Currently viewing the tag: “administration”
Since Japan's earthquake and following nuclear crisis, the CBS Evening News has done two reports on the Obama administration blocking use of the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada to safely dispose of U.S. nuclear waste. Meanwhile, NBC and ABC have ignored the controversy.
The first CBS report on the issue came on March 22, when Evening News anchor Katie Couric declared: "The crisis in Japan has renewed the debate over nuclear power in this country. Today a federal appeals court heard arguments in a lawsuit over what to do with spent fuel rods." Correspondent Jim Axelrod explained: "An estimated 66,000 metric tons of spent fuel are stored at 77 sites around the country. That's more than 145 million pounds….Plans to make Yucca Mountain in Nevada a long-term storage site were scuttled by the Obama administration a year ago, after 20 years of planning costing $ 14 billion."
In a follow-up piece on Thursday's Evening News, correspondent Armen Keteyian went further in laying blame on the Obama administration: "There was one site designed to hold all of our nation's nuclear waste and it's right here in the high desert of Nevada, at a place called Yucca Mountain. Today, the federal government won't let our cameras anywhere near it. It's shut down, locked up, caught up in what critics charge is nothing more than pure politics."
Fill-in anchor Erica Hill teased Keteyian's report at the top of the broadcast: "Why did plans to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain get killed? Was it safety fears or politics?" Keteyian described how the, "Obama administration kept its campaign promise….And shut down Yucca Mountain. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if it wants to restart what is already a 25-year, $ 14 billion project, in the face of tough opposition, like that from Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada."
Keteyian also pointed out the political background of the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Obama: "A former staffer for Senator Reid, Greg Jaczko, now chairs the NRC. Jaczko recently came under fire after shutting down the agency's safety review of Yucca Mountain and after key safety recommendations were redacted, cut out, from a long-awaited NRC report."
In the March 22 report, Axelrod noted: "The head of the NRC may not see a pressing problem, but the states now suing did not want to take that risk before Japan's disaster and certainly don't want to now."
On Thursday, Keteyian challenged Jaczko: "Critics charge that you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Senator Harry Reid, a fierce opponent of this project."
Keteyian concluded his piece: "The NRC inspector general and Congress are now investigating the decision to shut down the safety review. Still, nuclear waste is scattered across 35 states, and Yucca Mountain sits silent and empty."
Here is a full transcript of Keteyian's March 31 report:
6:30PM ET TEASE:
ERICA HILL: Why did plans to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain get killed? Was it safety fears or politics?
6:38PM ET TEASE:
HILL: And when we come back, it was supposed to store all of America's nuclear waste, so why then is this desert facility now deserted?
6:40PM ET SEGMENT:
HILL: For more than 50 years a debate has raged over where to store radioactive nuclear waste in this country. And that debate has been reignited by the crisis in Japan. The solution was supposed to be here at a place called Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the multibillion-dollar storage project has been shelved and as chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian explains, a congressional committee wants to find out why.
ARMEN KETEYIAN: Nuclear waste – the radioactive guest on the doorstep of many of America's most populous cities. Nearly 70,000 tons from 104 reactors often piling up within 50 miles from cities like New York, Chicago, and San Diego.
There was one site designed to hold all of our nation's nuclear waste and it's right here in the high desert of Nevada, at a place called Yucca Mountain. Today, the federal government won't let our cameras anywhere near it. It's shut down, locked up, caught up in what critics charge is nothing more than pure politics.
Gary Holis and Darrell Lacey are key officials in Nye County, Nevada. They want the waste at Yucca Mountain for the jobs and money it would bring.
DARRELL LACY [NYE COUNTY NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY PROJECT OFFICE]: The people in this area are all fairly comfortable with Yucca Mountain. Many of them have worked at Yucca Mountain.
KETEYIAN: Four previous presidents funded safety reviews of the project but last year the Obama administration kept its campaign promise.
CAMPAIGN AD: Barack Obama opposes opening Yucca.
KETEYIAN: And shut down Yucca Mountain. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if it wants to restart what is already a 25-year, $ 14 billion project, in the face of tough opposition, like that from Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada.
JEFFREY LEWIS [PH.D., NUCLEAR SAFETY EXPERT]: If the U.S. government wanted to do Yucca Mountain, it would have had to shove it down Harry Reid's throat.
