Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - The photo is not the problem
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
April 30, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1550990,CST-EDT-edit30b.article
A photo of two women kissing, which ran on the front page of Tuesday's Sun-Times, offended many readers, perhaps including you. We received plenty of calls and e-mails.
The photo, no doubt, also pleased more than a few readers, although admittedly we didn't hear from many of them. The rule at every newspaper is that readers write and call far more often when they are upset.
Our own view is that this photo belonged on Page One -- it was played just right -- reflecting the big news of the day: Gay marriage was now legal next door in good ol' heartland Iowa.
When the Iowa Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision written by a Republican judge, has legalized gay marriage, it's difficult to see how a photo of two lesbians kissing after getting hitched is inappropriate, even in a family newspaper.
It is the news.
Those of us on the Sun-Times Editorial Board didn't make the call to run the photo, by the way. The decision was made by the news editors. We're just glad they did.
A number of readers said their primary worry was that children might see the photo, which we find ironic because young people are overwhelmingly less anti-gay than their elders. Fifty-seven percent of those under 40 support gay marriage, according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll, while only 31 percent over 40 feel that way.
We respect the right of critics to believe that gay marriage is wrong, often as a matter of faith. And we know that they will, as dutiful parents, share those views with their children who see the photo.
But our respect for differing views and values does not alter the fact that gay marriage is now legal in Iowa -- and there is nothing illicit about the behavior in that photo.
We're not troubled by the photo, but by the idea that people in Iowa are more open-minded and tolerant than we are in Illinois.
When did that happen?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Obama injects message of hope into 100-day speech
Obama injects message of hope into 100-day speech
He uses a prime-time news conference to lay out the range of serious problems facing his administration and the nation, calling for patience and asserting again that 'America will see a better day.'
By Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
April 30, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-obama-press30-2009apr30,0,7779358.story
Reporting from Washington - A somber President Obama warned a recession-weary nation Wednesday that its resilience would be tested even more in the second hundred days of his presidency, as he grapples with a series of crises including two wars, a teetering economy and an outbreak of swine flu.
On the 100th day of his administration, Obama used a prime-time news conference to appeal for patience from Americans who have given him high approval ratings, laying out in unsparing detail the full scope of what the country faces.
The typical president, he said, "has two or three big problems. We've got seven or eight big problems. And so we've had to move very quickly."
At times Obama sounded almost wistful as he suggested that some past presidents had only a war or a natural disaster to contend with.
"If you could tell me right now when I walked into this office . . . that all you had to worry about was Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, getting healthcare passed, figuring out how to deal with energy independence, deal with Iran and a pandemic flu, I would take that deal," he said. "I would love a nice, lean portfolio to deal with, but that's not the hand that's been dealt us."
Underscoring the severity of the domestic problems, Wednesday began with a sober reminder of the recession's depth: The U.S. economy shrank at a rate of 6.1% in the quarter that ended last month.
Given so many serious problems demanding such urgent action, Obama said, improvement would not come quickly.
"The ship of state is an ocean liner; it's not a speedboat," the president said. "If we can move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction, we may not see all the consequences of that change a week from now or three months from now, but 10 years from now, or 20 years from now."
Though much of Obama's news conference focused on domestic problems and politics, some of his most sobering comments involved Pakistan, the rising threat posed there by the Taliban and the challenge of keeping Islamabad's nuclear weapons secure.
Describing the Pakistani regime as "extremely fragile," Obama said its military leaders and government officials only belatedly were recognizing that their half-century-long preoccupation with India had blinded them to the more immediate threat posed by the Taliban.
"You're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally," he said.
This week, Pakistan's military began a significant counter-attack against the Taliban, which has moved within 60 miles of Islamabad.
U.S. officials have been critical of the Pakistani government in the past, but Obama went further. Most critiques have focused on Islamabad's failure to provide services or combat insurgents in the border areas. Obama's criticism was sharper, pointing up failures that he said extended throughout the country.
The Pakistani government's hold on power was weak, he said, because it could not provide basic services to its people -- including education, healthcare and a widely accepted system of law and judicial administration.
"And so as a consequence, it is very difficult for them to gain the support and the loyalty of their people," Obama said.
Nonetheless, the president expressed confidence that Islamabad's nuclear weapons would not fall into Taliban or terrorist hands.
"I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure," he said, "because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands."
Discussing the swine flu crisis, Obama rejected the idea of closing the border with Mexico, where the outbreak is most severe and is thought to have originated, because he said public health officials said border closures had not proved effective in the past.
"It would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out," the president said. Tacitly appealing for calm, he said: "We have to make sure that we recognize that how we respond -- intelligently, systematically, based on science and what public health officials have to say -- will determine in large part what happens."
At times sounding more like school nurse in chief than commander in chief, Obama repeatedly urged people to inhibit the spread of the flu by washing their hands frequently, covering their mouths when coughing, and staying home if they feel sick to avoid the possibility of exposing others.
With so many pressing priorities, Obama said, some goals may be delayed. He has pledged to overhaul the nation's immigration system. But he sounded a note of caution about how quickly a plan could be enacted, committing himself only to beginning the process this year.
"I'm going to be moving it as quickly as I can," he said. "I've been accused of doing too much. We are moving full steam ahead on all fronts." He noted, however, that he did not control the legislative calendar on Capitol Hill.
Taking a question about Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's surprise announcement Tuesday that he was leaving the GOP for the Democratic Party, Obama offered Republicans an overture and a warning. He said that he wants to work cooperatively with the minority party, and believes that he can.
But he also said that the GOP must be willing to compromise and perhaps rethink long-held nostrums. Obama said that if Republicans believe that bipartisanship amounts to him agreeing to "go along with ideas that have been rejected by the Americans in an historic election, we're probably not going to make progress."
With violence rising in Iraq in recent weeks, the president stood by his plan to draw down American troops. He said that although there had been some "spectacular bombings," civilian deaths and incidents were low in relation to what was going on last year.
Obama said he was confident his military team in Iraq would work with Iraqi officials "to create the conditions for an ultimate transfer after the national elections," which are scheduled in December.
The 100th-day stock-taking was a benchmark the administration embraced only after some initial hesitation.
White House aides had dismissed the date as a "Hallmark holiday." But with the media so focused on the calendar, aides wound up cooperating to the fullest.
The White House released intimate photos of the president and his family, made aides available for TV interviews and circulated written summaries of Obama's record. And his opening remarks included a catalog of what he considers his administration's achievements thus far.
Earlier in the day, the president marked the occasion with a campaign-style event near St. Louis. Both there and in his news conference, Obama delivered much the same message: He has put the nation on a better path, although the kind of economic recovery he has promised may be years away.
National polls show that his approval rating tops 60%, and that growing numbers of people believe the country is on the right track since he took office.
In his opening remarks in the East Room of the White House, Obama said: "We have plenty of work left to do. It is work that will take time. It will take effort. But the United States of America will see a better day."
Americans, he said, "can expect an unrelenting, unyielding effort from this administration to strengthen our prosperity and our security -- in the second hundred days, and the third hundred days, and all the days after."
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
Julian E. Barnes and Noam N. Levey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
He uses a prime-time news conference to lay out the range of serious problems facing his administration and the nation, calling for patience and asserting again that 'America will see a better day.'
By Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
April 30, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-obama-press30-2009apr30,0,7779358.story
Reporting from Washington - A somber President Obama warned a recession-weary nation Wednesday that its resilience would be tested even more in the second hundred days of his presidency, as he grapples with a series of crises including two wars, a teetering economy and an outbreak of swine flu.
On the 100th day of his administration, Obama used a prime-time news conference to appeal for patience from Americans who have given him high approval ratings, laying out in unsparing detail the full scope of what the country faces.
The typical president, he said, "has two or three big problems. We've got seven or eight big problems. And so we've had to move very quickly."
At times Obama sounded almost wistful as he suggested that some past presidents had only a war or a natural disaster to contend with.
"If you could tell me right now when I walked into this office . . . that all you had to worry about was Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, getting healthcare passed, figuring out how to deal with energy independence, deal with Iran and a pandemic flu, I would take that deal," he said. "I would love a nice, lean portfolio to deal with, but that's not the hand that's been dealt us."
Underscoring the severity of the domestic problems, Wednesday began with a sober reminder of the recession's depth: The U.S. economy shrank at a rate of 6.1% in the quarter that ended last month.
Given so many serious problems demanding such urgent action, Obama said, improvement would not come quickly.
"The ship of state is an ocean liner; it's not a speedboat," the president said. "If we can move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction, we may not see all the consequences of that change a week from now or three months from now, but 10 years from now, or 20 years from now."
Though much of Obama's news conference focused on domestic problems and politics, some of his most sobering comments involved Pakistan, the rising threat posed there by the Taliban and the challenge of keeping Islamabad's nuclear weapons secure.
Describing the Pakistani regime as "extremely fragile," Obama said its military leaders and government officials only belatedly were recognizing that their half-century-long preoccupation with India had blinded them to the more immediate threat posed by the Taliban.
"You're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally," he said.
This week, Pakistan's military began a significant counter-attack against the Taliban, which has moved within 60 miles of Islamabad.
U.S. officials have been critical of the Pakistani government in the past, but Obama went further. Most critiques have focused on Islamabad's failure to provide services or combat insurgents in the border areas. Obama's criticism was sharper, pointing up failures that he said extended throughout the country.
The Pakistani government's hold on power was weak, he said, because it could not provide basic services to its people -- including education, healthcare and a widely accepted system of law and judicial administration.
"And so as a consequence, it is very difficult for them to gain the support and the loyalty of their people," Obama said.
Nonetheless, the president expressed confidence that Islamabad's nuclear weapons would not fall into Taliban or terrorist hands.
"I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure," he said, "because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands."
Discussing the swine flu crisis, Obama rejected the idea of closing the border with Mexico, where the outbreak is most severe and is thought to have originated, because he said public health officials said border closures had not proved effective in the past.
"It would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out," the president said. Tacitly appealing for calm, he said: "We have to make sure that we recognize that how we respond -- intelligently, systematically, based on science and what public health officials have to say -- will determine in large part what happens."
At times sounding more like school nurse in chief than commander in chief, Obama repeatedly urged people to inhibit the spread of the flu by washing their hands frequently, covering their mouths when coughing, and staying home if they feel sick to avoid the possibility of exposing others.
With so many pressing priorities, Obama said, some goals may be delayed. He has pledged to overhaul the nation's immigration system. But he sounded a note of caution about how quickly a plan could be enacted, committing himself only to beginning the process this year.
"I'm going to be moving it as quickly as I can," he said. "I've been accused of doing too much. We are moving full steam ahead on all fronts." He noted, however, that he did not control the legislative calendar on Capitol Hill.
Taking a question about Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's surprise announcement Tuesday that he was leaving the GOP for the Democratic Party, Obama offered Republicans an overture and a warning. He said that he wants to work cooperatively with the minority party, and believes that he can.
But he also said that the GOP must be willing to compromise and perhaps rethink long-held nostrums. Obama said that if Republicans believe that bipartisanship amounts to him agreeing to "go along with ideas that have been rejected by the Americans in an historic election, we're probably not going to make progress."
With violence rising in Iraq in recent weeks, the president stood by his plan to draw down American troops. He said that although there had been some "spectacular bombings," civilian deaths and incidents were low in relation to what was going on last year.
Obama said he was confident his military team in Iraq would work with Iraqi officials "to create the conditions for an ultimate transfer after the national elections," which are scheduled in December.
The 100th-day stock-taking was a benchmark the administration embraced only after some initial hesitation.
White House aides had dismissed the date as a "Hallmark holiday." But with the media so focused on the calendar, aides wound up cooperating to the fullest.
The White House released intimate photos of the president and his family, made aides available for TV interviews and circulated written summaries of Obama's record. And his opening remarks included a catalog of what he considers his administration's achievements thus far.
Earlier in the day, the president marked the occasion with a campaign-style event near St. Louis. Both there and in his news conference, Obama delivered much the same message: He has put the nation on a better path, although the kind of economic recovery he has promised may be years away.
National polls show that his approval rating tops 60%, and that growing numbers of people believe the country is on the right track since he took office.
In his opening remarks in the East Room of the White House, Obama said: "We have plenty of work left to do. It is work that will take time. It will take effort. But the United States of America will see a better day."
Americans, he said, "can expect an unrelenting, unyielding effort from this administration to strengthen our prosperity and our security -- in the second hundred days, and the third hundred days, and all the days after."
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
Julian E. Barnes and Noam N. Levey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Quigley shows commitment to GLBT issues
Quigley shows commitment to GLBT issues
By Amy Wooten
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3427
Shortly after new Congressman Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) was sworn into office, the longtime GLBT ally put to action his promise to fight for equality.
On April 22, Quigley co-sponsored his first bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.
“We’ve come a long way in the last 20 years when it comes to equality,” said Quigley in a statement. “But we’ve still got a lot of work to live up to the idea that all Americans are created equal.”
“We cannot and should not allow anyone to use race, gender or sexual orientation to divide us and distract us from our shared responsibility to ensure that justice is for every man, woman and child,” he added.
Quigley also recently submitted his requests for millions of dollars in earmarks, including a $475,000 earmark request to support Center on Halsted’s Services and Advocacy for GLBT Seniors (SAGE) program. According to a press release, Quigley requested funding for this program because “this century has seen a growing number of seniors dealing with not only the challenges of becoming older, but also with challenges unique to being LGBT seniors.
“These challenges include dealing with the consequences of financial inequities directed toward LGBT community as well as lingering stigmatization, particularly among providers of senior services,” Quigley continued.
Quigley’s earmarks also included a $150,150 request for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s Vida/SIDA HIV/AIDS program to help with education and community outreach.
By Amy Wooten
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3427
Shortly after new Congressman Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) was sworn into office, the longtime GLBT ally put to action his promise to fight for equality.
On April 22, Quigley co-sponsored his first bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.
“We’ve come a long way in the last 20 years when it comes to equality,” said Quigley in a statement. “But we’ve still got a lot of work to live up to the idea that all Americans are created equal.”
“We cannot and should not allow anyone to use race, gender or sexual orientation to divide us and distract us from our shared responsibility to ensure that justice is for every man, woman and child,” he added.
Quigley also recently submitted his requests for millions of dollars in earmarks, including a $475,000 earmark request to support Center on Halsted’s Services and Advocacy for GLBT Seniors (SAGE) program. According to a press release, Quigley requested funding for this program because “this century has seen a growing number of seniors dealing with not only the challenges of becoming older, but also with challenges unique to being LGBT seniors.
“These challenges include dealing with the consequences of financial inequities directed toward LGBT community as well as lingering stigmatization, particularly among providers of senior services,” Quigley continued.
Quigley’s earmarks also included a $150,150 request for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s Vida/SIDA HIV/AIDS program to help with education and community outreach.
Chicago Free Press Editorial: Miss California and Mr. Obama?
Chicago Free Press Editorial: Miss California and Mr. Obama?
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3436
It’s hard to imagine that Carrie Prejean—the current Miss California whose answer to Perez Hilton’s question about gay marriage riled up Hiton and many others in the media—and Barack Obama have that much in common.
“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or (the) opposite,” Prejean said on the topic, adding, “And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”
Prejean doesn’t seem like she’ll be winning a Nobel Prize anytime soon, but it’s not hard to figure out where she stands on gay marriage and why she stands there. She’ll become a conservative darling for fifteen minutes and will be mercifully forgotten.
Unfortunately, though, Prejean’s stated viewpoint pretty much mirrors that of our current president. Yes, he’s said he’s all in favor of civil unions and giving gay couples the same rights as straight ones. But he’s also said that the institution of marriage should be reserved for a man and woman.
What’s most frustrating is that few people who follow the news actually think Obama believes that. Indeed, back in the 1990s, he gave an interview to a Chicago GLBT publication wherein he said he supported gay marriage. His current stance seems to have been chosen because it is the most politically expedient.
While we have been impressed with much Obama has done in his first months in office, he has proven to be a politician who doesn’t like to get his hands very dirty, and our community’s issues can be particularly messy and inconvenient.
But just because we are happy with his performance elsewhere does not mean that we should let him off the hook with our issues. If we do, those are likely to be procrastinated on and nothing will be done.
As a community, we’re not afraid to lambaste people like Carrie Prejean, or organizations like Amazon.com, when we feel slighted. At the same time, though, all but a handful of activists seem hesitant to hold Democratic politicians’ feet to the fire.
So Obama never pledged to bring about gay marriage in his campaign. But he can change his mind—he wasn’t afraid to do so before. He can also get going on overturning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell—he did pledge to change that, and his administration has made no inroads there whatsoever. He can similarly do much to promote a federal non-discrimination law covering GLBTs.
Back when George W. Bush was president, we would constantly harp on the fact that politicians are paid to serve their public. Unfortunately President Obama sometimes needs to be reminded of this, too, especially when it comes to his GLBT constituents.
The House voted Wednesday to pass a bill that would give gay victims of violence protections under a revived and expanded hate crimes bill. President Obama urged its support and called for its passage in the Senate.
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3436
It’s hard to imagine that Carrie Prejean—the current Miss California whose answer to Perez Hilton’s question about gay marriage riled up Hiton and many others in the media—and Barack Obama have that much in common.
“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or (the) opposite,” Prejean said on the topic, adding, “And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”
Prejean doesn’t seem like she’ll be winning a Nobel Prize anytime soon, but it’s not hard to figure out where she stands on gay marriage and why she stands there. She’ll become a conservative darling for fifteen minutes and will be mercifully forgotten.
Unfortunately, though, Prejean’s stated viewpoint pretty much mirrors that of our current president. Yes, he’s said he’s all in favor of civil unions and giving gay couples the same rights as straight ones. But he’s also said that the institution of marriage should be reserved for a man and woman.
What’s most frustrating is that few people who follow the news actually think Obama believes that. Indeed, back in the 1990s, he gave an interview to a Chicago GLBT publication wherein he said he supported gay marriage. His current stance seems to have been chosen because it is the most politically expedient.
