there is a concern about the frequency of black people being shot by Metro.
"We think it is an issue. But the primary issue is the unnecessary use of force," she said. "We hope this sheds light on the frequency of police shootings in Las Vegas."
"Officer Bradshaw was not fit for duty and should not have been allowed to carry a gun; nor should she have been allowed to participate in, or respond to a situation of the nature which resulted in the death of Ronald Neal Joseph, Jr. Further, Bradshaw was not adequately trained nor sensitized to deal with an incident of this kind involving a young African-American male,'' charged the suit, which alleges violations of Joseph's rights to equal protection of the law and due process.
Family members of a man shot and killed in 2007 by a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer have filed a civil rights complaint against the department and the officer.
The parents and sisters of Ronald Neal Joseph Jr. last week sued Metro and Sgt. Sara Bradshaw over the incident in which police said Joseph had just robbed a man at a convenience store and was running, with his gun raised, toward Bradshaw when she shot him.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Baton Rouge, La., attorney Alfreda Tillman Bester and Las Vegas attorney Alda Anderson. Joseph's family members live in Louisiana, Bester said.
Metro at the time said that at 1:47 p.m. on June 6, 2007, dispatch received a call about a man with a firearm in the parking lot of the Terrible Herbst at 5485 West Flamingo Ave.
"Officers arrived to an armed robbery in progress of a citizen, who was in the parking lot, seated in his car. Officers confronted the suspect, who turned and started moving towards the officers. The suspect had a firearm in his hand and ignored officers’ commands. One officer fired at the suspect, striking him," Metro said at the time.
Joseph, 24, was armed with a fully loaded .45-caliber firearm at the time of the shooting, Metro said.
A Clark County Coroner's Inquest jury later found the shooting justified, though three of the eight jurors refused to sign the verdict form. Several witnesses agreed Joseph was running with his weapon raised, but one thought he was running from the officer, news accounts at the time said.
A Metro Police spokesman on Monday said the department had not been served with the suit and had no other comment except that the results of the coroner's inquest speak for themselves.
Bester on Monday raised familiar complaints about the Coroner's Inquest system, saying "The (Clark County) coroner's inquests always find the shootings by the police are justifiable."
The suit charged: "Neither Bradshaw nor any other officer of the LVMPD at the site of the shooting of Ronald Neal Joseph Jr. had probable cause to believe that he posed a threat of death or serious physical harm to the officer(s), or to any other person."
The suit claims Bradshaw had been involved in another shooting about three months prior to the shooting of Joseph and because of that wasn't fit for duty the day of the Joseph shooting.
The suit also raises Joseph's race -- he is black -- and Bester said there is a concern about the frequency of black people being shot by Metro.
"We think it is an issue. But the primary issue is the unnecessary use of force," she said. "We hope this sheds light on the frequency of police shootings in Las Vegas."
"Officer Bradshaw was not fit for duty and should not have been allowed to carry a gun; nor should she have been allowed to participate in, or respond to a situation of the nature which resulted in the death of Ronald Neal Joseph, Jr. Further, Bradshaw was not adequately trained nor sensitized to deal with an incident of this kind involving a young African-American male,'' charged the suit, which alleges violations of Joseph's rights to equal protection of the law and due process.
Governor Paterson to Set Up Task Force on Shootings Among Police Officers - NYTimes.com
Governor Paterson to Set Up Task Force on Shootings Among Police Officers - NYTimes.com
The race card is being played again in the worst forum possible.
Gov. David A. Paterson said Friday that he would convene a task force to study shootings among police officers in New York State in light of the killing of an off-duty officer by a fellow officer in Harlem last week.
After meeting with several black elected officials and community leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Malcolm A. Smith of Queens, the State Senate majority leader, the governor held a news conference outside his Midtown office and said the task force would explore whether such shootings had disproportionately affected black and Latino officers. The officer who was killed, Omar J. Edwards, was black; the officer who shot him, Andrew P. Dunton, is white.
“We tried to have an honest and open discussion today about what seems to be a number of incidents that have occurred seldomly, but within that framework, a high percentage of African-American and Hispanic police officers who were shot either on or off duty by friendly fire,” the governor said.
Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman, said, “We’ll provide whatever assistance the governor needs.” He also disseminated a list of 10 police officers shot and killed by colleagues in cases of mistaken identity since 1930, and said they included five who were white, four who were black and one who was Hispanic. The list did not include Desmond Robinson, a black undercover transit officer who survived being shot by a fellow officer in a subway station in 1994. Nor did it include a 1992 case in which three white officers were wounded by police bullets in East Harlem.
Mr. Sharpton and others have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into Officer Edwards’s death. The governor said that he would not “close the door” to such a move but that for now he was comfortable having Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, investigate it.
Mr. Paterson said, “We are handling this sensitively; there may be issues that involve race.” He added, “We’re not discussing any institutional or direct racism.”
The governor continued: “These are problems that may be caused by perception. We’re all aware of the comments made very honestly and very heroically about a decade ago by Rev. Jesse Jackson: He was walking down a street in Chicago, heard footsteps behind him, turned and observed a number of African-American youth and that that frightened him.
“All of us tend to be frightened by circumstances to which we are not normally familiar.”
On Friday, the Police Department, which began conducting refresher training this week on how to avoid such confrontations, disclosed several other steps it was taking in a memorandum from Mr. Kelly to elected officials like State Senators Eric Adams and José M. Serrano, Senator Smith and Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. They included a study of whether police handguns could be fitted with electronic identification equipment that would tell other officers that a fellow officer was nearby.
Officials found two futuristic-sounding things that piqued their interest: research by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on outfitting police equipment with radio frequency tags; and a patent under consideration that would join “emitter-detector signal technology” with the mechanical operations of firearms, according to a departmental memo on the topic that was made public on Friday.
“These are in the very preliminary stages; there’s nothing in development,” Mr. Browne said. “These are just research ideas that are being explored, and we want to encourage it and see what might be possible.”
The May 28 shooting underscored the problems of officers of different units — and particularly those in plain clothes — colliding in heightened street situations. According to officials, Officer Edwards was off duty and in civilian clothes, chasing a man he believed had just broken into his car, when a team of plainclothes officers from an anticrime unit in the 25th Precinct saw him running with his gun drawn, and confronted him.
In a matter of seconds, one of the anticrime officers, Officer Dunton, shouted a command at Officer Edwards, then opened fire, striking him three times and killing him, officials said. Officer Edwards was 25; his funeral was Thursday in Brooklyn.
The man Officer Edwards was chasing, Migueal Goitia, 42, was charged with the car break-in. In an interview at Rikers Island on Friday, Mr. Goitia said that he had been kicked and punched by jail guards who blamed him for the death of a police officer.
A spokesman for the Department of Correction, Steven Morello, said that Mr. Goitia had made no such complaint to authorities but that the agency had begun an investigation.
Mr. Kelly’s memorandum also said the department would evaluate recent academic research “regarding perception and bias in police decisions to shoot.” The department will also have all anticrime unit officers familiarize themselves with colleagues in areas where they are assigned to work by visiting station houses at roll calls to introduce themselves.
