Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The UAW golfed. While carmakers soak up $17 billion in taxpayer bailout funds and demand more for their ailing industry, United Auto Workers bosses have wasted tens of millions of their workers' dues on gold-plated resorts and rotten investments. The labor organization's money-losing golf compound is just the tip of the iceberg.
The UAW owns and operates Black Lake Golf Course -- a "championship caliber" course opened in 2000 that's part of a larger "family education center" and retreat nestled in 1,000 acres of property in Onaway, Mich. Spearheaded by former UAW president Steve Yokich, the resort also includes "a beautiful gym with two full-sized basketball courts, an Olympic-size indoor pool, exercise and weight room, table-tennis and pool tables, a sauna, beaches, walking and bike trails, softball and soccer fields and a boat launch ramp." Like everything else we're subsidizing these days, the UAW's playground is a money pit. The Detroit Free Press reported earlier this year that the golf course (valued at $6 million) and education center (valued at $27 million) have together lost $23 million over the past five years. While membership in the union has plummeted, the UAW retains assets worth $1.2 billion.
Curious about how the UAW will be spending my money and yours, I sifted through the union's most recent annual report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor (which you can find at unionreports.gov). Who knew hitting the links was so central to the business of making cars?
In May and November 2007, the UAW forked over nearly $53,000 for union staff meetings at the Thousand Hills Golf Resort in Branson, Mo. In September 2007, the UAW dropped another $5,000 at the Lakes of Taylor Golf Club in Taylor, Mich., and another $9,000 at the Thunderbird Hills Golf Club in Huron, Ohio. Another bill for $5,772 showed up for the Branson, Mo., golf resort. On Oct. 26, 2007, the union spent $5,000 on another "golf outing" in Detroit. In May and June 2007, UAW bosses spent nearly $11,000 on a golf tournament and related expenses at the Hawthorne Hill Country Club in Lima, Ohio. And in April 2007, the UAW spent $12,000 for a charity golf sponsorship in Dearborn, Mich. In August 2007, the UAW paid nearly $10,000 to its for-profit Black Lake golf course operator, UBG, for something itemized as "Golf 2007 Summer School." UBG had nearly $4.4 million worth of outstanding loans from the union. Another for-profit entity that runs the education center, UBE, had nearly $20 million in outstanding loans from the union.
Perhaps, the union bosses might argue, they need all this fresh air and exercise to clear their heads in order to make wise financial decisions on behalf of their workers. If only. UAW management has proven to be a money-squandering corruptocracy with faux blue-collar trim. Former UAW head Yokich, who built the Black Lake black hole, is also responsible for bidding $9.75 million of workers' funds in a botched bid to purchase the gated La Mancha Resort Village in Palm Springs. The 100-room walled resort with spas, poolside massages and a "croquet lawn lit for night use" was on the verge of bankruptcy with $5.2 million in debt. Despite outrage from rank-and-file union members who thought one gold-plated golf resort was quite enough, leaders defended the La Mancha bid because, as union spokesman Paul Krell put it, "'You can never tell if you are going to become snowbound." Always putting the workers first!
That deal didn't go through, but the UAW's quixotic dalliance with a failed airline did. In February 2000, the union poured $14.7 million into Pro Air, a Detroit start-up airline that, well, didn't get off the ground. Plagued by safety problems, the feds shuttered the company less than a year later. The union didn't fare much better in its venture with a liberal radio network. In 1996, union heavies got the bright idea to invest $5 million in United Broadcasting Network, a left-wing precursor to Air America that the UAW hoped to use to spread its corporate-bashing propaganda. They shelled out for a $2 million, state-of-the-art studio in Detroit and incurred years of losses of a reported $75,000 a month before closing the network down in 2003.
And while the UAW and carmakers cry poor, they've operated massive joint funds for years that have paid for lavish items such as multi-million-dollar NASCAR racer sponsorships and Las Vegas junkets. The dire economic downturn hasn't changed the behavior of profligate union bigs at the front office or the shop floor. Local Detroit TV station WDIV recently caught local UAW bosses Ron Seroka and Jim Modzelewski -- both of whom make six-figure salaries -- on tape squandering thousands of hours of overtime on such important labor security matters as on-the-clock beer runs and bowling tournaments.
At least the groveling Big Three CEOs gave up their corporate jets. Where's the public flogging for the greed-infested UAW fat cats reaching into our pockets to keep them afloat?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Clinton Donors Are Massive Conflict of Interest
Now that Bill Clinton has released the list of his 205,000 donors who have given close to $500 million to his library and foundation, it is clear why he resisted releasing the list while his wife was running for president.
Compelled by the Obama transition team to make it public as a condition of his wife's appointment as secretary of state, it becomes clear that the list is a virtual encyclopedia of conflicts of interest for the husband of a senator, to say nothing of the husband of an incoming secretary of state.
Particularly troubling are the massive donations from Arab governments in the Middle East. How can a secretary of state possibly be impartial in conflicts involving Israel when her husband has gotten tens of millions of dollars from Arabian governments and high-ranking people. Specifically, Clinton got:
Between $10 million and $25 million from:
-- The government of Saudi Arabia
Between $1 million and $5 million from:
-- Friends of Saudi Arabia
-- The Dubai Foundation
-- Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid
-- Saudi tycoon Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi
-- Former Lebanon Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares
-- The government of Kuwait
-- The government of Qatar
-- The government of Oman
-- The government of Brunei
-- The Zayed Family, rulers of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates
He also received between $500,000 and $1 million from Saudi businessman Walid Juffali.
Pardon us for looking such generous gift horses in the mouth, but it is hard to imagine so many governments, monarchs and businessmen in the Middle East giving money unless it was with some hope of a political return on their investment. Will that return now come with the appointment of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state?
After all, the next secretary of state will be called upon to mediate and negotiate conflicts in the Middle East as her first assignment. How can Hillary Clinton undertake to do so impartially when her husband's library and foundation -- over which he has total control -- have been bankrolled by the very nations with whom she must negotiate?
The list reveals another key center of conflicts of interest in Kazakhstan, the former Soviet Republic, now home to some of the world's greatest mineral deposits and ruled by a corrupt dictator, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, who according to The New York Times has all but quashed political dissent."
Clinton visited Kazakhstan and met with its president on Sept. 6, 2005, accompanied by Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra. Soon after, Giustra was awarded a highly lucrative contract to mine uranium there. Now, lo and behold, Giustra turns up having given the library and foundation $10 million to $25 million and the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative-Canada gave $1 million to $5 million more. And Clinton got $1 million to $5 million from Laksmi Mittal, the fourth wealthiest person on the Forbes billionaire list and a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan.
In addition, Clinton further fished in troubled waters by taking $1 million to $5 million from Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of the controversial former president of Ukraine.
Given the complexities of U.S. policy toward the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, it is hard to see how this massive and incestuous relationship cannot but complicate Hillary's independence.
One of the largest donors to the library and foundation was UNITAID, an international organization largely controlled by France, which donated more than $25 million. And the conflicts of interest are not all just foreign. Corporate bailout recipients and wanna-be recipients donated to the Clinton fund. They include: AIG, Lehman, Merrill, the Citi Foundation and General Motors.
And, almost as an afterthought, the list reveals a donation of at least $450,000 from Denise Rich, presumably in return for her ex-husband's presidential pardon.
How could a United States senator possibly serve dispassionately while her husband was collecting money from these donors on this kind of scale? And how could we have almost elected a president without realizing these conflicts existed? And how on earth can a secretary of state function with these conflicts hanging over her head?
Compelled by the Obama transition team to make it public as a condition of his wife's appointment as secretary of state, it becomes clear that the list is a virtual encyclopedia of conflicts of interest for the husband of a senator, to say nothing of the husband of an incoming secretary of state.
Particularly troubling are the massive donations from Arab governments in the Middle East. How can a secretary of state possibly be impartial in conflicts involving Israel when her husband has gotten tens of millions of dollars from Arabian governments and high-ranking people. Specifically, Clinton got:
Between $10 million and $25 million from:
-- The government of Saudi Arabia
Between $1 million and $5 million from:
-- Friends of Saudi Arabia
-- The Dubai Foundation
-- Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid
-- Saudi tycoon Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi
-- Former Lebanon Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares
-- The government of Kuwait
-- The government of Qatar
-- The government of Oman
-- The government of Brunei
-- The Zayed Family, rulers of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates
He also received between $500,000 and $1 million from Saudi businessman Walid Juffali.
Pardon us for looking such generous gift horses in the mouth, but it is hard to imagine so many governments, monarchs and businessmen in the Middle East giving money unless it was with some hope of a political return on their investment. Will that return now come with the appointment of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state?
After all, the next secretary of state will be called upon to mediate and negotiate conflicts in the Middle East as her first assignment. How can Hillary Clinton undertake to do so impartially when her husband's library and foundation -- over which he has total control -- have been bankrolled by the very nations with whom she must negotiate?
The list reveals another key center of conflicts of interest in Kazakhstan, the former Soviet Republic, now home to some of the world's greatest mineral deposits and ruled by a corrupt dictator, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, who according to The New York Times has all but quashed political dissent."
Clinton visited Kazakhstan and met with its president on Sept. 6, 2005, accompanied by Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra. Soon after, Giustra was awarded a highly lucrative contract to mine uranium there. Now, lo and behold, Giustra turns up having given the library and foundation $10 million to $25 million and the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative-Canada gave $1 million to $5 million more. And Clinton got $1 million to $5 million from Laksmi Mittal, the fourth wealthiest person on the Forbes billionaire list and a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan.
In addition, Clinton further fished in troubled waters by taking $1 million to $5 million from Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of the controversial former president of Ukraine.
Given the complexities of U.S. policy toward the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, it is hard to see how this massive and incestuous relationship cannot but complicate Hillary's independence.
One of the largest donors to the library and foundation was UNITAID, an international organization largely controlled by France, which donated more than $25 million. And the conflicts of interest are not all just foreign. Corporate bailout recipients and wanna-be recipients donated to the Clinton fund. They include: AIG, Lehman, Merrill, the Citi Foundation and General Motors.
And, almost as an afterthought, the list reveals a donation of at least $450,000 from Denise Rich, presumably in return for her ex-husband's presidential pardon.
How could a United States senator possibly serve dispassionately while her husband was collecting money from these donors on this kind of scale? And how could we have almost elected a president without realizing these conflicts existed? And how on earth can a secretary of state function with these conflicts hanging over her head?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Nancy Pelosi Enables "Culture of Corruption"
Even as the country reels from the seamy details of the Blagojevich scandal, Nancy Pelosi is standing firmly by her man, Charlie Rangel, resisting any effort to remove him from his committee chairmanship -- despite credible allegations against him of tax avoidance and other chicanery.
Neither party does as well as it ought in prospectively tossing out wrongdoers. But once credible allegations of wrongdoing are tendered, Republicans do tend to clean house, where Democrats rally 'round (some of the difference may be attributable to the way the press covers one party's scandals vs. the other's, as noted here).
It's remarkable that Nancy Pelosi would rather defend Charlie Rangel's prerogatives than clean House. That, coupled with the irony of Rangel continuing to head the committee that writes legislation raising our taxes -- even as it appears he may have declined to pay his own -- seems to be sending a message that would have made Leona Helmsley proud: Paying taxes is just for the "little people" . . . or those not fortunate enough to hold government office.
Is this really the way the Democrats want to kick off their overwhelming majority session?
Neither party does as well as it ought in prospectively tossing out wrongdoers. But once credible allegations of wrongdoing are tendered, Republicans do tend to clean house, where Democrats rally 'round (some of the difference may be attributable to the way the press covers one party's scandals vs. the other's, as noted here).
It's remarkable that Nancy Pelosi would rather defend Charlie Rangel's prerogatives than clean House. That, coupled with the irony of Rangel continuing to head the committee that writes legislation raising our taxes -- even as it appears he may have declined to pay his own -- seems to be sending a message that would have made Leona Helmsley proud: Paying taxes is just for the "little people" . . . or those not fortunate enough to hold government office.
Is this really the way the Democrats want to kick off their overwhelming majority session?
The Democratic Culture of Corruption
Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi can stop clucking now. For the last three years, Democratic leaders cheered GOP ethics woes. Dean accused Republicans of making "their culture of corruption the norm." Pelosi touted cleanliness as a liberal virtue. But with the eye-popping pay-for-play and bribery case against Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich topping a year of nationwide Democratic scandals, the corruption chickens are coming home to roost.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called the breadth and depth of charges against Blagojevich and his Democratic Chief of Staff John Harris "staggering." That's an understatement. Anything that breathed was a potential shakedown target. It's the Chicago way. Democrat Blago's so dirty he'd hit up a children's hospital for money. Oh, wait. He's accused of doing that, too.
Democrat Blago allegedly conspired to use his power to appoint President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat as a bargaining chip for financial payment. He explored trading on that authority for an appointment as Health and Human Services secretary or as an ambassador or for installment in a cushy union position. (He discussed his trading scheme with an unnamed "SEIU (Service Employees International Union) official" and unnamed "various consultants" in Washington.)
According to the criminal complaint released yesterday, he also tried to leverage his influence over the sale of Wrigley Field (owned by Tribune media company) in an attempt to get Chicago Tribune editorial writers who called for his impeachment fired -- which illustrates the very perils of media/government entanglements I warned about in my newspaper bailout column last week. His wife, Patricia Blagojevich, was apparently in on the thuggery, too. Taking a break from her first lady duties advocating "on behalf of women and children," she is heard in taped discussions about the Chicago Tribune/Wrigley Field deal telling a governor's aide "to hold up that f**king Cubs sh*t. … F**k them."
Pelosi, champion of women as political cleaner-uppers, was unavailable for comment.
Fitzgerald says President-elect Obama was not implicated in the plethora of charges against Democrats Blago and Harris. The national media went out of their way to absolve him, too. But declaring Team Obama's hands clean -- especially with Blago crony and indicted Obama donor Tony Rezko in the middle of it all -- is premature. (And if you're wondering why I keep putting "Democrat" in front of the accused corruptocrats, it's because the mainstream newspapers can't seem to remember to identify their party prominently the way they do when Republicans are nabbed.)
Chicago's Fox affiliate reports that Obama Chief of Staff and Chicago hometown heavy Rahm Emanuel was the catalyst for the Blago takedown and suggests Rahm-bo tipped off the feds. If so, this raises more questions than it answers about who on the transition team may have talked to Blago and his shakedown artists about what and when. Needless to say, if it were the Republican Bush administration tied to the Blago bust, the White House press corps would be frothing like a pack of Michael Vick's pit bulls.