While we have been impressed with much Obama has done in his first months in office, he has proven to be a politician who doesn’t like to get his hands very dirty, and our community’s issues can be particularly messy and inconvenient.
But just because we are happy with his performance elsewhere does not mean that we should let him off the hook with our issues. If we do, those are likely to be procrastinated on and nothing will be done.
As a community, we’re not afraid to lambaste people like Carrie Prejean, or organizations like Amazon.com, when we feel slighted. At the same time, though, all but a handful of activists seem hesitant to hold Democratic politicians’ feet to the fire.
So Obama never pledged to bring about gay marriage in his campaign. But he can change his mind—he wasn’t afraid to do so before. He can also get going on overturning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell—he did pledge to change that, and his administration has made no inroads there whatsoever. He can similarly do much to promote a federal non-discrimination law covering GLBTs.
Back when George W. Bush was president, we would constantly harp on the fact that politicians are paid to serve their public. Unfortunately President Obama sometimes needs to be reminded of this, too, especially when it comes to his GLBT constituents.
The House voted Wednesday to pass a bill that would give gay victims of violence protections under a revived and expanded hate crimes bill. President Obama urged its support and called for its passage in the Senate.
Time Warner Is Moving Closer to AOL Spinoff
Time Warner Is Moving Closer to AOL Spinoff
By TIM ARANGO
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/media/30warner.html?th&emc=th
Time Warner is inching closer to an untangling of what many consider one of the worst mergers in American corporate history by shedding America Online.
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive. The company’s first-quarter results were dismal, but beat expectations.
Could the company’s vast magazine empire under Time Inc., which publishes Sports Illustrated, Time, Fortune and People, be next?
In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Time Warner said it was nearing a decision to spin off America Online, and put an end to the travails that began with the merger in 2000 of the two companies, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value.
“Although the company’s board of directors has not made any decision, the company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner’s stockholders, in one or a series of transactions,” the company said in the filing.
The announcement, which was not unexpected, came on the same day that the company reported first-quarter earnings, which surpassed Wall Street analysts’ expectations. But the numbers for both AOL and Time Inc. were equally dismal.
When asked during a conference call about the future composition of Time Warner, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the company’s chief executive, said it “may well include publishing, but we’re not making a religious statement about it either way at this point.”
That seemed to leave open the door for a potential sale or spinoff of Time Inc. “They’ve been smart to not box themselves in either way,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “I think they are going to see if this downturn is more cyclical than secular, and see if they can start charging for some of their online content.”
By this, Mr. Nathanson meant the company would wait to see how much of Time Inc.’s troubles were because of the cyclical nature of the economy and how much was permanent because of the flight of readers to the Internet.
Robin M. Diedrich, an analyst at Edward Jones, said much of Time Inc.’s revenue loss was “not necessarily going to come back when the economy improves.” Ms. Diedrich added, “It’s not surprising that the company is considering what the long-term options are.”
As for AOL, Mr. Nathanson echoed what many on Wall Street believe. “We’re pleased AOL will finally be on its own,” he said. “It’s been a distraction for a number of years.”
If Time Inc. were eventually to be lopped off, Time Warner still would include several profitable cable networks — TNT, TBS, CNN and HBO — as well as the Warner Brothers movie studio. It would be in keeping with Mr. Bewkes’s stated vision of Time Warner as a company centered on producing television and movies for a mass audience.
“Today, we are a much more content focused company,” he said.
Time Warner, under Mr. Bewkes, who became chief in 2007, has become a stripped-down conglomerate focused on producing content rather than delivering it. This year the company, which was once the world’s largest media company, spun off its cable division, Time Warner Cable, into a separate publicly traded company.
Revenue at both AOL and Time Inc. declined by 23 percent compared with the previous year’s first quarter. In the case of AOL, revenue fell to $867 million. Subscription revenue fell 27 percent, while advertising fell 20 percent.
Revenue at Time Inc. fell by $239 million, to $806 million. Advertising fell by 30 percent, or $167 million, and subscription revenue declined by 16 percent, or $58 million.
“Advertising at AOL and Time Inc. especially is proving tougher than we expected when we last talked a few months ago,” Mr. Bewkes said during the conference call.
Over all, the company said revenue declined 7 percent to $6.9 billion, when compared to the same period last year.
Revenue from publishing, AOL and Warner Brothers all declined, while revenue at the cable networks, which have been the most durable segment of the media industry during the recession, rose to $2.8 billion from $2.7 billion.
Net income for the quarter was $661 million, or 55 cents a share, compared with $771 million and 64 cents a share in the previous period. Excluding some items, earnings were 45 cents a share. By this measure, the company beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations of 39 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.
At Warner Brothers, while revenue dipped 7 percent, operating income increased 10 percent to $308 million, partly because of reduced marketing and advertising costs for movies.
Time Warner received a nearly $9 billion dividend from spinning off Time Warner Cable, cash that Mr. Bewkes said he would use to buy back stock after the company announces firm plans for AOL. The company still has $2.2 billion left on a stock repurchase plan approved by the board.
The rest of the Time Warner Cable cash could be used to pay dividends or make acquisitions, but Mr. Bewkes was cautious on this last point.
“We know that most M&A in the media sector has not created value,” he said.
By TIM ARANGO
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/media/30warner.html?th&emc=th
Time Warner is inching closer to an untangling of what many consider one of the worst mergers in American corporate history by shedding America Online.
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive. The company’s first-quarter results were dismal, but beat expectations.
Could the company’s vast magazine empire under Time Inc., which publishes Sports Illustrated, Time, Fortune and People, be next?
In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Time Warner said it was nearing a decision to spin off America Online, and put an end to the travails that began with the merger in 2000 of the two companies, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value.
“Although the company’s board of directors has not made any decision, the company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner’s stockholders, in one or a series of transactions,” the company said in the filing.
The announcement, which was not unexpected, came on the same day that the company reported first-quarter earnings, which surpassed Wall Street analysts’ expectations. But the numbers for both AOL and Time Inc. were equally dismal.
When asked during a conference call about the future composition of Time Warner, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the company’s chief executive, said it “may well include publishing, but we’re not making a religious statement about it either way at this point.”
That seemed to leave open the door for a potential sale or spinoff of Time Inc. “They’ve been smart to not box themselves in either way,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “I think they are going to see if this downturn is more cyclical than secular, and see if they can start charging for some of their online content.”
By this, Mr. Nathanson meant the company would wait to see how much of Time Inc.’s troubles were because of the cyclical nature of the economy and how much was permanent because of the flight of readers to the Internet.
Robin M. Diedrich, an analyst at Edward Jones, said much of Time Inc.’s revenue loss was “not necessarily going to come back when the economy improves.” Ms. Diedrich added, “It’s not surprising that the company is considering what the long-term options are.”
As for AOL, Mr. Nathanson echoed what many on Wall Street believe. “We’re pleased AOL will finally be on its own,” he said. “It’s been a distraction for a number of years.”
If Time Inc. were eventually to be lopped off, Time Warner still would include several profitable cable networks — TNT, TBS, CNN and HBO — as well as the Warner Brothers movie studio. It would be in keeping with Mr. Bewkes’s stated vision of Time Warner as a company centered on producing television and movies for a mass audience.
“Today, we are a much more content focused company,” he said.
Time Warner, under Mr. Bewkes, who became chief in 2007, has become a stripped-down conglomerate focused on producing content rather than delivering it. This year the company, which was once the world’s largest media company, spun off its cable division, Time Warner Cable, into a separate publicly traded company.
Revenue at both AOL and Time Inc. declined by 23 percent compared with the previous year’s first quarter. In the case of AOL, revenue fell to $867 million. Subscription revenue fell 27 percent, while advertising fell 20 percent.
Revenue at Time Inc. fell by $239 million, to $806 million. Advertising fell by 30 percent, or $167 million, and subscription revenue declined by 16 percent, or $58 million.
“Advertising at AOL and Time Inc. especially is proving tougher than we expected when we last talked a few months ago,” Mr. Bewkes said during the conference call.
Over all, the company said revenue declined 7 percent to $6.9 billion, when compared to the same period last year.
Revenue from publishing, AOL and Warner Brothers all declined, while revenue at the cable networks, which have been the most durable segment of the media industry during the recession, rose to $2.8 billion from $2.7 billion.
Net income for the quarter was $661 million, or 55 cents a share, compared with $771 million and 64 cents a share in the previous period. Excluding some items, earnings were 45 cents a share. By this measure, the company beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations of 39 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.
At Warner Brothers, while revenue dipped 7 percent, operating income increased 10 percent to $308 million, partly because of reduced marketing and advertising costs for movies.
Time Warner received a nearly $9 billion dividend from spinning off Time Warner Cable, cash that Mr. Bewkes said he would use to buy back stock after the company announces firm plans for AOL. The company still has $2.2 billion left on a stock repurchase plan approved by the board.
The rest of the Time Warner Cable cash could be used to pay dividends or make acquisitions, but Mr. Bewkes was cautious on this last point.
“We know that most M&A in the media sector has not created value,” he said.
Bank of America Chief Ousted as Chairman
Bank of America Chief Ousted as Chairman
By LOUISE STORY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/30bank.html?th&emc=th
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The applause thundered inside the Belk Theater on Wednesday for a fading star of American finance: Kenneth D. Lewis, the beleaguered head of Bank of America.
Walter E. Massey, the president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, will replace Kenneth D. Lewis as chairman.
But all those huzzahs, offered up by loyal employees and steadfast believers, did not sway Mr. Lewis’s shareholders.
Mr. Lewis, who helped build Bank of America into the nation’s largest bank, was stripped of his chairman’s title — a stinging blow that leaves his stewardship and legacy in doubt. At a contentious annual general meeting, angry investors held him accountable for what they view as a series of missteps that forced the once-mighty bank to accept not one but two government bailouts.
For Mr. Lewis, the bad news arrived shortly before 6 p.m., after a gathering that seemed to captivate much of Charlotte, where Bank of America’s soaring headquarters punctuates the skyline.
While Mr. Lewis remains chief executive — the board expressed its unanimous support for him — many inside and outside the bank wonder if he can hang on. Mr. Lewis confronts daunting challenges, and many of his investors are losing patience. Even after receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, some analysts say, the bank may still need to raise more to shore up its weakened finances.
“Ken Lewis has now become the lightning rod of controversy, and that is highly distracting,” said Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, who believes Mr. Lewis should resign. “Even if everything he did was appropriate, it has hampered his legitimacy to lead.”
It was not long ago that Mr. Lewis was celebrated for his vision. His daring takeover of Merrill Lynch was the latest in a series of high-profile acquisitions that helped transform Bank of America into a national powerhouse. His conquests included the Countrywide Financial Group, the giant mortgage lender which, for many, came to symbolize the excesses of the subprime era. In December, the American Banker, the daily chronicle of the banking industry, named him 2008 Banker of the Year.
But that was then. Now Mr. Lewis is drawing fire for overpaying for Merrill, whose gaping losses prompted Bank of America to seek a second rescue from Washington. The attorney general of New York is examining whether Mr. Lewis adequately disclosed the risks of the takeover to his shareholders, drawing headlines — and more ire. The timing could hardly be worse. Bank of America is bracing for another wave of loans to go bad as the recession drags on.
Walter E. Massey, the president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, will replace Mr. Lewis as chairman.
On Tuesday night, before the shareholder gathering, Mr. Lewis seemed chipper as he chatted with colleagues over drinks at Sonoma, a swanky restaurant at the base of the bank’s headquarters. As usual, he and his executives wore red, white and blue Bank of America pins on their lapels.
But by 7 a.m. Wednesday, news crews were setting up outside the bank, expecting a showdown. Employees made their way through the growing crowd.
Jonathan Finger, a prominent bank shareholder and a vocal critic of Mr. Lewis, strode from camera to camera. A few protestors turned up with signs. One of them, Judy Koenick, wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a phrase that summed up the view of Mr. Lewis’s most ardent detractors: “Fire!!! Kenneth Lewis Fire!!!”
Soon the Belk Theater was packed. The throng overflowed into the lobby, where a crowd watched on video monitors. Some 2,200 people turned up, a bank spokeswoman said.
Many of them welcomed Mr. Lewis, a man who helped put Charlotte on the world’s financial map. The applause rang out for more than half a minute. Shareholders took turns at the microphone to offer testimonials.
“If we don’t have Ken, who do we have?” one asked. Even Evelyn Davis, the corporate gadfly who calls herself “Queen of the Corporate Jungle,” defended Mr. Lewis. At one point, she ran up and kissed him on the cheek.
The president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce spoke in support of Mr. Lewis, as did representatives from Habitat for Humanity and several environmental groups. One shareholder suggested Mr. Lewis donate his $1.5 million salary to charity. Someone in the audience yelled: “Oh, stop!”
Mr. Lewis, who has worked for the bank for 40 years, replied: “Unfortunately, because of my pledges, I actually did give away more than I make." Again, applause.
Mr. Lewis shed little light on the Merrill transaction, though he did say in his prepared remarks that both Merrill and Countrywide helped the bank’s first-quarter results.
“These acquisitions are not mistakes to be regretted. Both are looking more like successes to be celebrated,” Mr. Lewis said. “We are building this company for the long run.”
Gradually, the crowd thinned and, after four hours, the meeting broke up, with Mr. Lewis’s fate still unknown. So many shareholders cast votes that it took the bank longer than expected to count them all.
Robert Stickler, a bank spokesman, said some large shareholders had told the bank they voted to remove the chairman title from Mr. Lewis because of corporate governance concerns, not because they did not support him.
In the end, it was close: 50.34 percent of shareholders — 25 million votes — opted to remove Mr. Lewis as chairman. A third voted to remove him from the board altogether. Even before the vote count was final, the bank’s directors were considering replacing Mr. Lewis as chairman because it was clear he had lost the support of so many shareholders.
Carl Wagle, a retired machinist from nearby Greensboro who said he had lost most of his $65,000 life savings on Bank of America stock, left the meeting shaking his head. He said he had come to suggest that Bank of America pay higher interest rates on savings accounts.
“They need to understand what the average American person thinks of banks,” Mr. Wagle said. “They see banks as a place where fat cats live. Americans are not going to start having confidence in their banks until they see the bankers changing.”
Mr. Lewis, hewing to his routine, stopped in at Sonoma. Several executives hugged him. Then he emerged, waved and smiled at people gathered in the courtyard, and disappeared into Bank of America’s headquarters.
By LOUISE STORY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/30bank.html?th&emc=th
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The applause thundered inside the Belk Theater on Wednesday for a fading star of American finance: Kenneth D. Lewis, the beleaguered head of Bank of America.
Walter E. Massey, the president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, will replace Kenneth D. Lewis as chairman.
But all those huzzahs, offered up by loyal employees and steadfast believers, did not sway Mr. Lewis’s shareholders.
Mr. Lewis, who helped build Bank of America into the nation’s largest bank, was stripped of his chairman’s title — a stinging blow that leaves his stewardship and legacy in doubt. At a contentious annual general meeting, angry investors held him accountable for what they view as a series of missteps that forced the once-mighty bank to accept not one but two government bailouts.
For Mr. Lewis, the bad news arrived shortly before 6 p.m., after a gathering that seemed to captivate much of Charlotte, where Bank of America’s soaring headquarters punctuates the skyline.
While Mr. Lewis remains chief executive — the board expressed its unanimous support for him — many inside and outside the bank wonder if he can hang on. Mr. Lewis confronts daunting challenges, and many of his investors are losing patience. Even after receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, some analysts say, the bank may still need to raise more to shore up its weakened finances.
“Ken Lewis has now become the lightning rod of controversy, and that is highly distracting,” said Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, who believes Mr. Lewis should resign. “Even if everything he did was appropriate, it has hampered his legitimacy to lead.”
It was not long ago that Mr. Lewis was celebrated for his vision. His daring takeover of Merrill Lynch was the latest in a series of high-profile acquisitions that helped transform Bank of America into a national powerhouse. His conquests included the Countrywide Financial Group, the giant mortgage lender which, for many, came to symbolize the excesses of the subprime era. In December, the American Banker, the daily chronicle of the banking industry, named him 2008 Banker of the Year.
But that was then. Now Mr. Lewis is drawing fire for overpaying for Merrill, whose gaping losses prompted Bank of America to seek a second rescue from Washington. The attorney general of New York is examining whether Mr. Lewis adequately disclosed the risks of the takeover to his shareholders, drawing headlines — and more ire. The timing could hardly be worse. Bank of America is bracing for another wave of loans to go bad as the recession drags on.
Walter E. Massey, the president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, will replace Mr. Lewis as chairman.
On Tuesday night, before the shareholder gathering, Mr. Lewis seemed chipper as he chatted with colleagues over drinks at Sonoma, a swanky restaurant at the base of the bank’s headquarters. As usual, he and his executives wore red, white and blue Bank of America pins on their lapels.
But by 7 a.m. Wednesday, news crews were setting up outside the bank, expecting a showdown. Employees made their way through the growing crowd.
Jonathan Finger, a prominent bank shareholder and a vocal critic of Mr. Lewis, strode from camera to camera. A few protestors turned up with signs. One of them, Judy Koenick, wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a phrase that summed up the view of Mr. Lewis’s most ardent detractors: “Fire!!! Kenneth Lewis Fire!!!”
Soon the Belk Theater was packed. The throng overflowed into the lobby, where a crowd watched on video monitors. Some 2,200 people turned up, a bank spokeswoman said.
Many of them welcomed Mr. Lewis, a man who helped put Charlotte on the world’s financial map. The applause rang out for more than half a minute. Shareholders took turns at the microphone to offer testimonials.
“If we don’t have Ken, who do we have?” one asked. Even Evelyn Davis, the corporate gadfly who calls herself “Queen of the Corporate Jungle,” defended Mr. Lewis. At one point, she ran up and kissed him on the cheek.
The president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce spoke in support of Mr. Lewis, as did representatives from Habitat for Humanity and several environmental groups. One shareholder suggested Mr. Lewis donate his $1.5 million salary to charity. Someone in the audience yelled: “Oh, stop!”
