Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam

There is no military solution in Afghanistan. But the President is bound by a campaign promise. This only means that many more Americans will die in a pointless war. The Taliban control the remote regions of that country and move in out of Afghanistan at will. The chaos in Pakistan, along with profits from opium, mean ultimate victory for the Taliban.

The commander of a British regiment has become the country's highest ranking soldier to be killed in action since 1982's Falklands War after a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Rupert Thorneloe was killed along with trooper Joshua Hammond, 18, on Wednesday as they were traveling along a canal in Lashkar Gah, in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province, the British Ministry of Defense said.

The Taliban have plenty of financing for their war.

Controlling the opium trade in Afghanistan, the world's leading producer of the drug, is a key element in the fight against Taliban militants.

With thousands of U.S. Marines launching a major new offensive against the Taliban-led insurgency in southern Helmand province, the epicenter of world opium production, the U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has also foreshadowed a new approach to controlling the trade.

Following are questions and answers about Afghanistan's poppy production, its role in the insurgency and efforts to combat it.

HOW MUCH POPPY IS GROWN?

Afghanistan produces 93 percent of the world's opium, a thick paste made from the poppies that is processed to make heroin, according to United Nations figures.

In 2008, 157,000 hectares of opium were cultivated, down 19 percent from 193,000 hectares in 2007. Opium production only declined 6 percent to 7,700 tonnes because of record high yields.

Helmand cultivated 103,000 hectares in 2008.

In the same period, prices fell by about 20 percent, meaning the value of the opium to Afghan farmers fell by about a quarter from roughly $1 billion to about $730 million.

The export value of opium, morphine and heroin at border prices in neighboring countries fell to $3.4 billion in 2008 from $4 billion in 2007, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2008 Afghan Opium Survey.

WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN OPIUM AND THE TALIBAN?

The Taliban are mainly funded by the opium trade.

Despite the drop in cultivation, production and prices, the UNODC says the Taliban and other "anti-government forces" still make "massive amounts of money from the drug business." Their take, mainly from levies on processing and trafficking, has been put at between $200 million and $400 million, with up to $70 million more from "ushr," or charges on economic activity.

The other reason why the war will fail:

There are two major weaknesses: The Karzai government is riddled with corruption which has alienated many Afghans from both his administration and his NATO allies.

Official figures show that despite hundreds of millions of pounds in foreign aid for raising and training Afghanistan's national police, there are many areas which still have no functioning police force at all. The Western benchmarks of good governance – access to decent education and services - are in many parts of Afghanistan hard to make out from the rubble.

One diplomat in Kabul last night said he believed the new strategy has a year or two to deliver before Afghans decisively turn against them, but a former head of Pakistan's ISI intelligence service, General Hamid Gul, said he believes Obama's surge will have foundered by October.

The Taliban will fight a two-pronged strategy, he said: retreat to the hills where America's air power will not be so effective, while the remainder will disappear and wage a guerilla resistance campaign.

He believes the Taliban will learn more about American weaknesses from this new battle, as he says they did in Operation Anaconda in 2002. Then, several thousand American special forces with air support failed to deliver the knock-out blow they had expected.

The truth behind operation Operation Khanjar is that the Taliban has fought the western allies to a stale-mate in Helmand, and now the only hope lies in a devastating display of overwhelming force, the rapid delivery of good services, and the remotely possibility that it will be enough to impress senior Taliban commanders.

Washington Post Selling Access to Lobbyists

Everyone is for sale in Washington including the press:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders …

“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. …

Poll: Few Americans say Recovery Under Way

Hard times will be with us until we national economic strategy that doesn't involve selling out America to multi-national corporations. Outsourcing has decimated our industries and reduced the standard of living of Americans. We survive by borrowing. And all that borrowing has left us broke. President Obama has no answer for that. The Congress has bought off and do not represent the American people.

A national poll indicates that nearly half of all Americans think the economy has stabilized, but only one in eight believes that a recovery has started.

Four in 10 questioned in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday morning think the country's still in an economic downturn.

"Although polls in recent months have shown some signs of growing optimism, that appears to have stalled," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director. "In January, 50 percent said the economy was in very poor shape; that figure dropped to 37 percent in April, but now it has risen slightly, to 41 percent."

Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst, said, "The prevailing view? We're in a stall."

The poll suggests that when it comes to an economic recovery, Americans agree with President Obama.

Discussing the economy last week at the White House, Obama said, "We're still not at actual recovery yet. So I anticipate that this is going to be a difficult, difficult year."

What has to be done is to get the economy (GDP) going again. And you can't get the economy going if people are losing their jobs. President Obama should do what he promised. And that is giving businesses incentives to keep their employees working. The government should also be spending money on the crumbling infrastructure which would lead to the creation of jobs. Also, businesses should be given incentives to remain on U.S. soil.

The pace of job losses quickened in June after slowing just a month earlier, casting a shadow over the Obama administration’s attempts to stanch months of declines in the labor market.

The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Job losses were widespread among the construction, manufacturing and business and professional services sectors.

The losses were sharply higher than economists’ expectations of 365,000 lost jobs.

Economists said a decline of 322,000 jobs in May had raised expectations that the market was bottoming out as the economy struggled to right itself, but the numbers on Friday dashed some of those hopes.

The figures also raised questions about whether the Obama administration, which has already passed a $787 billion stimulus plan, needed to step in again to shore up the American worker.

It's official. The United States Congress is a joke.
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The Republicans are right. The Democrats won't have anyone to blame but themselves if things turn for the worse. Which it will. That's the name of game. Both parties take turns screwing up. This charade has been going on for decades. By giving the illusion of choice they keep power and prevent real choice from taking place. What we have is duocracy not democracy.

Not until we have a principled third party as a real alternative will we prevent the continuing decline of America.
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Obama Waffling on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

The left is increasingly critical of the Obama administration's failure to keep his promises made to them during the campaign. I could have told them so. The two-parties aren't about keeping promises. We see it every election.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday he wants to make the law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the armed forces "more humane" until Congress eventually repeals it. He said he has lawyers studying ways the law might be selectively enforced.

"One of the things we're looking at is, is there flexibility in how we apply this law?" Gates said.

The defense chief, a holdover from the Republican administration of former President George W. Bush, told reporters traveling with him in Europe that the Clinton-era ban was written without much wiggle room. The Pentagon general counsel is looking at potential avenues around full enforcement as a stopgap, Gates said.

For example, Gates said, the military might not have to expel someone whose sexual orientation was revealed by a third party out of vindictiveness or suspect motives. That would include, Gates said, someone who was "jilted" by the gay service member.

"That's the kind of thing we're looking at to see if there's at least a more humane way to apply the law until the law gets changed," Gates said, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.

Gay rights activists and others have criticized the Obama administration for not quickly following through on a pledge to lift the ban on openly gay military service.

President Barack Obama and his spokesmen say he remains committed to repealing the Clinton-era law known as "don't ask, don't tell," but neither the White House nor congressional leadership has moved swiftly to do so.

There is no timetable for the pending bill to repeal the 1993 law, which was intended as a compromise to get around a full ban on gay military service. Gay rights leaders, however, have said it is an insult.

Obama says he wants to build support for the change among military commanders before urging Congress to move ahead.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and others have cautioned that repeal of the law must be done carefully so as not to disrupt military cohesion in wartime or to place an additional burden on an already overstretched uniformed force.

California State to Issue IOUs, Can't Pay Bills

Coming to a neighborhood near you. This is only the beginning. Look for more crime, dirtier streets, and less essential services.

Legislators in more than a half-dozen states, their revenues evaporating in the recession, frantically worked to stave off government shutdowns and devastating service cuts. California failed to meet a midnight deadline and now may need to issue IOUs instead of paying bills.

Across the country, lawmakers are feeling the heat as their legislatures began the new fiscal year without a budget in place.

In Illinois, the sputtering drive to come up with a state budget broke down completely Tuesday, leaving the state without any plan for paying its employees or delivering government services. The session ended without any firm plans to return or even for Gov. Pat Quinn and legislative leaders to resume negotiations.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell said Tuesday night he didn't think an agreement with lawmakers would come soon. The state faces the prospect of not being able to pay state employees if they cannot resolve an impasse.