Democrats and the media can no longer rest on the old rationalization that Blago is an exception to the "we're cleaner than thou" rule. 2008 was the year of Democratic Reps. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, Charlie "Sweetheart Deals" Rangel, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame "Text Me" Kilpatrick. It was the year Democratic Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson got caught stuffing bribes from an FBI informant down her shirt. It was the year 12 Democratic leaders and staffers in Pennsylvania's state Capitol were stung in a massive corruption scandal involving cash, sex and abuse of public office. And it was the year of multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandals at Democratic satellite offices of ACORN and the SEIU.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called the breadth and depth of charges against Blagojevich and his Democratic Chief of Staff John Harris "staggering." That's an understatement. Anything that breathed was a potential shakedown target. It's the Chicago way. Democrat Blago's so dirty he'd hit up a children's hospital for money. Oh, wait. He's accused of doing that, too.
Democrat Blago allegedly conspired to use his power to appoint President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat as a bargaining chip for financial payment. He explored trading on that authority for an appointment as Health and Human Services secretary or as an ambassador or for installment in a cushy union position. (He discussed his trading scheme with an unnamed "SEIU (Service Employees International Union) official" and unnamed "various consultants" in Washington.)
According to the criminal complaint released yesterday, he also tried to leverage his influence over the sale of Wrigley Field (owned by Tribune media company) in an attempt to get Chicago Tribune editorial writers who called for his impeachment fired -- which illustrates the very perils of media/government entanglements I warned about in my newspaper bailout column last week. His wife, Patricia Blagojevich, was apparently in on the thuggery, too. Taking a break from her first lady duties advocating "on behalf of women and children," she is heard in taped discussions about the Chicago Tribune/Wrigley Field deal telling a governor's aide "to hold up that f**king Cubs sh*t. … F**k them."
Pelosi, champion of women as political cleaner-uppers, was unavailable for comment.
Fitzgerald says President-elect Obama was not implicated in the plethora of charges against Democrats Blago and Harris. The national media went out of their way to absolve him, too. But declaring Team Obama's hands clean -- especially with Blago crony and indicted Obama donor Tony Rezko in the middle of it all -- is premature. (And if you're wondering why I keep putting "Democrat" in front of the accused corruptocrats, it's because the mainstream newspapers can't seem to remember to identify their party prominently the way they do when Republicans are nabbed.)
Chicago's Fox affiliate reports that Obama Chief of Staff and Chicago hometown heavy Rahm Emanuel was the catalyst for the Blago takedown and suggests Rahm-bo tipped off the feds. If so, this raises more questions than it answers about who on the transition team may have talked to Blago and his shakedown artists about what and when. Needless to say, if it were the Republican Bush administration tied to the Blago bust, the White House press corps would be frothing like a pack of Michael Vick's pit bulls.
Democrats and the media can no longer rest on the old rationalization that Blago is an exception to the "we're cleaner than thou" rule. 2008 was the year of Democratic Reps. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, Charlie "Sweetheart Deals" Rangel, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame "Text Me" Kilpatrick. It was the year Democratic Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson got caught stuffing bribes from an FBI informant down her shirt. It was the year 12 Democratic leaders and staffers in Pennsylvania's state Capitol were stung in a massive corruption scandal involving cash, sex and abuse of public office. And it was the year of multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandals at Democratic satellite offices of ACORN and the SEIU.
Rangel's Problems Dog Democrats Article
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel, the charismatic, powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, spoke grandly at a news conference this week about the need to fund urban projects and keep the nation competitive. Then the New York Democrat was chased down the hall by reporters demanding to know whether he was going to temporarily give up his chairmanship over ethics allegations.
"I don't see what purpose that would serve," Rep. Rangel said. "I don't think reporters should be in the position to remove chairmen, not even temporarily, especially when the reporting is false."
The exchange highlighted the danger for congressional Democrats that Rep. Rangel's problems could be a distraction as they return to Washington this week and prepare for a bigger majority. Rep. Rangel's plight creates a discordant note as the party seeks to enact sweeping overhauls. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi further roiled the waters recently by suggesting the Ethics Committee would quickly wrap up its investigation of Rep. Rangel, prompting Republicans to charge that she was trying to manipulate the process.
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Associated Press
Rep. Charles Rangel is under investigation by the House ethics panel over renting apartments at below-market rates, among other things.
Rep. Rangel has been accused of, among other things, not paying taxes on rent from a Dominican Republic beach house, renting several New York apartments at below-market rates, and, most recently, doing favors for a donor to a school named after him.
He has denied any willful wrongdoing, and has asked the Ethics Committee to investigate the first two allegations. The committee announced Tuesday that it was expanding the inquiry to examine the third allegation.
The party has closed ranks around the veteran, and no Democrats have called on Rep. Rangel to step down.
During the recent congressional campaign, Mark Begich, the Democratic Senate candidate in Alaska, returned contributions he had received from Rep. Rangel. The tight Alaska race, against Sen. Ted Stevens, hinged on allegations of corruption and abuse of power after Sen. Stevens, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, was convicted of lying about gifts he had received. Two Democratic House candidates also returned Rep. Rangel's money.
As the new Democrat-led Congress gets set to convene, the allegations are an unwelcome intrusion for the party, which is hoping to show the country it is governing under a banner of change. "I think it's a big problem for them," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group. "Rangel's ethics problems get worse on a nearly daily basis."
Rep. Pelosi's recent comment that she had "been assured" the Ethics Committee would finish its report by Jan. 3 prompted questions from Republicans about how she knew the committee's schedule when its work is intended to be confidential. Critics have said that she either improperly received information about the committee's inquiry or was trying to pressure its members to wrap up their investigation hastily. "How is it that she knows it will only take one more month?" said Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), one of Rep. Rangel's most outspoken critics.
Rep. Pelosi's office has said she wasn't manipulating the process but was simply relying on the committee's history in assuming it would finish work by the end of the current Congress.
Rep. Rangel, 78 years old, was first elected from his Harlem district in 1970 and has become a Capitol Hill institution. A large man with slicked-back hair and a gravelly voice, he is well-liked by colleagues and given to colorful comments.
When the Democrats captured the House in 2006, Rep. Rangel became one of its most powerful lawmakers. Because it oversees tax policy, his committee is among the most sought-after in Congress.
The New York Times and New York Post have reported in recent months that Rep. Rangel occupies several rent-controlled apartments in New York; that he failed to report rental income from a vacation home; that he took a tax break for primary residences on a Washington, D.C., home while he also had a rent-stabilized apartment in New York that required a similar residency claim; and that he worked to preserve a tax loophole that benefited a company at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million for the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service.
House Republicans, joined by several newspapers and watchdog groups, have asked Rep. Rangel to step down from his chairmanship while the Ethics Committee is investigating.
Rep. Rangel doesn't appear in jeopardy of losing his gavel. Even if the Ethics Committee concludes he violated House rules, the panel is known for light punishments. A Pelosi spokesman said nothing she has seen suggests he should give up his gavel, though she is awaiting the report.
Minnesota Ballots: Land of 10,000 Fakes
What is the point of having a hand recount of ballots in the Minnesota Senate race if the Democratic secretary of state is going to use the election night totals in precincts where it will benefit Democrat Al Franken?
Either the hand recount produces a better, more accurate count, or there was no point to the state spending roughly $100,000 to conduct the hand recount in the first place.
But that is exactly what the George Soros-supported secretary of state has agreed to do in the case of a Dinkytown precinct near the University of Minnesota. The hand recount of the liberal precinct produced 133 fewer ballots than the original count on election night and, more important, 46 fewer votes for Franken.
So he's proposing to defer to the election night total over the recount tally.
There are no "missing" ballots in Dinkytown. Ballots were run through the voting machines twice on election night. Last week, Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert explained they already knew for a fact that 129 ballots had been run through machines twice on election night, which pretty closely matched the 133 allegedly "missing" ballots.
As Reichert said, "There are human errors that are made on Election Day." According to an article in the Dec. 2, 2008, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Reichert was "confident that that's what happened" and that "we have all the ballot envelopes here."
But after relentless badgering by the Franken campaign, now Reichert isn't so sure anymore. So the new plan is for Minneapolis to submit both the election night total from Dinkytown -- which gives Franken an extra 46 votes -- and the meticulous hand recount total, which does not, and allow the canvassing board to decide which to use.
The 129 ballots that Reichert said were run through the machines twice on election night could end up being counted twice.
In all other precincts, the initial tallies from election night are treated as highly unreliable rough approximations of the actual vote, while the results from the hand recount are regarded as the absolute truth.
Only in the Dinkytown precinct, where the election night total gave Franken an additional 46 votes, does the state treat the hand recount as an error-prone joke compared to the highly accurate election night vote.
The Soros-supported Secretary of State Mark Ritchie explains that there is "precedent" for counting election night totals rather than the recount totals. If so, how about using the election night tally from some of the precincts that gave Coleman more votes on election night?
Highly implausible, post-election "corrections" in just three Democratic precincts -- Two Harbors, Mountain Iron and Partridge Township -- cost Coleman 446 votes. But I note that Ritchie doesn't propose deferring to the election night totals there.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune attributed the 436-vote "correction" in Franken's favor to "exhausted county officials." Were they more exhausted in those three precincts than in Dinkytown?
Either the post-election tally is better than the election night tally or it isn't. Cherry-picking only those election night results Ritchie likes isn't an attempt to get an accurate vote-count; it's an attempt to get a Democrat in the U.S. Senate.
If Minnesota is going to accept the election night tally from Dinkytown, why not from any of these precincts where Coleman lost votes under far more suspicious circumstances? And why are guys named "Al" always caught trying to steal elections?
Wholly apart from the outrageous inconsistency of deciding that some election night tallies trump the hand recount and some don't, Franken's miraculous acquisition of more than 500 votes from heavily Democratic precincts in post-election "corrections" wasn't believable on its face -- and that's even accounting for the fact that Franken voters tend to be stupider than average and therefore more likely to fill out their ballots incorrectly.
Corrections in all other 2008 races combined led to only 482 changes in the entire state of Minnesota. The idea that typo "corrections" in one single contest from only three precincts, out of more than 4,000 precincts, could lead to 436 "corrections" benefiting Franken is manifestly absurd.
Ritchie's proposal to accept the election night count from one precinct is a stunning admission that even he doesn't believe a hand recount is any more accurate than the original election night tally.
To be sure, endlessly recounting ballots doesn't yield more accurate results, it just creates different results. There is no reason to think a tabulation is more accurate because it occurred later in time.
But then why have a recount at all? If the state of Minnesota is going to spend $100,000 and endless man-hours to conduct a meticulous hand recount on the grounds that it is more accurate, the state ought to at least pretend to believe in its own recount.
Election recounts are never intended to get more accurate results. They are simply opportunities for Democrats to manufacture new votes and steal elections.
And once again, Republicans are asleep at the wheel while another close election is being openly stolen by the man whose contributions to western civilization include the "Planet of The Enormous Hooters" sketch on "SNL."
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Most Overlooked News Story of 2008
Have you noticed lately that mainstream media are giving less attention to the war in Iraq, especially concerning our troops' progress? Who doesn't recognize by now that we live in a time in which there's little, if any, publishing space for positive military stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
CNSNews.com recently reported: "There were only two front-page New York Times stories that mentioned 'Iraq' in the headline in October 2008 -- there were 11 in October 2006 and 17 in October 2004. The Washington Post ran four front-page stories that had headlines using the word 'Iraq' in October 2008 -- in October 2006 there were 17 stories, and 27 stories in October 2004."
In July, The Times, a newspaper in the U.K., ran a column that commended American and Iraqi forces in making significant progress in Mosul, Iraq, and reaching the "final purge" of al-Qaida in Iraq. Investor's Business Daily echoed the same sentiment but sharply criticized American mainstream media for completely overlooking that military success. The media indictment became so widespread on the Internet that it left the global audience wondering whether such an oversight was an urban legend.
TruthOrFiction.com, an urban legend-debunking Web site, affirmed this media Mosul omission by saying: "At the time of our investigation, US media reports of this were hard to find but we did manage to find a report of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's announcement on the Fox News site. For the most part, it appears the mainstream media missed this one."
Here's what they missed:
During the surge in 2007 and early 2008, U.S. forces intensified efforts in Mosul by pushing out into small-neighborhood bases -- a strategy that proved successful in routing insurgents from other large cities in the country.
In February 2008, Col. Michael A. Bills, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, predicted that U.S. and Iraqi troops would be in full control of the city by the end of July.
By March 2008, Brig. Gen. Tony Thomas, second in command of coalition forces in northern Iraq, already was reporting: "So again, we can go anywhere we want to in Mosul and we're now forcing the enemy -- boxing them in, if you will -- into areas that they otherwise had free play in the city. So we've seized the initiative, and we're slowly but surely eliminating their toehold in the city."
By June 2008, this city of 2 million people had 14 Iraqi army battalions, 10,000 Iraqi police and 4,000 coalition force soldiers. And they were utilizing the "Sons of Iraq" (paid volunteers by the U.S.) to control neighborhoods better. And it was working.
Despite the fact that July 2008 saw an increase in insurgent activity, Lt. Col. Robert Molinari reported that it was really "nothing out of the norm." A senior Iraqi commander added: "We've limited their movements with checkpoints. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they're mostly not succeeding." American and Iraqi forces clearly were getting the upper hand, demonstrated then through the dip in the number of U.S. casualties to the lowest number since the start of the war -- 11 deaths in the entire country.
Overall, attacks in Mosul and in Ninevah province have declined from 50 a day at the start of the year to the present number of 10 a day -- almost the same as the number was in 2006. Open street fighting is a rarity. That is why Maj. Ra'ad Jalal, an Iraqi officer, said: "The security situation in Mosul is improving. It's safe here now. I'd be happy to come here even without all of this protection."
Of course, assaults continue. But they don't diminish the momentous progress. Capt. Hunter Bowers, who presently is serving on the battlefield in Mosul, summarized his upbeat thoughts about their progress to me by e-mail Monday: "We have had some great success here and a lot of it has to do with the integration of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police."
Unfortunately, instead of reporting these substantial advances being made in Mosul, mainstream American media have chosen to ignore them, favoring to continue to report only negative news from the war zones or repeated jabs by Democratic leaders about the unfounded grounds for the war. (I've been sadly amazed and gravely amused how often progress in war is played out not on the battlefield, but in the backrooms of news broadcasting studios.)
With another Pearl Harbor anniversary approaching and in a Christmas season when the sacrifice of our troops is accentuated by their absence from loved ones, it's fitting to honor, not overlook, those who fight for freedom. Find ways to commemorate their courage and commitment. Admonish others to watch positive and honorable tributes to our service members, such as those on the Military Channel and those created by director Mike Slee of Zaragoza Pictures, a documentary filmmaker whose mission also is to capture the progress of our troops -- including those in Mosul.