While the department has expressed interest in technology like electronic handgun identification, Geoffrey L. Harvey, a spokesman for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is part of the United States Energy Department, said the “radio frequency identification tagging technology is probably not very well suited to use in a police department scenario.”
The tagging technology is as simple as placing an encoded electronic strip on an item, he said. But for such technology to be useful for officers in life-and-death situations on the street, the data being sent or received would have to be very specific as to location and transmitted quickly, he said.
The race card is being played again in the worst forum possible.
Gov. David A. Paterson said Friday that he would convene a task force to study shootings among police officers in New York State in light of the killing of an off-duty officer by a fellow officer in Harlem last week.
After meeting with several black elected officials and community leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Malcolm A. Smith of Queens, the State Senate majority leader, the governor held a news conference outside his Midtown office and said the task force would explore whether such shootings had disproportionately affected black and Latino officers. The officer who was killed, Omar J. Edwards, was black; the officer who shot him, Andrew P. Dunton, is white.
“We tried to have an honest and open discussion today about what seems to be a number of incidents that have occurred seldomly, but within that framework, a high percentage of African-American and Hispanic police officers who were shot either on or off duty by friendly fire,” the governor said.
Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman, said, “We’ll provide whatever assistance the governor needs.” He also disseminated a list of 10 police officers shot and killed by colleagues in cases of mistaken identity since 1930, and said they included five who were white, four who were black and one who was Hispanic. The list did not include Desmond Robinson, a black undercover transit officer who survived being shot by a fellow officer in a subway station in 1994. Nor did it include a 1992 case in which three white officers were wounded by police bullets in East Harlem.
Mr. Sharpton and others have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into Officer Edwards’s death. The governor said that he would not “close the door” to such a move but that for now he was comfortable having Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, investigate it.
Mr. Paterson said, “We are handling this sensitively; there may be issues that involve race.” He added, “We’re not discussing any institutional or direct racism.”
The governor continued: “These are problems that may be caused by perception. We’re all aware of the comments made very honestly and very heroically about a decade ago by Rev. Jesse Jackson: He was walking down a street in Chicago, heard footsteps behind him, turned and observed a number of African-American youth and that that frightened him.
“All of us tend to be frightened by circumstances to which we are not normally familiar.”
On Friday, the Police Department, which began conducting refresher training this week on how to avoid such confrontations, disclosed several other steps it was taking in a memorandum from Mr. Kelly to elected officials like State Senators Eric Adams and José M. Serrano, Senator Smith and Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. They included a study of whether police handguns could be fitted with electronic identification equipment that would tell other officers that a fellow officer was nearby.
Officials found two futuristic-sounding things that piqued their interest: research by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on outfitting police equipment with radio frequency tags; and a patent under consideration that would join “emitter-detector signal technology” with the mechanical operations of firearms, according to a departmental memo on the topic that was made public on Friday.
“These are in the very preliminary stages; there’s nothing in development,” Mr. Browne said. “These are just research ideas that are being explored, and we want to encourage it and see what might be possible.”
The May 28 shooting underscored the problems of officers of different units — and particularly those in plain clothes — colliding in heightened street situations. According to officials, Officer Edwards was off duty and in civilian clothes, chasing a man he believed had just broken into his car, when a team of plainclothes officers from an anticrime unit in the 25th Precinct saw him running with his gun drawn, and confronted him.
In a matter of seconds, one of the anticrime officers, Officer Dunton, shouted a command at Officer Edwards, then opened fire, striking him three times and killing him, officials said. Officer Edwards was 25; his funeral was Thursday in Brooklyn.
The man Officer Edwards was chasing, Migueal Goitia, 42, was charged with the car break-in. In an interview at Rikers Island on Friday, Mr. Goitia said that he had been kicked and punched by jail guards who blamed him for the death of a police officer.
A spokesman for the Department of Correction, Steven Morello, said that Mr. Goitia had made no such complaint to authorities but that the agency had begun an investigation.
Mr. Kelly’s memorandum also said the department would evaluate recent academic research “regarding perception and bias in police decisions to shoot.” The department will also have all anticrime unit officers familiarize themselves with colleagues in areas where they are assigned to work by visiting station houses at roll calls to introduce themselves.
While the department has expressed interest in technology like electronic handgun identification, Geoffrey L. Harvey, a spokesman for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is part of the United States Energy Department, said the “radio frequency identification tagging technology is probably not very well suited to use in a police department scenario.”
The tagging technology is as simple as placing an encoded electronic strip on an item, he said. But for such technology to be useful for officers in life-and-death situations on the street, the data being sent or received would have to be very specific as to location and transmitted quickly, he said.
ReliefWeb » Document » Call for stronger anti-hunger system
ReliefWeb » Document » Call for stronger anti-hunger system
6 JUNE 2009, ST PETERSBURG/RUSSIA - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf called today for a strengthened global governance system for world food security. Those aspects of the international trade system that have resulted in more hunger and poverty also have to be changed, he said.
"We have to build a more coherent and effective system of governance for world food security; we have to correct the policies and international trade system that have resulted in more hunger and poverty," said Diouf.
He made the call at the opening session of the World Grain Forum that opened today in St Petersburg, the Russian Federation, which is being attended by agriculture ministers and officials from more than 50 countries.
President Dmitry Medvedev is also attending the important meeting on global food security and the international grain market that was first proposed by the Russian Federation at the G8 summit in Japan last July.
TIME FOR ACTION
"What is important today is to realize that the time of talk has long past," Diouf told the forum. "Now is the time for action. The food crisis has taught us that to defeat hunger, we have to deal with its root causes and not to continue coping with the consequences of past mistakes," he said.
"The increase in food prices began in 2006, it accelerated in 2007, and peaked by June 2008. This meant that within only two years, international prices of basic food commodities rose by about 60 percent while those for grains doubled," Diouf said.
He added, that "it should be noted that average prices of food are still 17 percent higher than in 2006 and 24 percent higher than in 2005. In addition, the "stock-to-use" ratio for cereals in 2007/08, at 20.2 percent, was at its lowest level in 30 years".
115 MILLION MORE HUNGRY
High food prices caused the number of hungry people in the world to soar by 115 million, according to the FAO and the financial crisis is aggravating the situation even more.
"Preliminary results of work conducted by FAO show that the financial and economic crisis could drag more than 100 million persons into chronic hunger" said Diouf, noting that 15 percent of the global population now do not get enough food to eat.
Thirty-one countries are as of last month in a situation of food crisis requiring emergency assistance. Twenty of these are in Africa, nine in Asia and the Near East and two in Central America and the Caribbean.
PROPER FUNDS NEEDED
"This cannot be acceptable. How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith this dramatic situation in a state of abundance of international resources and when trillions of US dollars are being spent to stimulate the world economy?" he said.
The FAO Director General also called for more and "proper" funds to assist developing countries increase their agricultural output by investing in rural infrastructures and ensuring access to modern inputs and "assistance of adequate institutions for small farmers."
6 JUNE 2009, ST PETERSBURG/RUSSIA - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf called today for a strengthened global governance system for world food security. Those aspects of the international trade system that have resulted in more hunger and poverty also have to be changed, he said.