Mr. Lewis, who has worked for the bank for 40 years, replied: “Unfortunately, because of my pledges, I actually did give away more than I make." Again, applause.
Mr. Lewis shed little light on the Merrill transaction, though he did say in his prepared remarks that both Merrill and Countrywide helped the bank’s first-quarter results.
“These acquisitions are not mistakes to be regretted. Both are looking more like successes to be celebrated,” Mr. Lewis said. “We are building this company for the long run.”
Gradually, the crowd thinned and, after four hours, the meeting broke up, with Mr. Lewis’s fate still unknown. So many shareholders cast votes that it took the bank longer than expected to count them all.
Robert Stickler, a bank spokesman, said some large shareholders had told the bank they voted to remove the chairman title from Mr. Lewis because of corporate governance concerns, not because they did not support him.
In the end, it was close: 50.34 percent of shareholders — 25 million votes — opted to remove Mr. Lewis as chairman. A third voted to remove him from the board altogether. Even before the vote count was final, the bank’s directors were considering replacing Mr. Lewis as chairman because it was clear he had lost the support of so many shareholders.
Carl Wagle, a retired machinist from nearby Greensboro who said he had lost most of his $65,000 life savings on Bank of America stock, left the meeting shaking his head. He said he had come to suggest that Bank of America pay higher interest rates on savings accounts.
“They need to understand what the average American person thinks of banks,” Mr. Wagle said. “They see banks as a place where fat cats live. Americans are not going to start having confidence in their banks until they see the bankers changing.”
Mr. Lewis, hewing to his routine, stopped in at Sonoma. Several executives hugged him. Then he emerged, waved and smiled at people gathered in the courtyard, and disappeared into Bank of America’s headquarters.
G.O.P. Debate: A Broader Party or a Purer One?
G.O.P. Debate: A Broader Party or a Purer One?
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/us/politics/30repubs.html?th&emc=th
WASHINGTON — A fundamental debate broke out among Republicans on Wednesday over how to rebuild the party in the wake of Senator Arlen Specter’s departure: Should it purge moderate voices like Mr. Specter and embrace its conservative roots or seek to broaden its appeal to regain a competitive position against Democrats?
With consensus growing among Republicans that the party is in its worst political position in recent memory, some conservatives applauded Mr. Specter’s departure. They said it cleared the way for the party to distance itself from its record of expanding government during the Bush years and to re-emphasize the calls for tax cuts and reduced federal spending that have dominated Republican thought for more than 30 years.
“We strayed from our principles of limited government, individual responsibility and economic freedom,” said Chris Chocola, a former Indiana congressman who is head of Club for Growth, a group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it considers insufficiently conservative. “We have to adhere to those principles to rebuild the party. Those are the brand of the Republican Party, and people feel that we betrayed the brand.”
But Republican leaders in Washington argued that Republicans would be permanently marginalized unless they showed flexibility on social issues as well as economic ones.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he would seek to recruit candidates who he thought could win in Democratic or swing states, even if it meant supporting candidates who might disagree with his own conservative views.
Mr. Cornyn said he was taking a page from Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the last head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who led his party to big gains by embracing candidates who, for example, opposed abortion rights or gun control.
“If you think about it, Schumer has been very good at this; I complimented him this morning in the gym,” Mr. Cornyn said, adding, “Some conservatives would rather lose than be seen as compromising on what they regard as inviolable principles.”
Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said: “We are not losing blue states and shrinking as a party because we are not conservative enough. If we pursue a party that has no place for someone who agrees with me 70 percent of the time, that is based on an ideological purity test rather than a coalition test, then we are going to keep losing.”
The debate broke out as the party found itself in a particularly dire state. Mr. Specter’s departure came a week after Republicans lost a special Congressional election in an upstate New York district with a significant Republican voter edge; as such, it underlined the extent the party was contracting, not only ideologically but also geographically.
In 2006, there were 55 Republicans in the Senate, compared with 45 Democrats. With Mr. Specter’s departure, there will be 40 Republicans. Depending on the outcome of the election between Norm Coleman and Al Franken in Minnesota, Democrats could end up with 60 votes, enough, assuming they hold the party together, to take away the minority party’s most powerful weapon, the filibuster.
The wide margin puts Democrats in a strong position as they prepare to deal with President Obama’s agenda on issues like health care and global warming.
Politics are cyclical; not long ago Karl Rove, at the time the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush, was boasting about the Republican Party enjoying a permanent majority.
The dominance now enjoyed by Democrats could prove equally transitory. Several Republicans said Democrats could suffer a backlash if economic policies pushed by Mr. Obama failed to lift the country out of a recession.
“These policies that he is pursuing expanding the size of the government are going to be policies which the country will find hard to accept when they look at the levels of debt and the levels of spending that they require,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire.
Saying that their party should do more to draw economic contrasts with the Democrats, several Republicans said Mr. Specter’s departure was in effect a purification rite for the party that would make it better able to make its case to the public.
“I’m not hurt by Arlen Specter walking away,” said Michael Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan and a conservative talk show host. “At least now the party doesn’t waste money supporting someone who does not support the party.”
“It’s interesting that people say the right has taken over the Republican Party — but no one can say what we’ve done,” Mr. Reagan said. “We’ve been closeted for the last eight years; it’s time for the right to come out of the closet.”
Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said ideological purity was the road to success. “The best way to get to 60 is to have a core group of Republicans who really do what they say and stand for their principles,” Mr. DeMint said.
Patrick J. Toomey, a former head of the Club for Growth whose primary challenge to Mr. Specter led the senator to bow out in the face of what he thought was a probable defeat, said Republicans should be open to a “wide range of opinions on a wide range of issues.”
“But I think fundamental common ground that the vast majority of Republicans share is the belief in limited government, freedom and personal responsibility,” Mr. Toomey said.
The question of how the party should respond to Mr. Specter’s departure was the main subject of a Senate Republican lunch on Wednesday. The party can be a “big tent,” said Senator John Ensign of Nevada, “but here are some core principles: fiscal responsibility, more personal responsibility, looking for a smaller, more effective government.”
Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.
“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/us/politics/30repubs.html?th&emc=th
WASHINGTON — A fundamental debate broke out among Republicans on Wednesday over how to rebuild the party in the wake of Senator Arlen Specter’s departure: Should it purge moderate voices like Mr. Specter and embrace its conservative roots or seek to broaden its appeal to regain a competitive position against Democrats?
With consensus growing among Republicans that the party is in its worst political position in recent memory, some conservatives applauded Mr. Specter’s departure. They said it cleared the way for the party to distance itself from its record of expanding government during the Bush years and to re-emphasize the calls for tax cuts and reduced federal spending that have dominated Republican thought for more than 30 years.
“We strayed from our principles of limited government, individual responsibility and economic freedom,” said Chris Chocola, a former Indiana congressman who is head of Club for Growth, a group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it considers insufficiently conservative. “We have to adhere to those principles to rebuild the party. Those are the brand of the Republican Party, and people feel that we betrayed the brand.”
But Republican leaders in Washington argued that Republicans would be permanently marginalized unless they showed flexibility on social issues as well as economic ones.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he would seek to recruit candidates who he thought could win in Democratic or swing states, even if it meant supporting candidates who might disagree with his own conservative views.
Mr. Cornyn said he was taking a page from Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the last head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who led his party to big gains by embracing candidates who, for example, opposed abortion rights or gun control.
“If you think about it, Schumer has been very good at this; I complimented him this morning in the gym,” Mr. Cornyn said, adding, “Some conservatives would rather lose than be seen as compromising on what they regard as inviolable principles.”
Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said: “We are not losing blue states and shrinking as a party because we are not conservative enough. If we pursue a party that has no place for someone who agrees with me 70 percent of the time, that is based on an ideological purity test rather than a coalition test, then we are going to keep losing.”
The debate broke out as the party found itself in a particularly dire state. Mr. Specter’s departure came a week after Republicans lost a special Congressional election in an upstate New York district with a significant Republican voter edge; as such, it underlined the extent the party was contracting, not only ideologically but also geographically.
In 2006, there were 55 Republicans in the Senate, compared with 45 Democrats. With Mr. Specter’s departure, there will be 40 Republicans. Depending on the outcome of the election between Norm Coleman and Al Franken in Minnesota, Democrats could end up with 60 votes, enough, assuming they hold the party together, to take away the minority party’s most powerful weapon, the filibuster.
The wide margin puts Democrats in a strong position as they prepare to deal with President Obama’s agenda on issues like health care and global warming.
Politics are cyclical; not long ago Karl Rove, at the time the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush, was boasting about the Republican Party enjoying a permanent majority.
The dominance now enjoyed by Democrats could prove equally transitory. Several Republicans said Democrats could suffer a backlash if economic policies pushed by Mr. Obama failed to lift the country out of a recession.
“These policies that he is pursuing expanding the size of the government are going to be policies which the country will find hard to accept when they look at the levels of debt and the levels of spending that they require,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire.
Saying that their party should do more to draw economic contrasts with the Democrats, several Republicans said Mr. Specter’s departure was in effect a purification rite for the party that would make it better able to make its case to the public.
“I’m not hurt by Arlen Specter walking away,” said Michael Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan and a conservative talk show host. “At least now the party doesn’t waste money supporting someone who does not support the party.”
“It’s interesting that people say the right has taken over the Republican Party — but no one can say what we’ve done,” Mr. Reagan said. “We’ve been closeted for the last eight years; it’s time for the right to come out of the closet.”
Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said ideological purity was the road to success. “The best way to get to 60 is to have a core group of Republicans who really do what they say and stand for their principles,” Mr. DeMint said.
Patrick J. Toomey, a former head of the Club for Growth whose primary challenge to Mr. Specter led the senator to bow out in the face of what he thought was a probable defeat, said Republicans should be open to a “wide range of opinions on a wide range of issues.”
“But I think fundamental common ground that the vast majority of Republicans share is the belief in limited government, freedom and personal responsibility,” Mr. Toomey said.
The question of how the party should respond to Mr. Specter’s departure was the main subject of a Senate Republican lunch on Wednesday. The party can be a “big tent,” said Senator John Ensign of Nevada, “but here are some core principles: fiscal responsibility, more personal responsibility, looking for a smaller, more effective government.”
Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.
“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”
Baghdad Is Shaken by a Series of Bombs
Baghdad Is Shaken by a Series of Bombs
By SAM DAGHER and SUADAD AL-SALHY
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
BAGHDAD — A series of bombs went off in Baghdad on Wednesday, extending a period of violence that has rattled Iraq’s government and security forces.
The pattern of Wednesday’s attacks — including three car bombs in predominantly Shiite areas and two at a Sunni mosque — raised fresh concern that sectarian passions could be inflamed anew.
Accounts of the death toll varied, from at least 17 people to as many as 48, with dozens wounded. So far in April, at least 300 Iraqis have been killed in bombing attacks, making it the bloodiest month since the start of the year and reversing the sharp drops in civilian deaths in January and February.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has blamed Sunni insurgents and members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted Baath Party for the recent violence, including four suicide bombings last week that killed almost 160 people, mostly Shiites. Mr. Maliki is torn between demands from the United States and some Sunni leaders to reconcile with some former members of the Hussein government and his Shiite partners, who reject an accommodation.
In the deadliest attacks on Wednesday, two car bombs went off in the Muraidi market in the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City. The first went off around 4:30 p.m., a peak shopping hour, in a section of the market where live birds are sold. About 10 minutes later, a second exploded in front of a popular ice cream and juice shop in the market.
Iraqi forces sealed off the area, but struggled to disperse angry crowds by firing their weapons into the air for almost an hour. Witnesses said some of those who lost loved ones in the attacks threw bricks and rocks at the soldiers, whom they blamed for security lapses in the area.
Two hospitals in Sadr City, Imam Ali and Shaheed al-Sadr, said the car bombings killed at least 10 people and wounded 63. But a security official with the Interior Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the attacks with reporters, said the market bombings killed 41 people and wounded 68.
Gen. Aboud Gambar, head of the Iraqi military’s Baghdad operations command, told state-owned television Al Iraqiya that three other car bombs were intercepted before they detonated.
Almost 30 minutes after the Sadr City attacks, a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a minibus on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, killing five of its occupants and wounding eight, the Interior Ministry official said.
Around 6 p.m., a car bomb went off in another market in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Shurta Rabia in southwestern Baghdad, wounding five, the official said.
Later in the evening, two car bombs exploded in front of the Nida Allah Sunni mosque in the predominantly Shiite district of Huriya in northwestern Baghdad, killing at least two and wounding eight, he said.
In Sadr City, some residents blamed the Baathists and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners, for the violence, while others said it was the work of American intelligence officers and the Baathists to put pressure on Mr. Maliki’s government to relent on his refusal to reconcile with the Baathists.
“Islamist Shiites will never accept the return of the Baathists or America’s schemes,” said Mohammed Ali, 44, of Sadr City.
Abdullah al-Hilfi, 38, said the bombings were “a gift” from Baathists to commemorate Mr. Hussein’s birthday, which was Tuesday.
Both wanted the militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, to resume its role in securing markets and neighborhoods.
Mohammed Hassan Dhari, 45, was simply tired of it all. “I want a solution,” he said. “We are tired. We need solutions.”
Despite the varying theories about who might have been behind the bombings, almost everyone agreed that Iraqi forces were either unable or too corrupt and infiltrated with militants to take control of the security situation.
At Imam Ali Hospital, some of the wounded said soldiers in Sadr City received bribes in return for relaxing vehicle searches at checkpoints.
“We fear things are getting out of control,” warned Ahmed al-Massoudi, a Shiite member of Parliament from the bloc of Mr. Sadr.
On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said, “Iraq has 29 million people and there is no force in the whole world, security apparatus or anyone from Adam’s time until now that can dedicate one cop to every single Iraqi.”
Atheer Kakan contributed reporting.
By SAM DAGHER and SUADAD AL-SALHY
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: April 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
BAGHDAD — A series of bombs went off in Baghdad on Wednesday, extending a period of violence that has rattled Iraq’s government and security forces.
The pattern of Wednesday’s attacks — including three car bombs in predominantly Shiite areas and two at a Sunni mosque — raised fresh concern that sectarian passions could be inflamed anew.
Accounts of the death toll varied, from at least 17 people to as many as 48, with dozens wounded. So far in April, at least 300 Iraqis have been killed in bombing attacks, making it the bloodiest month since the start of the year and reversing the sharp drops in civilian deaths in January and February.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has blamed Sunni insurgents and members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted Baath Party for the recent violence, including four suicide bombings last week that killed almost 160 people, mostly Shiites. Mr. Maliki is torn between demands from the United States and some Sunni leaders to reconcile with some former members of the Hussein government and his Shiite partners, who reject an accommodation.
In the deadliest attacks on Wednesday, two car bombs went off in the Muraidi market in the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City. The first went off around 4:30 p.m., a peak shopping hour, in a section of the market where live birds are sold. About 10 minutes later, a second exploded in front of a popular ice cream and juice shop in the market.
Iraqi forces sealed off the area, but struggled to disperse angry crowds by firing their weapons into the air for almost an hour. Witnesses said some of those who lost loved ones in the attacks threw bricks and rocks at the soldiers, whom they blamed for security lapses in the area.
Two hospitals in Sadr City, Imam Ali and Shaheed al-Sadr, said the car bombings killed at least 10 people and wounded 63. But a security official with the Interior Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the attacks with reporters, said the market bombings killed 41 people and wounded 68.
Gen. Aboud Gambar, head of the Iraqi military’s Baghdad operations command, told state-owned television Al Iraqiya that three other car bombs were intercepted before they detonated.
Almost 30 minutes after the Sadr City attacks, a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a minibus on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, killing five of its occupants and wounding eight, the Interior Ministry official said.
Around 6 p.m., a car bomb went off in another market in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Shurta Rabia in southwestern Baghdad, wounding five, the official said.
Later in the evening, two car bombs exploded in front of the Nida Allah Sunni mosque in the predominantly Shiite district of Huriya in northwestern Baghdad, killing at least two and wounding eight, he said.
In Sadr City, some residents blamed the Baathists and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners, for the violence, while others said it was the work of American intelligence officers and the Baathists to put pressure on Mr. Maliki’s government to relent on his refusal to reconcile with the Baathists.
“Islamist Shiites will never accept the return of the Baathists or America’s schemes,” said Mohammed Ali, 44, of Sadr City.
Abdullah al-Hilfi, 38, said the bombings were “a gift” from Baathists to commemorate Mr. Hussein’s birthday, which was Tuesday.
Both wanted the militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, to resume its role in securing markets and neighborhoods.
Mohammed Hassan Dhari, 45, was simply tired of it all. “I want a solution,” he said. “We are tired. We need solutions.”
Despite the varying theories about who might have been behind the bombings, almost everyone agreed that Iraqi forces were either unable or too corrupt and infiltrated with militants to take control of the security situation.
At Imam Ali Hospital, some of the wounded said soldiers in Sadr City received bribes in return for relaxing vehicle searches at checkpoints.
“We fear things are getting out of control,” warned Ahmed al-Massoudi, a Shiite member of Parliament from the bloc of Mr. Sadr.
On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said, “Iraq has 29 million people and there is no force in the whole world, security apparatus or anyone from Adam’s time until now that can dedicate one cop to every single Iraqi.”
Atheer Kakan contributed reporting.
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Obama’s hundred days of ambition
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Obama’s hundred days of ambition
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 29 2009 19:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 19:00
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c468b42-34e6-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html
Barack Obama’s presidency is off to an impressive start. Far from seeming daunted by the economic conditions he inherited from his predecessor, Mr Obama has maintained the posture, so familiar from his election campaign, of purposeful energy, steady calm and preternatural self-confidence. Polls say he continues to enjoy strong personal support. Although his policies are a little less widely admired, the country is behind him and wants him to succeed.
After so brief a time, it is frivolous to insist on solid achievement, though Mr Obama does have some to boast of. Congress passed an enormous fiscal stimulus that was much along the lines he first requested. Its design could have been better, and if anything it should have been bigger, but few would have been willing to bet last November that Mr Obama would succeed as well as he did on this issue. On the unfinished business of financial stabilisation, the record is less good. But here Mr Obama is entitled to ask for patience: this is a really difficult problem and, much as his critics may deny it, one that admits of no easy solution.