The fact is American coalition forces have reduced the number of al-Qaida fighters in Iraq from roughly 12,000 to 1,200, have cornered them in Mosul, and are successfully gaining the upper hand on their remaining strongholds. That is why Gen. James Conway, the head of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summarized, "Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al-Qaida." In fact, he says that security is so good around the country that for the first time, it "smells like victory," adding that next year, as many as 20,000 Marines currently deployed will return home.
And just in time for President-elect Barack Obama to begin his withdrawal of our troops -- an act that likely will be a signal broadcasting victory in Iraq and likely will earn the new commander in chief credit for military success. Now there's a 2009 news story that America's mainstream media will be guaranteed to run over and over.
CNSNews.com recently reported: "There were only two front-page New York Times stories that mentioned 'Iraq' in the headline in October 2008 -- there were 11 in October 2006 and 17 in October 2004. The Washington Post ran four front-page stories that had headlines using the word 'Iraq' in October 2008 -- in October 2006 there were 17 stories, and 27 stories in October 2004."
In July, The Times, a newspaper in the U.K., ran a column that commended American and Iraqi forces in making significant progress in Mosul, Iraq, and reaching the "final purge" of al-Qaida in Iraq. Investor's Business Daily echoed the same sentiment but sharply criticized American mainstream media for completely overlooking that military success. The media indictment became so widespread on the Internet that it left the global audience wondering whether such an oversight was an urban legend.
TruthOrFiction.com, an urban legend-debunking Web site, affirmed this media Mosul omission by saying: "At the time of our investigation, US media reports of this were hard to find but we did manage to find a report of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's announcement on the Fox News site. For the most part, it appears the mainstream media missed this one."
Here's what they missed:
During the surge in 2007 and early 2008, U.S. forces intensified efforts in Mosul by pushing out into small-neighborhood bases -- a strategy that proved successful in routing insurgents from other large cities in the country.
In February 2008, Col. Michael A. Bills, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, predicted that U.S. and Iraqi troops would be in full control of the city by the end of July.
By March 2008, Brig. Gen. Tony Thomas, second in command of coalition forces in northern Iraq, already was reporting: "So again, we can go anywhere we want to in Mosul and we're now forcing the enemy -- boxing them in, if you will -- into areas that they otherwise had free play in the city. So we've seized the initiative, and we're slowly but surely eliminating their toehold in the city."
By June 2008, this city of 2 million people had 14 Iraqi army battalions, 10,000 Iraqi police and 4,000 coalition force soldiers. And they were utilizing the "Sons of Iraq" (paid volunteers by the U.S.) to control neighborhoods better. And it was working.
Despite the fact that July 2008 saw an increase in insurgent activity, Lt. Col. Robert Molinari reported that it was really "nothing out of the norm." A senior Iraqi commander added: "We've limited their movements with checkpoints. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they're mostly not succeeding." American and Iraqi forces clearly were getting the upper hand, demonstrated then through the dip in the number of U.S. casualties to the lowest number since the start of the war -- 11 deaths in the entire country.
Overall, attacks in Mosul and in Ninevah province have declined from 50 a day at the start of the year to the present number of 10 a day -- almost the same as the number was in 2006. Open street fighting is a rarity. That is why Maj. Ra'ad Jalal, an Iraqi officer, said: "The security situation in Mosul is improving. It's safe here now. I'd be happy to come here even without all of this protection."
Of course, assaults continue. But they don't diminish the momentous progress. Capt. Hunter Bowers, who presently is serving on the battlefield in Mosul, summarized his upbeat thoughts about their progress to me by e-mail Monday: "We have had some great success here and a lot of it has to do with the integration of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police."
Unfortunately, instead of reporting these substantial advances being made in Mosul, mainstream American media have chosen to ignore them, favoring to continue to report only negative news from the war zones or repeated jabs by Democratic leaders about the unfounded grounds for the war. (I've been sadly amazed and gravely amused how often progress in war is played out not on the battlefield, but in the backrooms of news broadcasting studios.)
With another Pearl Harbor anniversary approaching and in a Christmas season when the sacrifice of our troops is accentuated by their absence from loved ones, it's fitting to honor, not overlook, those who fight for freedom. Find ways to commemorate their courage and commitment. Admonish others to watch positive and honorable tributes to our service members, such as those on the Military Channel and those created by director Mike Slee of Zaragoza Pictures, a documentary filmmaker whose mission also is to capture the progress of our troops -- including those in Mosul.
The fact is American coalition forces have reduced the number of al-Qaida fighters in Iraq from roughly 12,000 to 1,200, have cornered them in Mosul, and are successfully gaining the upper hand on their remaining strongholds. That is why Gen. James Conway, the head of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summarized, "Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al-Qaida." In fact, he says that security is so good around the country that for the first time, it "smells like victory," adding that next year, as many as 20,000 Marines currently deployed will return home.
And just in time for President-elect Barack Obama to begin his withdrawal of our troops -- an act that likely will be a signal broadcasting victory in Iraq and likely will earn the new commander in chief credit for military success. Now there's a 2009 news story that America's mainstream media will be guaranteed to run over and over.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Forget Santa! Obama's Coming to Town
Forget about Christmas! Obama is coming to Washington and a $500-700 billion stimulus package is going to be wrapped and ready for passage! With the Bush administration's help, financial institutions are already getting their funds. The auto industry is next in line, and with more money for the taking, cities, states, companies and citizens are lining up to compete for a share of the pie!
Why should you be left out! You too should be able to grab your share from Santa’s bag! Here are ten sure-fire tips on how you can be bailed out of your debt. Hit-or-miss approaches aren't sufficient. This is your sure-fire strategy to join the coming Barack Obama gravy train.
1. If you want God to speak to you through a lottery, you have to buy a ticket. If you want an Obama bailout, you have to get in line! Don't wait until there’s no money left in Washington. As always, the early bird gets the worm…and the federal money! Start complaining now!
2. Now, if you want a handout, you can't be working! Quiting sounds extreme, but, with any luck, this bailout could pay better! The unemployed move to the front of the line, and you certainly don't want to be one of the working fools who will be stuck paying the tab!
3. To build a good case, stop paying your mortgage! You can't claim poverty when you're up-to-date on your house payments. Why should you be paying your full payment when, with a little pending foreclosure embellishment, you can get your mortgage renegotiated and have the government pay the difference.
4. Start weaving "hope," "change" and "middle class" into your vocabulary to help you connect with the Obama people you'll have to win over along the way. Put a smiley face at the bottom of all your forms with the statement—"Obama is the change we can finally believe in; he's our hope for the middle class to share in the American Dream!"
5. It shouldn't matter, but contributing to Obama's campaign can't hurt. Don't worry; no matter who you voted for, you contributed! The financial industry was the number one source of funds for Obama's campaign. Since your tax money has funded their bailout, you and I are part owners of the preferred stock the government got in return. So, let them know, as a contributor, you expect better treatment.
6. If your case is a bit flimsy, add a tear or two to your interviews. Democrats value emotion over reason. Don't lose control; you want funds, not pity! Just let them know that the funds you set aside for your children's education is gone. OK, so you only had $10 in savings, but it is gone! It's the old "baby needs shoes" gambit, but now baby needs shoes, healthcare, preschool and a college education fund! If you don't ask, you don't get!
7. Throw in a little environmental sensitivity. Let them know that because of the recession, you can't afford your organically grown vegetables. Tell them your limited budget has forced you to feed your children hamburgers! Let them know that you're losing sleep over the fact that your purchase of such animal products is contributing to America's growing carbon footprint and to the increase in cow flatulents in the atmosphere. Just keep saying, "You don't want to do anything to make global warming worse!"
8. Express your joy that a black American of mixed race has finally been elected President. Let them know that your family's mixed ancestry need no longer be an embarrassment, but a badge of honor. They'll be too uncomfortable to ask you what that means, and it just might earn you affirmative action consideration. With any luck, there might be a mule and 40 acres of land in your future!
9. Mention that in coming across the border as a child, you never realized what a great country America really was. Enough said. You certainly went over some border somewhere, and America always looks better in comparison. Just know that if they suspect that you might be an illegal immigrant, they'll give you anything you want. Don't risk a bad Spanish accent; just say that you're so glad your family made you learn "good English!"
10. Now, if you're feeling guilty about any part of this strategy, don't worry! Ethics are all relative, and you can’t let doubts about your integrity and character get in the way of your needs. Besides, self-reliance is overrated, and the work-ethic requires work! Remember, it takes a village-a village of givers and takers! Be the best taker you can be and be proud of it. After all, the rich probably cheated to get their money, and now it's your turn to get yours!
With these helpful hints, you're sure to move to the front of the line. Getting something for nothing will feel good for awhile. On the surface, people will pretend to care about you. You'll get funds, no respect and a lot of government interference in your life. But don't let petty gossip and loss of liberty get in your way. A final note: The Surgeon General warns that using these tips may be hazardous to your career, mental and spiritual health and a disaster to the country you love.
Why should you be left out! You too should be able to grab your share from Santa’s bag! Here are ten sure-fire tips on how you can be bailed out of your debt. Hit-or-miss approaches aren't sufficient. This is your sure-fire strategy to join the coming Barack Obama gravy train.
1. If you want God to speak to you through a lottery, you have to buy a ticket. If you want an Obama bailout, you have to get in line! Don't wait until there’s no money left in Washington. As always, the early bird gets the worm…and the federal money! Start complaining now!
2. Now, if you want a handout, you can't be working! Quiting sounds extreme, but, with any luck, this bailout could pay better! The unemployed move to the front of the line, and you certainly don't want to be one of the working fools who will be stuck paying the tab!
3. To build a good case, stop paying your mortgage! You can't claim poverty when you're up-to-date on your house payments. Why should you be paying your full payment when, with a little pending foreclosure embellishment, you can get your mortgage renegotiated and have the government pay the difference.
4. Start weaving "hope," "change" and "middle class" into your vocabulary to help you connect with the Obama people you'll have to win over along the way. Put a smiley face at the bottom of all your forms with the statement—"Obama is the change we can finally believe in; he's our hope for the middle class to share in the American Dream!"
5. It shouldn't matter, but contributing to Obama's campaign can't hurt. Don't worry; no matter who you voted for, you contributed! The financial industry was the number one source of funds for Obama's campaign. Since your tax money has funded their bailout, you and I are part owners of the preferred stock the government got in return. So, let them know, as a contributor, you expect better treatment.
6. If your case is a bit flimsy, add a tear or two to your interviews. Democrats value emotion over reason. Don't lose control; you want funds, not pity! Just let them know that the funds you set aside for your children's education is gone. OK, so you only had $10 in savings, but it is gone! It's the old "baby needs shoes" gambit, but now baby needs shoes, healthcare, preschool and a college education fund! If you don't ask, you don't get!
7. Throw in a little environmental sensitivity. Let them know that because of the recession, you can't afford your organically grown vegetables. Tell them your limited budget has forced you to feed your children hamburgers! Let them know that you're losing sleep over the fact that your purchase of such animal products is contributing to America's growing carbon footprint and to the increase in cow flatulents in the atmosphere. Just keep saying, "You don't want to do anything to make global warming worse!"
8. Express your joy that a black American of mixed race has finally been elected President. Let them know that your family's mixed ancestry need no longer be an embarrassment, but a badge of honor. They'll be too uncomfortable to ask you what that means, and it just might earn you affirmative action consideration. With any luck, there might be a mule and 40 acres of land in your future!
9. Mention that in coming across the border as a child, you never realized what a great country America really was. Enough said. You certainly went over some border somewhere, and America always looks better in comparison. Just know that if they suspect that you might be an illegal immigrant, they'll give you anything you want. Don't risk a bad Spanish accent; just say that you're so glad your family made you learn "good English!"
10. Now, if you're feeling guilty about any part of this strategy, don't worry! Ethics are all relative, and you can’t let doubts about your integrity and character get in the way of your needs. Besides, self-reliance is overrated, and the work-ethic requires work! Remember, it takes a village-a village of givers and takers! Be the best taker you can be and be proud of it. After all, the rich probably cheated to get their money, and now it's your turn to get yours!
With these helpful hints, you're sure to move to the front of the line. Getting something for nothing will feel good for awhile. On the surface, people will pretend to care about you. You'll get funds, no respect and a lot of government interference in your life. But don't let petty gossip and loss of liberty get in your way. A final note: The Surgeon General warns that using these tips may be hazardous to your career, mental and spiritual health and a disaster to the country you love.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Preview of Anti-Obama Documentary Outrages Left
John Ziegler didn’t know the kind of fury the left would unleash on him when he unveiled his web video “How Obama Got Elected.”
The ten-minute short featured 12 interviews he conducted with Obama supporters at Los Angeles polling stations on Election Day and the final product wasn’t flattering to liberals. His subjects couldn’t answer basic questions like “Who controls Congress” and “Who is Nancy Pelosi” or “Who is Harry Reid.” They could, however, correctly answer questions about GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and wardrobe budget without any problem.
The web video spread like wildfire around the internet, getting more than 1.4 million views. Ziegler plans to include the interviews in a forthcoming film titled “Media Malpractice…How Obama Got Elected.”
As a result Ziegler’s email inbox has been flooded with profanity-laced emails accusing him of racism, bigotry and hate mongering. “Whoever started this sight [sic] is a racist!” one email sent from someone identified as Andrea Gurule said. “What? You couldn’t handle a black man beating out a white man?! The man is qualified. More so than John McCain. Regardless, He’s your president. Get over it!”
Ziegler argues that he never intended to make Obama supporters look bad. Rather, they could not answer the questions because the media misinformed them throughout the election. He admits his interviews were not “scientific” but he did commission Zogby to conduct a poll asking the same questions. The Zogby poll found 57.4 percent of Obama supporters could not correctly say which party controls Congress. Only 6.2 percent of those same supporters failed to identify Palin as having a pregnant daughter.
See poll results http://www.zogby.com/news/wf-dfs.pdf
“The Zogby results were incredible and they were credible and the vast majority of enws media ignored it because it was their own malfeasance that created a massive amount of ignorance,” he said.
Ziegler is now planning to commission a similar poll to assess the political intelligence of those who voted for GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Zogby, however, is refusing to do it. After receiving a great amount of backlash from Obama supporters Zogby said will not be conducting the McCain poll.
“I believe there was value in the poll we did,” John Zogby told the Politico. “I also believe it was not our finest hour. This slipped through the cracks. It came out critical only of Obama voters.”
Ziegler said he didn’t originally conduct such poll for McCain voters because his documentary is focusing on how Obama got elected, not McCain. He will likely include the McCain poll results in the film and along with more detail about the outcry over his original poll.