"We have to build a more coherent and effective system of governance for world food security; we have to correct the policies and international trade system that have resulted in more hunger and poverty," said Diouf.
He made the call at the opening session of the World Grain Forum that opened today in St Petersburg, the Russian Federation, which is being attended by agriculture ministers and officials from more than 50 countries.
President Dmitry Medvedev is also attending the important meeting on global food security and the international grain market that was first proposed by the Russian Federation at the G8 summit in Japan last July.
TIME FOR ACTION
"What is important today is to realize that the time of talk has long past," Diouf told the forum. "Now is the time for action. The food crisis has taught us that to defeat hunger, we have to deal with its root causes and not to continue coping with the consequences of past mistakes," he said.
"The increase in food prices began in 2006, it accelerated in 2007, and peaked by June 2008. This meant that within only two years, international prices of basic food commodities rose by about 60 percent while those for grains doubled," Diouf said.
He added, that "it should be noted that average prices of food are still 17 percent higher than in 2006 and 24 percent higher than in 2005. In addition, the "stock-to-use" ratio for cereals in 2007/08, at 20.2 percent, was at its lowest level in 30 years".
115 MILLION MORE HUNGRY
High food prices caused the number of hungry people in the world to soar by 115 million, according to the FAO and the financial crisis is aggravating the situation even more.
"Preliminary results of work conducted by FAO show that the financial and economic crisis could drag more than 100 million persons into chronic hunger" said Diouf, noting that 15 percent of the global population now do not get enough food to eat.
Thirty-one countries are as of last month in a situation of food crisis requiring emergency assistance. Twenty of these are in Africa, nine in Asia and the Near East and two in Central America and the Caribbean.
PROPER FUNDS NEEDED
"This cannot be acceptable. How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith this dramatic situation in a state of abundance of international resources and when trillions of US dollars are being spent to stimulate the world economy?" he said.
The FAO Director General also called for more and "proper" funds to assist developing countries increase their agricultural output by investing in rural infrastructures and ensuring access to modern inputs and "assistance of adequate institutions for small farmers."
MilitaryIndustrialComplex.com - Home of the Military Industrial Complex and Defense Spending
MilitaryIndustrialComplex.com - Home of the Military Industrial Complex and Defense Spending
"We must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes"
[ Value of ALL Contracts Since Tracking Began
on October 30, 2006 ]
$691,198,763,759
[ Value of Contracts In 2009 ]
$72,054,021,846
SO FAR since 10/30/06
MilitaryIndustrialComplex.com has recorded a total of 8,792 publicly-reported defense contracts. To date, that is an average of $2,254 for each member of the US citizenry (306,602,003 - Census.gov - 06/06/09).
RECENT updated M-F after 5PM ET
There were 10 publicly-reported Defense Contracts listed [ TODAY ] totaling $487,189,833.
DAY PRIOR
There were 16 publicly-reported Defense Contract listed [ YESTERDAY ] totaling $375,965,800.
THIS WEEK
59 publicly-reported Defense Contracts are listed This Week totaling $4,027,888,455.
LAST WEEK
54 publicly-reported Defense Contracts were listed Last Week totaling $2,918,362,924.
THIS MONTH
59 publicly-reported Defense Contracts are listed This Month totaling $4,027,888,455.
LAST MONTH
227 publicly-reported defense contracts were listed in April totaling $9,204,997,730.
"We must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes"
[ Value of ALL Contracts Since Tracking Began
on October 30, 2006 ]
$691,198,763,759
[ Value of Contracts In 2009 ]
$72,054,021,846
SO FAR since 10/30/06
MilitaryIndustrialComplex.com has recorded a total of 8,792 publicly-reported defense contracts. To date, that is an average of $2,254 for each member of the US citizenry (306,602,003 - Census.gov - 06/06/09).
RECENT updated M-F after 5PM ET
There were 10 publicly-reported Defense Contracts listed [ TODAY ] totaling $487,189,833.
DAY PRIOR
There were 16 publicly-reported Defense Contract listed [ YESTERDAY ] totaling $375,965,800.
THIS WEEK
59 publicly-reported Defense Contracts are listed This Week totaling $4,027,888,455.
LAST WEEK
54 publicly-reported Defense Contracts were listed Last Week totaling $2,918,362,924.
THIS MONTH
59 publicly-reported Defense Contracts are listed This Month totaling $4,027,888,455.
LAST MONTH
227 publicly-reported defense contracts were listed in April totaling $9,204,997,730.
Ed Driscoll » New Silicon Graffiti Video: “P.U.M.A. Power!”
Ed Driscoll » New Silicon Graffiti Video: “P.U.M.A. Power!”
G.M. or Government Motors. Lets see whats on the production line.
G.M. or Government Motors. Lets see whats on the production line.
Ex-US Rep. Jefferson faces federal bribery charges - Yahoo! News
Ex-US Rep. Jefferson faces federal bribery charges - Yahoo! News
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson faces several obstacles to being acquitted of bribery, racketeering and other federal charges — and topping the list is explaining the $90,000 cash stashed in his freezer.
Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans until losing his bid for re-election last year, goes on trial Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on allegations that he received more than $400,000 in bribes in return for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.
Defense attorneys are expected to attack the credibility of a witness who frequently wore a wire for the government. They have to hope a jury will accept a fairly legalistic distinction that Jefferson's conduct wasn't bribery, but was more technically akin to influence peddling. And there's the money in the freezer — $90,000 wrapped in aluminum foil, found by federal agents in August 2005 in Jefferson's Washington home.
Just days earlier, agents videotaped him at a northern Virginia hotel accepting a suitcase stuffed with $100,000 cash from a cooperating witness.
The freezer funds became such a headline that Robert Trout, Jefferson's lawyer, suggested at a recent hearing that potential jurors need to be reminded during the jury selection phase of the trial that the Jefferson case is the one about "the money in the freezer" to try to weed out jurors exposed to pretrial publicity.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III agreed the reminder would be appropriate.
Jefferson himself has said very little about the money. After he was arraigned and pleaded not guilty in June 2007, he said "when all the facts are understood, I trust that I will be vindicated."
He also emphasized that the $90,000 was "the FBI's money" and given to him as part of their investigation of him.
The cooperating witness who gave Jefferson the cash was Lori Mody, a northern Virginia business executive whose complaint to the FBI in March 2005 launched the probe against Jefferson. According to the indictment, Mody was becoming suspicious that Jefferson constantly was demanding cash to facilitate various business deals. She is expected to testify against the former congressman.
Jefferson's lawyers have questioned whether Mody is a reliable witness and whether her memory can be trusted. They have sought records of Mody's mental health history and raised questions about possibly erratic behavior, including Mody's fears that she was being stalked.
Other allegations raised in court papers by Jefferson's lawyers remain under seal.
Prosecutors have accused Jefferson of trying to smear and intimidate Mody. They argue that Mody's memory of events is irrelevant when she was wearing a wire and the conversations in question have been recorded.
Trout has said his client has a constitutional right to confront witnesses, and that not all conversations between the two were recorded.