KETEYIAN: A former staffer for Senator Reid, Greg Jaczko, now chairs the NRC. Jaczko recently came under fire after shutting down the agency's safety review of Yucca Mountain and after key safety recommendations were redacted, cut out, from a long-awaited NRC report. Three NRC staffers formally protested the decision to derail the safety review, charging it caused 'confusion, chaos, and anguish'. Today, Jaczko told us the safety report was preliminary, a draft, and that he had nothing to do with the redactions.
Critics charge that you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Senator Harry Reid, a fierce opponent of this project.
GREGORY JACZKO [PH.D., CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION: It was a difficult decision and – because it is such a controversial program – but, again, it was one that was made in, I believe, in the best interest of the agency.
KETEYIAN: The NRC inspector general and Congress are now investigating the decision to shut down the safety review. Still, nuclear waste is scattered across 35 states, and Yucca Mountain sits silent and empty. Armen Keteyian, CBS News, Nye County, Nevada.
— Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Consistency.
Over the last two months, Barack Obama has called for regime change in places where old foes ran dictatorships, such as Libya, and where American allies ran autocracies that suited us for decades, as in Egypt. So far, though, the President hasn’t seen fit to call for regime change in countries where current foes brutally […]
The US ambassador to the UN and the commander of NATO can fight over “flickers” of al Qaeda and Hezbollah among the Libyan rebels, but it’s clearly indisputable that enemy Hezbollah leader Nasrallah (along with al Qaeda’s Abu Yahya al-Libi and MB’s Qaradawi as noted here) is firmly in their camp. Which means “our” camp. This is clear from an hour-plus address the Iranian puppet and terror-master gave earlier this month in Beirut.
But there’s more to it than that.
I listened to about 20 minutes. After Nasrallah insists neither al Qaeda nor Iran (hah) nor, for that matter, the United States, have had anything to do with unrest in the Middle East, I heard his chilling iteration of the “R2P” driver I’ve been working through and writing about lately: Israel as the Umma’s pricetag to “reconsider the US stance.” (Nasrallah’s phrase.) What’s chilling is that this combination devil’s-fool’s bargain is one our Intelligentsia (many with big jobs in the Obama administration) seem all too eager to make, despite its immorality, strategic senselessness and sheer ignorance — as though feeding the jihad beast will make it anything but more rapacious.
Like a snakeoil salesman at the fair, Nasrallah makes his pitch: No amount of US solicitude for the human rights of Muslims will be regarded as genuine until the United States abandons our best ally Israel. Does he have any takers? I can just hear Samantha Power presenting this “opposition” argument out of “humanitarian” concern at the next National Security Council meeting.
Nasrallah, meanwhile, remains quite suspicious of the Great Satan. These suspicions about American intentions are rooted in his naive notion that the United States under the Obama administration is pursuing, or even concerned with “American” interests. But his main point is this:
Nasrallah says:
Any American talk about protecting the people of our region, or respecting the legitimate rights of the people, the civil rights … has no credibilty whatsoever because of the permanent American policy toward the Palestinian people, who are always suffering oppression. …
If you take a look at the tape, notice the large audience of what appears to be all men, rows of mullahs but mostly “civilians,” and consider the impact on the human brain of relentless, 24/7 anti-Israel propaganda, which is like air to these people. Here’s a noxious Nasrallah sample:
“In Palestine, we have people being killed, who are being subject to bombings, whose houses are being destroyed, whose farms are being destroyed, … 11,000 detainees. In Jerusalem-Al Quds, the Islamic and Christian sancitities are under attack. Despite this, the Americans defend the killer, they defend the criminal, they defend the attacker, the aggressor, they defend those who are bombing the civilian houses in Gaza from the air, bombing [the farms] in Gaza.
As long as the American policy toward Palestine is this way, continues, any American talk about a credible approach towards defending the rights of the people of Egypt, of Libya or Yemen Bahrain or anywhere else is a lie. Any such talk is a lie.
He goes on to discuss the US’s supposed ulterior motives, all related, he says, to promoting “America’s Project” — Israel — in the Middle East. (Boy, is he out of date. It’s as if all of Obama’s trashing of Israel has been for naught.) Maybe the US wants to improve its image, the Hezbo-honcho says, and “guarantee suitable alternative regimes for the American Project,” and ensure oil remains in “loyal, nationalistic hands.” Then back he goes to his vicious trope. Doesn’t matter that Obama’s is a different administration:
The Arabs must always focus on Palestine. As long as this administration supports Israel – [Israel’s] destruction, its crushing of the Palestinian people and its aggressions against the people of the region — it is lying when it speaks about anything regarding human rights in this region.