“All this controversy proves the overriding premise” that the media helped Obama get elected Ziegler said.
The ten-minute short featured 12 interviews he conducted with Obama supporters at Los Angeles polling stations on Election Day and the final product wasn’t flattering to liberals. His subjects couldn’t answer basic questions like “Who controls Congress” and “Who is Nancy Pelosi” or “Who is Harry Reid.” They could, however, correctly answer questions about GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and wardrobe budget without any problem.
The web video spread like wildfire around the internet, getting more than 1.4 million views. Ziegler plans to include the interviews in a forthcoming film titled “Media Malpractice…How Obama Got Elected.”
As a result Ziegler’s email inbox has been flooded with profanity-laced emails accusing him of racism, bigotry and hate mongering. “Whoever started this sight [sic] is a racist!” one email sent from someone identified as Andrea Gurule said. “What? You couldn’t handle a black man beating out a white man?! The man is qualified. More so than John McCain. Regardless, He’s your president. Get over it!”
Ziegler argues that he never intended to make Obama supporters look bad. Rather, they could not answer the questions because the media misinformed them throughout the election. He admits his interviews were not “scientific” but he did commission Zogby to conduct a poll asking the same questions. The Zogby poll found 57.4 percent of Obama supporters could not correctly say which party controls Congress. Only 6.2 percent of those same supporters failed to identify Palin as having a pregnant daughter.
See poll results http://www.zogby.com/news/wf-dfs.pdf
“The Zogby results were incredible and they were credible and the vast majority of enws media ignored it because it was their own malfeasance that created a massive amount of ignorance,” he said.
Ziegler is now planning to commission a similar poll to assess the political intelligence of those who voted for GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Zogby, however, is refusing to do it. After receiving a great amount of backlash from Obama supporters Zogby said will not be conducting the McCain poll.
“I believe there was value in the poll we did,” John Zogby told the Politico. “I also believe it was not our finest hour. This slipped through the cracks. It came out critical only of Obama voters.”
Ziegler said he didn’t originally conduct such poll for McCain voters because his documentary is focusing on how Obama got elected, not McCain. He will likely include the McCain poll results in the film and along with more detail about the outcry over his original poll.
“All this controversy proves the overriding premise” that the media helped Obama get elected Ziegler said.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Iran Produces Enough Uranium to Build Nuclear Weapon
Iran has now produced roughly enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb, according to atomic experts analyzing the latest report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
To date, Iran had enriched about 1,400 pounds of low-enriched uranium suitable for nuclear fuel, according to two confidential reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency that were obtained by The Associated Press.
Several experts told The Times the milestone was enough for a bomb, but Iran would have to further purify the uranium fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that experts in the West are unsure Iran has been able to achieve.
"They clearly have enough material for a bomb," Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades, told the newspaper. "They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter."
The report found the Islamic Republic was installing, or preparing to install, thousands more of the machines that spin uranium gas to enrich it — with the target of 9,000 centrifuges by next year.
The report on Iran — which also went to the U.N. Security Council — cautioned that Tehran's stonewalling meant the IAEA could not "provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities." And it noted that the Islamic Republic continued to expand uranium enrichment, an activity that can make both nuclear fuel or fissile warhead material.
While that conclusion was expected, it was a formal confirmation of Iran's refusal to heed Security Council demands to freeze such activities, despite three sets of sanctions meant to force an enrichment stop.
Iran denies weapons ambitions, and Syria asserts the site hit more than a year ago by Israeli warplanes had no nuclear functions. But the two reports did little to dispel suspicions about either country.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency also said Wednesday that a Syrian site bombed by Israel in 2007 had the characteristics of a nuclear reactor.
The documents were being shared with the 35 nations on the IAEA's board.
On Syria, the agency also said that soil samples taken from the bombed site had a "significant number" of chemically processed natural uranium particles. A senior U.N official, who demanded anonymity because the information was restricted, said the findings were unusual for a facility that Syria alleges had no nuclear purpose.
The same official characterized U.N. attempts to elicit answers from Tehran on allegations that it had drafted plans for nuclear weapons programs as at a standstill.
The Syrian report said "it cannot be excluded" that the building destroyed in a remote stretch of the Syrian desert on Sept. 6, 2007, was "intended for non-nuclear use."
Still, "the features of the building ... are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site," it said, suggesting facility's size also fits that picture.
The report took note of Syrian assertions that any uranium particles found at the site must have come from Israeli missiles that hit the building, near the town of Al Kibar. And it cited Damascus officials as saying the IAEA samples contained only a "very limited number" of such particles.
But the report spoke of a "significant number of ... particles" found in the samples.
The senior U.N. official said "the onus of this investigation is on Syria" and noted that the traces were not of depleted uranium — the most commonly used variety of the metal in ammunition, meant to harden ordnance for increased penetration.
Satellite imagery made public in the wake of the Israeli attack noted that the Syrians subsequently removed substantial amounts of topsoil and entombed the building in concrete. But the report also suggested similar activities at three other Syrian sites of IAEA interest.
"Analysis of satellite imagery taken of these locations indicates that landscaping activities and the removal of large containers took place shortly after the agency's request for access," it said.
Beyond one visit in June to the Al Kibar site, Syria has refused IAEA requests to return to that location and examine the three other sites, citing the need to protect its military secrets.
In addition, said the report, "Syria has not yet provided the requested documentation" to back up its assertions that the bombed building was a non-nuclear military facility.
Iran denies such plans, saying it wants to enrich for a future large-scale civilian nuclear program. But suspicions have been compounded by its monthslong refusal to answer IAEA questions based on U.S., Israeli and other intelligence.
Why Bankruptcy Is the Best Option for GM
Chapter 11 would better preserve the valuable parts of the company than an ad hoc bailout.
General Motors is a once-great company caught in a web of relationships designed for another era. It should not be fed while still caught, because that will leave it trapped until we get tired of feeding it. Then it will die. The only possibility of saving it is to take the risk of cutting it free. In other words, GM should be allowed to go bankrupt.
Consider the costs of tackling GM's problems with some kind of bailout plan. After 42 years of eroding U.S. market share (from 53% to 20%) and countless announcements of "change," GM still has eight U.S. brands (Cadillac, Saab, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Saturn, Chevrolet and Hummer). As for its more successful competitors, Toyota (19% market share) has three, and Honda (11%) has two.
GM has about 7,000 dealers. Toyota has fewer than 1,500. Honda has about 1,000. These fewer and larger dealers are better able to advertise, stock and service the cars they sell. GM knows it needs fewer brands and dealers, but the dealers are protected from termination by state laws. This makes eliminating them and the brands they sell very expensive. It would cost GM billions of dollars and many years to reduce the number of dealers it has to a number near Toyota's.
Foreign-owned manufacturers who build cars with American workers pay wages similar to GM's. But their expenses for benefits are a fraction of GM's. GM is contractually required to support thousands of workers in the UAW's "Jobs Bank" program, which guarantees nearly full wages and benefits for workers who lose their jobs due to automation or plant closure. It supports more retirees than current workers. It owns or leases enormous amounts of property for facilities it's not using and probably will never use again, and is obliged to support revenue bonds for municipalities that issued them to build these facilities. It has other contractual obligations such as health coverage for union retirees. All of these commitments drain its cash every month. Moreover, GM supports myriad suppliers and supports a huge infrastructure of firms and localities that depend on it. Many of them have contractual claims; they all have moral claims. They all want GM to be more or less what it is.
And therein lies the problem: The cost of terminating dealers is only a fraction of what it would cost to rebuild GM to become a company sized and marketed appropriately for its market share. Contracts would have to be bought out. The company would have to shed many of its fixed obligations. Some obligations will be impossible to cut by voluntary agreement. GM will run out of cash and out of time.
GM's solution is to ask the federal government for the cash that will allow it to do all of this piece by piece. But much of the cash will be thrown at unproductive commitments. And the sense of urgency that would enable GM to make choices painful to its management, its workers, its retirees, its suppliers and its localities will simply not be there if federal money is available. Like AIG, it will be back for more, and at the same time it will be telling us that it's doing a great job under difficult circumstances.
Federal law provides a way out of the web: reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. If GM were told that no assistance would be available without a bankruptcy filing, all options would be put on the table. The web could be cut wherever it needed to be. State protection for dealers would disappear. Labor contracts could be renegotiated. Pension plans could be terminated, with existing pensions turned over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC). Health benefits could be renegotiated. Mortgaged assets could be abandoned, so plants could be closed without being supported as idle hindrances on GM's viability. GM could be rebuilt as a company that had a chance to make vehicles people want and support itself on revenue. It wouldn't be easy but, unlike trying to bail out GM as it is, it wouldn't be impossible.
The social and political costs would be very large, but if GM fails after getting $50 billion or $100 billion in bailout money, it'll be just as large and there will be less money to soften the blow and even more blame to go around. The PBGC will probably need money to guarantee GM's pensions for its white- and blue-collar workers (pension support is capped at around $40,000 per year, so that won't help executives much). Unemployment insurance will have to be extended and offered to many people, perhaps millions if you include dealers, suppliers and communities dependent on GM as it exists now. A GM bankruptcy will make addressing health-care coverage more urgent, which is probably a good thing. It would require job-retraining money and community assistance to affected localities.
But unless we are willing to support GM as it is indefinitely, the downsizing and asset-shedding will have to come anyway. Even if it builds cars as attractive and environmentally responsible as those Honda and Toyota will be building, they won't be able to carry the weight of GM's past.
GM CEO Rick Wagoner says "bankruptcy is not an option." Critics of a bankruptcy say that GM won't be able to get the loans it will need to guarantee warranties, pay its operating losses while it restructures, and preserve customers' ability to finance purchases. While consumers buy tickets from bankrupt airlines, electronics from bankrupt retailers, and apartments from bankrupt builders, they say consumers won't buy cars from a bankrupt auto maker. But bankruptcy no longer means "liquidation" or "out of business" to a generation of consumers used to buying from firms in reorganization.
GM would guarantee warranty support with a segregated fund if necessary. And debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing -- loans that provide the near-term cash for reorganizing companies -- is very safe, because the DIP lender has priority over all other claimants. In normal markets, it would certainly be available to a GM that has assets to sell, including a viable overseas business. Such financing is probably available even now.
In any event, it would be lined up before a filing, not after, so any problems wouldn't be a surprise. As a last resort, we could at least consider a public DIP loan to support a reorganizing GM with a good chance to survive -- as opposed to subsidizing a GM slowly deflating.
The fate of Daewoo -- the Korean auto maker that collapsed in 2000 after filing for bankruptcy, leaving about 500 dealers stranded in the U.S. -- is often cited as "proof" that a GM bankruptcy won't work. But Daewoo was headquartered in a part of the world where bankruptcy still carries a major stigma and usually means liquidation. Daewoo's experience is largely irrelevant to a major U.S. company undergoing a well-publicized positive transformation, almost certainly under new management.
GM as it is cannot survive without long-term government life support. If it gets that support, it can't change enough and won't change fast enough. Contrary to Mr. Wagoner's brave declaration, bankruptcy is an option. In fact, it's the only option that merits public support and actually has a chance.
General Motors is a once-great company caught in a web of relationships designed for another era. It should not be fed while still caught, because that will leave it trapped until we get tired of feeding it. Then it will die. The only possibility of saving it is to take the risk of cutting it free. In other words, GM should be allowed to go bankrupt.
Consider the costs of tackling GM's problems with some kind of bailout plan. After 42 years of eroding U.S. market share (from 53% to 20%) and countless announcements of "change," GM still has eight U.S. brands (Cadillac, Saab, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Saturn, Chevrolet and Hummer). As for its more successful competitors, Toyota (19% market share) has three, and Honda (11%) has two.
GM has about 7,000 dealers. Toyota has fewer than 1,500. Honda has about 1,000. These fewer and larger dealers are better able to advertise, stock and service the cars they sell. GM knows it needs fewer brands and dealers, but the dealers are protected from termination by state laws. This makes eliminating them and the brands they sell very expensive. It would cost GM billions of dollars and many years to reduce the number of dealers it has to a number near Toyota's.
Foreign-owned manufacturers who build cars with American workers pay wages similar to GM's. But their expenses for benefits are a fraction of GM's. GM is contractually required to support thousands of workers in the UAW's "Jobs Bank" program, which guarantees nearly full wages and benefits for workers who lose their jobs due to automation or plant closure. It supports more retirees than current workers. It owns or leases enormous amounts of property for facilities it's not using and probably will never use again, and is obliged to support revenue bonds for municipalities that issued them to build these facilities. It has other contractual obligations such as health coverage for union retirees. All of these commitments drain its cash every month. Moreover, GM supports myriad suppliers and supports a huge infrastructure of firms and localities that depend on it. Many of them have contractual claims; they all have moral claims. They all want GM to be more or less what it is.
And therein lies the problem: The cost of terminating dealers is only a fraction of what it would cost to rebuild GM to become a company sized and marketed appropriately for its market share. Contracts would have to be bought out. The company would have to shed many of its fixed obligations. Some obligations will be impossible to cut by voluntary agreement. GM will run out of cash and out of time.
GM's solution is to ask the federal government for the cash that will allow it to do all of this piece by piece. But much of the cash will be thrown at unproductive commitments. And the sense of urgency that would enable GM to make choices painful to its management, its workers, its retirees, its suppliers and its localities will simply not be there if federal money is available. Like AIG, it will be back for more, and at the same time it will be telling us that it's doing a great job under difficult circumstances.
Federal law provides a way out of the web: reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. If GM were told that no assistance would be available without a bankruptcy filing, all options would be put on the table. The web could be cut wherever it needed to be. State protection for dealers would disappear. Labor contracts could be renegotiated. Pension plans could be terminated, with existing pensions turned over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC). Health benefits could be renegotiated. Mortgaged assets could be abandoned, so plants could be closed without being supported as idle hindrances on GM's viability. GM could be rebuilt as a company that had a chance to make vehicles people want and support itself on revenue. It wouldn't be easy but, unlike trying to bail out GM as it is, it wouldn't be impossible.
The social and political costs would be very large, but if GM fails after getting $50 billion or $100 billion in bailout money, it'll be just as large and there will be less money to soften the blow and even more blame to go around. The PBGC will probably need money to guarantee GM's pensions for its white- and blue-collar workers (pension support is capped at around $40,000 per year, so that won't help executives much). Unemployment insurance will have to be extended and offered to many people, perhaps millions if you include dealers, suppliers and communities dependent on GM as it exists now. A GM bankruptcy will make addressing health-care coverage more urgent, which is probably a good thing. It would require job-retraining money and community assistance to affected localities.