Mody's lawyer did not return calls seeking comment.
The most important question, though, might be a technical one — the issue of what constitutes bribery under federal law.
Bribery occurs when an officeholder receives something of value in exchange for an "official act." Defense lawyers argue that unless Jefferson took money in exchange for an official duty like voting on a bill or sponsoring legislation, it isn't illegal. It may be immoral influence peddling, they say — but not illegal.
Prosecutors offer a more expansive view: If Jefferson used the influence of his office to benefit constituents, then it falls under the bribery statute.
George Jackson, a Chicago-based defense attorney with the Bryan Cave firm and a former federal prosecutor with expertise in political corruption cases, said bribery is a difficult crime to prove. No federal law prohibits a congressman, for example, from holding a second job as a business consultant and receiving payment.
But he said Ellis' pretrial rulings on the issue so far have been favorable to prosecutors. And jurors may be less inclined to distinguish between immoral and illegal.
The trial is expected to last at least a month.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson faces several obstacles to being acquitted of bribery, racketeering and other federal charges — and topping the list is explaining the $90,000 cash stashed in his freezer.
Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans until losing his bid for re-election last year, goes on trial Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on allegations that he received more than $400,000 in bribes in return for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.
Defense attorneys are expected to attack the credibility of a witness who frequently wore a wire for the government. They have to hope a jury will accept a fairly legalistic distinction that Jefferson's conduct wasn't bribery, but was more technically akin to influence peddling. And there's the money in the freezer — $90,000 wrapped in aluminum foil, found by federal agents in August 2005 in Jefferson's Washington home.
Just days earlier, agents videotaped him at a northern Virginia hotel accepting a suitcase stuffed with $100,000 cash from a cooperating witness.
The freezer funds became such a headline that Robert Trout, Jefferson's lawyer, suggested at a recent hearing that potential jurors need to be reminded during the jury selection phase of the trial that the Jefferson case is the one about "the money in the freezer" to try to weed out jurors exposed to pretrial publicity.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III agreed the reminder would be appropriate.
Jefferson himself has said very little about the money. After he was arraigned and pleaded not guilty in June 2007, he said "when all the facts are understood, I trust that I will be vindicated."
He also emphasized that the $90,000 was "the FBI's money" and given to him as part of their investigation of him.
The cooperating witness who gave Jefferson the cash was Lori Mody, a northern Virginia business executive whose complaint to the FBI in March 2005 launched the probe against Jefferson. According to the indictment, Mody was becoming suspicious that Jefferson constantly was demanding cash to facilitate various business deals. She is expected to testify against the former congressman.
Jefferson's lawyers have questioned whether Mody is a reliable witness and whether her memory can be trusted. They have sought records of Mody's mental health history and raised questions about possibly erratic behavior, including Mody's fears that she was being stalked.
Other allegations raised in court papers by Jefferson's lawyers remain under seal.
Prosecutors have accused Jefferson of trying to smear and intimidate Mody. They argue that Mody's memory of events is irrelevant when she was wearing a wire and the conversations in question have been recorded.
Trout has said his client has a constitutional right to confront witnesses, and that not all conversations between the two were recorded.
Mody's lawyer did not return calls seeking comment.
The most important question, though, might be a technical one — the issue of what constitutes bribery under federal law.
Bribery occurs when an officeholder receives something of value in exchange for an "official act." Defense lawyers argue that unless Jefferson took money in exchange for an official duty like voting on a bill or sponsoring legislation, it isn't illegal. It may be immoral influence peddling, they say — but not illegal.
Prosecutors offer a more expansive view: If Jefferson used the influence of his office to benefit constituents, then it falls under the bribery statute.
George Jackson, a Chicago-based defense attorney with the Bryan Cave firm and a former federal prosecutor with expertise in political corruption cases, said bribery is a difficult crime to prove. No federal law prohibits a congressman, for example, from holding a second job as a business consultant and receiving payment.
But he said Ellis' pretrial rulings on the issue so far have been favorable to prosecutors. And jurors may be less inclined to distinguish between immoral and illegal.
The trial is expected to last at least a month.
US Envoy Says Pakistanis Turning Against Taliban
US Envoy Says Pakistanis Turning Against Taliban
"We found a tremendous change in Pakistan since I was here last just a few weeks ago," he said. "We saw evidence on the ground in the refugee camps and among the leaders of civil society we met here in Islamabad - we found evidence of a substantial change the public mood here in Pakistan against the miscreants, the militants."
A suicide bomber killed at least 32 people at a mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Friday just hours before top U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declared the Pakistani mood has turned decidedly against Islamic extremism.
Police say the attack came during Friday prayers at a mosque packed with worshippers in Upper Dir district, not far from Swat Valley where the Pakistani army has been fighting Taliban militants.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But a top Taliban commander has vowed that militants will stage attacks across Pakistan to avenge the government offensive in Swat, where the army has captured a number of key militant strongholds.
As reports of the attack came in, the United State's top envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan was speaking to reporters in the capital, Islamabad, at the end of a three-day visit to the country. After a series of meetings with officials and a high-profile visit to a refugee camp in Mardan, envoy Richard Holbrooke said he is convinced the Pakistani public will no longer tolerate extremists.
"We found a tremendous change in Pakistan since I was here last just a few weeks ago," he said. "We saw evidence on the ground in the refugee camps and among the leaders of civil society we met here in Islamabad - we found evidence of a substantial change the public mood here in Pakistan against the miscreants, the militants."
Holbrooke also praised the military for its strategic gains against Taliban fighters in the northwest over the past two weeks. But he stressed repeatedly that having "turned the corner" in Pakistan, it was now time to consolidate the gains.
"The test of this policy is whether the refugees can go home, go home quickly, and return to their normal lives," said Holbrooke.
"And that is going to be - it has to be - a large internationally supported reconstruction effort. We've all seen refugee camps that start out as tent cities and harden into permanent towns, villages. It's happened in every part of the world. This cannot happen here."
Holbrooke said the United States, with Congressional approval, will provide more than $300 million in humanitarian aid to Pakistan, but that no U.S. troops will be deployed here, adding that securing Pakistan was a task for the Pakistani government.
Holbrooke, whose portfolio includes Afghanistan, was asked if the imminent deployment of 17,000 new troops to southern and eastern Afghanistan, might create more instability along the border with Pakistan as militants try to seek refuge here.
"We are concerned that there may be some spill-over effect as there has been in the past. I've raised it repeatedly in Washington and here and in Kabul. I don't want to be an alarmist here," he said.
"But the one thing that is very important is that as the ISAF [NATO] forces operate in the areas near the Pakistan border that the impact on Pakistan be taken into account at all times, and that the Pakistani security forces are properly aware of the military actions are so they can do what is necessary to protect your border," he added.
Mr. Holbrooke's trip to Pakistan, his third since being appointed a special representative, was clearly designed to show support for the Pakistani army's campaign against the Taliban and to provide money to help deal with the humanitarian crisis that was unleashed as a result of the offensive.