Pakistan Militant Group Scraps Truce

On the road to World War III:

A powerful Taliban faction in a northwestern tribal region has said it is withdrawing from a peace deal with the government to protest continuing strikes by American drones, confronting the Pakistani military with a possible two-front campaign against militants, according to Pakistani news reports on Tuesday.

The Taliban faction, led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, operates in the mountainous North Waziristan area along the border with Afghanistan.

It struck a peace deal with the authorities in February 2008, but Mr. Gul Bahadur said the truce was no longer operative. The development Monday came as American reinforcements have been moving into Afghanistan. Taliban fighters there have traditionally relied on havens in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions.

Soon after the Pakistani Taliban’s announcement that it was abandoning the truce, as many as 150 militants attacked a Pakistani military convoy about 22 miles west of Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan. At least 30 soldiers —the Taliban claimed 60 — were believed to have been killed in the ambush, which highlighted the army’s vulnerability in the area.

Separately, The Associated Press reported that four people were killed in southwestern Pakistan when a car bomber attacked trucks taking supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

And Americans are still dying in Iraq:

The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed in combat in Iraq.

A statement says the Multi-National Division — Baghdad soldier died Sunday but further details weren't released.

The statement was issued Monday, on the eve of a deadline for U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities.

American soldiers will still be in urban areas but their mission will shift from one of combat to training and advising their Iraqi counterparts.

The statement says the soldier's death is under investigation.

At least 4,319 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003. That's according to an Associated Press count.

And despite an invasion that was based in part to gain control of Iraq's oil, we could loss out there too:

After a year in preparation, a much-heralded auction of licenses to develop Iraq’s huge oil reserves began Tuesday but seemed to run into difficulties when oil and gas companies demanded far more remuneration than the authorities were ready to pay.

Symbolically, the sale, broadcast on television, coincided with the formal handover by American forces of security arrangements in urban areas to Iraqi forces — an economic counterpoint to the striving for political military independence underpinning the Iraqi takeover of patrolling Iraq’s restive cities.

At the auction, each contender offered a sealed bid containing details of how much oil the developing company would produce and how much it expected to be paid for each barrel of oil produced.

The auction has been billed as one of huge economic importance to Iraq, whose oil fields have been closed to foreigners for decades since they were nationalized. Iraq is seeking to increase its oil production after six years of war.

But, according to reporters watching the auction, the first round of bidding for the vast Rumaila field — the biggest on offer — stalled when Exxon Mobil and a consortium of BP and the China National Petroleum Corp. both wanted to earn more than the government’s offer of $2 for each barrel above a guaranteed minimum production level. Exxon said it would produce 3.1 million barrels daily with each additional barrel at a fee of $4.80, news reports said. The BP consortium said it would produce 2.85 million barrels a day and wanted $3.99 for each additional barrel.

Paul Krugman: The Global Warming Deniers Betray the Environment

Krugman says it all in his NY Times op-ed column:

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhousegases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

China Made 50 Percent of Recalled Goods Last Year

All that matters to the free traders is those cheap products made from repressed labor.

Chinese manufacturers made more than half of the goods that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled last year, but few of them paid any price for producing defective wares.

The long list of faulty products included Chinese-made highchairs whose seat backs failed, steam cleaners that burned their users, bikes whose front-wheel forks broke, saunas that overheated, illuminated exit signs that stopped working when commercial power failed, dune buggies whose seat belts broke on impact and coffee makers that overheated and started fires.

It also included loosely knotted soccer goal nets that entrapped and strangled a child and a toy chest whose poorly supported lid fell on a toddler's neck and killed him, according to CPSC filings.

The difficulty in recovering damages is a lesson that U.S. homeowners who are stuck with defective and possibly toxic Chinese drywall are likely to learn in the coming months. Builders installed the drywall in 2004-5 when the home building boom outstripped U.S. drywall supplies. The CPSC and the Environmental Protection Agency are investigating the consequences.

While everyone involved is likely to be sued — installers, contractors, distributors, importers and Chinese manufacturers — the last are the hardest to reach by far.