But unless we are willing to support GM as it is indefinitely, the downsizing and asset-shedding will have to come anyway. Even if it builds cars as attractive and environmentally responsible as those Honda and Toyota will be building, they won't be able to carry the weight of GM's past.
GM CEO Rick Wagoner says "bankruptcy is not an option." Critics of a bankruptcy say that GM won't be able to get the loans it will need to guarantee warranties, pay its operating losses while it restructures, and preserve customers' ability to finance purchases. While consumers buy tickets from bankrupt airlines, electronics from bankrupt retailers, and apartments from bankrupt builders, they say consumers won't buy cars from a bankrupt auto maker. But bankruptcy no longer means "liquidation" or "out of business" to a generation of consumers used to buying from firms in reorganization.
GM would guarantee warranty support with a segregated fund if necessary. And debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing -- loans that provide the near-term cash for reorganizing companies -- is very safe, because the DIP lender has priority over all other claimants. In normal markets, it would certainly be available to a GM that has assets to sell, including a viable overseas business. Such financing is probably available even now.
In any event, it would be lined up before a filing, not after, so any problems wouldn't be a surprise. As a last resort, we could at least consider a public DIP loan to support a reorganizing GM with a good chance to survive -- as opposed to subsidizing a GM slowly deflating.
The fate of Daewoo -- the Korean auto maker that collapsed in 2000 after filing for bankruptcy, leaving about 500 dealers stranded in the U.S. -- is often cited as "proof" that a GM bankruptcy won't work. But Daewoo was headquartered in a part of the world where bankruptcy still carries a major stigma and usually means liquidation. Daewoo's experience is largely irrelevant to a major U.S. company undergoing a well-publicized positive transformation, almost certainly under new management.
GM as it is cannot survive without long-term government life support. If it gets that support, it can't change enough and won't change fast enough. Contrary to Mr. Wagoner's brave declaration, bankruptcy is an option. In fact, it's the only option that merits public support and actually has a chance.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Al-Qaeda message condemns Obama
The second-in-command of Islamic militant network al-Qaeda has hit out at US President-elect Barack Obama.
In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy called Mr Obama a "house negro" - a demeaning term implying he served white people.
Mr Obama's plan to bolster the US military presence in Afghanistan would fail, Zawahiri said.
If genuine, the message would be the first acknowledgement by al-Qaeda of the president-elect's victory.
The audio message appeared on militant websites.
Zawahiri, an Egyptian by birth, is often referred to as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man and the chief ideologue of al-Qaeda.
In the short message he warned Mr Obama of failure if he followed Bush administration policies in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
He also criticised Mr Obama - whose father is Muslim - for abandoning his Islamic roots.
"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand with the enemies of Muslims," he said.
On Sunday, in his first television interview since his 4 November election win, Mr Obama reiterated his commitment to shift more US troops to war-torn Afghanistan.
Stamping out al-Qaeda "once and for all" was a top priority, he said, and capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden was "critical" to US security.
Big Three CEOs Flew Private Jets to Plead for Public Funds
Auto Industry Close to Bankruptcy But They Get Pricey Perk
November 19, 2008—
The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation's capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.
The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.
All three CEOs - Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler - exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM's $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.
"We want to continue the vital role we've played for Americans for the past 100 years, but we can't do it alone," Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee.
While Wagoner testified, his G4 private jet was parked at Dulles airport. It is one of eight luxury jets in the GM fleet that continues to ferry executives around the world despite the company's dire financial straits.
"This is a slap in the face of taxpayers," said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste. "To come to Washington on a corporate jet, and asking for a hand out is outrageous."
Wagoner's private jet trip to Washington cost his ailing company an estimated $20,000 roundtrip. In comparison, seats on Northwest Airlines flight 2364 from Detroit to Washington were going online for $288 coach and $837 first class.
After the hearing, Wagoner declined to answer questions about his travel.
Ford CEO Mulally's corporate jet is a perk included for both he and his wife as part of his employment contract along with a $28 million salary last year. Mulally actually lives in Seattle, not Detroit. The company jet takes him home and back on weekends.
Plants Closed, Company Jets Stay
Mulally made his case Tuesday before the committee saying he's cut expenses, laid-off workers and closed 17 plants.
"We have also reduced our work force by 51,000 employees in the past three years," Mulally said.
Yet Ford continues to operate a fleet of eight private jets for its executives. Just Tuesday, one jet was taking Ford brass to Los Angeles, another on a trip to Nebraska, and of course Mulally needed to fly to Washington to testify. He did not address questions following the hearing.
"Now's not the time to do that sort of thing," said John McElroy of the television program "Autoline Detroit."
"Now's the time to be humble and show that you're sharing equally in the sacrifice," McElroy said.
GM and Ford say that it is a corporate decision to have their CEOs fly on private jets and that is non-negotiable, even as the companies say they are running out of cash.
Private jet travel is perhaps the greatest perk of all for CEOs, who say it allows them to travel more efficiently and safely, even in a recession.
AIG, despite the $150 billion bailout, still operates a fleet of corporate jets. The company says it has put two out of its seven jets up for sale and is reviewing the use of others. Though there are no such plans by GM or Ford.
"It appears that the senior management of the automakers simply don't get it," said Schatz.
November 19, 2008—
The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation's capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.
The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.
All three CEOs - Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler - exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM's $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.
"We want to continue the vital role we've played for Americans for the past 100 years, but we can't do it alone," Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee.
While Wagoner testified, his G4 private jet was parked at Dulles airport. It is one of eight luxury jets in the GM fleet that continues to ferry executives around the world despite the company's dire financial straits.
"This is a slap in the face of taxpayers," said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste. "To come to Washington on a corporate jet, and asking for a hand out is outrageous."
Wagoner's private jet trip to Washington cost his ailing company an estimated $20,000 roundtrip. In comparison, seats on Northwest Airlines flight 2364 from Detroit to Washington were going online for $288 coach and $837 first class.
After the hearing, Wagoner declined to answer questions about his travel.
Ford CEO Mulally's corporate jet is a perk included for both he and his wife as part of his employment contract along with a $28 million salary last year. Mulally actually lives in Seattle, not Detroit. The company jet takes him home and back on weekends.
Plants Closed, Company Jets Stay
Mulally made his case Tuesday before the committee saying he's cut expenses, laid-off workers and closed 17 plants.
"We have also reduced our work force by 51,000 employees in the past three years," Mulally said.
Yet Ford continues to operate a fleet of eight private jets for its executives. Just Tuesday, one jet was taking Ford brass to Los Angeles, another on a trip to Nebraska, and of course Mulally needed to fly to Washington to testify. He did not address questions following the hearing.
"Now's not the time to do that sort of thing," said John McElroy of the television program "Autoline Detroit."
"Now's the time to be humble and show that you're sharing equally in the sacrifice," McElroy said.
GM and Ford say that it is a corporate decision to have their CEOs fly on private jets and that is non-negotiable, even as the companies say they are running out of cash.
Private jet travel is perhaps the greatest perk of all for CEOs, who say it allows them to travel more efficiently and safely, even in a recession.
AIG, despite the $150 billion bailout, still operates a fleet of corporate jets. The company says it has put two out of its seven jets up for sale and is reviewing the use of others. Though there are no such plans by GM or Ford.
"It appears that the senior management of the automakers simply don't get it," said Schatz.
Major Al-Qaeda operative killed in US missile strike: official
A major Al-Qaeda operative of Arab origin was among six militants killed overnight in a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan, a senior security official told AFP Wednesday.
Security sources identified the militant as Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, a senior member in Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
"He was a senior commander of Al-Qaeda and was involved in recruiting and training of fighters," the senior official said.
According to US intelligence shared with Pakistan, al-Saudi was the main link between Al-Qaeda's senior command and Taliban networks in the Pakistani border region, an Islamabad-based senior security official said.
"He was the man coordinating between Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders on this side of the border, and also involved in recruiting and training fighters," the official told AFP.
He is the second high-profile Al-Qaeda operative killed in recent US missile strikes in Pakistan's rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative Abu Jihad al-Masri, described by the US as Al-Qaeda's propaganda chief, was killed in a missile strike in Pakistan in the early hours of November 1.
He was among several rebels killed when two missiles fired by a suspected US spy drone hit a truck in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
How to Put the Squeeze on Iran
Cutting off its gasoline imports may be the only peaceful way to get Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
If Barack Obama is to persuade Iran to negotiate away its illegal nuclear weapons program, he will first need to generate more leverage than what the Bush administration is leaving him with. The current U.N. sanctions have proven too weak to dissuade Tehran's leaders, and Russia and China seem determined to keep those sanctions weak. Meanwhile, the regime continues to insist there are no incentives in exchange for which it would halt or even limit its nuclear work.
David KleinHowever, Tehran has an economic Achilles' heel -- its extraordinarily heavy dependence on imported gasoline. This dependence could be used by the United States to peacefully create decisive leverage over the Islamic Republic.
Iranian oil wells produce far more petroleum (crude oil) than Iran needs. Yet, remarkably for a country investing so much in nuclear power, Iran has not developed sufficient capacity to refine that crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, it must import some 40% of the gasoline it needs for internal consumption.
In recent months, Iran has, according to the respected trade publication International Oil Daily and other sources including the U.S. government, purchased nearly all of this gasoline from just five companies, four of them European: the Swiss firm Vitol; the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura; the French firm Total; British Petroleum; and one Indian company, Reliance Industries. If these companies stopped supplying Iran, the Iranians could replace only some of what they needed from other suppliers -- and at a significantly higher price. Neither Russia nor China could serve as alternative suppliers. Both are themselves also heavily dependent on imports of the type of gasoline Iran needs.
Were these companies to stop supplying gasoline to Iran, the world-wide price of oil would be unaffected -- the companies would simply sell to other buyers. But the impact on Iran would be substantial.
When Tehran attempted to ration gasoline during the summer of 2007, violent protests forced the regime to back down. Cutting off gasoline sales to Iran, or even a significant reduction, could have an even more dramatic effect.
In Congress, there is already bipartisan support for peacefully cutting off gasoline sales to Iran until it stops its illicit nuclear activities. Barack Obama, John McCain and the House of Representatives have all declared their support.
On June 4 of this year, for example, Sen. Obama said at a speech in Washington, D.C.: "We should work with Europe, Japan and the Gulf states to find every avenue outside the U.N. to isolate the Iranian regime -- from cutting off loan guarantees and expanding financial sanctions, to banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran."
He repeated this sentiment during the presidential candidates' debate on Oct. 7: "Iran right now imports gasoline . . . if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need . . . that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."
How do we stop the gasoline from flowing? The Bush administration has reportedly never asked the Swiss, Dutch, French, British or Indian governments to stop gasoline sales to Iran by the companies headquartered within their borders. An Obama administration should make this request, and do the same with other governments if other companies try to sell gasoline to Iran.
But the U.S. also has significant direct leverage over the companies that currently supply most of Iran's imported gasoline.
Consider India's Reliance Industries which, according to International Oil Daily, "reemerged as a major supplier of gasoline to Iran" in July after taking a break for several months. It "delivered three cargoes of gasoline totaling around 100,000 tons to Iran's Mideast Gulf port of Bandar Abbas from its giant Jamnagar refinery in India's western province of Gujarat." Reliance reportedly "entered into a new arrangement with National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) under which it will supply around . . . three 35,000-ton cargoes a month, from its giant Jamnagar refinery." One hundred thousand tons represents some 10% of Iran's total monthly gasoline needs.
The Jamnagar refinery is heavily supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars. In May 2007, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a government agency that assists in financing the export of U.S. goods and services, announced a $500 million loan guarantee to help finance expansion of the Jamnagar refinery. On Aug. 28, 2008, Ex-Im announced a new $400 million long-term loan guarantee for Reliance, including additional financing of work at the Jamnagar refinery.
Or consider the Swiss firm Vitol. According to International Oil Daily, Vitol "over the past few years has accounted for around 60% of the gasoline shipped to Iran." Vitol is currently building a $100 million terminal in Port Canaveral, Florida.
Last year, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty discovered that an Indian company, Essar, was seeking to both invest some $1.6 billion in Minnesota and invest over $5 billion in building a refinery in Iran, he put Essar to a choice. Mr. Pawlenty threatened to block state infrastructure subsidies and perhaps even construction permits for the Minnesota purchase unless Essar withdrew from the Iranian investment. Essar promptly withdrew from the Iranian investment.
Florida officials could consider taking a similar stance with Vitol.
The Minnesota example is not the only precedent. U.S. outreach to foreign banks and to oil companies considering investing in Iran's energy sector has reportedly convinced more than 80 banks and several major potential oil-field investors to cease all or some of their business with Iran. Among them: Germany's two largest banks (Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank), London-based HSBC, Credit Suisse, Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, and Royal Dutch Shell.
A sustained initiative may be able to convince most or all current and potential suppliers that the profits to be gained from continuing to sell gasoline to Iran will be dwarfed by the lost loan guarantees and subsidies and foregone profits they will incur in the U.S. from continuing to do business with Iran.
Last Sunday, a group of 60 Iranian economists called for the regime to drastically change course, saying that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "tension-creating" foreign policy has "scared off foreign investment and inflicted heavy damage on the economy." The economists said the current sanctions, as weak as they are, have cost Iran billions of dollars by forcing it to use middlemen for exports and imports. Halting Iran's gasoline supply could contribute to reaching a tipping point -- at which economic pressures and protests convince the regime its illicit nuclear program poses too great a risk to its grip over the Iranian people.
If the federal and key state governments in the U.S. were to make it their goal to achieve a halt by companies selling gasoline to Iran, it could be a game-changer. It may be our best remaining hope for peacefully convincing Iran to desist from developing nuclear weapons.
If Barack Obama is to persuade Iran to negotiate away its illegal nuclear weapons program, he will first need to generate more leverage than what the Bush administration is leaving him with. The current U.N. sanctions have proven too weak to dissuade Tehran's leaders, and Russia and China seem determined to keep those sanctions weak. Meanwhile, the regime continues to insist there are no incentives in exchange for which it would halt or even limit its nuclear work.
David KleinHowever, Tehran has an economic Achilles' heel -- its extraordinarily heavy dependence on imported gasoline. This dependence could be used by the United States to peacefully create decisive leverage over the Islamic Republic.
Iranian oil wells produce far more petroleum (crude oil) than Iran needs. Yet, remarkably for a country investing so much in nuclear power, Iran has not developed sufficient capacity to refine that crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, it must import some 40% of the gasoline it needs for internal consumption.