In foreign and security policy, the new president has departed abruptly from the policies of the previous administration on some subjects, and pressed on with little change in others. In striving to wind down the US commitment in Iraq while building up US forces in Afghanistan, Mr Obama is essentially following the path set out by Mr Bush. Soon a new course on Afghanistan and Pakistan will be needed; his thinking on this is not yet clear.
In other regards, there is a clean break, guided partly by his regard for international opinion. He has promised to close the Guantánamo prison. He has sent conciliatory messages to Iran and Venezuela. He seeks friendlier relations with Russia. These welcome innovations should not be dismissed as mere mood music – not yet, anyway. A president who listens rather than hectors, and who treats foreigners with respect, is one who is capable of learning. Warm feelings aside, that is a trait that is likely to serve his country and the world beyond well.
Hard choices in foreign policy of the sort that Mr Obama says he is keen to confront are certain to present themselves shortly and it is too soon to say how he will fare: whether, on the Middle East, he will stand up to Israel, for example, and whether, if his overtures are rebuffed, he will stand up to Iran. But it is not too soon to welcome the new tone, so refreshingly different from that of Mr Bush, and to hope that it will get results. So far, the response of US allies – on fiscal stimulus and support in Afghanistan, for example – has been disappointing. This is a criticism of them more than of Mr Obama.
Aside from energy and unflappability, Mr Obama has demonstrated another key trait: ambition. The sheer scale of the economic problems facing the new administration would have persuaded a less visionary president to scale back his plans. Mr Obama has made no concession. On the contrary, he has seized on the economic turmoil as all the more reason to press on with comprehensive healthcare reform, a decisive shift to a lower-carbon economy and a far-reaching programme of public investment.
If he succeeds in these endeavours, he will be regarded as a great president, and rightly so. If he fails, he will be accused of hubristic overreach, with equal justification. He has staked his presidency on this gamble.
One danger that will become more apparent with time is that Mr Obama’s long-term plans, as laid out in his first budget, are fiscally unbalanced: projected taxes fall a long way short of projected public spending. In other words, he is not yet being honest with the electorate about the costs of his policies.
The scale of his ambition, and its marked partisan character, also carry another risk, that of dividing the country. Part of Mr Obama’s appeal to the electorate was that he sought a bipartisan approach to government. In this he seems genuine: his friendly respect for people who disagree with him is unfeigned. But his policy goals are those of a bold progressive liberal. Mr Obama can significantly increase the size of government and reform the tax system to make it more progressive, but he cannot do this and be bipartisan too.
One might ask, why should that matter? Democrats won the White House and have majorities in both houses of Congress. Mr Obama is striving to do nothing he did not say he would do. But remember that US voters are more sceptical of the policies than they are of the man. At 100 impressive days, that sounds a note of caution.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 29 2009 19:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 19:00
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c468b42-34e6-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html
Barack Obama’s presidency is off to an impressive start. Far from seeming daunted by the economic conditions he inherited from his predecessor, Mr Obama has maintained the posture, so familiar from his election campaign, of purposeful energy, steady calm and preternatural self-confidence. Polls say he continues to enjoy strong personal support. Although his policies are a little less widely admired, the country is behind him and wants him to succeed.
After so brief a time, it is frivolous to insist on solid achievement, though Mr Obama does have some to boast of. Congress passed an enormous fiscal stimulus that was much along the lines he first requested. Its design could have been better, and if anything it should have been bigger, but few would have been willing to bet last November that Mr Obama would succeed as well as he did on this issue. On the unfinished business of financial stabilisation, the record is less good. But here Mr Obama is entitled to ask for patience: this is a really difficult problem and, much as his critics may deny it, one that admits of no easy solution.
In foreign and security policy, the new president has departed abruptly from the policies of the previous administration on some subjects, and pressed on with little change in others. In striving to wind down the US commitment in Iraq while building up US forces in Afghanistan, Mr Obama is essentially following the path set out by Mr Bush. Soon a new course on Afghanistan and Pakistan will be needed; his thinking on this is not yet clear.
In other regards, there is a clean break, guided partly by his regard for international opinion. He has promised to close the Guantánamo prison. He has sent conciliatory messages to Iran and Venezuela. He seeks friendlier relations with Russia. These welcome innovations should not be dismissed as mere mood music – not yet, anyway. A president who listens rather than hectors, and who treats foreigners with respect, is one who is capable of learning. Warm feelings aside, that is a trait that is likely to serve his country and the world beyond well.
Hard choices in foreign policy of the sort that Mr Obama says he is keen to confront are certain to present themselves shortly and it is too soon to say how he will fare: whether, on the Middle East, he will stand up to Israel, for example, and whether, if his overtures are rebuffed, he will stand up to Iran. But it is not too soon to welcome the new tone, so refreshingly different from that of Mr Bush, and to hope that it will get results. So far, the response of US allies – on fiscal stimulus and support in Afghanistan, for example – has been disappointing. This is a criticism of them more than of Mr Obama.
Aside from energy and unflappability, Mr Obama has demonstrated another key trait: ambition. The sheer scale of the economic problems facing the new administration would have persuaded a less visionary president to scale back his plans. Mr Obama has made no concession. On the contrary, he has seized on the economic turmoil as all the more reason to press on with comprehensive healthcare reform, a decisive shift to a lower-carbon economy and a far-reaching programme of public investment.
If he succeeds in these endeavours, he will be regarded as a great president, and rightly so. If he fails, he will be accused of hubristic overreach, with equal justification. He has staked his presidency on this gamble.
One danger that will become more apparent with time is that Mr Obama’s long-term plans, as laid out in his first budget, are fiscally unbalanced: projected taxes fall a long way short of projected public spending. In other words, he is not yet being honest with the electorate about the costs of his policies.
The scale of his ambition, and its marked partisan character, also carry another risk, that of dividing the country. Part of Mr Obama’s appeal to the electorate was that he sought a bipartisan approach to government. In this he seems genuine: his friendly respect for people who disagree with him is unfeigned. But his policy goals are those of a bold progressive liberal. Mr Obama can significantly increase the size of government and reform the tax system to make it more progressive, but he cannot do this and be bipartisan too.
One might ask, why should that matter? Democrats won the White House and have majorities in both houses of Congress. Mr Obama is striving to do nothing he did not say he would do. But remember that US voters are more sceptical of the policies than they are of the man. At 100 impressive days, that sounds a note of caution.
Second hardliner in Iran presidential race
Second hardliner in Iran presidential race
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 15:43 | Last updated: April 30 2009 15:43
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e5cc668-3594-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, has announced his intention to run for president, underlining the failure of Iran’s fundamentalists to reach a consensus candidate.
His candidacy will offer fundamentalists an alternative to President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad who is also expected to run in the June elections.
Many conservatives have refused to line up behind the incumbent, accusing Mr Ahmadi-Nejad of neglecting long-term economic planning and adopting policies that have led to 25.4 per cent inflation and 12.5 per cent unemployment.
Mr Rezaei, 55, was Iran’s top commander during the deadly Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). He left the guards over a decade ago and now holds an influential job as secretary of the Expediency Council which drafts macro economic and political policies.
In a statement on Wednesday, he warned of the “dangers” facing Iran. These included lost economic and political opportunities, high inflation and unemployment, poverty, immorality in politics and a widening gap between the regime and ethnic and religious minorities. He also warned of the creation of a new front in the Islamic world against Iran.
He said he hoped to ease national and international concerns by a reform of the executive, the drafting of long-term strategies and by employing alternative forces committed to the Islamic regime and national interests.
Mr Ahmadi-Nejad isolated many senior officials and diplomats when he came to power on the grounds that they were not loyal enough to the regime.
With the late entrance of Mr Rezaei, Iran’s presidential election now has four main candidates. The reformists, who are also divided, have two nominees: Mir-Hossein Moussavi, a former leftist prime minister between 1981 to 1989, and Mehdi Karroubi, a former reformist parliamentary speaker.
Analysts expect the main competition to be between Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and Mr Moussavi, but they say Mr Karroubi may be able to attract several million votes, unlike Mr Rezaei whose popularity is untested.
Divisions in the two main political camps may mean that no candidate is able to win over 50 per cent of the votes, which is the level required to win the election in the first round on June 12. A second round is considered increasingly likely.
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 15:43 | Last updated: April 30 2009 15:43
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e5cc668-3594-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, has announced his intention to run for president, underlining the failure of Iran’s fundamentalists to reach a consensus candidate.
His candidacy will offer fundamentalists an alternative to President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad who is also expected to run in the June elections.
Many conservatives have refused to line up behind the incumbent, accusing Mr Ahmadi-Nejad of neglecting long-term economic planning and adopting policies that have led to 25.4 per cent inflation and 12.5 per cent unemployment.
Mr Rezaei, 55, was Iran’s top commander during the deadly Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). He left the guards over a decade ago and now holds an influential job as secretary of the Expediency Council which drafts macro economic and political policies.
In a statement on Wednesday, he warned of the “dangers” facing Iran. These included lost economic and political opportunities, high inflation and unemployment, poverty, immorality in politics and a widening gap between the regime and ethnic and religious minorities. He also warned of the creation of a new front in the Islamic world against Iran.
He said he hoped to ease national and international concerns by a reform of the executive, the drafting of long-term strategies and by employing alternative forces committed to the Islamic regime and national interests.
Mr Ahmadi-Nejad isolated many senior officials and diplomats when he came to power on the grounds that they were not loyal enough to the regime.
With the late entrance of Mr Rezaei, Iran’s presidential election now has four main candidates. The reformists, who are also divided, have two nominees: Mir-Hossein Moussavi, a former leftist prime minister between 1981 to 1989, and Mehdi Karroubi, a former reformist parliamentary speaker.
Analysts expect the main competition to be between Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and Mr Moussavi, but they say Mr Karroubi may be able to attract several million votes, unlike Mr Rezaei whose popularity is untested.
Divisions in the two main political camps may mean that no candidate is able to win over 50 per cent of the votes, which is the level required to win the election in the first round on June 12. A second round is considered increasingly likely.
Congress approves $3,400bn budget
Congress approves $3,400bn budget
By Andrew Ward in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 03:06 | Last updated: April 30 2009 03:06
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8f7b025a-3524-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html
Congress on Wednesday passed a $3,400bn budget resolution that laid the foundation for healthcare reform and a series of other Democratic policy goals, handing President Barack Obama a key victory on his 100th day in office.
The plan sailed through the House and Senate with overwhelming Democratic support but not a single Republican backed the measure, highlighting deep partisan division over a budget that would sharply increase government spending and expand the national debt.
The budget resolution is a nonbinding blueprint and more tough debate remains ahead before the plan is fleshed out in final appropriations and taxation legislation over the summer.
But Wednesday’s votes demonstrated strong Democratic backing for most of Mr Obama’s budget proposals, including healthcare reform and investments in education and green energy.
”This budget was hugely important to the president. This is the starting point for everything he wants to do,” said Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
”For every one of his key priorities, reducing dependence on foreign energy, making possible healthcare reform, a focus on excellence in education, none of those things could have been pursued effectively without this budget.”
The House approved the resolution on a vote of 233-193, while the Senate voted 53-43.
In addition to every Republican, 17 House Democrats and four Senate Democrats voted against the budget plan, highlighting anxiety among party moderates over the ballooning budget deficit.
Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania senator who defected from the Republican party to the Democrats on Tuesday, was among those who voted against the resolution – providing an early warning that he will not always side with his new party.
The plan included an option for Congress to pass healthcare reform – one of Mr Obama’s top legislative priorities – as part of the fast-track budget reconciliation process. Such a move would allow Democrats to pass healthcare reform with 50 Senate votes rather than the 60 normally required to overcome Republican opposition.
Some of Mr Obama’s proposals were abandoned or scaled back by congressional Democrats, including his signature middle class tax cuts, which will expire next year under the Senate plan, and his call to include climate change legislation in the budget, which was ignored by both chambers.
But Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House speaker, said most of the president’s priorities had survived. ”It’s a budget that reduces taxes, lowers the deficit and creates jobs. It honours the three pillars of the Obama initiatives: energy, health care and education.”
Republicans blasted the resolution as a big government juggernaut that would undermine economic recovery. ”It spends money we don’t have, piles unprecedented debt on our children and grandchildren, and raises taxes on families and small businesses, while taking away the middle-class tax cut the president promised during the campaign,” said John Boehner, the House Republican leader.
By Andrew Ward in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 03:06 | Last updated: April 30 2009 03:06
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8f7b025a-3524-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html
Congress on Wednesday passed a $3,400bn budget resolution that laid the foundation for healthcare reform and a series of other Democratic policy goals, handing President Barack Obama a key victory on his 100th day in office.
The plan sailed through the House and Senate with overwhelming Democratic support but not a single Republican backed the measure, highlighting deep partisan division over a budget that would sharply increase government spending and expand the national debt.
The budget resolution is a nonbinding blueprint and more tough debate remains ahead before the plan is fleshed out in final appropriations and taxation legislation over the summer.
But Wednesday’s votes demonstrated strong Democratic backing for most of Mr Obama’s budget proposals, including healthcare reform and investments in education and green energy.
”This budget was hugely important to the president. This is the starting point for everything he wants to do,” said Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
”For every one of his key priorities, reducing dependence on foreign energy, making possible healthcare reform, a focus on excellence in education, none of those things could have been pursued effectively without this budget.”
The House approved the resolution on a vote of 233-193, while the Senate voted 53-43.
In addition to every Republican, 17 House Democrats and four Senate Democrats voted against the budget plan, highlighting anxiety among party moderates over the ballooning budget deficit.
Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania senator who defected from the Republican party to the Democrats on Tuesday, was among those who voted against the resolution – providing an early warning that he will not always side with his new party.
The plan included an option for Congress to pass healthcare reform – one of Mr Obama’s top legislative priorities – as part of the fast-track budget reconciliation process. Such a move would allow Democrats to pass healthcare reform with 50 Senate votes rather than the 60 normally required to overcome Republican opposition.
Some of Mr Obama’s proposals were abandoned or scaled back by congressional Democrats, including his signature middle class tax cuts, which will expire next year under the Senate plan, and his call to include climate change legislation in the budget, which was ignored by both chambers.
But Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House speaker, said most of the president’s priorities had survived. ”It’s a budget that reduces taxes, lowers the deficit and creates jobs. It honours the three pillars of the Obama initiatives: energy, health care and education.”
Republicans blasted the resolution as a big government juggernaut that would undermine economic recovery. ”It spends money we don’t have, piles unprecedented debt on our children and grandchildren, and raises taxes on families and small businesses, while taking away the middle-class tax cut the president promised during the campaign,” said John Boehner, the House Republican leader.
US personal income and spending slide- New jobless claims eased last week
US personal income and spending slide- New jobless claims eased last week
By Alan Rappeport in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 16:22 | Last updated: April 30 2009 16:22
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afca7b6a-3599-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
US consumer spending slipped for the first time in three months in March as incomes fell back and people saved more while they coped with the recession and fears of rising job cuts.
Personal consumption expenditure fell by 0.2 per cent to $24.2bn, more than economists expected, according to commerce department figures. This followed a revised increase of 0.4 per cent in February. In the first quarter of this year consumption rose at an annualised rate of 2.2 per cent, but much of this was due to cheaper petrol and a boost from tax rebates.
Incomes fell back for the third straight month in March, declining by 0.3 per cent to $34.4bn. Job cuts, pay freezes and eliminated bonuses have savaged salaries in recent months.
The commerce department’s closely-watched gauge of prices slipped by 0.1 per cent in March, but was up by 0.2 per cent excluding food and energy for the second month running.
Meanwhile the savings rate, which is measured as the proportion of income left after spending and taxes, rose to 4.2 per cent from a revised 4.0 per cent in March. Economists at Capital Economics predict that the savings rate could reach 8 per cent as household wealth has collapsed.
“Looking forward, another steep drop in employment is on the way for April and we expect consumers to stay cautious,” said Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight.
New US jobless claims surprisingly eased last week, declining by 14,000 to 631,000. However labour department figures showed that those making continuing claims rose to 6.27m, a fresh record high.
Economists took hope that the four-week moving average for new claims was 637,250, a 3.3 per cent decline over the last three weeks.
“A decline in the four-week average of claims is important because the peak in claims always comes around the end of a recession,” said Abiel Reinhart, economist at JPMorgan Chase.
Some economists expect the unemployment rate, which rose to 8.5 per cent last month, to reach 9 per cent in April. Official figures on Wednesday showed that the US economy contracted at an annualised rate of 6.1 per cent in the first quarter, after declining by 6.3 per cent during the fourth quarter of last year.
By Alan Rappeport in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 16:22 | Last updated: April 30 2009 16:22
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afca7b6a-3599-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
US consumer spending slipped for the first time in three months in March as incomes fell back and people saved more while they coped with the recession and fears of rising job cuts.
Personal consumption expenditure fell by 0.2 per cent to $24.2bn, more than economists expected, according to commerce department figures. This followed a revised increase of 0.4 per cent in February. In the first quarter of this year consumption rose at an annualised rate of 2.2 per cent, but much of this was due to cheaper petrol and a boost from tax rebates.
Incomes fell back for the third straight month in March, declining by 0.3 per cent to $34.4bn. Job cuts, pay freezes and eliminated bonuses have savaged salaries in recent months.
The commerce department’s closely-watched gauge of prices slipped by 0.1 per cent in March, but was up by 0.2 per cent excluding food and energy for the second month running.
Meanwhile the savings rate, which is measured as the proportion of income left after spending and taxes, rose to 4.2 per cent from a revised 4.0 per cent in March. Economists at Capital Economics predict that the savings rate could reach 8 per cent as household wealth has collapsed.
“Looking forward, another steep drop in employment is on the way for April and we expect consumers to stay cautious,” said Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight.
New US jobless claims surprisingly eased last week, declining by 14,000 to 631,000. However labour department figures showed that those making continuing claims rose to 6.27m, a fresh record high.