But while Holbrooke's message of support may be welcome, there are still long-standing tensions between Washington and Islamabad that include the Obama administration's decision to continue missile strikes against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban bases in Pakistan's tribal areas, a policy that is deeply unpopular in Pakistan.
"We found a tremendous change in Pakistan since I was here last just a few weeks ago," he said. "We saw evidence on the ground in the refugee camps and among the leaders of civil society we met here in Islamabad - we found evidence of a substantial change the public mood here in Pakistan against the miscreants, the militants."
A suicide bomber killed at least 32 people at a mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Friday just hours before top U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declared the Pakistani mood has turned decidedly against Islamic extremism.
Police say the attack came during Friday prayers at a mosque packed with worshippers in Upper Dir district, not far from Swat Valley where the Pakistani army has been fighting Taliban militants.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But a top Taliban commander has vowed that militants will stage attacks across Pakistan to avenge the government offensive in Swat, where the army has captured a number of key militant strongholds.
As reports of the attack came in, the United State's top envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan was speaking to reporters in the capital, Islamabad, at the end of a three-day visit to the country. After a series of meetings with officials and a high-profile visit to a refugee camp in Mardan, envoy Richard Holbrooke said he is convinced the Pakistani public will no longer tolerate extremists.
"We found a tremendous change in Pakistan since I was here last just a few weeks ago," he said. "We saw evidence on the ground in the refugee camps and among the leaders of civil society we met here in Islamabad - we found evidence of a substantial change the public mood here in Pakistan against the miscreants, the militants."
Holbrooke also praised the military for its strategic gains against Taliban fighters in the northwest over the past two weeks. But he stressed repeatedly that having "turned the corner" in Pakistan, it was now time to consolidate the gains.
"The test of this policy is whether the refugees can go home, go home quickly, and return to their normal lives," said Holbrooke.
"And that is going to be - it has to be - a large internationally supported reconstruction effort. We've all seen refugee camps that start out as tent cities and harden into permanent towns, villages. It's happened in every part of the world. This cannot happen here."
Holbrooke said the United States, with Congressional approval, will provide more than $300 million in humanitarian aid to Pakistan, but that no U.S. troops will be deployed here, adding that securing Pakistan was a task for the Pakistani government.
Holbrooke, whose portfolio includes Afghanistan, was asked if the imminent deployment of 17,000 new troops to southern and eastern Afghanistan, might create more instability along the border with Pakistan as militants try to seek refuge here.
"We are concerned that there may be some spill-over effect as there has been in the past. I've raised it repeatedly in Washington and here and in Kabul. I don't want to be an alarmist here," he said.
"But the one thing that is very important is that as the ISAF [NATO] forces operate in the areas near the Pakistan border that the impact on Pakistan be taken into account at all times, and that the Pakistani security forces are properly aware of the military actions are so they can do what is necessary to protect your border," he added.
Mr. Holbrooke's trip to Pakistan, his third since being appointed a special representative, was clearly designed to show support for the Pakistani army's campaign against the Taliban and to provide money to help deal with the humanitarian crisis that was unleashed as a result of the offensive.
But while Holbrooke's message of support may be welcome, there are still long-standing tensions between Washington and Islamabad that include the Obama administration's decision to continue missile strikes against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban bases in Pakistan's tribal areas, a policy that is deeply unpopular in Pakistan.
DefenseLink News Release: Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Team Certified For Guam and the United States Virgin Islands
DefenseLink News Release: Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Team Certified For Guam and the United States Virgin Islands
The Department of Defense (DoD) notified Congress yesterday that the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams (WMD-CST) of the Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands National Guard are now certified.
The 94th WMD-CST of Barrigada, Guam, and the 23rd WMD-CST of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, are fully ready to assist civil authorities in responding to a domestic weapon of mass destruction incident, and possesses the requisite skills, training, and equipment to be proficient in all mission requirements.
The teams certified today bring the total number of teams certified by DoD to 55, which completes the 55 authorized by Congress to ensures one team is fielded in every state, territory, and the District of Columbia.
The Department of Defense (DoD) notified Congress yesterday that the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams (WMD-CST) of the Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands National Guard are now certified.
The 94th WMD-CST of Barrigada, Guam, and the 23rd WMD-CST of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, are fully ready to assist civil authorities in responding to a domestic weapon of mass destruction incident, and possesses the requisite skills, training, and equipment to be proficient in all mission requirements.
The teams certified today bring the total number of teams certified by DoD to 55, which completes the 55 authorized by Congress to ensures one team is fielded in every state, territory, and the District of Columbia.
Deadly gun battle rocks Acapulco
BBC NEWS | Americas | Deadly gun battle rocks Acapulco
Police officers were held hostage in the house, where weapons were also stashed
At least 15 gunmen thought to be linked to drug cartels and two soldiers have been killed in clashes in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, officials say.
Several soldiers and bystanders were wounded in the two-hour battle, in an old area of the Pacific coast city.
Tourists were evacuated from several hotels in the neighbourhood.
The battle began on Saturday evening, when troops received a tip-off that the gunmen had occupied a house, an officer in charge of the operation told AP.
The gunmen threw grenades at the soldiers and crashed their car when trying to flee, he added. Others arrived as reinforcements but were killed in the fighting.
The BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City says the fighting will be devastating for Acapulco, whose tourist industry has recently been badly hit by the swine flu outbreak.
'Rescue'
The officer said they found four police officers when they entered the house, handcuffed and apparently held hostage.
"We found them like this, handcuffed, and they say they were kidnapped," he said.
"So, if they were kidnapped, as they say, then we rescued them."
Troops seized 36 rifles, 13 shotguns, two hand grenades, 13 fragmentation hand grenades, 3,525 cartridges, 180 magazines and eight vehicles in the operation, AFP news agency said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military campaign against drug cartels in 2006.
Tens of thousands of troops have since been deployed throughout the country to tackle drugs-related violence, which has claimed the lives of nearly 9,000 people in the last two years.
Acapulco has in the past been the scene of clashes between rival drug gangs but has been relatively free of violence in recent years, correspondents say.
Police officers were held hostage in the house, where weapons were also stashed
At least 15 gunmen thought to be linked to drug cartels and two soldiers have been killed in clashes in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, officials say.
Several soldiers and bystanders were wounded in the two-hour battle, in an old area of the Pacific coast city.
Tourists were evacuated from several hotels in the neighbourhood.
The battle began on Saturday evening, when troops received a tip-off that the gunmen had occupied a house, an officer in charge of the operation told AP.
The gunmen threw grenades at the soldiers and crashed their car when trying to flee, he added. Others arrived as reinforcements but were killed in the fighting.
The BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City says the fighting will be devastating for Acapulco, whose tourist industry has recently been badly hit by the swine flu outbreak.
'Rescue'
The officer said they found four police officers when they entered the house, handcuffed and apparently held hostage.
"We found them like this, handcuffed, and they say they were kidnapped," he said.
"So, if they were kidnapped, as they say, then we rescued them."
Troops seized 36 rifles, 13 shotguns, two hand grenades, 13 fragmentation hand grenades, 3,525 cartridges, 180 magazines and eight vehicles in the operation, AFP news agency said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military campaign against drug cartels in 2006.