For starters, suing a Chinese company in a Chinese court isn't a good idea for most American plaintiffs, said Michael Lyle, a seasoned international lawyer. "It's like suing Michael Jordan in Chicago."

Yet many Chinese manufacturers also evade trial in the U.S. simply by persuading judges that their companies had no substantial business presence in the states in which they've been sued. That's not hard for Chinese manufacturers, which typically rely on independent importers to sell to the American market.

What if Bush had Decided to Remain President?

The left seems to be all hot and bothered about the "coup" used to remove Hoduran President, Manuel Zelaya, from office. It doesn't seem to matter to them that Zelaya had refused to abide by the constitution limiting his term as President. What if George W. Bush had decided he wanted a third term? Sound far fetched? In NYC, the Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, has decided he will ignore the will of the people and run for a third term. His predecessor left office without challenging term limits. What's to stop some U.S. politician from saying he's entitled to be office perpetually? Wait. We already have that. It's called the U.S. Congress.
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Rise in Cyber Crime, Cyber Terrorism and Cyber Espionage Tied Heavily to Data-Stealing Malware

This is becoming an ever greater problem. And we know it is a threat now to national security. Can we count on the government to protect us? I'm not so sure.

While the term "data-stealing malware" is a relatively new one, its sole purpose for existence is a familiar story: To steal proprietary information such as online banking credentials, credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, and more from compromised networks and PCs in order to fuel an underground cyber crime economy driven by profit-seeking criminal networks that cross geopolitical boundaries.

Trojans: The Rising Star in Data-Stealing

Trojans are the fastest growing category of data-stealing malware, according to data from TrendLabs(SM), Trend Micro's global network of research, service, and support centers committed to constant threat surveillance and attack prevention. Trojan attacks pose a serious threat to computer security. True to their name, they typically arrive disguised as something benign such as a screen saver, game, or joke. Based on TrendLabs research:

-- In 2007, 52 percent of data-stealing malware were Trojans; in 2008, that number increased to 87 percent; as of Q1 2009, 93 percent of data-stealing malware were Trojans.

-- Trojans and Trojan spyware are the predominant type of data-stealing malware in all regions monitored by TrendLabs, including Australia, Asia, Africa, South America, North America and Europe.

We Need Term Limits (6-28-09)

Another politician who refuses to leave office...

Soldiers detained the president of Honduras, Jose Manuel Zelaya, on Sunday - the day he set for a referendum on changing the constitution to allow him to run for another term.

...despite his time being up. It took the military to force him out. Even a law breaker like George W. stepped down when his time was up. Let's hope it doesn't come to this in the U.S. We have a mayor in New York that bought his way into office and now has overturned term limits, with the help of the City Council...

[...]why doesn’t he respect the fact that twice New Yorkers voted for term limits, yet Bloomberg felt that he had the right to overturn the will of the people and put himself on the ballot again for a third term. What is Bloomberg afraid of, he has no respect for the voters of New York and he bribed the members of the City Council to ok a third term for him by promising a third term for those who would have been also been termed out this year, he is once again trying to buy to office of the mayor. They way that the mayor is trying secure his third term I think is enough to vote him out, and any council member who supported the mayors efforts should also be removed from office.

...to remain as Mayor indefinitely. This decision ignores the will of people whom put term limits in the first place. We don't want to end up like Chicago, which has the Daley dynasty. Is it any wonder that the NY State legislators are behaving like thugs. Even former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani agrees on the need for term limits:

NEW YORK STATE government is not working. This has been true for some time. But the paralysis and confusion that has overtaken the capital demonstrates the need to confront this dysfunction directly and take decisive steps to solve it once and for all. That’s why I’m calling on Albany to convene a state constitutional convention.

[...]All statewide elected officials and members of the Legislature should be term limited to bring new blood into Albany while stopping the careerism that too often blocks real progress. A citizens’ legislature would be more effective in addressing New Yorkers’ problems with a fresh perspective.

If it's good for the state legislatures than why not Congress. What do we have to lose?