In recent months, Iran has, according to the respected trade publication International Oil Daily and other sources including the U.S. government, purchased nearly all of this gasoline from just five companies, four of them European: the Swiss firm Vitol; the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura; the French firm Total; British Petroleum; and one Indian company, Reliance Industries. If these companies stopped supplying Iran, the Iranians could replace only some of what they needed from other suppliers -- and at a significantly higher price. Neither Russia nor China could serve as alternative suppliers. Both are themselves also heavily dependent on imports of the type of gasoline Iran needs.
Were these companies to stop supplying gasoline to Iran, the world-wide price of oil would be unaffected -- the companies would simply sell to other buyers. But the impact on Iran would be substantial.
When Tehran attempted to ration gasoline during the summer of 2007, violent protests forced the regime to back down. Cutting off gasoline sales to Iran, or even a significant reduction, could have an even more dramatic effect.
In Congress, there is already bipartisan support for peacefully cutting off gasoline sales to Iran until it stops its illicit nuclear activities. Barack Obama, John McCain and the House of Representatives have all declared their support.
On June 4 of this year, for example, Sen. Obama said at a speech in Washington, D.C.: "We should work with Europe, Japan and the Gulf states to find every avenue outside the U.N. to isolate the Iranian regime -- from cutting off loan guarantees and expanding financial sanctions, to banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran."
He repeated this sentiment during the presidential candidates' debate on Oct. 7: "Iran right now imports gasoline . . . if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need . . . that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."
How do we stop the gasoline from flowing? The Bush administration has reportedly never asked the Swiss, Dutch, French, British or Indian governments to stop gasoline sales to Iran by the companies headquartered within their borders. An Obama administration should make this request, and do the same with other governments if other companies try to sell gasoline to Iran.
But the U.S. also has significant direct leverage over the companies that currently supply most of Iran's imported gasoline.
Consider India's Reliance Industries which, according to International Oil Daily, "reemerged as a major supplier of gasoline to Iran" in July after taking a break for several months. It "delivered three cargoes of gasoline totaling around 100,000 tons to Iran's Mideast Gulf port of Bandar Abbas from its giant Jamnagar refinery in India's western province of Gujarat." Reliance reportedly "entered into a new arrangement with National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) under which it will supply around . . . three 35,000-ton cargoes a month, from its giant Jamnagar refinery." One hundred thousand tons represents some 10% of Iran's total monthly gasoline needs.
The Jamnagar refinery is heavily supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars. In May 2007, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a government agency that assists in financing the export of U.S. goods and services, announced a $500 million loan guarantee to help finance expansion of the Jamnagar refinery. On Aug. 28, 2008, Ex-Im announced a new $400 million long-term loan guarantee for Reliance, including additional financing of work at the Jamnagar refinery.
Or consider the Swiss firm Vitol. According to International Oil Daily, Vitol "over the past few years has accounted for around 60% of the gasoline shipped to Iran." Vitol is currently building a $100 million terminal in Port Canaveral, Florida.
Last year, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty discovered that an Indian company, Essar, was seeking to both invest some $1.6 billion in Minnesota and invest over $5 billion in building a refinery in Iran, he put Essar to a choice. Mr. Pawlenty threatened to block state infrastructure subsidies and perhaps even construction permits for the Minnesota purchase unless Essar withdrew from the Iranian investment. Essar promptly withdrew from the Iranian investment.
Florida officials could consider taking a similar stance with Vitol.
The Minnesota example is not the only precedent. U.S. outreach to foreign banks and to oil companies considering investing in Iran's energy sector has reportedly convinced more than 80 banks and several major potential oil-field investors to cease all or some of their business with Iran. Among them: Germany's two largest banks (Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank), London-based HSBC, Credit Suisse, Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, and Royal Dutch Shell.
A sustained initiative may be able to convince most or all current and potential suppliers that the profits to be gained from continuing to sell gasoline to Iran will be dwarfed by the lost loan guarantees and subsidies and foregone profits they will incur in the U.S. from continuing to do business with Iran.
Last Sunday, a group of 60 Iranian economists called for the regime to drastically change course, saying that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "tension-creating" foreign policy has "scared off foreign investment and inflicted heavy damage on the economy." The economists said the current sanctions, as weak as they are, have cost Iran billions of dollars by forcing it to use middlemen for exports and imports. Halting Iran's gasoline supply could contribute to reaching a tipping point -- at which economic pressures and protests convince the regime its illicit nuclear program poses too great a risk to its grip over the Iranian people.
If the federal and key state governments in the U.S. were to make it their goal to achieve a halt by companies selling gasoline to Iran, it could be a game-changer. It may be our best remaining hope for peacefully convincing Iran to desist from developing nuclear weapons.
Blame the UAW for Detroit's Problems
Remember when Democrats lamented the growing budget deficit and spoke of the burden our children and grandchildren would face if we didn’t put our fiscal house in order? That was when Republicans ran the federal government and Democrats opposed tax cuts. Now that Democrats are about to be in charge, concern about the deficit has disappeared and spending plans proliferate, even though the national debt passed $10 trillion in September and we added another $500 billion last month.
The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to save jobs because its cars are not selling. There is a reason for that and it can be summed up in five words: The United Auto Workers Union (UAW).
Half of the $50 billion the auto industry wants is for health care for its current and retired employees. This is the result of increasing UAW demands, strikes and threats of strikes unless health care and pension benefits were regularly increased. While in the past UAW settled for some benefit decreases while bargaining with the Big Three U.S. automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal in September of 2006, “on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers.” Those increased costs, including the cost of health care, were passed along to consumers, adding $1,600 to the price of every vehicle GM produced. In February 2008, after General Motors offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the average wage, including benefits, for current GM workers had dropped to $78.21 an hour. New hires pulled down a paltry $26.65. GM, now facing a head-on collision with reality, has taken an important first step toward fiscal responsibility by announcing the elimination of lifetime health care benefits for about 100,000 of its white-collar retirees at the end of this year.
Contrast this with non-union Toyota, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are $35 per hour. Those lower labor costs mean Toyota enjoys a cost advantage over U.S. automakers of about $1,000 per vehicle. Is it any wonder that Toyota is outselling American automakers and from plants that have been built on U.S. soil? According to James Sherk of The Heritage Foundation, Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages: “The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime.”
While many in the Democratic Party have focused on “corporate greed” and “fairness,” according to Sherk, “competition, not corporate greed, is the real problem facing labor unions. When unions negotiate raises for their members, companies pass those higher costs on to consumers.” Americans used to tolerate those increases, but no more. Competition has brought lower prices for Japanese cars and Americans are buying more of them, taking a pass on those manufactured in Detroit.
The argument made by those favoring a bailout of Detroit is that it will save more than 100,000 jobs in the auto and related industries. But what good does that do if people are not buying cars in sufficient numbers to allow the Big Three to make a profit? This becomes the kind of corporate welfare Democrats decry when it comes to Wall Street. But, then, Wall Street isn’t unionized and Democrats want and need the union vote.
What about Chrysler’s bailout 30 years ago? It was a loan. Didn’t Chrysler pay back the government? Wasn’t it worth the risk to save jobs? According to the Heritage Foundation, the $1.2 billion in loan guarantees made by the Carter administration still resulted in a partial bankruptcy for Chrysler. “Most of the company’s creditors were forced to accept losses just as they would if Chrysler had gone through Chapter 11, and the company ended up firing almost half its workforce, including 20,000 white-collar workers and 42,600 hourly wage earners. The only people who benefited from the bailout were Chrysler shareholders.”
The Heritage Foundation also notes, “If Washington really wants to help Detroit, they could end the regulatory nightmare that prevents profitable, fuel-efficient cars from reaching market.” Ford, they say, has begun selling a car that gets 65 mpg, but they’re not selling it in America. Why? Because it runs on diesel fuel “and environmentalists in the U.S. have fought to keep diesel taxes high and refinery capacity low.”
More government intervention in private industry will bring us closer to socialism. Better to renegotiate the labor contracts, re-train workers for other jobs, or help them get hired at the Japanese auto plants in America than to subsidize a failed economic model for the sake of political gain.
The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to save jobs because its cars are not selling. There is a reason for that and it can be summed up in five words: The United Auto Workers Union (UAW).
Half of the $50 billion the auto industry wants is for health care for its current and retired employees. This is the result of increasing UAW demands, strikes and threats of strikes unless health care and pension benefits were regularly increased. While in the past UAW settled for some benefit decreases while bargaining with the Big Three U.S. automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal in September of 2006, “on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers.” Those increased costs, including the cost of health care, were passed along to consumers, adding $1,600 to the price of every vehicle GM produced. In February 2008, after General Motors offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the average wage, including benefits, for current GM workers had dropped to $78.21 an hour. New hires pulled down a paltry $26.65. GM, now facing a head-on collision with reality, has taken an important first step toward fiscal responsibility by announcing the elimination of lifetime health care benefits for about 100,000 of its white-collar retirees at the end of this year.
Contrast this with non-union Toyota, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are $35 per hour. Those lower labor costs mean Toyota enjoys a cost advantage over U.S. automakers of about $1,000 per vehicle. Is it any wonder that Toyota is outselling American automakers and from plants that have been built on U.S. soil? According to James Sherk of The Heritage Foundation, Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages: “The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime.”
While many in the Democratic Party have focused on “corporate greed” and “fairness,” according to Sherk, “competition, not corporate greed, is the real problem facing labor unions. When unions negotiate raises for their members, companies pass those higher costs on to consumers.” Americans used to tolerate those increases, but no more. Competition has brought lower prices for Japanese cars and Americans are buying more of them, taking a pass on those manufactured in Detroit.
The argument made by those favoring a bailout of Detroit is that it will save more than 100,000 jobs in the auto and related industries. But what good does that do if people are not buying cars in sufficient numbers to allow the Big Three to make a profit? This becomes the kind of corporate welfare Democrats decry when it comes to Wall Street. But, then, Wall Street isn’t unionized and Democrats want and need the union vote.
What about Chrysler’s bailout 30 years ago? It was a loan. Didn’t Chrysler pay back the government? Wasn’t it worth the risk to save jobs? According to the Heritage Foundation, the $1.2 billion in loan guarantees made by the Carter administration still resulted in a partial bankruptcy for Chrysler. “Most of the company’s creditors were forced to accept losses just as they would if Chrysler had gone through Chapter 11, and the company ended up firing almost half its workforce, including 20,000 white-collar workers and 42,600 hourly wage earners. The only people who benefited from the bailout were Chrysler shareholders.”
The Heritage Foundation also notes, “If Washington really wants to help Detroit, they could end the regulatory nightmare that prevents profitable, fuel-efficient cars from reaching market.” Ford, they say, has begun selling a car that gets 65 mpg, but they’re not selling it in America. Why? Because it runs on diesel fuel “and environmentalists in the U.S. have fought to keep diesel taxes high and refinery capacity low.”
More government intervention in private industry will bring us closer to socialism. Better to renegotiate the labor contracts, re-train workers for other jobs, or help them get hired at the Japanese auto plants in America than to subsidize a failed economic model for the sake of political gain.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Report: Secret Order Lets U.S. Strike Al Qaeda Anywhere
Monday , November 10, 2008
The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004, The New York Times reported Sunday night.
Citing anonymous U.S. officials, the Times story said the operations were authorized by a broad classified order that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed and President George W. Bush approved in spring 2004. The order gave the military authority to attack Al Qaeda anywhere in the world and to conduct operations in countries that were not at war with the U.S.
One such operation was an Oct. 26 raid inside Syria, the Times reported. Washington has not formally acknowledged the raid, but U.S. officials have said the target was a top Al Qaeda in Iraq figure. Syria has asked for proof and said eight civilians were killed in the attack.
In another mission, in 2006, Navy SEALs raided a suspected terrorist compound in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The raids have typically been conducted by U.S. Special Forces, often in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency, the newspaper said. Even though the process has been streamlined, specific missions have to be approved by the defense secretary or, in the cases of Syria and Pakistan, by the president.
A Defense Department spokesman had no comment Sunday night on the Times report.
The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004, The New York Times reported Sunday night.
Citing anonymous U.S. officials, the Times story said the operations were authorized by a broad classified order that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed and President George W. Bush approved in spring 2004. The order gave the military authority to attack Al Qaeda anywhere in the world and to conduct operations in countries that were not at war with the U.S.
One such operation was an Oct. 26 raid inside Syria, the Times reported. Washington has not formally acknowledged the raid, but U.S. officials have said the target was a top Al Qaeda in Iraq figure. Syria has asked for proof and said eight civilians were killed in the attack.
In another mission, in 2006, Navy SEALs raided a suspected terrorist compound in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The raids have typically been conducted by U.S. Special Forces, often in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency, the newspaper said. Even though the process has been streamlined, specific missions have to be approved by the defense secretary or, in the cases of Syria and Pakistan, by the president.
A Defense Department spokesman had no comment Sunday night on the Times report.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Gingrich 2012?
In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years?
To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.
Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly.
Even one of his strongest supporters for president in 2012 admits it is a "very risky choice." But Republicans are in a desperate mood after the fiasco of John McCain's seemingly safe candidacy. Republicans appear chastened by the failure of seeking moderate, independent and even Democratic votes. They are ready to try going back to the "old-time religion."
One Republican critic of Gingrich concedes that he has an "unlimited" energy flow and a constant stream of ideas, an important commodity in a party that appears to have run short of ideas during the Bush years. But there is widespread concern about what is described in the party as Gingrich's deep "character flaws" that would be difficult to overcome in a presidential campaign. Nobody in Republican ranks, however, matches Gingrich's dynamism.
The consternation among Republicans is concentrated on McCain's failure to capitalize on Democratic flaws.
It would be a rocky road for Gingrich to the nomination, much less the presidency, but there are no other serious candidates inside the party at the moment.
What's clear is that Republicans are unanimous in trying to avoid a repeat of what happened this year, and there is a surprising consensus that McCain was going in the wrong direction and was the wrong candidate.
What one GOP critic calls Gingrich's "unlimited energy supply" must be overcome by anyone opposing him. Several old Republican hands feel that Gingrich in 2012 is no more outrageous than Ronald Reagan was in 1980.
What is certain is that Gingrich has the desire and the will.
To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.
Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly.
Even one of his strongest supporters for president in 2012 admits it is a "very risky choice." But Republicans are in a desperate mood after the fiasco of John McCain's seemingly safe candidacy. Republicans appear chastened by the failure of seeking moderate, independent and even Democratic votes. They are ready to try going back to the "old-time religion."
One Republican critic of Gingrich concedes that he has an "unlimited" energy flow and a constant stream of ideas, an important commodity in a party that appears to have run short of ideas during the Bush years. But there is widespread concern about what is described in the party as Gingrich's deep "character flaws" that would be difficult to overcome in a presidential campaign. Nobody in Republican ranks, however, matches Gingrich's dynamism.