We can reconsider our stance toward the American position when we find a fundamental change in American policies toward Palestine and towards what is going [on] in Palsestine and against their people.
Only then can we reconsider the American stance.
So we must be weary of the American policies and the American game which is being played on trying to take advantage of these revolutions, trying to take advantage of the blood of its martyrs, and the attempts to falsify the real path of these popular uprisings ….
A mess, where lives are at stake.
American Thinker Blog
The Director of National Intelligence has floated a “shockingly bad” proposal on how much review GAO will be permitted within the intelligence community. According to Steven Aftergood, because the proposal defines the intelligence community broadly, it might result in the loss of GAO review in agencies like DOD and State.
The Director of National Intelligence has prepared a draft intelligence directive on access by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to intelligence information, but it is “shockingly bad,” a congressional official said.
[snip]
The first draft of the new directive is said to reserve maximum discretion to the DNI, and to offer little practical assurance that GAO will get access to the information it needs.So, for example, the definition of intelligence information that may be withheld from GAO extends broadly to law enforcement, military and intelligence information related to national security. GAO access is to be denied whenever it concerns information regarding “intelligence budgets or funding, or personnel information that… may reveal intelligence strategy, capabilities, or operations.”
“In other words, GAO cannot look at anything that involves money or people,” the congressional official told Secrecy News. “Combine that with the sweeping, open-ended definition of intelligence and large chunks of the federal government suddenly vanish from [GAO] oversight– DOD, FBI, DHS, State Department, etc.”
Aftergood points out what I did several weeks ago: the intelligence agencies generally (with the exception of NRO), and NSA in particular, have completely ineffective accounting systems.
But when the Committee looked at NSA’s books in 2009, they were still a complete clusterfuck.
The NSA‘s annual financial report was the exception, in that it showed no apparent improvement. In particular, the Committee was concerned about the failed implementation of NSA‘s new financial system. An NSA Inspector General report found that this system was put into operation before it was adequately tested and that operators were not properly trained to use it. The NSA also made $ 7 million in duplicative invoice payments, and the agency could not successfully reconcile its financial books at the end of fiscal year 2008. Further, a July 2008 Army Finance Command report, referenced by the NSA IG, found that the NSA‘s accounting system was in violation of public laws, Treasury Department financial manuals, and DoD regulations, and was inconsistent with the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act.
After SSCI cracked heads, the NSA claimed it had fixed the problems in June 2009. Only they hadn’t.
In June 2009, the Director of NSA wrote to the Chairman and Vice Chairman, claiming that the NSA was now ―fully compliant with the laws, regulations, and manuals referenced in the U.S. Army Finance Command report and the Federal Financial Managers Integrity Act. The NSA Director‘s letter also stated that the NSA had been able to reconcile its fiscal year 2008 financial records. In July 2009, the Chairman and Vice Chairman wrote to the Secretary of Defense concerning the NSA Director‘s letter. They stated that in light of the NSA‘s past difficulties in producing auditable financial statements, the Committee believed the progress claimed by the NSA should be independently confirmed by the DoD Inspector General. Specifically, the letter requested that the DoD IG conduct a form and content review of the NSA‘s fiscal year 2009 financial statements to determine whether they were supported by reliable and accounting data and supporting information.
The Committee received the results of the DoD IG‘s review in November 2009, which was very critical of NSA‘s claims. Overall, the IG found that the NSA‘s financial statements were not adequately supported by reliable accounting data and supporting information. An even more disturbing finding was that the NSA‘s ―remediation plans do not fully address audit impediments. Specific findings included an inability to reconcile critical general ledger balances, failure to perform required accounting processes, and inconsistencies between the information contained in the notes to the financial statements and the information provided to the IG. The IG‘s findings raised serious questions about the assertions made by the NSA Director in his June 2009 letter and the support he is receiving from the administrative staff involved.
The report doesn’t actually say whether NSA has since fixed its auditing systems such that someone can actually tell whether the telecoms paid to spy on us are paid what they are supposed to be paid. So the most up-to-date information the report provides is that in late 2009, the NSA wasn’t really planning to fix the things that made it difficult to audit its books.