Tens of thousands of troops have since been deployed throughout the country to tackle drugs-related violence, which has claimed the lives of nearly 9,000 people in the last two years.
Acapulco has in the past been the scene of clashes between rival drug gangs but has been relatively free of violence in recent years, correspondents say.
Twitter to roll out 'Verified Accounts' this summer | Digital Media - CNET News
Twitter to roll out 'Verified Accounts' this summer | Digital Media - CNET News
Following the filing of a lawsuit by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa over fake tweets made in his name, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has taken to the company blog to respond to the suit and detail Twitter's future plans to combat false accounts.
"With due respect to the man and his notable work, Mr. La Russa's lawsuit was an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous, " Stone wrote in a post that went up Saturday. "Twitter's Terms of Service are fair and we believe will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa's lawsuit."
Stone reiterated that the microblogging company suspends, deletes, or transfers control of accounts known to be started by impersonators. He said such action was taken in La Russa's case, and also called untrue reports that Twitter has settled the suit.
Nonetheless, Stone said the company recognizes an opportunity to improve its customer service, and will experiment starting this summer with a beta preview of a feature, rumored for some time, called "Verified Accounts." These accounts will feature a special seal indicating that they belong to the person (or persons) they say they belong to.
The experiment will begin with "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well-known individuals at risk of impersonation," Stone wrote. He said the company hopes to subsequently verify more accounts, but verification will begin with a small set due to the resources required.
According to the La Russa complaint, filed last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, one tweet of the now-deleted account read, on April 19: "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." The latter comment was presumably a reference to Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile, who died in his hotel room in 2002 of an arterial blockage, and/or to relief pitcher Josh Hancock, who was killed in a car accident in 2007.
In his lawsuit, La Russa said the fake tweets were "derogatory and demeaning" and caused emotional distress.
In another recent well-publicized case of Twitter impersonation, tweets allegedly sent from jail by convicted music producer Phil Spector were later determined to have been sent by an imposter.
Following the filing of a lawsuit by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa over fake tweets made in his name, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has taken to the company blog to respond to the suit and detail Twitter's future plans to combat false accounts.
"With due respect to the man and his notable work, Mr. La Russa's lawsuit was an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous, " Stone wrote in a post that went up Saturday. "Twitter's Terms of Service are fair and we believe will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa's lawsuit."
Stone reiterated that the microblogging company suspends, deletes, or transfers control of accounts known to be started by impersonators. He said such action was taken in La Russa's case, and also called untrue reports that Twitter has settled the suit.
Nonetheless, Stone said the company recognizes an opportunity to improve its customer service, and will experiment starting this summer with a beta preview of a feature, rumored for some time, called "Verified Accounts." These accounts will feature a special seal indicating that they belong to the person (or persons) they say they belong to.
The experiment will begin with "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well-known individuals at risk of impersonation," Stone wrote. He said the company hopes to subsequently verify more accounts, but verification will begin with a small set due to the resources required.
According to the La Russa complaint, filed last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, one tweet of the now-deleted account read, on April 19: "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." The latter comment was presumably a reference to Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile, who died in his hotel room in 2002 of an arterial blockage, and/or to relief pitcher Josh Hancock, who was killed in a car accident in 2007.
In his lawsuit, La Russa said the fake tweets were "derogatory and demeaning" and caused emotional distress.
In another recent well-publicized case of Twitter impersonation, tweets allegedly sent from jail by convicted music producer Phil Spector were later determined to have been sent by an imposter.
Fired and behind bars, a teacher still gets paid - CNN.com
Fired and behind bars, a teacher still gets paid - CNN.com
Schmitz is appealing her federal conviction -- and her firing. State charges filed in connection with the case are pending. Under the law in Alabama, she is still entitled to her $51,000-a-year salary while she appeals her firing.
School officials are not happy that they now have to pay both Schmitz and her replacement. But her attorney says they must obey the law.
On Valentine's Day 2008, a jury found Schmitz guilty of two federal charges of enticing a child by electronic means, and she received the 10-year sentence. Three weeks after her conviction, the school board sent the tenured reading teacher a notice of its intent to terminate her. The school board officially fired Schmitz at a meeting in late March.
Schmitz and her employment attorney, Henry Caddell, filed an appeal with the school board.
The state defines its teachers as tenured by their time of service and experience.
The Alabama Teacher Tenure Law, meant to protect tenured teachers from unfair firings, gives them a chance to appeal their firings with the board. A change made to the law in 2004 requires the board to continue paying Schmitz until her employment appeal is heard and decided by an arbitrator.
"Ms. Schmitz is entitled to receive pay until all this is determined," Caddell said.
The school board would like nothing more than to have an arbitrator hear Schmitz's case so it can move on, but the law is not on its side. In Alabama, when there are parallel criminal and civil cases, all criminal charges must be resolved before any civil matters can be dealt with.
Schmitz must exhaust all avenues of appeal before the criminal case can be considered resolved.
A three-judge panel has turned down her initial federal appeal, but her criminal attorney, Donald Briskman, has asked a full panel of judges to review the case.
Briskman said there wasn't enough evidence to support a conviction.
"We feel that there were some leaps the jury would have had to make to reach that decision," Briskman said.
If the request for a full panel of judges is unsuccessful, the case could be appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
According to school board attorney Martin Pierson, the fight is far from over when the federal case is settled. Charges are pending at the state level. That could mean another trial and the likelihood of more appeals.
The criminal appeals could delay the employment appeal for years.
Washington County School District Superintendent Tim Savage says that because the board must now pay both Schmitz and her replacement, the schools and the students are the poorer for it.
"It's taking money out from in front of students, and that's just wrong," Savage said.
The school board has tried another avenue to get an emergency stop in Schmitz's pay, but a judge overruled the attempt and told the board to wait on the arbitrator's ruling.
"The theory behind the law is good," Pierson said. If a teacher feels that he or she is unfairly fired or accused of something by the board, they get a chance to have an outside arbitrator hear the case while continuing to collect pay to support their families.
"She has always maintained her innocence," Briskman said of Schmitz.
"It's not my job to do the judging, but a jury has convicted her," Savage retorted.
None of the attorneys could say when the case and all its appeals might be resolved.
(CNN) -- Former teacher Charlene Schmitz is behind bars in a federal detention center in Tallahassee, Florida, serving 10 years for using texts and instant messages to seduce a 14-year-old student.
Charlene Schmitz makes $51,000 a year, even though she has been fired and is in prison. 
She has been fired from her job as a reading teacher at the high school in Leroy, Alabama. But she is still collecting a paycheck.
Schmitz is appealing her federal conviction -- and her firing. State charges filed in connection with the case are pending. Under the law in Alabama, she is still entitled to her $51,000-a-year salary while she appeals her firing.
School officials are not happy that they now have to pay both Schmitz and her replacement. But her attorney says they must obey the law.
On Valentine's Day 2008, a jury found Schmitz guilty of two federal charges of enticing a child by electronic means, and she received the 10-year sentence. Three weeks after her conviction, the school board sent the tenured reading teacher a notice of its intent to terminate her. The school board officially fired Schmitz at a meeting in late March.