Fifteen state legislatures have term limits in effect today and most have experienced a complete turnover in their membership. Term limits have prevented more than a thousand experienced legislators from running for reelection. New legislators have to learn their jobs in less than six years, chair important committees in their first term, and even serve as Speaker of the House after just two or three years in office. The leadership, culture and organization inside those legislatures have had to adjust to limited terms in office. So have those who work outside the legislative halls, such as bureaucrats, governors and lobbyists.

Voter initiatives of the 1990s are responsible for states adopting legislative limits. In an online column, Wall Street Journal columnist Steve Moore wrote that “limits on politicians' time in office were enacted or reaffirmed by enormous margins nearly everywhere they were on the ballot in what might have been the loudest referendum for term limitation by voters ever.” The Republicans hopped on the bandwagon.

Obama Takes the Bush Line on Guantánamo Detainees

The solution is military tribunals or trying these individuals in the world court. It is inexcusable for the President, a constitutional professor, to be seemingly taking the same position his predecessor did. Which was an outrage.

The Obama administration is considering forgoing legislation and issuing an executive order that would authorize the president to incarcerate some terrorism suspects indefinitely, White House officials said Friday.

Such an order would be controversial — seemingly aligning the administration with a disputed legal doctrine of former President George W. Bush, whose lawyers held that the president had sweeping authority in wartime to imprison those he deemed threats to national security.

Obama officials sought to play down the significance of the discussions by an administration panel, saying that consideration of such an order was still in an early phase and subject to change. They said that lawyers had not written a specific proposal and that nothing had been submitted to the White House for review by senior officials.

Still, the possibility of the order appeared to reflect increasing frustration within the administration over the difficulties posed by the effort to meet Mr. Obama’s commitment to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by January and the dwindling options for dealing with the detainees before then.

This from the Huffington Post:

First, there is no legitimate reason for a government official to claim anonymity here. It simply echoes the official line from the article, which is likely to be Robert Gibbs' line when reporters press the issue in Monday's briefing.

Second, the response is a classic dodge -- there is no executive order now, and no decision has been made. Of course, the article is not reporting that an order has already been issued. The news is that Obama officials are preparing to advance President Bush's Gitmo detention regime through a unilateral executive order soon, cutting out Congress, and thus any democratic accountability, while extending a controversial, unpopular policy.

Even though Obama's National Archives speech asserted the importance of working with other branches of government. ("We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded," he said, "They can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone.")

Even though the Bush administration already tried this unilateral tack, only to have its system invalidated by the Supreme Court precisely because Congress was shut out. (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.)

And even though decades of legal precedent show, as Professor/President Obama knows, that the executive branch operates at the nadir of its constitutional power when acting without the cooperation of Congress, even in the national security arena. (A point most famously established for President Truman in the Youngstown case.)

Obama's argument for preventive detention "violates basic American values and is likely unconstitutional," warned Sen. Russ Feingold in a recent letter to the President, cautioning that detention without trial "is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world." Advancing such a controversial precedent on American soil, without the participation of Congress or the American people, would be disastrous.

Michael Jackson: The Price of Fame in America

He will be remembered by many as bizaar and tragic figure. But for those who loved music Michael Jackson will live on in memories as a music giant. His contribution to the popular culture will be unsurpassed. He is a icon. Who, despite committing terrible crimes, will be the standard by which all other musical performers are measured.

I personally grew up with his music, and revere his memory as the great talent he was. He gave me many years of entertainment happiness. I just wish he could've found help for his personal demons.

But Michael Jackson was as much a victim as a victimizer. Super stardom in the entertainment industry is a death sentence (e.g., Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, etc). Child stars in particular.

Then there is the issue of celebrities having easy access to drugs. The government should look into the whole question of doctors prescribing drugs to celebrities at their whim. Such doctors should be prosecuted. Their job should be to heal rather than help destroy lives.
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Obama Interview with ABC's Good Morning America: Transcript (6-24-09)

Read the complete transcript. Excerpt below:

DIANE SAWYER: Do you still expect to get health care by the end of the year?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.

SAWYER: Absolutely?

OBAMA: Absolutely.

SAWYER: If you don't, is it over for four years?