In other words, even before you get into the GAO oversight of the actual things the intelligence community does, you could at least throw the auditors in GAO at NSA’s awful accounting.
But James Clapper proposes to specifically prohibit such help from GAO.
It’s almost like they want to ensure that no one can audit the NSA’s books.
Related posts:
In advance of President Barack Obama’s energy speech at Georgetown University, a top oil and natural gas industry leader called on the Obama Administration to abandon its policies “to defer, delay and deny access to domestic resources of oil and natural gas.”
In a statement to reporters during a media conference call this morning, American Petroleum Institute Upstream Director Erik Milito refuted a report by the Interior Department that U.S. oil and natural gas companies are sitting on oil leases granted by the government, refusing to turn them into producing leases.
“The report completely whitewashes the fact that in many cases, the reason these leases have no exploration plans is that BOEMRE is sitting on those plans,” Milito said. “This is like leasing an apartment from the government for $ 20 million dollars and the government refuses to give you the keys to the apartment – then the government proceeds to complain because you are not occupying the premises.”
Below, I share an excerpt from the full text of Milito’s statement as prepared for delivery by API:
The disturbing reality is that 2011 could go down as the first year since 1957 that there has not been at least one offshore lease sale. Not one.
I’m certain that Americans find it difficult to reconcile that – and the fact that 85 percent of our offshore resources are off-limits to development – despite increased uncertainty in world oil markets and rising worldwide demand for crude oil.
President Obama has a speech on energy scheduled for later today.
We hope he will tell Americans that the administration will abandon their policies to defer, delay and deny access to domestic resources of oil and natural gas: Resources that could help create U.S. jobs, grow the U.S. economy and provide royalties, rents, and revenues to the U.S. Treasury.
However, reports suggest that the President wants to provide “incentives” to develop the leases the industry currently has, but may or may not, actually have oil and natural gas on them.
The reports are that these incentives include shortening lease terms and increasing royalty rates through a graduated system.
These are not incentives.
They are, in fact, disincentives.
These are actions that will discourage investment here in the US and shift that investment to other parts of the world – to places like Brazil.
We hope the president will abandon energy politics in favor of energy policies that will provide Americans what they want and deserve: more energy, economic growth and more jobs.
We have a million American jobs that we can create if our industry is allowed to produce the oil and natural gas in knows how to produce.
And we have 9.2 million jobs to protect – the jobs across the country supported by our industry.
We urge the president to join the oil and natural gas industry in helping us create and protect those jobs.
It is not too late to get America’s energy policy back on track.
If you oppose the Obama Administration’s actions that are literally killing the nation’s oil and natural gas industries, costing American jobs and making us more dependent on foreign sources of energy, CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS IN THE NATION’S CAPITOL, let them know how you feel, and make sure they know you’ll be watching their votes.
Governor Scott Walker’s administration, on behalf of his state, has halted collecting union dues as of Sunday.
Instead, they’re charging employees for their pensions and health care benefits.
Washington (CNN) – Likely Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty accused the Obama administration of “naivety” on Syria, as he called for the United States to recall its ambassador and toughen sanctions on the country.
Pawlenty’s comments came in a radio interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show Monday evening, shortly before President Obama addressed the nation on the military operation in Libya.
“Our interests in Syria are at least as strong, if not stronger, than in Libya”, Pawlenty said when asked what the United States should do after violent crackdowns on demonstrators in Syria. “Here you have a country (that has) enabled and accommodated people to go into Iraq and kill American soldiers. They house Hamas and allow them to exist in Syria as they continue to be a terrorist organization in Israel and elsewhere. And the list goes on and on about the problems that the Syria, and specifically Bashir Assad, has caused the region and the world and also the United States of America.”
Pawlenty told Hewitt the U.S. needs a tougher stance on the Syria protests, first calling for President Obama “to speak strongly and clearly to the people of Syria that we hope and believe and support their drive towards freedom and getting rid of Bashir Assad.”
The former Minnesota governor, who last week launched an exploratory committee for a White House run, said the administration needs to recall Ambassador Robert Ford from Damascus. President Obama named Ford as Ambassador in 2009, four years after the U.S. withdrew its envoy in protest at the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
“President Obama made the mistake of sending an ambassador to Syria, legitimizing that country and his regime in ways that I don’t think are appropriate. Recall the ambassador,” Pawlenty said.