Economists took hope that the four-week moving average for new claims was 637,250, a 3.3 per cent decline over the last three weeks.
“A decline in the four-week average of claims is important because the peak in claims always comes around the end of a recession,” said Abiel Reinhart, economist at JPMorgan Chase.
Some economists expect the unemployment rate, which rose to 8.5 per cent last month, to reach 9 per cent in April. Official figures on Wednesday showed that the US economy contracted at an annualised rate of 6.1 per cent in the first quarter, after declining by 6.3 per cent during the fourth quarter of last year.
WHO warns of ‘imminent’ flu pandemic/Mexico shuts down to fight swine flu
WHO warns of ‘imminent’ flu pandemic
By Harvey Morris in New York, James Boxell in London, Frances Williams in Geneva and agency
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 29 2009 11:40 | Last updated: April 30 2009 16:05
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95684290-349d-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html
A man carries his coffee past empty tables at the ’Cafe La Habana’ after all restaurants were closed to inside dining in Mexico City. The city’s mayor said he would consider easing the citywide shutdown if the death toll kept tapering off
The World Health Organisation warned a global swine flu pandemic was imminent as it raised the global alert level on Wednesday to five out of six.
By Thursday morning, 236 cases had been confirmed worldwide, said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director general in charge of tackling the crisis. The disease has hit at least 13 countries, but Mexico remained the epicentre of the outbreak.
Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, said anti-flu measures must now be undertaken with increased urgency. “All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” she told reporters in Geneva. “It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
The phase five alert means that a pandemic is imminent and the disease can be spread from humans to humans in a sustainable manner.
The move came after the US reported the first death from the disease outside Mexico, where the new virus has killed up to 176 people though only a handful have been confirmed as stemming from infection.
Slideshow: World reaction to the growing outbreak
Switzerland became the most recent country to confirm a case, saying a man returning from Mexico had tested positive. A three-year-old child in the Netherlands was also infected, while closer to Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru also reported cases. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 109 cases in the US on Thursday.
Following the WHO’s Wednesday announcement, Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president, ordered government offices and private businesses not crucial to the economy to stop work for five days from Friday to avoid further infections.
”There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus,” Mr Calderon said in his first televised address since the crisis erupted last week.
Mexico’s peso currency weakened sharply early on Thursday in response, falling 1.6 percent to 13.83 per dollar, but world stocks, powered by gains in Asia on Thursday, struck a four-month peak after the outbreak initially weighed on markets.
Texas health officials said a 23-month-old child on a visit from Mexico had died from the disease in a Houston hospital.
Rick Perry, Texas governor, issued a disaster proclamation for the state which has 16 cases of the disease. He said closing the Mexican border was an option but would be premature.
Ms Chan said: “The world is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history.”
Speaking shortly before Ms Chan’s announcement in Geneva, Janet Napolitano, US homeland security secretary, said: “We’ve been preparing all along as if this is going to be stage 6. We are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”
The WHO said the new flu strain appeared to be spreading from person to person, with its dissemination exacerbated by international travel.
France said it would seek European Union support for a continent-wide ban on flights to Mexico. The EU, US and Canada have already advised against non-essential travel to Mexico.
Mr Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director-general, said earlier that analysis showed, “this was a new swine influenza virus behaving like a human virus”. He noted that most cases outside Mexico had so far been mild.
Before the Texas death, all deaths had been confined to Mexico, where 159 may have died from the disease, although only seven cases have been confirmed as resulting from the new flu strain.
US authorities extended the availability of anti-viral drugs and released 12m doses of the Tamiflu drug from federal stockpiles, as health officials reported the number of confirmed US cases had risen from 64 to 91 in New York and nine other states.
Egypt began a precautionary cull of the country’s 300,000 pigs, a move described by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation as “a real mistake”. Russia and China have banned US pork products, although Mr Fukuda repeated on Wednesday there was no evidence that people were being infected by exposure to pigs.
In Mexico, schools were also suspended until May 6 and the government assumed new powers to isolate infected people.
As companies worldwide stepped up precautions to protect employees, Patricia Espinosa, Mexican foreign minister, called at the United Nations Security Council for all countries to work together to respond to the crisis.
The southern African regional bloc is holding talks with WHO about increasing its stocks of drugs to treat swine flu, Barbara Hogan, South Africa’s health minister, said on Thursday, after the country reported the continent’s first two suspected cases of the virus.
”We have no confirmed cases of swine flu in the country yet [but] we have everything on high alert,” Ms Hogan told local radio.
additional reporting from Tom Burgis
Mexico shuts down to fight swine flu
By By Harvey Morris in New York, Stanley Pignal in Luxembourg and Frances Williams in Geneva
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 17:22 | Last updated: April 30 2009 18:40
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b58601e2-35a2-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
Mexico on Thursday ordered the shutdown of all but essential public services to help combat the spread of swine flu, as a major US food producer denied speculation one of its pig farms in the country was the origin of the disease.
President Felipe Calderón said only essential businesses such as supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies should stay open, and only critical government health and security workers would be on duty from Friday until Tuesday. A nationwide school closure was already in effect.
Officials in Mexico City said there was no evidence of an exponential growth in the number of flu victims after 176 deaths throughout the country that might be linked to the disease. Eight have so far been confirmed as linked to the new strain.
Worldwide, 236 cases have been confirmed, said Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organisation’s assistant director general in charge of tackling the crisis. The disease has hit at least 13 countries, but Mexico remained the epicentre of the outbreak.
Smithfield denial
In the US, Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based food producer, rejected claims in Mexico that a joint venture it runs in Vera Cruz was the source of the virus – officially designated on Thursday as Influenza-A (H1N1).
C. Larry Pope, Smithfield chief executive, said in a letter to employees that Mexican authorities had found no evidence of the virus at the Vera Cruz farm where the herd was routinely vaccinated. The results of further independent tests would be available and released by the company in a few days, he wrote.
The World Organisation for Animal Health said the virus was spreading person-to-person and there was no reason to cull pig herds. “There is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs,” the Paris-based organisation said.
Egypt began had begun a precautionary cull of the country’s 300,000 pigs, a move described by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation as “a real mistake”. Russia and China have banned US pork products.
In Washington, Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said information so far indicated the flu outbreak was a relatively minor economic event. But the eventual economic impact on some countries could be “quite drastic”.
Travel limits
In Luxembourg, European Union health ministers reacted coolly to a French proposal to restrict travel to Mexico when they held an emergency meeting to coordinate the bloc’s response to the outbreak.
The meeting came after the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday night it was raising its global alert level to 5 on a 6-point scale, indicating a global pandemic was imminent.
A suggestion by the French health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, to ban outbound flights to Mexico was not seized upon by fellow EU members, many of whom said they doubted the effectiveness of such a measure.
Ms Bachelot’s calls echoed those made by the EU’s health commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou, earlier this week, to avoid Mexico, which were quickly downgraded to ”personal recommendations”.
More likely to gain support than a travel ban was a suggestion from Italy for some sort of joint strategy in stockpiling antivirals and vaccines for use across the EU.
The EU’s focus was on reassuring its citizens after a slew of new cases brought the total to over 20 infections in six countries including a new case each in Switzerland and the Netherlands.
In Spain, the worst affected EU state with 13 confirmed cases, Air Europa said it was cutting flights to Mexico by 80 percent.
All the European confirmed cases of the flu can be directly traced back to victims travelling to Mexico, except one case in Spain in which it is thought the member of a carrier’s household caught the disease.
Some passengers currently travelling in Mexico, are at odds as to whether to cut their trips short. Thirty Bulgarians, currently on vacation in Mexico, have approached authorities asking whether they should cut short their trip, said Anguel Kunchev from the country’s health ministry.
In the US, with the highest number of confirmed cases at 109, most of them mild, Joe Biden, vice-president, caused a stir in the travel industry by telling an interviewer he would advise his family to avoid air travel. His office later said he was merely restating government advice against non-essential travel to Mexico.
US officials, including President Barack Obama, have said they had no plans to close the border with Mexico and that such a measure was unlikely to prevent the spread of a virus that was already present in the US.
Global reaction
Governments and health organisations were making plans on Thursday to step up efforts to combat and contain the disease.
The southern African regional bloc is holding talks with WHO about increasing its stocks of drugs to treat swine flu, Barbara Hogan, South Africa’s health minister, said on Thursday, after the country reported the continent’s first two suspected cases of the virus.
”We have no confirmed cases of swine flu in the country yet [but] we have everything on high alert,” Ms Hogan told local radio.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian organisations, also made a Thursday appeal for an initial $4.4m from donors to fund its response to the swine flu outbreak, saying there was an ”imminent risk of a global pandemic”. It said more than 130 of its 186 national branches worldwide were already working to mitigate the virus’ impact.
In the US, Mr Obama had asked Congress for for $1.5bn to combat swine flu earlier in the week.
Bulgaria ordered swine flu tests from the US, according to officials. The country currently has no way of identifying the disease other than to send tests to a foreign lab, but has announced measures to quarantine anyone with a suspected case, using thermal scanners at the airport to identify passengers with elevated temperatures.
Additional reporting from Tom Burgis in Johannesburg and Theodor Troev in Bulgaria
By Harvey Morris in New York, James Boxell in London, Frances Williams in Geneva and agency
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 29 2009 11:40 | Last updated: April 30 2009 16:05
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95684290-349d-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html
A man carries his coffee past empty tables at the ’Cafe La Habana’ after all restaurants were closed to inside dining in Mexico City. The city’s mayor said he would consider easing the citywide shutdown if the death toll kept tapering off
The World Health Organisation warned a global swine flu pandemic was imminent as it raised the global alert level on Wednesday to five out of six.
By Thursday morning, 236 cases had been confirmed worldwide, said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director general in charge of tackling the crisis. The disease has hit at least 13 countries, but Mexico remained the epicentre of the outbreak.
Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, said anti-flu measures must now be undertaken with increased urgency. “All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” she told reporters in Geneva. “It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
The phase five alert means that a pandemic is imminent and the disease can be spread from humans to humans in a sustainable manner.
The move came after the US reported the first death from the disease outside Mexico, where the new virus has killed up to 176 people though only a handful have been confirmed as stemming from infection.
Slideshow: World reaction to the growing outbreak
Switzerland became the most recent country to confirm a case, saying a man returning from Mexico had tested positive. A three-year-old child in the Netherlands was also infected, while closer to Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru also reported cases. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 109 cases in the US on Thursday.
Following the WHO’s Wednesday announcement, Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president, ordered government offices and private businesses not crucial to the economy to stop work for five days from Friday to avoid further infections.
”There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus,” Mr Calderon said in his first televised address since the crisis erupted last week.
Mexico’s peso currency weakened sharply early on Thursday in response, falling 1.6 percent to 13.83 per dollar, but world stocks, powered by gains in Asia on Thursday, struck a four-month peak after the outbreak initially weighed on markets.
Texas health officials said a 23-month-old child on a visit from Mexico had died from the disease in a Houston hospital.
Rick Perry, Texas governor, issued a disaster proclamation for the state which has 16 cases of the disease. He said closing the Mexican border was an option but would be premature.
Ms Chan said: “The world is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history.”
Speaking shortly before Ms Chan’s announcement in Geneva, Janet Napolitano, US homeland security secretary, said: “We’ve been preparing all along as if this is going to be stage 6. We are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”
The WHO said the new flu strain appeared to be spreading from person to person, with its dissemination exacerbated by international travel.
France said it would seek European Union support for a continent-wide ban on flights to Mexico. The EU, US and Canada have already advised against non-essential travel to Mexico.
Mr Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director-general, said earlier that analysis showed, “this was a new swine influenza virus behaving like a human virus”. He noted that most cases outside Mexico had so far been mild.
Before the Texas death, all deaths had been confined to Mexico, where 159 may have died from the disease, although only seven cases have been confirmed as resulting from the new flu strain.
US authorities extended the availability of anti-viral drugs and released 12m doses of the Tamiflu drug from federal stockpiles, as health officials reported the number of confirmed US cases had risen from 64 to 91 in New York and nine other states.
Egypt began a precautionary cull of the country’s 300,000 pigs, a move described by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation as “a real mistake”. Russia and China have banned US pork products, although Mr Fukuda repeated on Wednesday there was no evidence that people were being infected by exposure to pigs.
In Mexico, schools were also suspended until May 6 and the government assumed new powers to isolate infected people.
As companies worldwide stepped up precautions to protect employees, Patricia Espinosa, Mexican foreign minister, called at the United Nations Security Council for all countries to work together to respond to the crisis.
The southern African regional bloc is holding talks with WHO about increasing its stocks of drugs to treat swine flu, Barbara Hogan, South Africa’s health minister, said on Thursday, after the country reported the continent’s first two suspected cases of the virus.
”We have no confirmed cases of swine flu in the country yet [but] we have everything on high alert,” Ms Hogan told local radio.
additional reporting from Tom Burgis
Mexico shuts down to fight swine flu
By By Harvey Morris in New York, Stanley Pignal in Luxembourg and Frances Williams in Geneva
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 17:22 | Last updated: April 30 2009 18:40
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b58601e2-35a2-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
Mexico on Thursday ordered the shutdown of all but essential public services to help combat the spread of swine flu, as a major US food producer denied speculation one of its pig farms in the country was the origin of the disease.
President Felipe Calderón said only essential businesses such as supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies should stay open, and only critical government health and security workers would be on duty from Friday until Tuesday. A nationwide school closure was already in effect.
Officials in Mexico City said there was no evidence of an exponential growth in the number of flu victims after 176 deaths throughout the country that might be linked to the disease. Eight have so far been confirmed as linked to the new strain.
Worldwide, 236 cases have been confirmed, said Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organisation’s assistant director general in charge of tackling the crisis. The disease has hit at least 13 countries, but Mexico remained the epicentre of the outbreak.
Smithfield denial
In the US, Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based food producer, rejected claims in Mexico that a joint venture it runs in Vera Cruz was the source of the virus – officially designated on Thursday as Influenza-A (H1N1).
C. Larry Pope, Smithfield chief executive, said in a letter to employees that Mexican authorities had found no evidence of the virus at the Vera Cruz farm where the herd was routinely vaccinated. The results of further independent tests would be available and released by the company in a few days, he wrote.
The World Organisation for Animal Health said the virus was spreading person-to-person and there was no reason to cull pig herds. “There is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs,” the Paris-based organisation said.
Egypt began had begun a precautionary cull of the country’s 300,000 pigs, a move described by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation as “a real mistake”. Russia and China have banned US pork products.
In Washington, Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said information so far indicated the flu outbreak was a relatively minor economic event. But the eventual economic impact on some countries could be “quite drastic”.
Travel limits
In Luxembourg, European Union health ministers reacted coolly to a French proposal to restrict travel to Mexico when they held an emergency meeting to coordinate the bloc’s response to the outbreak.
The meeting came after the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday night it was raising its global alert level to 5 on a 6-point scale, indicating a global pandemic was imminent.
A suggestion by the French health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, to ban outbound flights to Mexico was not seized upon by fellow EU members, many of whom said they doubted the effectiveness of such a measure.
Ms Bachelot’s calls echoed those made by the EU’s health commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou, earlier this week, to avoid Mexico, which were quickly downgraded to ”personal recommendations”.
More likely to gain support than a travel ban was a suggestion from Italy for some sort of joint strategy in stockpiling antivirals and vaccines for use across the EU.
The EU’s focus was on reassuring its citizens after a slew of new cases brought the total to over 20 infections in six countries including a new case each in Switzerland and the Netherlands.
In Spain, the worst affected EU state with 13 confirmed cases, Air Europa said it was cutting flights to Mexico by 80 percent.
All the European confirmed cases of the flu can be directly traced back to victims travelling to Mexico, except one case in Spain in which it is thought the member of a carrier’s household caught the disease.
Some passengers currently travelling in Mexico, are at odds as to whether to cut their trips short. Thirty Bulgarians, currently on vacation in Mexico, have approached authorities asking whether they should cut short their trip, said Anguel Kunchev from the country’s health ministry.
In the US, with the highest number of confirmed cases at 109, most of them mild, Joe Biden, vice-president, caused a stir in the travel industry by telling an interviewer he would advise his family to avoid air travel. His office later said he was merely restating government advice against non-essential travel to Mexico.
US officials, including President Barack Obama, have said they had no plans to close the border with Mexico and that such a measure was unlikely to prevent the spread of a virus that was already present in the US.
Global reaction
Governments and health organisations were making plans on Thursday to step up efforts to combat and contain the disease.
The southern African regional bloc is holding talks with WHO about increasing its stocks of drugs to treat swine flu, Barbara Hogan, South Africa’s health minister, said on Thursday, after the country reported the continent’s first two suspected cases of the virus.
”We have no confirmed cases of swine flu in the country yet [but] we have everything on high alert,” Ms Hogan told local radio.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian organisations, also made a Thursday appeal for an initial $4.4m from donors to fund its response to the swine flu outbreak, saying there was an ”imminent risk of a global pandemic”. It said more than 130 of its 186 national branches worldwide were already working to mitigate the virus’ impact.
In the US, Mr Obama had asked Congress for for $1.5bn to combat swine flu earlier in the week.
Bulgaria ordered swine flu tests from the US, according to officials. The country currently has no way of identifying the disease other than to send tests to a foreign lab, but has announced measures to quarantine anyone with a suspected case, using thermal scanners at the airport to identify passengers with elevated temperatures.
Additional reporting from Tom Burgis in Johannesburg and Theodor Troev in Bulgaria
GM bondholders launch counter-offer
GM bondholders launch counter-offer
By John Reed in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 14:24 | Last updated: April 30 2009 16:25
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c0f4b0fc-3587-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
General Motors’ bondholders on Thursday launched a counter-offer to the carmaker’s debt exchange proposal made earlier this week that would see them claim majority control of the company, but the US federal government hold no shares.
GM’s ad hoc bondholders’ committee said they would be willing to swap their $27bn of notes for 58 per cent of the carmaker’s shares. The plan would see a healthcare fund managed by the United Auto Workers’ union own 41 per cent of “the new GM” and current shareholders retain 1 per cent of Detroit’s largest carmaker.