OBAMA: We're going get it done. So, I won't engage in hypotheticals in which we don't. And the reason its going get done is because the American People understand it has to get done. I travel all across the country. And I've done so for the last two years now. Every town I visit, every city I go, people ask me, you know, "Why is it that my premiums have gone up-- two, three times in the last nine, ten years? What can I do when my employer says to me, 'We just can't afford to provide health care anymore'?"

Governors who say Medicaid is-- breaking the bank. We're dealing here in Washington with a enormous federal deficit and debt that is largely driven by health care costs. So, with its families, businesses, or government, we know that we're going have to-- reform this system. And I'm confident that-- if everybody puts their minds to it, we can get it done.

SAWYER: I'd like to start with family experience of health care.

OBAMA: Right.

SAWYER: If I can. Because we hear over and over again, from both sides, from all sides, that we are locked in a vicious cycle of quantity not quality.

OBAMA: Right.

SAWYER: As one doctor wrote. We pay doctors for what they do to to patients, but not what they do for--

OBAMA: Right.

SAWYER: --patients. Is it time for Americans to recognize they're going to get fewer scans, fewer procedures, fewer tests, because the vicious cycle has to stop?

OBAMA: Well, I think what's important is to say to the American People that you should get the best possible care to make you well. And that the measure of the quality of care is not quantity, but whether or not it is making you better. Now, what we've seen is that there's some communities and some health systems that do this very well. Mayo Clinic, a classic example. In Rochester, Minnesota. People go there. They-- spend about 20-30 percent less than some other parts of the country, and yet have better outcomes.

And in other cases, you've got more spending, worse outcome. So, what we've said is let's put out the research. Let's study and figure out what works and what doesn't. And let's encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let's discourage what doesn't. Let's make sure that our payment incentives allow doctors to do the right thing. Because sometimes our payment incentives don't allow them to do the right things. And if we do that, then I'm confident that we can drive down costs significantly.

SAWYER: Will it just be encouragement? Or will there be a board making Solomonic decisions--

OBAMA: Well, what I-- what I--

SAWYER: --about best practices? And--

OBAMA: What I've suggested is-- is that we have a-- a commission that helps-- made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best-- best practices.

SAWYER: By law?

OBAMA: Well, what it does is-- that if we know what those best practices are, then I'm confident that doctors are going want to engage in best practices. But I'm also confident patients are going insist on it. Because one of the things they're going say is, "Well, gosh, Doctor. If-- if-- if-- what I'm hearing is, is that I just need one test instead of five. Am I paying for the other five?"

Employers are going start asking, when they're shopping around for health systems for their employees, "Are we getting the best deal possible?" So, I-- I think that-- we-- we shouldn't be overly cynical. In some cases, people just don't know what the best practices are. And certain cultures build up. And we can change those cultures, but it's going require some work.

Iranian Protesters Greatest Weapon: Video Cameras

It would seem the government in Iran has the upper hand with it's police and soldiers. But those protesting against the stolen election there have greatest weapon of all -- video cameras and the Internet.

If it were not for the videos and pictures being broadcast out of Iran over the Internet, the press would int he West wouldn't pay much attention. Remember the Tibetan protests of last year. We were all outraged up until the phone videos started drying up. Now we no longer talk about Tibet, again. And how about the genocide in Darfur, or the AIDs catastrophe in the rest of the African continent. It doesn't exist. No video, no attention.

The US government would, if it wants to help, and the Republicans keep running their mouths about how much their concerned, should fund operations that would surreptitously supply video cameras and internet ready phones to the protesters.

This is the weapon of the future.
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Obama News Conference Transcript 6-23-09

Read the complete transcript. Excerpt below:

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

Your administration has said that the offer to talk to Iran’s leaders remains open. Can you say if that’s still so even with all the violence that has been committed by the government against the peaceful protesters?

And if it is, is there any red line that your administration won’t cross where that offer will be shut off?

OBAMA: Well, obviously what’s happened in Iran is profound, and we’re still waiting to see how it plays itself out.

My position coming into this office has been that the United States has core national security interests in making sure that Iran doesn’t possess a nuclear weapon and it stops exporting terrorism outside of its borders.

We have provided a path whereby Iran can reach out to the international community, engage, and become a part of international norms.