In the interview, he also called for the United States to start invoking further sanctions on Damascus, “both economically and otherwise.”
Palwenty called any belief that Syria and Assad could be peace agents in the region “a complete crock.” He said it “shows the naivety of the Obama administration. And to have the secretary of state on a Sunday morning talk show implying that he’s a reformer; to have his administration essentially embracing in any manner or degree Bashir Assad and Syria as a peace agent – or an agent for reform and stability in the region – is either ignorant or frighteningly misguided.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation” how the situation in Libya was worse than repression over the years in Syria, including by Assad’s father. Clinton said, “There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer. What’s been happening there the last few weeks is deeply concerning.”
This post was written by Barry Rubin and is reposted here with his permission.
By Barry Rubin
It’s official. The Obama Administration won’t do anything at all to help the Syrian people against the Bashar al-Asad dictatorship. Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi is a bad dictator, but Bashar al-Asad is a good dictator?
The great Martin Kramer puts it perfectly:
“Earlier I noted that the Arab League gave Asad a license to kill because Syria is “occupied.” Now Clinton and Kerry have given him one because he’s a “reformer.” Asad hasn’t carried out any reforms, still supports terror, has stockpiles of WMD, and even tried to build a secret nuke facility. But unlike Qaddafi, he cleans up nicely and his wife is chic. Asad gets a pass; Asads always do.”
Ask yourself these simple questions: Which regime is more dangerous to U.S. interests? Which regime is sponsoring more terrorism at present? Which regime is killing Americans in Iraq? Which regime is allied with Iran and actively trying to destroy U.S. interests in the Middle East? Who is the worse dictator-more repressive; incompetent; and bad for regional stability, the United States, and the West-Egypt’s Husni Mubarak or Syria’s Bashar al-Asad?
Nobody is asking the U.S. government to bomb Syria or to send troops. It’s just a matter of supporting those seeking democracy when it also serves U.S. interests. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates seems to feel this way.
I have no idea whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supports the White House’s pro-Syrian policy or not but her attempt to defend it is the most pitiful performance of her 26 months in the job. Was this because her heart isn’t in it or just that the contradictions are too obvious to paper over?
Does anyone still believe that the United States is going to woo Syria away from Iran, especially now that it’s handing one victory after another to Tehran? Does anyone still believe that Syria is going to make peace with Israel? I mean someone who is a rational being who has some comprehension of international affairs, in other words not Senator John Kerry.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader
(seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East
(Wiley), and The Truth About Syria
(Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press later this year. You can read more of Barry Rubin’s posts at Rubin Reports.
Technorati Tag: Obama and Clinton and Syria.
“Project Gunrunner” Was a project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fireworks In late 2009, the ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic “weapons of choice” used by Mexican drug traffickers – semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols. According to news reports several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but Bureau encouraged them to continue.
ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it’s a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, “walk.” Yes, that’s right, the US government decided, in order to fight the Mexican Drug Cartels, someone high up in the government decided to sell them guns.
The President said that neither he nor AG holder knew about the program which was initiated during his tenure in the White House.
“Well first of all I did not authorize it. Eric Holder the Attorney General did not authorize it. He’s been very clear that our policy is to catch gun runners and put ‘em into jail,” Mr. Obama said of the controversial ATF operation .”
“You were not even informed about it?” asked Univision reporter Jorge Ramos.
“Absolutely not,” said Mr. Obama. “There may be a situation here which a serious mistake was made and if that’s the case then we’ll find out and well hold somebody accountable.”
He went on to say that a Justice Department Inspector General will investigate who was behind the project. Unfortunately, if it is the same inspector general who investigated the dropping of the New Black Panther case it will be nothing but a cover-up.
I am not saying that the President is lying, but I am saying that anything that stupid had to come from a higher up. Sometimes the best, most incredibly creative ideas come from senior management, but even more often the worst and most stupid ideas come from, or approved by senior management.