The proposal would see no ownership role for the government and “prevent the nationalisation of one of the country’s largest companies,” the group said in a statement.
GM’s exchange offer, made on Monday, proposed that bondholders swap their paper for 10 per cent of the company. The carmaker’s proposal would see the government take majority control in exchange for retiring $10bn of emergency loans made since December. GM’s remaining shares would mostly be owned by the UAW.
The offer was rejected by many of GM’s bondholders, who oppose retiring their debt for a minority stake in a company that many think has an uncertain future.
“Unlike the current proposal, our plan does not grant a controlling interest in GM to the federal government,” said Eric Siegert, senior managing director of Houlihan Lokey Howard and Zukin, and advisor to the bondholders’ committee. “We think that this is an extremely attractive proposition given our current fiscal crisis.”
The group said their proposal would “save the U.S. taxpayer $10bn.” GM was not immediately available for comment on Thursday morning.
Shares in GM were 8 cents higher at $1.89 in early New York trading.
GM faces an end-May deadline to swap most of its debt and much of its healthcare obligations for equity in the company, or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Chrysler, its smaller rival, has until midnight on Thursday to complete its own restructuring plan and an alliance with Italy’s Fiat, or file for creditor protection.
By John Reed in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 14:24 | Last updated: April 30 2009 16:25
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c0f4b0fc-3587-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
General Motors’ bondholders on Thursday launched a counter-offer to the carmaker’s debt exchange proposal made earlier this week that would see them claim majority control of the company, but the US federal government hold no shares.
GM’s ad hoc bondholders’ committee said they would be willing to swap their $27bn of notes for 58 per cent of the carmaker’s shares. The plan would see a healthcare fund managed by the United Auto Workers’ union own 41 per cent of “the new GM” and current shareholders retain 1 per cent of Detroit’s largest carmaker.
The proposal would see no ownership role for the government and “prevent the nationalisation of one of the country’s largest companies,” the group said in a statement.
GM’s exchange offer, made on Monday, proposed that bondholders swap their paper for 10 per cent of the company. The carmaker’s proposal would see the government take majority control in exchange for retiring $10bn of emergency loans made since December. GM’s remaining shares would mostly be owned by the UAW.
The offer was rejected by many of GM’s bondholders, who oppose retiring their debt for a minority stake in a company that many think has an uncertain future.
“Unlike the current proposal, our plan does not grant a controlling interest in GM to the federal government,” said Eric Siegert, senior managing director of Houlihan Lokey Howard and Zukin, and advisor to the bondholders’ committee. “We think that this is an extremely attractive proposition given our current fiscal crisis.”
The group said their proposal would “save the U.S. taxpayer $10bn.” GM was not immediately available for comment on Thursday morning.
Shares in GM were 8 cents higher at $1.89 in early New York trading.
GM faces an end-May deadline to swap most of its debt and much of its healthcare obligations for equity in the company, or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Chrysler, its smaller rival, has until midnight on Thursday to complete its own restructuring plan and an alliance with Italy’s Fiat, or file for creditor protection.
Obama plots path for Chrysler’s future
Obama plots path for Chrysler’s future
By John Reed in London and Tom Braithwaite in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 14:12 | Last updated: April 30 2009 18:19
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/76ccd92c-3588-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
President Barack Obama said on Thursday that Chrysler would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and confirmed a partnership with Italy’s Fiat aimed at giving a new lease on life to what he called “one of America’s most storied automakers.”
The announcement came after dissenting creditors failed to fall in line with a government-brokered deal with big banks to cut Chrysler’s $6.9bn secured debt by more than two-thirds. Mr Obama attributed the failure of an out-of-court restructuring to “a small group of speculators.”
In a midday address, Mr Obama sought to assure carbuyers that their warranties on Chrysler cars had US federal government backing, and he announced a series of other measures to support the beleaguered domestic American car industry.
Fiat said that its partnership would see the sale of “substantially all” of Chrysler’s assets to a new company under provisions of the US bankruptcy code allowing companies in creditor protection to split their operations into more and less viable parts.
The Italian carmaker said Chrysler would ask a bankruptcy court in New York on Thursday to approve the sale of its business to a new company, also to be called Chrysler.
Pending approval of the deal, the current Chrysler would continue its normal business operations. The company would receive US Treasury and Canadian government financing and “continue normal business” while awaiting the approval.
Fiat is expected to take a 20 per cent initial stake in Chrysler, to rise later to 35 per cent. “As part of the agreement, every dollar of taxpayer money will be repaid before Fiat can take a majority stake,” Mr Obama said.
Bob Nardelli, the chairman and chief executive of Chrysler, will step down to be replaced by a new board agreed by the government and Fiat.
Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s chief executive, said the deal represented “a constructive and important solution to the problems that have plagued not just Chrysler in recent years, but the global automotive industry as a whole.”
He said that Fiat looked forward to “delivering on the vast potential this alliance holds.” Fiat entered discussions on the alliance nearly a year ago.
Mr Obama gave no details on the government’s desired timetable for what his task force on the auto industry had previously described as a “surgical” bankruptcy filing aimed at giving Chrysler the shortest possible trip through the courts.
“The process will be quick, it will be efficient,” he said. “It’s designed to deal with the last few holdouts, and it will be controlled.”
However, analysts say Chrysler’s efforts to emerge from Chapter 11 protection quickly could be bogged down by legal challenges from dissenting creditors, dealers, and others.
Mr Obama described the US car industry as “pillar of our industrial economy” that had “helped to make the 20th century an American century.”
He praised efforts to turn around Detroit’s smallest carmaker by Fiat, Chrysler, its chief executive Bob Nardelli, the United Auto Workers Union, his own automotive task force, and banks led by JPMorgan, who agreed a deal this week to restructure the majority of Chrysler’s secured debt.
Mr Obama said he was naming Ed Montgomery as “director of recovery” for US areas hit by the decline in carmaking, and that Mr Montgomery would be travelling soon for meetings in Michigan.
Mr Obama said that Chrysler Financial, the carmaker’s loans arm, would need a constant stream of taxpayer money, and that GMAC had agreed to finance its vehicles. Fiat said the new arrangements would take effect from the beginning of May.
The spotlight in the controversial government-supervised restructuring of the US auto industry now turns to General Motors, which has until the end of May to follow Chrysler in reaching an agreement with workers and debtholders to cut costs.
That process is also turning acrimonious with some GM bondholders criticising the company’s plan that offers them 10 per cent of the new company’s equity in return for cancelling $27bn of unsecured loans.
Chrysler timeline
1925: Walter Chrysler, a former railway mechanic and head of General Motors’ Buick division, forms Chrysler from the ashes of ailing Maxwell Motor.
1979: US government agrees to guarantee $1.5bn in Chrysler debt to keep the carmaker out of bankruptcy
1983: Last of government-guaranteed loans paid off as new models gain popularity.
1984: Launch of pioneering Dodge and Plymouth minivans.
1987: Chrysler acquires American Motors, maker of Jeep
1998: Germany’s Daimler-Benz acquires Chrysler, changing its own name to DaimlerChrysler
2001: Plymouth brand discontinued after 73 years
2007: Daimler sells 80 per cent stake in Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management. New management installed under former Home Depot chief executive Bob Nardelli
2008: A series of plant closures and employee buy-outs as sales and market share fall. Four models discontinued
April 2009: Chrysler files for bankruptcy protection. Workforce has shrunk by more than 30,000 since Cerberus takeover
By John Reed in London and Tom Braithwaite in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 30 2009 14:12 | Last updated: April 30 2009 18:19
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/76ccd92c-3588-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html
President Barack Obama said on Thursday that Chrysler would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and confirmed a partnership with Italy’s Fiat aimed at giving a new lease on life to what he called “one of America’s most storied automakers.”
The announcement came after dissenting creditors failed to fall in line with a government-brokered deal with big banks to cut Chrysler’s $6.9bn secured debt by more than two-thirds. Mr Obama attributed the failure of an out-of-court restructuring to “a small group of speculators.”
In a midday address, Mr Obama sought to assure carbuyers that their warranties on Chrysler cars had US federal government backing, and he announced a series of other measures to support the beleaguered domestic American car industry.
Fiat said that its partnership would see the sale of “substantially all” of Chrysler’s assets to a new company under provisions of the US bankruptcy code allowing companies in creditor protection to split their operations into more and less viable parts.
The Italian carmaker said Chrysler would ask a bankruptcy court in New York on Thursday to approve the sale of its business to a new company, also to be called Chrysler.
Pending approval of the deal, the current Chrysler would continue its normal business operations. The company would receive US Treasury and Canadian government financing and “continue normal business” while awaiting the approval.
Fiat is expected to take a 20 per cent initial stake in Chrysler, to rise later to 35 per cent. “As part of the agreement, every dollar of taxpayer money will be repaid before Fiat can take a majority stake,” Mr Obama said.
Bob Nardelli, the chairman and chief executive of Chrysler, will step down to be replaced by a new board agreed by the government and Fiat.
Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s chief executive, said the deal represented “a constructive and important solution to the problems that have plagued not just Chrysler in recent years, but the global automotive industry as a whole.”
He said that Fiat looked forward to “delivering on the vast potential this alliance holds.” Fiat entered discussions on the alliance nearly a year ago.
Mr Obama gave no details on the government’s desired timetable for what his task force on the auto industry had previously described as a “surgical” bankruptcy filing aimed at giving Chrysler the shortest possible trip through the courts.
“The process will be quick, it will be efficient,” he said. “It’s designed to deal with the last few holdouts, and it will be controlled.”
However, analysts say Chrysler’s efforts to emerge from Chapter 11 protection quickly could be bogged down by legal challenges from dissenting creditors, dealers, and others.
Mr Obama described the US car industry as “pillar of our industrial economy” that had “helped to make the 20th century an American century.”
He praised efforts to turn around Detroit’s smallest carmaker by Fiat, Chrysler, its chief executive Bob Nardelli, the United Auto Workers Union, his own automotive task force, and banks led by JPMorgan, who agreed a deal this week to restructure the majority of Chrysler’s secured debt.
Mr Obama said he was naming Ed Montgomery as “director of recovery” for US areas hit by the decline in carmaking, and that Mr Montgomery would be travelling soon for meetings in Michigan.
Mr Obama said that Chrysler Financial, the carmaker’s loans arm, would need a constant stream of taxpayer money, and that GMAC had agreed to finance its vehicles. Fiat said the new arrangements would take effect from the beginning of May.
The spotlight in the controversial government-supervised restructuring of the US auto industry now turns to General Motors, which has until the end of May to follow Chrysler in reaching an agreement with workers and debtholders to cut costs.
That process is also turning acrimonious with some GM bondholders criticising the company’s plan that offers them 10 per cent of the new company’s equity in return for cancelling $27bn of unsecured loans.
Chrysler timeline
1925: Walter Chrysler, a former railway mechanic and head of General Motors’ Buick division, forms Chrysler from the ashes of ailing Maxwell Motor.
1979: US government agrees to guarantee $1.5bn in Chrysler debt to keep the carmaker out of bankruptcy
1983: Last of government-guaranteed loans paid off as new models gain popularity.
1984: Launch of pioneering Dodge and Plymouth minivans.
1987: Chrysler acquires American Motors, maker of Jeep
1998: Germany’s Daimler-Benz acquires Chrysler, changing its own name to DaimlerChrysler
2001: Plymouth brand discontinued after 73 years
2007: Daimler sells 80 per cent stake in Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management. New management installed under former Home Depot chief executive Bob Nardelli
2008: A series of plant closures and employee buy-outs as sales and market share fall. Four models discontinued
April 2009: Chrysler files for bankruptcy protection. Workforce has shrunk by more than 30,000 since Cerberus takeover
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - Time to stand up to end corruption - An occasional series on fixing our politics and government
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - Time to stand up to end corruption - An occasional series on fixing our politics and government
Copyright by the Chicago Sun-Times
April 29, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1549335,CST-EDT-edit29a.article
People of Illinois, are you tired of being the laughingstock of the nation when it comes to political corruption?
Outsiders dub us "the Nigeria of the Midwest."
The Brits, in the Economist magazine, sniff at Illinois as "exceptionally corrupt" and "exceptionally lawless."
When corruption scandals hit other states -- Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Louisiana -- politicians react by passing meaningful statewide reforms.
That's right -- even Louisiana.
But in Illinois, where one former governor sits in prison and his successor is under indictment, what have our state lawmakers given us in the way of reform?
Peanuts.
Forty-six states impose limits on how much campaign cash people can give state and local politicians.
Not Illinois.
Forty-six states grant local prosecutors commonsense legal tools to go after public corruption.
Not Illinois.
Do you see a pattern here?
On Tuesday, the Illinois Reform Commission, appointed by Gov. Quinn and led by former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins, unveiled an 88-page report that suggests a series of fundamental changes in how this state should operate.
The commission was assigned to dig through the muck and propose sensible ways to fumigate state government, and it has done a terrific job.
In 100 short days, these unpaid commissioners traveled the state, listened to dozens of citizens, consulted a slew of experts and produced a thoughtful, practical and even inspiring document.
A document we wholeheartedly endorse, with a few quibbles. (The commission, for instance, suggests moving election primaries from February to June, while we think March or April makes more sense.)
The commission's report recommends:
• • Limiting how much politicians can receive in campaign donations -- following the federal model -- while increasing how frequently and quickly they must disclose those contributions.• • Improving the way the state buys goods and services by eliminating loopholes in the law and setting up a monitor with true power to stop dirty deals before they happen.• • Reforming the way the state draws congressional and state legislative districts so incumbents don't have a built-in unfair advantage when running for re-election. • • Giving local prosecutors some of the tools federal authorities have had for decades, such as a practical state racketeering law, to go after political corruption.• • Making it easier for citizens to get public information about how their governments are spending their money.• • Changing the culture of corruption by combatting patronage in state government with the help of an independent hiring monitor.
In this short space, we can't do justice to spelling out the report's recommendations, and we urge readers to read the entire report at suntimes.com/news/commentary.
For all the report's good sense, though, it's nothing but an 88-page doorstop if the people of Illinois -- all of us -- fail to rally behind the urgently needed reforms.
Cynics are already carving its tombstone.
Dead on arrival, they say.
And they may be right.
Our state's most powerful lawmakers, truth be told, want nothing to do with most of these reforms. Some of the proposed changes would whittle away their power. Others would embolden local prosecutors to go after crooked pols and their cronies. Still other reforms would make it much tougher to award sweetheart deals to pals.
In the coming weeks, you'll hear plenty of arguments against these reforms, many of which will sound perfectly reasonable. But we urge you to question those arguments and find the self-serving nonsense at their core.
A number of lawmakers have already suggested that the proposed reforms are impractical and even radical and would slow the state's everyday workings to a crawl.
In truth, most of the suggested reforms are already the law in other states -- and work just fine.
In the area of campaign finance reform, some lawmakers worry that the commission's proposed campaign contribution limits are too low and would put them at a huge disadvantage against a millionaire opponent with a huge personal war chest.
More nonsense.
We just don't know many millionaires who pine to make a second career in the Illinois General Assembly.
In Congress, sure.
In Springfield, not so much.
We're not saying the commission's proposals couldn't stand a little tinkering, but we'll be looking for suggestions for improving -- not gutting -- them.
If this bold package of political reforms is not enacted into law now -- in this spring legislative session -- we fear it never will be.
We have a public that is disgusted by the shenanigans of two disgraced former governors. We have an incumbent governor who has built his career on championing reform. We have a Legislature that surely must understand, finally, that the usual fake gestures of reform won't cut it with the public and the press this time.
There is only one thing state lawmakers fear more than enacting true political reform: not getting re-elected.
We agree with Quinn's suggestion that state lawmakers should vote on each of the commission's proposals up or down -- no shuffling a bill off to die in a committee -- to let the public know where they stand.
When this legislative session is over, we'll report to you who voted for real reform and who faked it -- and come re-election time, we'll tell you again.
But even before then, let your state senator and representative know you want 100-proof, real reform, not the watered-down stuff.
In the end, we, the people of Illinois, will get the political reform we deserve.
If we sit back and fail to speak out, we'll get more of the same -- peanuts.
And we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.
1) Contact Illinois Senate and House leaders
• • Senate President John Cullerton 327 Capitol Building, Springfield, IL 62706. Phone: (217) 782-2728 E-mail: justine@senatorcullerton.com
• • House Speaker Michael Madigan 300 Capitol Building, Springfield, IL 62706 Phone: (217) 782-5350 Fax: (217) 524-1794
2) Contact your legislators
• • If you live in Chicago and don't know who your state representative and state senator are, go to www.repsheet.com. Names and contact information are provided.
• • Illinois residents can find the names of state legislators and contact information at elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/ SelectSearchType.aspx.
3) Support a reform group
Change Illinois is a coalition of civic, business, professional and philanthropic groups pushing for campaign contribution limits. Learn more at www.changeil.org.
4) Learn more
To read the Illinois Reform Commission's final report, go to www.reformillinoisnow.org.
Copyright by the Chicago Sun-Times
April 29, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1549335,CST-EDT-edit29a.article
People of Illinois, are you tired of being the laughingstock of the nation when it comes to political corruption?
Outsiders dub us "the Nigeria of the Midwest."
The Brits, in the Economist magazine, sniff at Illinois as "exceptionally corrupt" and "exceptionally lawless."
When corruption scandals hit other states -- Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Louisiana -- politicians react by passing meaningful statewide reforms.
That's right -- even Louisiana.
But in Illinois, where one former governor sits in prison and his successor is under indictment, what have our state lawmakers given us in the way of reform?
Peanuts.
Forty-six states impose limits on how much campaign cash people can give state and local politicians.
Not Illinois.
Forty-six states grant local prosecutors commonsense legal tools to go after public corruption.
Not Illinois.
Do you see a pattern here?
On Tuesday, the Illinois Reform Commission, appointed by Gov. Quinn and led by former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins, unveiled an 88-page report that suggests a series of fundamental changes in how this state should operate.