The consternation among Republicans is concentrated on McCain's failure to capitalize on Democratic flaws.
It would be a rocky road for Gingrich to the nomination, much less the presidency, but there are no other serious candidates inside the party at the moment.
What's clear is that Republicans are unanimous in trying to avoid a repeat of what happened this year, and there is a surprising consensus that McCain was going in the wrong direction and was the wrong candidate.
What one GOP critic calls Gingrich's "unlimited energy supply" must be overcome by anyone opposing him. Several old Republican hands feel that Gingrich in 2012 is no more outrageous than Ronald Reagan was in 1980.
What is certain is that Gingrich has the desire and the will.
Media Defeats McCain?
The election of Barack Obama was certainly historic, and the great attraction of that historic moment led to more history: an Obama-smitten news media that completely avoided their responsibility to test the nominee with hard questions. It made the gooey 1992 Clinton campaign look like a fistfight by comparison.
Obama faced none of the withering scrutiny applied to even the Republican vice presidential candidate. Instead, he was treated to a nearly constant string of encomiums and tributes to his transformational candidacy, while nearly every possible pitfall of political embarrassment or inconvenience has been omitted or dismissed.
The investigative resources of the networks -- who combed over Wasilla, Alaska, looking for earmarks and pregnancy tests -- showed a complete disinterest in traveling to Hawaii or the South Side of Chicago to cast a skeptical eye on any part of Obama's own preferred campaign narrative.
The big question now: If the media couldn't scrutinize the man before he was elected, why would they feel the drive to do so afterward? They won't. They worked for his election. They will now work for his administration. Past is prologue.
Take the last few Obama fawn-a-thons before the election as examples of things to come. Just one week after NBC's Brian Williams put up his dukes with John McCain and Sarah Palin, demanding to know if they would keep the pledge to avoid the anti-American harangues of Obama's longtime minister Jeremiah Wright, he had Obama on the set. The contrast was crystal clear as he asked Obama about how the poor man can't walk down the street in Honolulu mourning the approaching death of his grandmother.
"According to the press pool traveling with you, you asked to just take a walk and be alone," he oozed sympathetically. "Guess it's part of the contract you make when you run in such an extended campaign, but, the human in you, and the husband and father and grandson, must want to just bust out sometimes, or disappear, if you can't go for a walk like that?"
CBS anchor Katie Couric, last seen ripping into Palin, also used her last pre-election interview to ask about Obama's personal feelings, about whether he was a "nervous wreck" about the vote, and "If things go your way on Tuesday and you become this nation's first African-American president, what will that mean to you personally?"
Couric was tough during that interview -- but on the Republicans. She focused Obama on Republicans daring to press the Reverend Wright issue: "The Pennsylvania Republican Party is starting to run an ad in that state which features your former minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, saying quote, 'God damn America.' Do you think they would have run that ad without the approval of the McCain campaign?"
Even in the last days of this race, saying "God damn America" was far less reprehensible to the media than replaying it.
Both anchors thought they were being tough by asking the drape-measuring question regarding how Democrats might overreach if they hold all the levers of power in Washington, but both phrased it in a tone which said, "Please reassure voters that this is not a real cause for concern." Williams asked for "assurance" for the American people, and Couric wanted Obama to "assuage" public fears.
The burden of scrutinizing and questioning the new Democratic ruling machine in Washington is already being shrugged off by the Obama press. Once again, it's going to fall on Fox News Channel and alternative media outlets from radio to the Internet to try and hold Obama accountable. No wonder the Democrats are making noise about crushing anti-Obama dissent on the airwaves with a revised version of the old "Fairness Doctrine."
In the primary elections, it became clear when it was over that Obama's win of just one-tenth of a percentage point of the 35 million votes cast that the media's pro-Obama bias created that narrow margin of victory. The general election result wasn't that close, and the punishing circumstances of vigorous Bush hatred and the collapse of economic confidence possibly were just too much for the GOP nominee to overcome.
But try and imagine how different this campaign would have looked if the media's momentum manufacturers favored McCain with all the unashamed ardor and aggression that they brought in support of Obama. Deep down, the media agree with Evan Thomas that their bias can add five or 10 points to a Democrat's vote total, and they eagerly demonstrated that they were ready to shred their own credibility as allegedly objective referees to achieve that victorious result.
Obama faced none of the withering scrutiny applied to even the Republican vice presidential candidate. Instead, he was treated to a nearly constant string of encomiums and tributes to his transformational candidacy, while nearly every possible pitfall of political embarrassment or inconvenience has been omitted or dismissed.
The investigative resources of the networks -- who combed over Wasilla, Alaska, looking for earmarks and pregnancy tests -- showed a complete disinterest in traveling to Hawaii or the South Side of Chicago to cast a skeptical eye on any part of Obama's own preferred campaign narrative.
The big question now: If the media couldn't scrutinize the man before he was elected, why would they feel the drive to do so afterward? They won't. They worked for his election. They will now work for his administration. Past is prologue.
Take the last few Obama fawn-a-thons before the election as examples of things to come. Just one week after NBC's Brian Williams put up his dukes with John McCain and Sarah Palin, demanding to know if they would keep the pledge to avoid the anti-American harangues of Obama's longtime minister Jeremiah Wright, he had Obama on the set. The contrast was crystal clear as he asked Obama about how the poor man can't walk down the street in Honolulu mourning the approaching death of his grandmother.
"According to the press pool traveling with you, you asked to just take a walk and be alone," he oozed sympathetically. "Guess it's part of the contract you make when you run in such an extended campaign, but, the human in you, and the husband and father and grandson, must want to just bust out sometimes, or disappear, if you can't go for a walk like that?"
CBS anchor Katie Couric, last seen ripping into Palin, also used her last pre-election interview to ask about Obama's personal feelings, about whether he was a "nervous wreck" about the vote, and "If things go your way on Tuesday and you become this nation's first African-American president, what will that mean to you personally?"
Couric was tough during that interview -- but on the Republicans. She focused Obama on Republicans daring to press the Reverend Wright issue: "The Pennsylvania Republican Party is starting to run an ad in that state which features your former minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, saying quote, 'God damn America.' Do you think they would have run that ad without the approval of the McCain campaign?"
Even in the last days of this race, saying "God damn America" was far less reprehensible to the media than replaying it.
Both anchors thought they were being tough by asking the drape-measuring question regarding how Democrats might overreach if they hold all the levers of power in Washington, but both phrased it in a tone which said, "Please reassure voters that this is not a real cause for concern." Williams asked for "assurance" for the American people, and Couric wanted Obama to "assuage" public fears.
The burden of scrutinizing and questioning the new Democratic ruling machine in Washington is already being shrugged off by the Obama press. Once again, it's going to fall on Fox News Channel and alternative media outlets from radio to the Internet to try and hold Obama accountable. No wonder the Democrats are making noise about crushing anti-Obama dissent on the airwaves with a revised version of the old "Fairness Doctrine."
In the primary elections, it became clear when it was over that Obama's win of just one-tenth of a percentage point of the 35 million votes cast that the media's pro-Obama bias created that narrow margin of victory. The general election result wasn't that close, and the punishing circumstances of vigorous Bush hatred and the collapse of economic confidence possibly were just too much for the GOP nominee to overcome.
But try and imagine how different this campaign would have looked if the media's momentum manufacturers favored McCain with all the unashamed ardor and aggression that they brought in support of Obama. Deep down, the media agree with Evan Thomas that their bias can add five or 10 points to a Democrat's vote total, and they eagerly demonstrated that they were ready to shred their own credibility as allegedly objective referees to achieve that victorious result.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Testing the New President
Vice-president-elect Joe Biden issued a prescient warning in the last days of the presidential campaign: If Barack Obama were elected president, he would be tested by a major international crisis soon after taking office. Biden was wrong about one thing: The test has come even before President-elect Obama is sworn in.
Within hours of Obama's impressive victory, another new leader, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, warned that Russia would deploy short-range missiles capable of hitting NATO territory if the new American president goes ahead to build a missile defense system to protect Europe. It's unclear where a President Obama will come down on this issue. He's been on both sides during the campaign.
The idea of an anti-missile defense system, of course, is not new. The United States has been working on an anti-missile system to protect our territory since the Reagan administration. The Strategic Defense Initiative -- often derisively dismissed as "Star Wars" by its critics -- fundamentally changed the way the U.S. approached the idea of nuclear war.
Through much of the Cold War, the United States based its defense almost entirely on a good offense: mutually assured destruction (MAD). We would have so many weapons that the Soviets would realize that an attack on us would be suicidal. If they launched a surprise nuclear attack on us, enough of our missiles would survive to retaliate against them, and annihilation would be the fate of both sides.
But Reagan changed the equation. Essentially abandoning the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which allowed the Soviets and the U.S. to set up anti-missile systems to protect only their two capitals, Reagan announced he would explore building a defense shield to protect the entire country.
Some 20 years later, U.S. technology in this area has advanced to the point that we are capable of deploying a limited system to protect our allies. Last year, the U.S. announced that negotiations were under way with some of our friends in Europe to deploy anti-missile systems on their territory. For some of those allies, the primary threat they fear is a nuclear-armed Iran. Although, Poland, with whom we've now signed an agreement, also fears a newly belligerent Russia. But the Bush administration has been at pains to reassure an insecure Russia that any American-deployed system would be purely defensive -- a so-called "hit-to-kill" strategy in which a missile's technology would not even include explosives but would rely on intercepting a nuclear missile before it hit its target.
Russia has now made it clear to the incoming president: Move ahead with deploying 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic and we will deploy short-ranged missiles near Poland. So what will our new president do? The last time Russia flexed its considerable muscle by invading Georgia, candidate Obama at first acted as if both sides were equally to blame. He later righted himself, condemning Russia as the aggressor.
President-elect Obama is busy with preparations for the transition to his new office. But the Russians won't wait -- and neither will our enemies. Obama must signal that there will be no major shifts in American foreign or defense policy, irrespective of all the campaign rhetoric about change. He could do so by quickly announcing his picks for secretaries of state and defense. I doubt Colin Powell wants another term at state, but perhaps he would view defense as a new challenge. At the very least, such a choice would inform Russia that despite partisan wrangling in election years, the United States remains committed to protecting our allies and ourselves, and a President Obama has no plans to change that.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A Real Election Choice On The United Nations
When Barack Obama said he'd like to "spread the wealth around," he was widely understood to be talking about redistributing income within the U.S. But there's another arena in which Obama fans are waiting impatiently for the promised wealth-spreading--the United Nations.
Officially, under its 1945 charter, the U.N. is a neutral body that takes no sides in U.S. politics. But a recent story in the Washington Post, headlined "At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win," reports the same drumbeat I've been hearing from the U.N.'s New York headquarters. There's little love lost there for John McCain, who replies to the U.N.'s chronic scandals and tyrant-friendly tilt by proposing some competition, via a League of Democracies.
Obama, by contrast, promises to give the U.N. a bigger role in U.S. foreign policy and many more American tax dollars than the $5 billion or more per year that currently accounts for roughly one-quarter of the total U.N. budget--already the biggest share by far among the U.N.'s 192 member states.
A disturbing caveat here is that the total annual U.N. budget is something of a mystery even to the U.N., which produced an estimate two years ago of $20 billion. That has since grown, but the U.N. either won't or can't say by how much.
Cocooned in diplomatic immunities, and spent across borders, the U.N. budget is multilayered, secretively administered, erratically audited and often filtered through multiple U.N. agencies that charge fees to each other. These days, in the name of "public-private partnerships," it is also opaquely intertwined with assorted private foundations and corporations worldwide.
The danger here is not only graft and waste but the ease with which the U.N. collective, with its majority of nonfree member states, lends itself to support for dictatorships, money laundering and questionable transfers of technology and goods to rogue regimes (all of which emerged in investigations into both the U.N.'s 1996-2003 Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, and its more recent Cash-for-Kim scandal in North Korea).
Obama has yet to put forward a viable plan for holding the U.N. accountable. But he's already promising to embrace a massive U.N. program called the Millennium Development Goals, saying "When I'm president, they will be America's goals." This U.N. program in effect sets U.N.-approved central planning targets for poor countries and urges developed countries to pay for it by handing over 0.7% of gross national product--in effect, a direct tax levied by the U.N.
Obama is promising upfront that by 2012 he'd be tossing at least $50 billion a year into this pit. If, as president, he signs onto the full U.N. program, the tab for American taxpayers over the next four years could total well over $300 billion.
With the pale exception of Japan (the number two financial donor after the U.S.), America has been the only U.N. member state to even try to impose serious oversight on the U.N. Almost the entire U.S. effort came from a now-departed team brought to the U.S. mission in 2005 by former Ambassador John Bolton, and a few Republican members of Congress, chiefly Sen. Norm Coleman and the late Rep. Henry Hyde. Coleman, a former prosecutor who put himself on the line to uncover U.N.-related nests of money laundering, graft and abuse, is now running for re-election in Minnesota--where he might lose his seat to comedian Al Franken.
U.N. reforms proclaimed with fanfare in recent years have fizzled. A policy of financial disclosure by top U.N. officials, promised by Kofi Annan, has turned out to require no public disclosure whatsoever. A system-wide audit promised by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in early 2007 was scaled back within the week to a tardy and off-site audit of a portion of the U.N.'s operations in North Korea.
A special task force set up almost three years ago to investigate U.N. procurement activities has identified at least 20 major cases of fraud, kickbacks and malfeasance tainting a total of more than $630 million worth of contracts. But this probe is due to be shut down by the end of this year, leaving behind at least 150 unfinished investigations.
Given the current U.N. scene, it's not just Joe the Plumber who comes to mind. American taxpayers might want to recall the fate of Boxer the horse, in George Orwell's Animal Farm, whose mantra as he slaved in the name of the collective good was "I must work harder"--right up until he was carted away to the glue factory.
Officially, under its 1945 charter, the U.N. is a neutral body that takes no sides in U.S. politics. But a recent story in the Washington Post, headlined "At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win," reports the same drumbeat I've been hearing from the U.N.'s New York headquarters. There's little love lost there for John McCain, who replies to the U.N.'s chronic scandals and tyrant-friendly tilt by proposing some competition, via a League of Democracies.
Obama, by contrast, promises to give the U.N. a bigger role in U.S. foreign policy and many more American tax dollars than the $5 billion or more per year that currently accounts for roughly one-quarter of the total U.N. budget--already the biggest share by far among the U.N.'s 192 member states.
A disturbing caveat here is that the total annual U.N. budget is something of a mystery even to the U.N., which produced an estimate two years ago of $20 billion. That has since grown, but the U.N. either won't or can't say by how much.