Allow me to explain, my last job was for a small publishing company that published newspaper distributed magazines such as American Profile and Relish. The top guy was a genius at coming up with ideas. Because he was so creative in one meeting he could spin off 100 ideas, five of them would be incredibly wonderful, the other 95 were unworkable, not because of any lack of judgment but because like most good senior executives, he was locked in on the “big picture” and not the details. What made Dick so great was that he didn’t have an ego, he would let us throw away the 95 bad ideas and concentrate on the five great ideas. An egotistical manager in the same situation would say all of his ideas are sacred and would push for the “not so good” ideas to be implemented also.
Someone who is “close to the street” would never approve of giving guns to the drug lords unless they were ordered from above. Even a middle manager would not take the risk of approving such a program, it would be career suicide. Only someone higher up in the Obama food chain would have the ego to believe that this was a good program.
The lead ATF official in Mexico at the time Darren Gil says somebody in the Justice Department did know about the case. Gil says his supervisor at ATF’s Washington D.C. headquarters told him point-blank the operation was approved even higher than ATF Director Kenneth Melson.
“Is the director aware of this,” Gil asked the supervisor. Gil says his supervisor answered “Yes, the director’s aware of it. Not only is the director aware of it, D.O.J.’s aware of it… Department of Justice was aware of it.”
Gil went on to say senior Justice official Lanny Breuer and several of his deputies visited Mexico amid the controversy last summer, and spoke to ATF staff generally about a big trafficking case that they claimed was “getting good results.” Gil says Melson, ATF’s Acting Director, also visited Mexico City. Gil’s Deputy Attache and his Analyst questioned Melson about the case that surrounding all the weapons showing up in Mexico. “His response was ‘it’s a good case, it’s still going on,’” recalls Gil, “and we’ll close it down as soon as we possibly can.”
The investigation into ATF’s “Project Gunrunner” should be at the Congressional level, not by the Justice Department based on the Holder-led DOJ’s record of self investigation. Only then will we know which Senior official approved such as dumb idea.
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Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
VP Joe Biden’s Staff Stuffs Reporter in a Closet–
The most transparent administration in history stuffed a pool reporter in a closet for over an hour at a fundraiser this week.
From the Drudge Report:
Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser.
Reporter Scott Powers was the designated “pool reporter” for the vice president’s Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginsburg. The veep hadn’t arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $ 500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese and bacon deviled eggs, before a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps.
Not so for Powers. A “low-level staffer” put Powers in a storage closet and then stood guard outside the door, Powers told the DRUDGE REPORT. “When I’d stick my head out, they’d say, ‘Not yet. We’ll let you know when you can come out.’”
And no crustini for Powers, either. He made do with a bottle of water to sip as he sat at a tiny makeshift desk, right next to a bag marked “consignment.” Powers was closeted at about 11:30 a.m., held for about an hour and 15 minutes, came out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and then returned to his jail for the remainder of the event.
Powers’ phone didn’t work in the closet, but his Blackberry did, so he fired a picture of his impromptu prison to his editors, who posted a short blog item on the lack of freedom of the press under the veep’s control.
Free Republic has more on the reporter’s detention.
This story is developing …
Cross-posted at Gateway Pundit
This post was written by Barry Rubin and is reposted here with his permission.
By Barry Rubin
I’ve seen a lot in media expressing the views of the Gulf Arab states and officials’ statements-not all of them public, and not to mention similar expressions from Turkish and Iranian oppositionists-expressing horror and shock at Obama Administration Middle East policy. Remember, al-Jazira is NOT typical, as it is run by Islamists and follows the pro-Iran line of its owner, the Qatari government.
In this article in al-Sharq al-Awsat (translated by MEMRI), a Saudi-controlled but also relatively liberal newspaper, Tariq al-Homayed, the chief editor, expresses the combination of shock and horror at the Obama Administration. The conflict was hot over Egypt and even hotter over Bahrain, where the Saudis want the current regime to survive and U.S. officials have criticized Saudi intervention.
Indeed, he complains, the statements coming from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
sound “more like what we’d expect to hear from the Iranian foreign minister.” The “contradictory statements coming out of Washington have become more than merely perplexing; they are also suspicious.”Why suspicious? Because it isn’t clear whether the U.S. government is more concerned about stopping revolutionary Islamism or undermining those who oppose it, more interested in containing Iran or letting Tehran’s influence spread, supporting moderate Arab countries or overthrowing their regimes.
The editor accuses U.S. policy of ignoring Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen and Iranian statements claiming Bahrain. (Reminds me of how Iraq used to claim Kuwait and that was ignored until 1990, when Iraq invaded and annexed that country.)