It is up to them to make a decision as to whether they choose that path. What we’ve been saying over the last several days, the last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging in terms of the path that this regime may choose to take.

And the fact that they are now in the midst of an extraordinary debate taking place in Iran, you know, may end up coloring how they respond to the international community as a whole.

We are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any judgments about how we proceed. But to reiterate, there is a path available to Iran in which their sovereignty is respected, their traditions, their culture, their faith is respected, but one in which they are part of a larger community that has responsibilities and operates according to norms and international rules that are universal.

We don’t know how they’re going to respond yet, and that’s what we’re waiting to see.

QUESTION: So should there be consequences for what’s happened so far?

OBAMA: I think that the international community is, as I said before, bearing witness to what’s taking place. And the Iranian government should understand that how they handle the dissent within their own country, generated indigenously, internally, from the Iranian people, will help shape the tone, not only for Iran’s future, but also its relationship to other countries.

[...]QUESTION: Yes, I did, but I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions on tonight from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online. And one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of -- of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?

OBAMA: Well, look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground. We can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country.

What we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.

And so, ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States.

Video, Internet the key to Iranian Protest Movement

It is the Internet, that posts the video and pictures, that has made possible the popular uprising in Iran. Without those things there will be no revolution. The Iranian government knows that. The popular media in the West doesn't care about bloodshed or injustice if there is no video.

Protesters and security forces gather. They collide in a cloud of tear gas and a shower of rocks and bottles.

In most cases — when the battles are big and the stakes are high — journalists from around the world are there. But in the possibly history-shaping struggles now unfolding in Iran, the international media has been blocked from its normal front-line role and is quickly making adjustments to counter an official ban on firsthand reporting.

Instead of the main dispatches coming from the scenes, the equation has been greatly reversed. Many major news outlets now rely on phone calls, e-mails and Web chats — and other methods — to contact Iranian protesters and officials for information that bolsters the reports from colleagues in Tehran, who must remain in their offices.

The media clampdown also has been a test on other fronts: challenging the ability of authorities to control information in the Internet age and requiring editors and journalists to quickly decide what to pursue from the avalanche of rumors, tips and observations on social networking sites.

Some news organizations have added Farsi-speaking staff members to their usual coverage teams and stepped up attention to Web sites such as Twitter for comments and images that — if deemed credible — offer a wider view on the unfolding events.

Thomas Warhover, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, calls the social networks a "counterpart" to traditional reporting rather than a competitor.

"It's democratic impulses," he said. "People are going to find a way to be heard — new and exciting ways. That civil function is pretty incredible."

An international media corps remains in Tehran — mostly Iranians who work as reporters, photographers and camera operators for international or non-Iranians news organizations. But they are now being restricted to their offices, allowed only to conduct phone interviews or cite official sources such as state broadcasters.

The role of Twitter:

Social networking, a distinctly 21st-century phenomenon, has already been credited with aiding protests from the Republic of Georgia to Egypt to Iceland. And Twitter, the newest social-networking tool, has been identified with two mass protests in a matter of months — in Moldova in April and in Iran last week, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to oppose the official results of the presidential election.

But does the label Twitter Revolution, which has been slapped on the two most recent events, oversell the technology? Skeptics note that only a small number of people used Twitter to organize protests in Iran and that other means — individual text messaging, old-fashioned word of mouth and Farsi-language Web sites — were more influential. But Twitter did prove to be a crucial tool in the cat-and-mouse game between the opposition and the government over enlisting world opinion. As the Iranian government restricts journalists’ access to events, the protesters have used Twitter’s agile communication system to direct the public and journalists alike to video, photographs and written material related to the protests.

McCain: Obama has "Done Well" - Face the Nation Transcript (6-21-09)

Read the complete transcript of McCain's interview on Face the Nation. Excerpt below:

SCHIEFFER: So you want to see more detail. How do you think President Obama is doing so far?

MCCAIN: I think he’s done well. I think he has been -- If you want to look at a legislative scorecard, he has achieved literally every one of his legislative accomplishments. Unfortunately, it’s by picking off a couple of Republicans. It’s not been bipartisan.