Cocooned in diplomatic immunities, and spent across borders, the U.N. budget is multilayered, secretively administered, erratically audited and often filtered through multiple U.N. agencies that charge fees to each other. These days, in the name of "public-private partnerships," it is also opaquely intertwined with assorted private foundations and corporations worldwide.
The danger here is not only graft and waste but the ease with which the U.N. collective, with its majority of nonfree member states, lends itself to support for dictatorships, money laundering and questionable transfers of technology and goods to rogue regimes (all of which emerged in investigations into both the U.N.'s 1996-2003 Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, and its more recent Cash-for-Kim scandal in North Korea).
Obama has yet to put forward a viable plan for holding the U.N. accountable. But he's already promising to embrace a massive U.N. program called the Millennium Development Goals, saying "When I'm president, they will be America's goals." This U.N. program in effect sets U.N.-approved central planning targets for poor countries and urges developed countries to pay for it by handing over 0.7% of gross national product--in effect, a direct tax levied by the U.N.
Obama is promising upfront that by 2012 he'd be tossing at least $50 billion a year into this pit. If, as president, he signs onto the full U.N. program, the tab for American taxpayers over the next four years could total well over $300 billion.
With the pale exception of Japan (the number two financial donor after the U.S.), America has been the only U.N. member state to even try to impose serious oversight on the U.N. Almost the entire U.S. effort came from a now-departed team brought to the U.S. mission in 2005 by former Ambassador John Bolton, and a few Republican members of Congress, chiefly Sen. Norm Coleman and the late Rep. Henry Hyde. Coleman, a former prosecutor who put himself on the line to uncover U.N.-related nests of money laundering, graft and abuse, is now running for re-election in Minnesota--where he might lose his seat to comedian Al Franken.
U.N. reforms proclaimed with fanfare in recent years have fizzled. A policy of financial disclosure by top U.N. officials, promised by Kofi Annan, has turned out to require no public disclosure whatsoever. A system-wide audit promised by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in early 2007 was scaled back within the week to a tardy and off-site audit of a portion of the U.N.'s operations in North Korea.
A special task force set up almost three years ago to investigate U.N. procurement activities has identified at least 20 major cases of fraud, kickbacks and malfeasance tainting a total of more than $630 million worth of contracts. But this probe is due to be shut down by the end of this year, leaving behind at least 150 unfinished investigations.
Given the current U.N. scene, it's not just Joe the Plumber who comes to mind. American taxpayers might want to recall the fate of Boxer the horse, in George Orwell's Animal Farm, whose mantra as he slaved in the name of the collective good was "I must work harder"--right up until he was carted away to the glue factory.
How About Some Real Change
Scanning the faces of the joyous crowd listening to President-elect Obama's victory speech early this morning, my heart broke, not just for the courageous and honorable war hero and public servant I supported for President whose political career is now in its twilight, not just for the trailblazing female governor from Alaska who was still the target of mean-spirited online commentary at a time which called for grace and healing, but also for the people in the crowd itself. They have invested so much in this idea of "change" in the person of Barack Obama and the hope and expectation in their faces was too much for me to take. That this man was able to persuade a majority of people in this country that he stands for change is more of a testament to his considerable political skills than the novelty of his ideas. In fact, one could lay his prescription for the nation atop John Kerry's or Al Gore's, shine a light through them and find nary a stray ink mark or deviating sentence. "I will listen to you, especially when we disagree," he proclaimed. Very well, then, Mr. Obama -- how about some real change for a change?
Will you declare an end to the class warfare that implies wealthy people are somehow unworthy or undeserving of their gains? As one of those wealthy people, do you believe you and your wife Michelle worked hard to rise up from modest backgrounds and are deserving of the rewards of your hard work? If you believe this, will you from this moment forward stop portraying the creators of the wealth that makes America the richest nation on the planet as selfish, uncaring or criminal?
Will you promote policies that reward hard work and wealth creation, thereby generating more middle-class jobs and personal prosperity than any government giveaways or additional stimulus packages? Since government is inherently incapable of generating wealth but only takes it, redistributes it or supresses it through excessive taxation or overregulation, will you reduce the government's percentage of our gross domestic product? Will you reduce our corporate tax rate, currently among the highest in the world, so American companies can compete in the global marketplace and bring jobs home? When even Sweden is cutting taxes to boost jobs and encourage work over government dependence, will you promote free markets over democratic socialism?
Will you stand up to the teachers unions that have lost their bearings and are consumed with self-preservation over educating children? Will you promote alternatives to public schools to foster competition, give parents more choices for their children, and make more efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars? Will you demand accountability for teachers and reward the best ones as an encouragement to them and an incentive to others? Will you demand that education programs demonstrate measurable success with the public money they've received before they get another dime?
How about breaking free from your party's culture of death and declaring how we protect those who are least able to protect themselves is not a wedge issue but a defining ideal for a nation which was founded on the premise that life is an indisputable right of all people and cannot be taken away by mankind? Have you ever seen an abortion or its aftermath, Mr. Obama? I am ashamed that my country, the beacon of human rights and dignity, has legalized the dismemberment of a living unborn person for any reason. Even a child knows that big people are supposed to take care of little people, not hurt or kill them because they are inconvenient or economically burdensome or somehow imperfect. Does the 90% selective abortion of unborn babies with Down Syndrome stir your heart at all, Mr. Obama? Can you justify abortion as a human right equal to freedom of speech or religion or the press? Isn't the purpose of a right to grant life, liberty and equal opportunity to the people, not take them away?
Will you break with the unions and defend secret ballot elections so that workers are not coerced into unionizing by public card checks that expose them to intimidation? Will you defend the free marketplace of ideas and use your veto power to reject the so-called Fairness Doctrine? Will you use excellence in jurisprudence and neutrality over "empathy" to select federal judges?
If you want to be the President of "change," Mr. Obama, then align your public decisions going forward with your rhetoric, something that hasn't happened in your brief political career. That would be real change.
Will you declare an end to the class warfare that implies wealthy people are somehow unworthy or undeserving of their gains? As one of those wealthy people, do you believe you and your wife Michelle worked hard to rise up from modest backgrounds and are deserving of the rewards of your hard work? If you believe this, will you from this moment forward stop portraying the creators of the wealth that makes America the richest nation on the planet as selfish, uncaring or criminal?
Will you promote policies that reward hard work and wealth creation, thereby generating more middle-class jobs and personal prosperity than any government giveaways or additional stimulus packages? Since government is inherently incapable of generating wealth but only takes it, redistributes it or supresses it through excessive taxation or overregulation, will you reduce the government's percentage of our gross domestic product? Will you reduce our corporate tax rate, currently among the highest in the world, so American companies can compete in the global marketplace and bring jobs home? When even Sweden is cutting taxes to boost jobs and encourage work over government dependence, will you promote free markets over democratic socialism?
Will you stand up to the teachers unions that have lost their bearings and are consumed with self-preservation over educating children? Will you promote alternatives to public schools to foster competition, give parents more choices for their children, and make more efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars? Will you demand accountability for teachers and reward the best ones as an encouragement to them and an incentive to others? Will you demand that education programs demonstrate measurable success with the public money they've received before they get another dime?
How about breaking free from your party's culture of death and declaring how we protect those who are least able to protect themselves is not a wedge issue but a defining ideal for a nation which was founded on the premise that life is an indisputable right of all people and cannot be taken away by mankind? Have you ever seen an abortion or its aftermath, Mr. Obama? I am ashamed that my country, the beacon of human rights and dignity, has legalized the dismemberment of a living unborn person for any reason. Even a child knows that big people are supposed to take care of little people, not hurt or kill them because they are inconvenient or economically burdensome or somehow imperfect. Does the 90% selective abortion of unborn babies with Down Syndrome stir your heart at all, Mr. Obama? Can you justify abortion as a human right equal to freedom of speech or religion or the press? Isn't the purpose of a right to grant life, liberty and equal opportunity to the people, not take them away?
Will you break with the unions and defend secret ballot elections so that workers are not coerced into unionizing by public card checks that expose them to intimidation? Will you defend the free marketplace of ideas and use your veto power to reject the so-called Fairness Doctrine? Will you use excellence in jurisprudence and neutrality over "empathy" to select federal judges?
If you want to be the President of "change," Mr. Obama, then align your public decisions going forward with your rhetoric, something that hasn't happened in your brief political career. That would be real change.
Obama's Great win? Not so Great, Really
The near orgasmic reaction in the media to Barack Obama's win on Election-day is universal. His is being hailed as a mandate, a game changing win, a landslide. But, in reality, Obama's "wind" was not as "righteous" as he thought, it was not a landslide at all. In fact, Obama's isn't as strong a win as Ronald Reagan's or Nixon’s and it didn’t bring the mandate for Obama that the media is attempting to claim it did. Neither did Obama bring overwhelming numbers to the polls as everyone imagined, for that matter. In the end, the complete realignment for the Democrats did not occur. All Obama's win revealed is that the American electorate is still closely divided and it also that the GOP has one more chance to make a come back.
Not a Landslide
Reagan won a landslide victory in 1980. Obama did not in 2008. Reagan beat incumbent Jimmy Carter with nearly 51% to Carter's 41% of the vote in November of 1980. He won 489 to Carter's 49 Electoral College votes. Now that is what a landslide looks like.
Obama's victory is solid, yes, but not of Reagan's caliber. Obama got 52% of the vote to McCain's 46% and garnered 349 Electoral Votes to McCain's 163. But, while strong, Obama did not do better than George H. W. Bush or either Reagan campaign. Obama also came nowhere near Nixon's landslide win of 1972.
Obama did much better than Bill Clinton and both of G. W. Bush's campaigns, for sure. But, with all the hype attached to Obama, with all the claims that he was bringing massive new numbers of voters to the table, to only beat McCain by 6% does not seem quite as amazing as Reagan's win of 10% over Carter. Nor was his Electoral Count better than Reagan's, or Bush the elder's, or Nixon's. McCain, it must be recognized, almost got 50% of the vote here.
Congress, Not As Great As Expected
The Democratic Party was prepared for a massive influx of new members of Congress this time around, too. What with one of the most unpopular administrations of recent memory riding off into the sunset and the wunderkind Obama at the lead, they thought it was a lock. But that lock was not as great as they imagined. While gaining seats in both Houses of Congress they still only got 5 Senate seats and 17 House seats increasing their numbers yet finding the Senate split more or less evenly (strictly by the numbers, no voting inclination).
Vote Turnout Not a Record
The highest turn out of voters was the 1960 race between JFK and Nixon. 63.8 percent of registered voters turned out to vote that year. While Obama saw a healthy 62.5 percent turnout, still it was also lower than that of 1964. Obama's turn out did not set the highest total record.
One area where Obama did better than any president ever was in the youth vote. For the first time since 1972 the 18 to 29 demographic came out to vote in droves. About 4 million new voters in this age group cast their ballots for the first time. It was easy to doubt that this would happen since no other presidential election has stirred so many young people before Obama but he did it nonetheless.
Final Analysis
Obama did not realign the electorate as the Democrats had hoped, however. He did make great gains, but it was not a game-changing race as things stand now. He has four years to change that fact. If he succeeds he may well be able to realign this country for the Democrats, but at this time he merely highlighted the close split between Democrat and Republican while showing a lean left. He only won by bringing new voters to the polls in just large enough numbers to win out.
If Obama had not excited the youth vote and the African American vote the way he did he would not have won. Though he would only barely have lost, he would not have won.
So, Republicans have four years to hold Obama back. If they can prove their mettle, seem less obstructionist and more principled in their opposition and can successfully highlight Obma's failures they can stave off a realignment in 2012.
And, of course, even more depends on Obama himself. If he is a credible and even moderately successful president these next four years he can likely keep the job another four and then in 2012 he will likely lead the realignment that the Democrats had hoped for this time around.
The GOP has a final chance to ward off total defeat, but only just.
Not a Landslide
Reagan won a landslide victory in 1980. Obama did not in 2008. Reagan beat incumbent Jimmy Carter with nearly 51% to Carter's 41% of the vote in November of 1980. He won 489 to Carter's 49 Electoral College votes. Now that is what a landslide looks like.
Obama's victory is solid, yes, but not of Reagan's caliber. Obama got 52% of the vote to McCain's 46% and garnered 349 Electoral Votes to McCain's 163. But, while strong, Obama did not do better than George H. W. Bush or either Reagan campaign. Obama also came nowhere near Nixon's landslide win of 1972.
Obama did much better than Bill Clinton and both of G. W. Bush's campaigns, for sure. But, with all the hype attached to Obama, with all the claims that he was bringing massive new numbers of voters to the table, to only beat McCain by 6% does not seem quite as amazing as Reagan's win of 10% over Carter. Nor was his Electoral Count better than Reagan's, or Bush the elder's, or Nixon's. McCain, it must be recognized, almost got 50% of the vote here.
Congress, Not As Great As Expected
The Democratic Party was prepared for a massive influx of new members of Congress this time around, too. What with one of the most unpopular administrations of recent memory riding off into the sunset and the wunderkind Obama at the lead, they thought it was a lock. But that lock was not as great as they imagined. While gaining seats in both Houses of Congress they still only got 5 Senate seats and 17 House seats increasing their numbers yet finding the Senate split more or less evenly (strictly by the numbers, no voting inclination).
Vote Turnout Not a Record
The highest turn out of voters was the 1960 race between JFK and Nixon. 63.8 percent of registered voters turned out to vote that year. While Obama saw a healthy 62.5 percent turnout, still it was also lower than that of 1964. Obama's turn out did not set the highest total record.
One area where Obama did better than any president ever was in the youth vote. For the first time since 1972 the 18 to 29 demographic came out to vote in droves. About 4 million new voters in this age group cast their ballots for the first time. It was easy to doubt that this would happen since no other presidential election has stirred so many young people before Obama but he did it nonetheless.
Final Analysis
Obama did not realign the electorate as the Democrats had hoped, however. He did make great gains, but it was not a game-changing race as things stand now. He has four years to change that fact. If he succeeds he may well be able to realign this country for the Democrats, but at this time he merely highlighted the close split between Democrat and Republican while showing a lean left. He only won by bringing new voters to the polls in just large enough numbers to win out.
If Obama had not excited the youth vote and the African American vote the way he did he would not have won. Though he would only barely have lost, he would not have won.
So, Republicans have four years to hold Obama back. If they can prove their mettle, seem less obstructionist and more principled in their opposition and can successfully highlight Obma's failures they can stave off a realignment in 2012.
And, of course, even more depends on Obama himself. If he is a credible and even moderately successful president these next four years he can likely keep the job another four and then in 2012 he will likely lead the realignment that the Democrats had hoped for this time around.
The GOP has a final chance to ward off total defeat, but only just.
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