How, he asks, can U.S. policymakers complain when the Gulf Cooperation Council states intervene in Bahrain-according to previous agreements-and then demanding that these countries support intervention in Libya?
Israel could now say to Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and several other Arab governments (plus the Iranian and Turkish oppositions): Welcome to our world.
The fears of relatively moderate Arabs (and Turks and Iranians) that they are getting thrown under bus are not merely imaginery at all. For example, the New York Times had an article March 17 with the following headline:
“Interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Now, of course, one understands what this means in linguistic terms. Yet the headline is amazingly revealing. Yes, the Saudis, not the United States, are now carrying on the main battle against the spread of Iranian influence and revolutionary Islamism. Of course, they cannot sustain this burden long without U.S. support.
Which raises the question: What’s the United States doing in the “middle” between Iran and Saudi Arabia! It should be backing the Saudis against Iran. Indeed, it should be leading the anti-Islamist coalition!
To be fair, the Obama Administration is putting early-warning stations into Saudi Arabia for the day when Iran has nuclear-tipped missiles. The Reagan Doctrine (is that still in force?) commits the United States to protect Saudi Arabia from an overt Iranian military attack.
Yet the headline is true. The current U.S. government is essentially neutral between the two sides. Sort of like a headline from 1941 reading, “Interests of Nazi Germany and Britain Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly like Britain under Winston Churchill but it is now on the front-line against the greatest threat of our time. U.S. policy already mishandled Iran in the 1970s and, more recently, the Obama Administration has watched Lebanon fall, Turkey’s government change sides, and Egypt jump ship.
Already a headline would be accurate that read: “Interests of Palestinians and Israel Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Or how about: “Interests of Venezuela and Moderate Latin American States Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Or: “Interests of Russia and Central Europe Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Yes, with this administration being in the “middle” is the best-case analysis. At worst, it’s on the wrong side altogether.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press later this year. You can read more of Barry Rubin’s posts at Rubin Reports.
Technorati Tag: Obama and Middle East.
ThinkProgress filed this report from the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, IA.
As the Republican presidential nomination process begins, one GOP candidate is making a name for himself as the Islamophobia candidate: Herman Cain.
Earlier this week, Cain gave an interview to Christianity Today in which he declared that, “based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.”
ThinkProgress caught up with the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza today at the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, to discuss his comments further. We asked him, in light of his statements on Islam, would he be comfortable appointing any Muslims in his administration. Rather than skirting the question or hedging his answer, as most presidential aspirants are wont to do, Cain was definitive: “No, I would not”:
KEYES: You came under a bit of controversy this week for some of the comments made about Muslims in general. Would you be comfortable appointing a Muslim, either in your cabinet or as a federal judge?
CAIN: No, I would not. And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.
The question that was asked that “raised some questions” and, as my grandfather said, “I does not care, I feel the way I feel.” I was asked, “what is the role of Islam in America?” I thought it was an odd question. I said the role of Islam in America is for those that believe in Islam to practice it and leave us alone. Just like Christianity. We have a First Amendment. And I get upset when the Muslims in this country, some of them, try to force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.
Watch it:
Cain should check his understanding of the U.S. Constitution, which states in Article 4:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Cain’s apparent rationale for refusing to even consider a Muslim nominee for any position in his administration is as simple as it is abhorrent: he believes all Muslims would try to “force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.” This type of bigotry has been promoted by conservative figures like Frank Gaffney and Brigitte Gabriel for years. Now, it appears to be seeping into the presidential race via Herman Cain.
By Barry Rubin
I’ve seen a lot in media expressing the views of the Gulf Arab states and officials’ statements-not all of them public, and not to mention similar expressions from Turkish and Iranian oppositionists-expressing horror and shock at Obama Administration Middle East policy. Remember, al-Jazira is NOT typical, as it is run by Islamists and follows the pro-Iran line of its owner, the Qatari government.
In this article in al-Sharq al-Awsat (translated by MEMRI), a Saudi-controlled but also relatively liberal newspaper, Tariq al-Homayed, the chief editor, expresses the combination of shock and horror at the Obama Administration. The conflict was hot over Egypt and even hotter over Bahrain, where the Saudis want the current regime to survive and U.S. officials have criticized Saudi intervention.