So there really hasn’t been that change in the climate in Washington. But elections have consequences. On the issue of national security, I think the president is facing a major challenge here, North Korea and others. And it’s sort of an incomplete. Health care is another major challenge.

SCHIEFFER: What about health care?

MCCAIN: I’m on the health committee. We have been having these endless conversations and some amendments without two major portions of the bill -- with two major portions of the bill being blank. I’ve never seen anything like it since I’ve been in the Senate.

One on whether there will be government plan and whether employers will have to provide -- will be required to provide insurance to their employees. I mean, those are two major fundamental problems with the issue. The Finance Committee, the other committee as you know, has now said that they won’t come to a decision on how you pay for it until after the election. A real devastating blow to their plans was a Congressional Budget Office report last week that said the present plan -- the one we’re considering in the health committee -- would only ensure one-third of the uninsured and would cost $1 trillion.

On Iran:

What does the United States do then?

MCCAIN: Well, I think we’re faced with the same dilemma that we were during the Cold War, throughout centuries. If I could -- very briefly, Daniel Webster, one of the great senators in history, spoke about the Greek revolution in 1823.

MCCAIN: And he said when he was responding to people that said that mere rhetorical support would do no good, and I quote him, he said “I hope it may. It may give them courage in spirit. It may assure them of public regard, teach them that they’re not wholly forgotten by the civilized world, and inspire them with constancy in the pursuit of their great end.” And then he said, “whether it helped or not,” he said, “it was due to our character and called for by our own duty.”

Daniel Webster was right then. Ronald Reagan was right. Harry Truman was right. Scoop Jackson was right. Jack Kennedy was right when he said we’ll go anywhere and bear any burden.

The fact is that America has been and will be the beacon of hope and freedom. And we are not saying that the people who are now risking their lives and some giving them in the streets in cities -- of cities and towns in Iran, but we are saying we’re on their side as they seek freedom.

NY Times Reporter Escapes from Taliban Captivity

A small victory against the Taliban. This reporter is lucky not to be beheaded.

A New York Times reporter known for making investigative trips deep inside dangerous conflict zones escaped from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity by climbing over a wall, the newspaper said Saturday.

David S. Rohde was abducted Nov. 10 along with an Afghan reporter colleague and a driver south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been traveling through Logar province to interview a Taliban commander, but was apparently intercepted and taken by other militants on the way.

The Times reported that Rohde and Afghan reporter Tahi Ludin on Friday climbed over the wall of a compound where they were held captive in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

The two then found a Pakistani army scout, who led them to a nearby base, the Times said. On Saturday, the two were flown to the U.S. military base in Bagram, the Times reported.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Chrstine Sidenstricker, said the military had not been involved. She could not say whether the State Department or CIA had flown the two to the military facility.

Rohde, reported to be in good health, said his driver remained with their captors.

In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. is "very pleased" that Rohde is safe and returning home. He said the escape "marks the end of a long and difficult ordeal."

Afghan officials confirmed the kidnapping in the days after the abduction, but The Associated Press and most other Western news outlets respected a request from the Times to not report on the abductions because the publicity could negatively affect hostage rescue efforts and imperil Rohde's life.

"From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David's family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages. The kidnappers initially said as much," Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said in a story posted on the Times' Web site.

"We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David's plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support."

"We are very relieved that our New York Times colleague escaped safely, and this episode has ended happily," said AP Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski. "It was an unusual and difficult news judgment to withhold reporting on his abduction, but our practice is to avoid transmitting stories if we believe they endanger someone's life."

The Times said there had been "sporadic communication" from Rohde and his kidnappers during the last seven months but that no ransom money had been paid.

Kristen Mulvihill, Rohde's wife, told the Times that the two had been married for nine months, "and seven of those David has been in captivity." She thanked the Times, the U.S. government and "all the others" who helped the family during the kidnapping.

Rohde was on leave from the Times when he was taken. He had traveled to Afghanistan to work on a book about the history of American involvement in Afghanistan when he went to Logar to interview a Taliban commander. Before setting out, he notified the Times' bureau in Kabul on whom to notify if he did not return, the Times said.