Schmitz and her employment attorney, Henry Caddell, filed an appeal with the school board.
The state defines its teachers as tenured by their time of service and experience.
The Alabama Teacher Tenure Law, meant to protect tenured teachers from unfair firings, gives them a chance to appeal their firings with the board. A change made to the law in 2004 requires the board to continue paying Schmitz until her employment appeal is heard and decided by an arbitrator.
"Ms. Schmitz is entitled to receive pay until all this is determined," Caddell said.
The school board would like nothing more than to have an arbitrator hear Schmitz's case so it can move on, but the law is not on its side. In Alabama, when there are parallel criminal and civil cases, all criminal charges must be resolved before any civil matters can be dealt with.
Schmitz must exhaust all avenues of appeal before the criminal case can be considered resolved.
A three-judge panel has turned down her initial federal appeal, but her criminal attorney, Donald Briskman, has asked a full panel of judges to review the case.
Briskman said there wasn't enough evidence to support a conviction.
"We feel that there were some leaps the jury would have had to make to reach that decision," Briskman said.
If the request for a full panel of judges is unsuccessful, the case could be appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
According to school board attorney Martin Pierson, the fight is far from over when the federal case is settled. Charges are pending at the state level. That could mean another trial and the likelihood of more appeals.
The criminal appeals could delay the employment appeal for years.
Washington County School District Superintendent Tim Savage says that because the board must now pay both Schmitz and her replacement, the schools and the students are the poorer for it.
"It's taking money out from in front of students, and that's just wrong," Savage said.
The school board has tried another avenue to get an emergency stop in Schmitz's pay, but a judge overruled the attempt and told the board to wait on the arbitrator's ruling.
"The theory behind the law is good," Pierson said. If a teacher feels that he or she is unfairly fired or accused of something by the board, they get a chance to have an outside arbitrator hear the case while continuing to collect pay to support their families.
"She has always maintained her innocence," Briskman said of Schmitz.
"It's not my job to do the judging, but a jury has convicted her," Savage retorted.
None of the attorneys could say when the case and all its appeals might be resolved.
Obama Plans More Active Role in Health Care Legislation - Political News - FOXNews.com
Obama Plans More Active Role in Health Care Legislation - Political News - FOXNews.com
Obama is pushing his health care reform hard. To the point of threatening congress about re-election. His health care plans will cost this country a fortune and hurt the American people. but he is going to try his campaign style ACORN bullying tactics to make it happen anyway.
WASHINGTON – The White House, backing away from President Barack Obama's "it's-all-on-the-table" approach initially advocated, prepared to get louder and more involved in the details of a health care overhaul that officials once were content to leave to Congress, administration officials said Saturday.
Obama is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, the New York Times reported.
The White House's attention increases as Congress turns to a priority that officials watched in recent weeks drift off what has otherwise been a precise pathway. Even with an Obama-imposed August deadline, many administration aides weren't sure just how much they would be able to accomplish before Congress left for the summer, and Obama has turned to his grassroots supporters to pressure Congress to find a solution.
Covering 50 million uninsured Americans could cost as much as $1.5 trillion over a decade, but Obama has cited the crippling impact on the economy of soaring health care costs and society's long-standing need to resolve the problem. Obama and lawmakers say they want to lower costs, ensure choice and provide coverage to those who are uninsured. Obama and his advisers initially let Congress take the lead, remembering what happened when President Bill Clinton took to Congress a plan deemed too detailed and too prescriptive.
Draft legislation from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would require employers to cover their employees or pay a penalty and would guarantee coverage for all.
But Obama supports a new public insurance plan that would give all Americans the opportunity of getting government-sponsored care. Private insurers are adamantly opposed, fearing they'd be driven out of business, as are most Republicans. And Obama's team has grown more willing to take the lead.
"If we do nothing, everyone's health care will be put in jeopardy," said the president, in his prerecorded Saturday radio and Internet address, aired while he attended D-Day ceremonies in France. "Fixing what's wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve — it's a necessity we cannot postpone any longer."
Congress still hasn't figured out how to pay for the health care overhaul. Obama has put forward some ideas, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Others he's suggested, including limiting some high-income tax deductions, have already gotten shot down on Capitol Hill.
Obama has stated a preference for a bipartisan solution, but that's looking harder to achieve.
A long-planned grassroots effort is meant to illustrate power and, at the same time, to intimidate opposition. It is coming with Obama's explicit blessing, according to officials, who spoke anonymously to discuss private conversations.
Aides at Organizing for America — as Obama's political arm is known — said tens of thousands of supporters participated in thousands of events for health care overhaul on Saturday.
With some 14 million e-mail addresses and an Internet-based advocacy machine that helped him win an election, Obama's political arm sought to deliver changes to the health system similar to the ones Obama talked about during the campaign — not one that was mauled through endless compromise or one far different from the one that motivated thousands of volunteers last fall.
Obama has indicated he wanted to hear Democrats' and Republicans' ideas, but has also told them that he's the president and they are among many elected members of Congress. They also were warned that the re-election campaign-in-waiting was revving its engines.
That part of the message was clear, even if other pieces were not.
After Senate Democrats met with Obama and his top aides in the State Dining Room, one of the president's fellow Democrats marched to a White House microphone and declared that the administration was open to taxing health care benefits — something Obama opposed during campaign and remains personally against.
"It's on the table. It's an option," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
The problem, Obama aides later reluctantly acknowledged: Obama had said exactly what the powerful chairman said.
Obama had refused to declare any provision "a sacred cow," according to an official familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings. Although Obama's personal position on the tax is clear, he had sought to let lawmakers fashion the exact language.
No more, Obama's team said. If the president wants health care overhaul, the White House needs to control what's being said, not its allies — or, worse, its rivals.
"This issue, health care reform, is not a luxury," Obama said in his radio and Internet address. "It's not something that I want to do because of campaign promises or politics. This is a necessity. This is something that has to be done."
Obama summed up his message with a simple declaration: "It's time to deliver."
Obama is pushing his health care reform hard. To the point of threatening congress about re-election. His health care plans will cost this country a fortune and hurt the American people. but he is going to try his campaign style ACORN bullying tactics to make it happen anyway.
WASHINGTON – The White House, backing away from President Barack Obama's "it's-all-on-the-table" approach initially advocated, prepared to get louder and more involved in the details of a health care overhaul that officials once were content to leave to Congress, administration officials said Saturday.
Obama is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, the New York Times reported.
The White House's attention increases as Congress turns to a priority that officials watched in recent weeks drift off what has otherwise been a precise pathway. Even with an Obama-imposed August deadline, many administration aides weren't sure just how much they would be able to accomplish before Congress left for the summer, and Obama has turned to his grassroots supporters to pressure Congress to find a solution.
Covering 50 million uninsured Americans could cost as much as $1.5 trillion over a decade, but Obama has cited the crippling impact on the economy of soaring health care costs and society's long-standing need to resolve the problem. Obama and lawmakers say they want to lower costs, ensure choice and provide coverage to those who are uninsured. Obama and his advisers initially let Congress take the lead, remembering what happened when President Bill Clinton took to Congress a plan deemed too detailed and too prescriptive.