The commission was assigned to dig through the muck and propose sensible ways to fumigate state government, and it has done a terrific job.
In 100 short days, these unpaid commissioners traveled the state, listened to dozens of citizens, consulted a slew of experts and produced a thoughtful, practical and even inspiring document.
A document we wholeheartedly endorse, with a few quibbles. (The commission, for instance, suggests moving election primaries from February to June, while we think March or April makes more sense.)
The commission's report recommends:
• • Limiting how much politicians can receive in campaign donations -- following the federal model -- while increasing how frequently and quickly they must disclose those contributions.• • Improving the way the state buys goods and services by eliminating loopholes in the law and setting up a monitor with true power to stop dirty deals before they happen.• • Reforming the way the state draws congressional and state legislative districts so incumbents don't have a built-in unfair advantage when running for re-election. • • Giving local prosecutors some of the tools federal authorities have had for decades, such as a practical state racketeering law, to go after political corruption.• • Making it easier for citizens to get public information about how their governments are spending their money.• • Changing the culture of corruption by combatting patronage in state government with the help of an independent hiring monitor.
In this short space, we can't do justice to spelling out the report's recommendations, and we urge readers to read the entire report at suntimes.com/news/commentary.
For all the report's good sense, though, it's nothing but an 88-page doorstop if the people of Illinois -- all of us -- fail to rally behind the urgently needed reforms.
Cynics are already carving its tombstone.
Dead on arrival, they say.
And they may be right.
Our state's most powerful lawmakers, truth be told, want nothing to do with most of these reforms. Some of the proposed changes would whittle away their power. Others would embolden local prosecutors to go after crooked pols and their cronies. Still other reforms would make it much tougher to award sweetheart deals to pals.
In the coming weeks, you'll hear plenty of arguments against these reforms, many of which will sound perfectly reasonable. But we urge you to question those arguments and find the self-serving nonsense at their core.
A number of lawmakers have already suggested that the proposed reforms are impractical and even radical and would slow the state's everyday workings to a crawl.
In truth, most of the suggested reforms are already the law in other states -- and work just fine.
In the area of campaign finance reform, some lawmakers worry that the commission's proposed campaign contribution limits are too low and would put them at a huge disadvantage against a millionaire opponent with a huge personal war chest.
More nonsense.
We just don't know many millionaires who pine to make a second career in the Illinois General Assembly.
In Congress, sure.
In Springfield, not so much.
We're not saying the commission's proposals couldn't stand a little tinkering, but we'll be looking for suggestions for improving -- not gutting -- them.
If this bold package of political reforms is not enacted into law now -- in this spring legislative session -- we fear it never will be.
We have a public that is disgusted by the shenanigans of two disgraced former governors. We have an incumbent governor who has built his career on championing reform. We have a Legislature that surely must understand, finally, that the usual fake gestures of reform won't cut it with the public and the press this time.
There is only one thing state lawmakers fear more than enacting true political reform: not getting re-elected.
We agree with Quinn's suggestion that state lawmakers should vote on each of the commission's proposals up or down -- no shuffling a bill off to die in a committee -- to let the public know where they stand.
When this legislative session is over, we'll report to you who voted for real reform and who faked it -- and come re-election time, we'll tell you again.
But even before then, let your state senator and representative know you want 100-proof, real reform, not the watered-down stuff.
In the end, we, the people of Illinois, will get the political reform we deserve.
If we sit back and fail to speak out, we'll get more of the same -- peanuts.
And we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.
1) Contact Illinois Senate and House leaders
• • Senate President John Cullerton 327 Capitol Building, Springfield, IL 62706. Phone: (217) 782-2728 E-mail: justine@senatorcullerton.com
• • House Speaker Michael Madigan 300 Capitol Building, Springfield, IL 62706 Phone: (217) 782-5350 Fax: (217) 524-1794
2) Contact your legislators
• • If you live in Chicago and don't know who your state representative and state senator are, go to www.repsheet.com. Names and contact information are provided.
• • Illinois residents can find the names of state legislators and contact information at elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/ SelectSearchType.aspx.
3) Support a reform group
Change Illinois is a coalition of civic, business, professional and philanthropic groups pushing for campaign contribution limits. Learn more at www.changeil.org.
4) Learn more
To read the Illinois Reform Commission's final report, go to www.reformillinoisnow.org.
Cheney's tortured argument
Cheney's tortured argument
By Clarence Page
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0429pageapr29,0,542921.column
What a difference an election makes. Our national position has now shifted from "we don't torture" to "we don't torture anymore." Let us, then, disabuse ourselves of former President George W. Bush's notion that waterboarding and the other so-called "harsh" or "enhanced" interrogation techniques are anything but torture. Euphemism is the first refuge of scoundrels -- and the desperate.
President Barack Obama wants to help us as a country to reconcile our shameful torture period. He says -- repeatedly -- that he wants to "look forward" and "not backward." He absolved CIA officers from prosecution for the inhumanities of harsh interrogation. That's OK by me. It's not quite fair to prosecute lower ranks of the food chain while top policymakers walk free. And, this country has little appetite for a criminal trial of Team Bush.
But the torture debate won't go away soon, especially since the disclosure on April 16. That's when the Obama administration released four Justice Department memos in which Bush's administration defined "enhanced" techniques. The disclosures have only fired up the already heated debate about whether torture techniques actually prevented any acts of terror.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says they did. Obama says, uh, not so fast.
This is not a small question, since about 70 percent of the public tells pollsters they support worse torture than waterboarding if it will prevent an attack. Sure. Who wouldn't? Unfortunately, as scholars in counterterrorism point out, real life ain't like the movies.
So now that Cheney has a legacy to salvage and a sure-to-be-best-selling book in the works, he is relaxing his famous obsession for secrecy. To back up his case, he is requesting through his publisher that the Obama administration release previously classified documents. Do it. Please.
In fact, don't stop there, Mr. Cheney. Let's have a full-fledged truth-commission-style investigation into torture techniques during the Bush years -- not necessarily to prosecute anyone, since the debate has become so muddied by misinformation and disinformation, but to separate fact from enhanced non-fiction.
Cheney growls a good game as he complains about Obama's anti-torture stance. But the Bush-Cheney evidence and arguments have raised more questions than they have answered.
For example, former Bush speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen argues dramatically in an April 21 Washington Post op-ed that "without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York."
Specifically, Thiessen argues, the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, "led to the discovery" of a plot to crash planes into the U.S. Bank Tower, then known as the Library Tower, in Los Angeles.
But, as Slate.com senior editor Timothy Noah was the first to note, the big flaw in Thiessen's claim is chronology. Bush's counterterrorism officials told reporters that the L.A. plot effectively ended when its cell leader was arrested in February 2002. Sheikh Mohammed was not captured until March 2003. So much for Thiessen's hole in the ground.
Does torture work? Contrary to the certainty expressed by Cheney and Co., torture has been a topic of heated debate within the intelligence community and among the CIA, FBI, State Department and Justice Department for years.
More significant, Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator who worked closely with Abu Zubaydah, a high-level Al Qaeda operative, says the FBI did extract crucial intelligence, but long before Zubaydah was subjected to harsh techniques.
Then there's National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, Obama's top intelligence adviser. Blair told intelligence personnel on April 16 that "high-value information" came from harsh interrogation methods. But in a later statement, he backed away, saying "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means." Besides, he conceded, "the damage" these techniques "have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security." Nice backpedaling.
The truth? We need a bipartisan commission in the spirit of the 9/11 commission to hear some of that. A truth commission won't satisfy everyone. Americans still argue, for example, about the Warren Commission and whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. But at least those of us who have a quaint, old-fashioned interest in facts will have something on which to build new laws and a new torture policy. I suggest we begin with the words: "Don't do it."
cptime@aol.com
By Clarence Page
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0429pageapr29,0,542921.column
What a difference an election makes. Our national position has now shifted from "we don't torture" to "we don't torture anymore." Let us, then, disabuse ourselves of former President George W. Bush's notion that waterboarding and the other so-called "harsh" or "enhanced" interrogation techniques are anything but torture. Euphemism is the first refuge of scoundrels -- and the desperate.
President Barack Obama wants to help us as a country to reconcile our shameful torture period. He says -- repeatedly -- that he wants to "look forward" and "not backward." He absolved CIA officers from prosecution for the inhumanities of harsh interrogation. That's OK by me. It's not quite fair to prosecute lower ranks of the food chain while top policymakers walk free. And, this country has little appetite for a criminal trial of Team Bush.
But the torture debate won't go away soon, especially since the disclosure on April 16. That's when the Obama administration released four Justice Department memos in which Bush's administration defined "enhanced" techniques. The disclosures have only fired up the already heated debate about whether torture techniques actually prevented any acts of terror.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says they did. Obama says, uh, not so fast.
This is not a small question, since about 70 percent of the public tells pollsters they support worse torture than waterboarding if it will prevent an attack. Sure. Who wouldn't? Unfortunately, as scholars in counterterrorism point out, real life ain't like the movies.
So now that Cheney has a legacy to salvage and a sure-to-be-best-selling book in the works, he is relaxing his famous obsession for secrecy. To back up his case, he is requesting through his publisher that the Obama administration release previously classified documents. Do it. Please.
In fact, don't stop there, Mr. Cheney. Let's have a full-fledged truth-commission-style investigation into torture techniques during the Bush years -- not necessarily to prosecute anyone, since the debate has become so muddied by misinformation and disinformation, but to separate fact from enhanced non-fiction.
Cheney growls a good game as he complains about Obama's anti-torture stance. But the Bush-Cheney evidence and arguments have raised more questions than they have answered.
For example, former Bush speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen argues dramatically in an April 21 Washington Post op-ed that "without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York."
Specifically, Thiessen argues, the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, "led to the discovery" of a plot to crash planes into the U.S. Bank Tower, then known as the Library Tower, in Los Angeles.
But, as Slate.com senior editor Timothy Noah was the first to note, the big flaw in Thiessen's claim is chronology. Bush's counterterrorism officials told reporters that the L.A. plot effectively ended when its cell leader was arrested in February 2002. Sheikh Mohammed was not captured until March 2003. So much for Thiessen's hole in the ground.
Does torture work? Contrary to the certainty expressed by Cheney and Co., torture has been a topic of heated debate within the intelligence community and among the CIA, FBI, State Department and Justice Department for years.
More significant, Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator who worked closely with Abu Zubaydah, a high-level Al Qaeda operative, says the FBI did extract crucial intelligence, but long before Zubaydah was subjected to harsh techniques.
Then there's National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, Obama's top intelligence adviser. Blair told intelligence personnel on April 16 that "high-value information" came from harsh interrogation methods. But in a later statement, he backed away, saying "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means." Besides, he conceded, "the damage" these techniques "have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security." Nice backpedaling.
The truth? We need a bipartisan commission in the spirit of the 9/11 commission to hear some of that. A truth commission won't satisfy everyone. Americans still argue, for example, about the Warren Commission and whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. But at least those of us who have a quaint, old-fashioned interest in facts will have something on which to build new laws and a new torture policy. I suggest we begin with the words: "Don't do it."
cptime@aol.com
Gay marriage in Iowa: Court ruling gives hope that Illinois could follow - Many gays, lesbians willing to wait, rather than rushing to Iowa to wed
Gay marriage in Iowa: Court ruling gives hope that Illinois could follow - Many gays, lesbians willing to wait, rather than rushing to Iowa to wed
By Rex W. Huppke
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gay-marriage-illinois-29-apr29,0,7527686.story
Rather than head to Iowa, many same-sex couples in Chicago who want to marry seem content to wait until they can legally wed in Illinois, demonstrating a sense of optimism about the issue once unheard of in the gay and lesbian community.
Tiffine Bourland has been with her partner, Alicia Diaz, for three years. Bourland has family in Davenport, Iowa, and was thrilled when she learned Illinois' neighbor had legalized same-sex marriages earlier this month.
She and Diaz have talked about getting married, but the more they thought about going to Iowa the more confident they became that Illinois would eventually come around.
"We got excited when we heard about Iowa because it was the first state in the Midwest," Bourland said. "But we want to wait because we're even more excited now that it might happen here."
Up to this point, few have had the confidence Bourland and Diaz share. People have flocked to Massachusetts, Connecticut and California over the last few years, hoping to wed while they had a chance.
But now many couples who waited decades for the right to marry have done so, and some of the pent-up desire across the country has been satisfied.
"I think what we're seeing now is people greeting this progress as an opportunity to do marriage the way they always envisioned it, not under the pressure caused by newness or the threat that it might, at any moment, be taken away," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of the national advocacy group Freedom To Marry. "In some sense, I think we're seeing a more normalized response on the part of gay people."
Take, for example, an event Gay Chicago Magazine held on Friday. In the front of the magazine's North Side office, couples could fill out Iowa marriage license applications, then have them notarized and sent out. But only about 25 applications were picked up and no couples filled them out on the spot.
"There are probably some people going to Iowa, but we're not finding them," said Modesto Tico Valle, executive director of the Center on Halsted. "I think people are waiting for Illinois."
It's unclear how long that wait might be. A bill to legalize civil unions, which would grant same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples, awaits a vote in the House and would then need to clear the Senate. State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) has sponsored a gay marriage bill, but it has never made it out of committee.
Chad Gearig and Thom Howe-Duff plan on marrying in Iowa on May 14. Together for four years, the Chicago couple decided they didn't want to wait on Illinois, but they know most in their circle of friends are planning patience.
"I think a lot of people are waiting and seeing as far as what's going to happen in Illinois," Gearig said. "We don't know a lot of people rushing out there to do it, offhand."
Andrew Koppelman, a professor of law and political science at Northwestern University, said the fact that people don't seem poised to rush into Iowa to marry marks a significant moment for the gay rights movement. He said he thinks people in the gay and lesbian community have become more educated and empowered with regard to marriage and may no longer be willing to wed out of state only to see the rights that come with marriage vanish when they return home.
"It matters a lot to any social movement that you believe that you have a chance to win," Koppelman said. "There can be a strong social movement for equality, but if it meets with enough defeats it eventually runs out of steam. What has happened here is there have been steady gains in public opinion. People are confident because they've been winning."
Of course gay marriage remains legal in only four states: Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Gay rights advocates suffered a significant setback in November when Californians voted in favor of Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage; and more than 20 states have constitutional bans on gay marriage.
Still, public opinion polls over the years have shown an increasing comfort level with same-sex marriages, and Iowa's ruling -- followed days later by the legislative decision to approve gay marriage in Vermont -- has instilled a sense in the gay and lesbian community that the tide is turning.
"You have people in Illinois and Missouri and other surrounding states who want to be married but they aren't willing to go anyplace except their own county clerk," said Rick Garcia of Equality Illinois. "They also know that the Iowa ruling is right here in the heartland, and a lot of people believe that if Iowa did it, why can't we?"
rhuppke@tribune.com
By Rex W. Huppke
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gay-marriage-illinois-29-apr29,0,7527686.story
Rather than head to Iowa, many same-sex couples in Chicago who want to marry seem content to wait until they can legally wed in Illinois, demonstrating a sense of optimism about the issue once unheard of in the gay and lesbian community.
Tiffine Bourland has been with her partner, Alicia Diaz, for three years. Bourland has family in Davenport, Iowa, and was thrilled when she learned Illinois' neighbor had legalized same-sex marriages earlier this month.
She and Diaz have talked about getting married, but the more they thought about going to Iowa the more confident they became that Illinois would eventually come around.
"We got excited when we heard about Iowa because it was the first state in the Midwest," Bourland said. "But we want to wait because we're even more excited now that it might happen here."
Up to this point, few have had the confidence Bourland and Diaz share. People have flocked to Massachusetts, Connecticut and California over the last few years, hoping to wed while they had a chance.
But now many couples who waited decades for the right to marry have done so, and some of the pent-up desire across the country has been satisfied.
"I think what we're seeing now is people greeting this progress as an opportunity to do marriage the way they always envisioned it, not under the pressure caused by newness or the threat that it might, at any moment, be taken away," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of the national advocacy group Freedom To Marry. "In some sense, I think we're seeing a more normalized response on the part of gay people."
Take, for example, an event Gay Chicago Magazine held on Friday. In the front of the magazine's North Side office, couples could fill out Iowa marriage license applications, then have them notarized and sent out. But only about 25 applications were picked up and no couples filled them out on the spot.
"There are probably some people going to Iowa, but we're not finding them," said Modesto Tico Valle, executive director of the Center on Halsted. "I think people are waiting for Illinois."
It's unclear how long that wait might be. A bill to legalize civil unions, which would grant same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples, awaits a vote in the House and would then need to clear the Senate. State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) has sponsored a gay marriage bill, but it has never made it out of committee.
Chad Gearig and Thom Howe-Duff plan on marrying in Iowa on May 14. Together for four years, the Chicago couple decided they didn't want to wait on Illinois, but they know most in their circle of friends are planning patience.
"I think a lot of people are waiting and seeing as far as what's going to happen in Illinois," Gearig said. "We don't know a lot of people rushing out there to do it, offhand."
Andrew Koppelman, a professor of law and political science at Northwestern University, said the fact that people don't seem poised to rush into Iowa to marry marks a significant moment for the gay rights movement. He said he thinks people in the gay and lesbian community have become more educated and empowered with regard to marriage and may no longer be willing to wed out of state only to see the rights that come with marriage vanish when they return home.
"It matters a lot to any social movement that you believe that you have a chance to win," Koppelman said. "There can be a strong social movement for equality, but if it meets with enough defeats it eventually runs out of steam. What has happened here is there have been steady gains in public opinion. People are confident because they've been winning."
Of course gay marriage remains legal in only four states: Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Gay rights advocates suffered a significant setback in November when Californians voted in favor of Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage; and more than 20 states have constitutional bans on gay marriage.
Still, public opinion polls over the years have shown an increasing comfort level with same-sex marriages, and Iowa's ruling -- followed days later by the legislative decision to approve gay marriage in Vermont -- has instilled a sense in the gay and lesbian community that the tide is turning.