Indeed, he complains, the statements coming from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
sound “more like what we’d expect to hear from the Iranian foreign minister.” The “contradictory statements coming out of Washington have become more than merely perplexing; they are also suspicious.”
Why suspicious? Because it isn’t clear whether the U.S. government is more concerned about stopping revolutionary Islamism or undermining those who oppose it, more interested in containing Iran or letting Tehran’s influence spread, supporting moderate Arab countries or overthrowing their regimes.
The editor accuses U.S. policy of ignoring Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen and Iranian statements claiming Bahrain. (Reminds me of how Iraq used to claim Kuwait and that was ignored until 1990, when Iraq invaded and annexed that country.)
How, he asks, can U.S. policymakers complain when the Gulf Cooperation Council states intervene in Bahrain-according to previous agreements-and then demanding that these countries support intervention in Libya?
Israel could now say to Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and several other Arab governments (plus the Iranian and Turkish oppositions): Welcome to our world.
The fears of relatively moderate Arabs (and Turks and Iranians) that they are getting thrown under bus are not merely imaginery at all. For example, the New York Times had an article March 17 with the following headline:
“Interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Now, of course, one understands what this means in linguistic terms. Yet the headline is amazingly revealing. Yes, the Saudis, not the United States, are now carrying on the main battle against the spread of Iranian influence and revolutionary Islamism. Of course, they cannot sustain this burden long without U.S. support.
Which raises the question: What’s the United States doing in the “middle” between Iran and Saudi Arabia! It should be backing the Saudis against Iran. Indeed, it should be leading the anti-Islamist coalition!
To be fair, the Obama Administration is putting early-warning stations into Saudi Arabia for the day when Iran has nuclear-tipped missiles. The Reagan Doctrine (is that still in force?) commits the United States to protect Saudi Arabia from an overt Iranian military attack.
Yet the headline is true. The current U.S. government is essentially neutral between the two sides. Sort of like a headline from 1941 reading, “Interests of Nazi Germany and Britain Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly like Britain under Winston Churchill but it is now on the front-line against the greatest threat of our time. U.S. policy already mishandled Iran in the 1970s and, more recently, the Obama Administration has watched Lebanon fall, Turkey’s government change sides, and Egypt jump ship.
Already a headline would be accurate that read: “Interests of Palestinians and Israel Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Or how about: “Interests of Venezuela and Moderate Latin American States Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Or: “Interests of Russia and Central Europe Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Yes, with this administration being in the “middle” is the best-case analysis. At worst, it’s on the wrong side altogether.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
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Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
In comments certain to raise eyebrows of most within the Democratic Party, and most certainly within the Obama White House, former president Bill Clinton blasted the Obama administration for what he described as ridiculous delays in much needed offshore oil and gas drilling permits. Clinton, who was attending an IHS CERA conference with another former president, George W Bush, went so far as to admit he sided with his Republican counterpart regarding the need for swift and expanded oil and gas drilling operations throughout the nation.
Clinton also made mention of the Libyan crisis, declaring the need for a no-fly zone to help assist rebel forces in overthrowing the long-standing Muslim dictator – a proposal that the Obama White House has remained openly undecided on.
Clinton’s support for expanded domestic oil and gas drilling came at nearly the same time President Obama attempted to spin his own record as one of expanding oil production during his tenure as president. Almost immediately, industry experts proved Obama’s words as false, or at best, misleading, to the American public. Since Obama took office in 2009, Gulf oil rig output has dwindled by over 50% according to Baker Hughes of Reservoir Development Services. Other “facts” that were given by Obama regarding America’s oil and gas capabilities were also quickly disapproved – including President Obama’s oft-repeated assertion that the United States only has 2% of the world’s oil reserves. Steve Everly of American Solutions called that statement by Obama “100% false”. That 2% figure is from a highly conservative estimate by the Energy Information Administration that does not take into account the billions of gallons of oil not being utilized in such areas as Alaska, offshore, and trapped with the vast shale reserves of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. In fact, those shale reserves alone are said to have more oil than the reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Clearly, if President Obama was in fact truly concerned about American energy independence, he would not be initiated costly delays against oil and gas production, while at the same time purchasing more and more oil from America’s enemies, such as Venezuela and Libya.
Very interesting that it was Bill Clinton who best described the Obama energy policy in its most appropriate term – ridiculous.