Draft legislation from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would require employers to cover their employees or pay a penalty and would guarantee coverage for all.
But Obama supports a new public insurance plan that would give all Americans the opportunity of getting government-sponsored care. Private insurers are adamantly opposed, fearing they'd be driven out of business, as are most Republicans. And Obama's team has grown more willing to take the lead.
"If we do nothing, everyone's health care will be put in jeopardy," said the president, in his prerecorded Saturday radio and Internet address, aired while he attended D-Day ceremonies in France. "Fixing what's wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve — it's a necessity we cannot postpone any longer."
Congress still hasn't figured out how to pay for the health care overhaul. Obama has put forward some ideas, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Others he's suggested, including limiting some high-income tax deductions, have already gotten shot down on Capitol Hill.
Obama has stated a preference for a bipartisan solution, but that's looking harder to achieve.
A long-planned grassroots effort is meant to illustrate power and, at the same time, to intimidate opposition. It is coming with Obama's explicit blessing, according to officials, who spoke anonymously to discuss private conversations.
Aides at Organizing for America — as Obama's political arm is known — said tens of thousands of supporters participated in thousands of events for health care overhaul on Saturday.
With some 14 million e-mail addresses and an Internet-based advocacy machine that helped him win an election, Obama's political arm sought to deliver changes to the health system similar to the ones Obama talked about during the campaign — not one that was mauled through endless compromise or one far different from the one that motivated thousands of volunteers last fall.
Obama has indicated he wanted to hear Democrats' and Republicans' ideas, but has also told them that he's the president and they are among many elected members of Congress. They also were warned that the re-election campaign-in-waiting was revving its engines.
That part of the message was clear, even if other pieces were not.
After Senate Democrats met with Obama and his top aides in the State Dining Room, one of the president's fellow Democrats marched to a White House microphone and declared that the administration was open to taxing health care benefits — something Obama opposed during campaign and remains personally against.
"It's on the table. It's an option," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
The problem, Obama aides later reluctantly acknowledged: Obama had said exactly what the powerful chairman said.
Obama had refused to declare any provision "a sacred cow," according to an official familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings. Although Obama's personal position on the tax is clear, he had sought to let lawmakers fashion the exact language.
No more, Obama's team said. If the president wants health care overhaul, the White House needs to control what's being said, not its allies — or, worse, its rivals.
"This issue, health care reform, is not a luxury," Obama said in his radio and Internet address. "It's not something that I want to do because of campaign promises or politics. This is a necessity. This is something that has to be done."
Obama summed up his message with a simple declaration: "It's time to deliver."
S.Korea says no compromise against North's threats | Reuters
S.Korea says no compromise against North's threats | Reuters
SEOUL, June 6 (Reuters) - South Korea will not back down to communist North Korea after it raised global concerns last week with a defiant nuclear test and threats to attack its capitalist neighbour, the South's president said on Saturday.
The U.N. Security Council is looking to punish the reclusive North for its nuclear test which drew international condemnation, while a South Korean daily said U.S. officials are moving to clamp down on the impoverished state's meagre international finances.
"There is no reason to fear as we have a strong defence ... There should be no doubt that there will be no compromise against things that threaten our people and security," President Lee Myung-bak said in address to mark the South's Memorial Day.
North Korea, which launched a barrage off short-range missiles last week, appears to be readying to test a long-range rocket that could hit U.S. territory.
Pyongyang's official media KCNA reiterated a warning of "strong action" on Saturday, blaming the South for increasing military tension.
It said South Korea "should not make any reckless move" as "anyone making provocation will be met with strong action and unimaginable punishment".
On Thursday in a step that could add to tensions with Washington, North Korea had put two U.S. journalists on trial for illegally entering the state.
Analysts say the two, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were working for the Current TV network co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, have become bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States, which has long sought to end the North's nuclear ambitions.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she hoped the trial would result in their speedy release and confirmed the United States had explored sending a special representative to Pyongyang to negotiate for the journalist's freedom.
"The trial which is going on right now we consider to be a step toward the release and the return home of these two young women," she told reporters in Washington. [ID:nWBT011329]
Clinton did not discuss any bilateral sanctions the United States was considering but made clear Washington wanted the "strongest possible" resolution to emerge from negotiations at the United Nations to punish the North for its recent actions.
The two Koreas will hold rare talks next week over a joint industrial park that was once a symbol of reconciliation but has become a flash point for tension between the two states, which have yet to reach a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 war.
North Korea in May declared all contracts in the park invalid in what analysts said was a ploy to squeeze more money from the South. It has also been holding a South Korean worker there for about three months on suspicion of insulting its leaders.
"The North must return our detained employee without condition and guarantee free corporate activities as promised," President Lee said.
About 100 South Korean small and medium sized companies use cheap North Korean labour and land to make goods at the Kaesong industrial enclave located just inside the communist state.
SEOUL, June 6 (Reuters) - South Korea will not back down to communist North Korea after it raised global concerns last week with a defiant nuclear test and threats to attack its capitalist neighbour, the South's president said on Saturday.
The U.N. Security Council is looking to punish the reclusive North for its nuclear test which drew international condemnation, while a South Korean daily said U.S. officials are moving to clamp down on the impoverished state's meagre international finances.
"There is no reason to fear as we have a strong defence ... There should be no doubt that there will be no compromise against things that threaten our people and security," President Lee Myung-bak said in address to mark the South's Memorial Day.
North Korea, which launched a barrage off short-range missiles last week, appears to be readying to test a long-range rocket that could hit U.S. territory.
Pyongyang's official media KCNA reiterated a warning of "strong action" on Saturday, blaming the South for increasing military tension.
It said South Korea "should not make any reckless move" as "anyone making provocation will be met with strong action and unimaginable punishment".
On Thursday in a step that could add to tensions with Washington, North Korea had put two U.S. journalists on trial for illegally entering the state.
Analysts say the two, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were working for the Current TV network co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, have become bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States, which has long sought to end the North's nuclear ambitions.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she hoped the trial would result in their speedy release and confirmed the United States had explored sending a special representative to Pyongyang to negotiate for the journalist's freedom.
"The trial which is going on right now we consider to be a step toward the release and the return home of these two young women," she told reporters in Washington. [ID:nWBT011329]
Clinton did not discuss any bilateral sanctions the United States was considering but made clear Washington wanted the "strongest possible" resolution to emerge from negotiations at the United Nations to punish the North for its recent actions.
The two Koreas will hold rare talks next week over a joint industrial park that was once a symbol of reconciliation but has become a flash point for tension between the two states, which have yet to reach a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 war.
North Korea in May declared all contracts in the park invalid in what analysts said was a ploy to squeeze more money from the South. It has also been holding a South Korean worker there for about three months on suspicion of insulting its leaders.
"The North must return our detained employee without condition and guarantee free corporate activities as promised," President Lee said.
About 100 South Korean small and medium sized companies use cheap North Korean labour and land to make goods at the Kaesong industrial enclave located just inside the communist state.
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