"You have people in Illinois and Missouri and other surrounding states who want to be married but they aren't willing to go anyplace except their own county clerk," said Rick Garcia of Equality Illinois. "They also know that the Iowa ruling is right here in the heartland, and a lot of people believe that if Iowa did it, why can't we?"
rhuppke@tribune.com
Study finds conservative viewers of Stephen Colbert's comedy show think he's on their side
Study finds conservative viewers of Stephen Colbert's comedy show think he's on their side
by Steve Johnson
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-talk-colbertapr29,0,1905472.column
Do conservatives not understand that Stephen Colbert is joking?
A new academic study suggests Comedy Central's faux-foaming right-winger may be, at minimum, a blank screen onto which people can project their own beliefs. At maximum, he's working a kind of ultimate political con.
Liberals get that he's sending up Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly and his ilk four nights a week at 10:30 CST. And conservatives still find "The Colbert Report" host funny.
"Our results aren't that conservatives don't get the joke. It's that how you see the joke depends on who you are," says Kristen Landreville, a PhD student in communications at Ohio State University and one of three co-authors. "If you're conservative, you think the joke's on liberals because he's openly making fun of liberals."
"The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report" was published in the April issue of the International Journal of Press/Politics.
The researchers asked 332 undergraduate communications students for their interpretation of a clip of Colbert interviewing liberal radio host Amy Goodman. And despite Landreville's generous interpretation, the paper suggests conservative viewers weren't quite comprehending the "deadpan satire" Colbert employs.
"Conservatives not only processed the messages as targeting liberals, but also processed the source as being conservative, Republican, and disliking liberals," the paper says. "By contrast, liberals perceived Colbert as just kidding."
As for Colbert, Landreville says he would probably take the study, in character, as "Here's evidence that everyone loves me." Sure enough, at the show's Web site, the article about the study is headlined, "Science Proves Stephen Colbert Also Popular With Conservatives."
by Steve Johnson
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
April 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-talk-colbertapr29,0,1905472.column
Do conservatives not understand that Stephen Colbert is joking?
A new academic study suggests Comedy Central's faux-foaming right-winger may be, at minimum, a blank screen onto which people can project their own beliefs. At maximum, he's working a kind of ultimate political con.
Liberals get that he's sending up Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly and his ilk four nights a week at 10:30 CST. And conservatives still find "The Colbert Report" host funny.
"Our results aren't that conservatives don't get the joke. It's that how you see the joke depends on who you are," says Kristen Landreville, a PhD student in communications at Ohio State University and one of three co-authors. "If you're conservative, you think the joke's on liberals because he's openly making fun of liberals."
"The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report" was published in the April issue of the International Journal of Press/Politics.
The researchers asked 332 undergraduate communications students for their interpretation of a clip of Colbert interviewing liberal radio host Amy Goodman. And despite Landreville's generous interpretation, the paper suggests conservative viewers weren't quite comprehending the "deadpan satire" Colbert employs.
"Conservatives not only processed the messages as targeting liberals, but also processed the source as being conservative, Republican, and disliking liberals," the paper says. "By contrast, liberals perceived Colbert as just kidding."
As for Colbert, Landreville says he would probably take the study, in character, as "Here's evidence that everyone loves me." Sure enough, at the show's Web site, the article about the study is headlined, "Science Proves Stephen Colbert Also Popular With Conservatives."
We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter
We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter
By OLYMPIA SNOWE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?ref=global
Washington
What Kind of Democrat Will Specter Be?
IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way.
When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection. I also noted that we were far from the heady days of 1998, when Republicans were envisioning the possibility of a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin. (Recall that in the 2000 election, most pundits were shocked when Republicans lost five seats, resulting in a 50-50 Senate.)
I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate — with a corresponding shift of the Congressional majority and the White House to the Democrats.
It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.
Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.
I have said that, without question, we cannot prevail as a party without conservatives. But it is equally certain we cannot prevail in the future without moderates.
In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.
How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious from the results of the last two elections. We should be reaching out to these segments of our population — not de facto ceding them to the opposing party.
There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we encountered an electoral backlash.
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
I couldn’t agree more. We can’t continue to fold our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden our appeal. That is the political road map we must follow to victory.
Olympia Snowe is a Republican senator from Maine.
By OLYMPIA SNOWE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?ref=global
Washington
What Kind of Democrat Will Specter Be?
IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way.
When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection. I also noted that we were far from the heady days of 1998, when Republicans were envisioning the possibility of a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin. (Recall that in the 2000 election, most pundits were shocked when Republicans lost five seats, resulting in a 50-50 Senate.)
I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate — with a corresponding shift of the Congressional majority and the White House to the Democrats.
It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.
Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.
I have said that, without question, we cannot prevail as a party without conservatives. But it is equally certain we cannot prevail in the future without moderates.
In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.
How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious from the results of the last two elections. We should be reaching out to these segments of our population — not de facto ceding them to the opposing party.
There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we encountered an electoral backlash.
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
I couldn’t agree more. We can’t continue to fold our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden our appeal. That is the political road map we must follow to victory.
Olympia Snowe is a Republican senator from Maine.
New York Times Editorial: One Hundred
New York Times Editorial: One Hundred
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29wed1.html?_r=1&ref=global
Crises, not days, is the first word that comes to mind when we think about the number 100 and Barack Obama’s presidency.
The list of failed policies and urgent threats bequeathed to him by former President George W. Bush could easily be that long. In his first 14 weeks plus two days, President Obama has made a strong start at addressing many of the most critical ones.
He is trying to rebuild this country’s shattered reputation with his pledge to shut down the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, his offer to talk with Iran and Syria, and, yes, that handshake with Venezuela’s blow-hard president, Hugo Chávez.
Mr. Obama has not allowed a once-in-four-generations recession — or politically driven charges that he is over-reaching — to rob him of his ambition. He is right that there can be no lasting recovery until the country reforms its health care system and tackles the clear and present danger of global climate change.
The government is promoting women’s reproductive rights. It is restoring regulations to keep water clean and food safe. The White House has promised to tackle immigration reform this year.
Mr. Obama and the country still have a long way to go. The Taliban’s power grabs in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a reminder of why the White House must chart a swift exit from Iraq so it can focus on the real front in the war on terror. Recent horrifying bombings are a reminder of how far Iraq is from political conciliation and how much remains to be done to ensure an orderly exit.
We are skeptical that the bank rescue plan is aggressive enough to salvage those that are at the edge of insolvency or protect the taxpayers’ investment.
We know that President Obama, and many voters, don’t want the fight, but until there is a full investigation of detainee abuse, “extraordinary rendition” and the other outlaw policies authorized during the Bush years, there is no way to ensure they will never be repeated.
These are very tough times, but Mr. Obama seems to have lifted the spirits of a divided and fearful nation. In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 72 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about the next four years. They also recognized that some problems may be too difficult to solve even in four years.
Here is a look, by no means comprehensive, at the president’s early efforts:
THE WORLD Mr. Obama has promised to quickly bring home American troops from one of the longest and most divisive wars in American history. He must now persuade Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to reconcile with the Sunnis and to defuse tensions with the Kurds. Iraq still has not agreed on a law to equitably share its oil resources. Thousands of members of the Sunni Awakening Councils, the former insurgents whose decision to switch sides helped change the course of the war, are still waiting for promised government jobs.
Mr. Obama pressed his advisers to come up with a comprehensive plan for the dangerously inter-related conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now they must implement it — and quickly. Last week, the Taliban advanced within 60 miles of Islamabad. Pakistan’s leaders still do not seem to grasp the mortal threat.
The president has begun new negotiations with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals. The Pentagon has started to make the tough choices to shift spending to weapons needed by troops fighting today’s wars. Mr. Obama’s commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace is already being tested by Israel’s new prime minister, who says he doesn’t believe in a two-state solution.
Americans can feel both pride and relief at the enthusiastic welcome Mr. Obama has received in his early travels abroad. The president will soon have to find ways to leverage that popularity. He must persuade European allies to contribute more troops and resources to Afghanistan. If negotiations with Iran fail, he will have to convince Europe, Russia and China to impose tough sanctions to try to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
THE ECONOMY After eight dismal years, the president’s stimulus bill, his budget and even the flawed bank rescue strategy offer a welcome return to the rational proposition that some problems are so big that the government must step in. Our main concern is that he has been too reluctant to challenge traditional interests on Wall Street or Capitol Hill.
His attempt at bipartisan consensus-building crashed against Republicans’ obstruction of the stimulus package and weakened the final legislation. The $787 billion stimulus is small when compared with the size of the contraction; the 3.5 million new jobs projected pale against the 5 million lost since the end of 2007.
The administration has been similarly timid on the banking crisis. The White House is so far refusing to consider a temporary takeover of foundering banks — the best way to ensure that they are efficiently restructured and the taxpayers’ money is protected. Instead, the administration has offered hundreds of billions in subsidized loans to hedge funds and other private investors to entice them to offer inflated prices for bad assets.
We are concerned that Mr. Obama’s anti-foreclosure plan — which relies on lenders to voluntarily modify troubled loans — will falter unless Congress quickly reforms the bankruptcy code. All of this fosters the belief that the White House and Congress will not stand up to the banks. It is also likely to slow the recovery.
CIVIL LIBERTIES Less than 12 hours after taking office, Mr. Obama halted the military tribunals at Guantánamo. Then he ordered the detention camp closed within a year. He has issued orders to prohibit torture and shut secret prisons overseas and to create a detainee policy based on the law and Constitution rather than Mr. Bush’s grandiose visions of executive power.
Earlier this month, Mr. Obama overruled his C.I.A. director and ordered the release of four horrifying memos on prisoner interrogation written by the Bush Justice Department. He has ruled out punishing C.I.A. interrogators who participated in the detainees’ abuse and reluctantly decided to leave it to the Justice Department to make the call about other prosecutions.
Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has not dropped overly broad state secrets claims used by the Bush team to try to block lawsuits on rendition, torture and illegal wiretapping. He needs to rethink that position as well as his opposition to a full public inquiry to determine why, how and by whom so many orders were given to violate the law and the most cherished Constitutional rights.
ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT Mr. Obama and his new team have been as aggressive on these issues as Mr. Bush was passive or obstructionist. The Environmental Protection Agency quickly issued a formal determination that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare — the necessary prelude to regulating those pollutants. The Interior Department has rejected Mr. Bush’s industry-driven drill-anywhere policies in favor of a more balanced approach to energy production.
The stimulus package includes money to encourage energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, higher-mileage cars and coal that is truly clean. Mr. Obama has also endorsed, in general terms, legislation that would put strict caps on greenhouse gas emissions and invest in technologies to make it easier to achieve those caps.
HEALTH CARE Far too many Americans still have no health insurance; those who do pay too much and the quality of care is too low. Mr. Obama’s bold 10-year budget plan proposed a substantial $634 billion down payment to widen coverage and improve the delivery of care. He offered sensible proposals to pay for these reforms — including higher taxes on the rich and eliminating unjustified subsides for private Medicare plans — that met with immediate Congressional resistance.
This is going to be a tough fight. Mr. Obama must keep reminding Americans that reforms are essential for their personal health and the nation’s economic health.
EDUCATION Mr. Obama has demonstrated a welcome breadth of knowledge on education but will need to use bare-knuckled clout to get needed changes. That is especially true of his student loan plan, which would end wasteful subsidies to private lenders and permit college students to borrow directly from the government. The president’s plan for using stimulus money to force reforms that the states were supposed to carry out under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 will also require energy, vigilance and an end to loopholes in education regulations.
During the campaign, then-Senator Obama declared that “government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves.” In his first 100 days, President Obama has started to show Americans just what he meant.
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29wed1.html?_r=1&ref=global
Crises, not days, is the first word that comes to mind when we think about the number 100 and Barack Obama’s presidency.
The list of failed policies and urgent threats bequeathed to him by former President George W. Bush could easily be that long. In his first 14 weeks plus two days, President Obama has made a strong start at addressing many of the most critical ones.
He is trying to rebuild this country’s shattered reputation with his pledge to shut down the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, his offer to talk with Iran and Syria, and, yes, that handshake with Venezuela’s blow-hard president, Hugo Chávez.
Mr. Obama has not allowed a once-in-four-generations recession — or politically driven charges that he is over-reaching — to rob him of his ambition. He is right that there can be no lasting recovery until the country reforms its health care system and tackles the clear and present danger of global climate change.
The government is promoting women’s reproductive rights. It is restoring regulations to keep water clean and food safe. The White House has promised to tackle immigration reform this year.
Mr. Obama and the country still have a long way to go. The Taliban’s power grabs in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a reminder of why the White House must chart a swift exit from Iraq so it can focus on the real front in the war on terror. Recent horrifying bombings are a reminder of how far Iraq is from political conciliation and how much remains to be done to ensure an orderly exit.
We are skeptical that the bank rescue plan is aggressive enough to salvage those that are at the edge of insolvency or protect the taxpayers’ investment.
We know that President Obama, and many voters, don’t want the fight, but until there is a full investigation of detainee abuse, “extraordinary rendition” and the other outlaw policies authorized during the Bush years, there is no way to ensure they will never be repeated.
These are very tough times, but Mr. Obama seems to have lifted the spirits of a divided and fearful nation. In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 72 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about the next four years. They also recognized that some problems may be too difficult to solve even in four years.
Here is a look, by no means comprehensive, at the president’s early efforts:
THE WORLD Mr. Obama has promised to quickly bring home American troops from one of the longest and most divisive wars in American history. He must now persuade Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to reconcile with the Sunnis and to defuse tensions with the Kurds. Iraq still has not agreed on a law to equitably share its oil resources. Thousands of members of the Sunni Awakening Councils, the former insurgents whose decision to switch sides helped change the course of the war, are still waiting for promised government jobs.
Mr. Obama pressed his advisers to come up with a comprehensive plan for the dangerously inter-related conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now they must implement it — and quickly. Last week, the Taliban advanced within 60 miles of Islamabad. Pakistan’s leaders still do not seem to grasp the mortal threat.
The president has begun new negotiations with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals. The Pentagon has started to make the tough choices to shift spending to weapons needed by troops fighting today’s wars. Mr. Obama’s commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace is already being tested by Israel’s new prime minister, who says he doesn’t believe in a two-state solution.
Americans can feel both pride and relief at the enthusiastic welcome Mr. Obama has received in his early travels abroad. The president will soon have to find ways to leverage that popularity. He must persuade European allies to contribute more troops and resources to Afghanistan. If negotiations with Iran fail, he will have to convince Europe, Russia and China to impose tough sanctions to try to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
THE ECONOMY After eight dismal years, the president’s stimulus bill, his budget and even the flawed bank rescue strategy offer a welcome return to the rational proposition that some problems are so big that the government must step in. Our main concern is that he has been too reluctant to challenge traditional interests on Wall Street or Capitol Hill.
His attempt at bipartisan consensus-building crashed against Republicans’ obstruction of the stimulus package and weakened the final legislation. The $787 billion stimulus is small when compared with the size of the contraction; the 3.5 million new jobs projected pale against the 5 million lost since the end of 2007.
The administration has been similarly timid on the banking crisis. The White House is so far refusing to consider a temporary takeover of foundering banks — the best way to ensure that they are efficiently restructured and the taxpayers’ money is protected. Instead, the administration has offered hundreds of billions in subsidized loans to hedge funds and other private investors to entice them to offer inflated prices for bad assets.
We are concerned that Mr. Obama’s anti-foreclosure plan — which relies on lenders to voluntarily modify troubled loans — will falter unless Congress quickly reforms the bankruptcy code. All of this fosters the belief that the White House and Congress will not stand up to the banks. It is also likely to slow the recovery.
CIVIL LIBERTIES Less than 12 hours after taking office, Mr. Obama halted the military tribunals at Guantánamo. Then he ordered the detention camp closed within a year. He has issued orders to prohibit torture and shut secret prisons overseas and to create a detainee policy based on the law and Constitution rather than Mr. Bush’s grandiose visions of executive power.
Earlier this month, Mr. Obama overruled his C.I.A. director and ordered the release of four horrifying memos on prisoner interrogation written by the Bush Justice Department. He has ruled out punishing C.I.A. interrogators who participated in the detainees’ abuse and reluctantly decided to leave it to the Justice Department to make the call about other prosecutions.
Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has not dropped overly broad state secrets claims used by the Bush team to try to block lawsuits on rendition, torture and illegal wiretapping. He needs to rethink that position as well as his opposition to a full public inquiry to determine why, how and by whom so many orders were given to violate the law and the most cherished Constitutional rights.
ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT Mr. Obama and his new team have been as aggressive on these issues as Mr. Bush was passive or obstructionist. The Environmental Protection Agency quickly issued a formal determination that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare — the necessary prelude to regulating those pollutants. The Interior Department has rejected Mr. Bush’s industry-driven drill-anywhere policies in favor of a more balanced approach to energy production.
The stimulus package includes money to encourage energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, higher-mileage cars and coal that is truly clean. Mr. Obama has also endorsed, in general terms, legislation that would put strict caps on greenhouse gas emissions and invest in technologies to make it easier to achieve those caps.
HEALTH CARE Far too many Americans still have no health insurance; those who do pay too much and the quality of care is too low. Mr. Obama’s bold 10-year budget plan proposed a substantial $634 billion down payment to widen coverage and improve the delivery of care. He offered sensible proposals to pay for these reforms — including higher taxes on the rich and eliminating unjustified subsides for private Medicare plans — that met with immediate Congressional resistance.
This is going to be a tough fight. Mr. Obama must keep reminding Americans that reforms are essential for their personal health and the nation’s economic health.
EDUCATION Mr. Obama has demonstrated a welcome breadth of knowledge on education but will need to use bare-knuckled clout to get needed changes. That is especially true of his student loan plan, which would end wasteful subsidies to private lenders and permit college students to borrow directly from the government. The president’s plan for using stimulus money to force reforms that the states were supposed to carry out under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 will also require energy, vigilance and an end to loopholes in education regulations.
During the campaign, then-Senator Obama declared that “government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves.” In his first 100 days, President Obama has started to show Americans just what he meant.
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