In Englishhhh...
3 participants
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Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Sam 16 Oct - 10:29
Daschle: People "Don't Fully Appreciate" Health Care Reform - a moins qu'ils ne sachent exactement de quoi il retourne au contraire...
Harry Reid Now: "The Surge Worked" - il a du oublier de consulter les chiffres de cette semaine
Pelosi Won't Debate Opponent Because "Time Is Money" - C'est la meme personne qui depense plus de 10,000 dollars par an dans les fleurs pour son bureau.
From The Grave: Fmr. Sen. Ted Stevens Endorses Murkowski - la, faut demander a Fantome de la nuit si c'est vrai
Matthews: Attacks On Obama Have Are "Tribal"
- No comment... si ca avait ete dit sur FOX News 
mais bon, avec Matthews on peut s'attendre a tout.
Biden: Obama Has A "Brain Bigger Than His Skull" - avec Biden aussi.
etc...
Il faut ecouter les representants de l'opposition, c'est suppose etre tres interessant!
Harry Reid Now: "The Surge Worked" - il a du oublier de consulter les chiffres de cette semaine
Pelosi Won't Debate Opponent Because "Time Is Money" - C'est la meme personne qui depense plus de 10,000 dollars par an dans les fleurs pour son bureau.
From The Grave: Fmr. Sen. Ted Stevens Endorses Murkowski - la, faut demander a Fantome de la nuit si c'est vrai
Matthews: Attacks On Obama Have Are "Tribal"
- No comment... si ca avait ete dit sur FOX News mais bon, avec Matthews on peut s'attendre a tout.Biden: Obama Has A "Brain Bigger Than His Skull" - avec Biden aussi.
etc...
Il faut ecouter les representants de l'opposition, c'est suppose etre tres interessant!
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Sam 16 Oct - 11:28
Arabs May Ask UN to Recognize Palestinian State
Published October 15, 2010
| Associated Press
BRUSSELS -- Arab nations may seek U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, if Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, Egypt's foreign minister said Friday.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit said an Arab League request to the U.N. may come next month.
Published October 15, 2010
| Associated Press
BRUSSELS -- Arab nations may seek U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, if Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, Egypt's foreign minister said Friday.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit said an Arab League request to the U.N. may come next month.
- Spoiler:
2010 AFP
Egypt's foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit says Arab nations may seek an alternative option to the peace process if Israel doesn't place a freeze on settlements.
"If Israel does not respect the settlements freeze," Gheit said, "the Arab League will study some other option aside from the peace process such as going to the United Nations and ask for the recognition of the Palestinian state."
Gheit spoke as he arrived at a Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting in Brussels. The group is made up of two dozen nations and international institutions committed to stabilize Pakistan with long-term economic support.
U.S.-sponsored, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed last month after a hiatus of nearly two years. But they already have run aground over Israel's refusal to renew a moratorium on West Bank settlement construction.
On Thursday night, Israel's government said it has approved the building of 238 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, ending a nearly yearlong, unofficial freeze on new building there.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Supreme Court Justice Alito Plans to Skip Next State of Union Address
Sylvette Dim 17 Oct - 9:40
Supreme Court Justice Alito Plans to Skip Next State of Union Address
Published October 16, 2010
| Associated Press
When Supreme Court justices enter the House of Representatives in their black robes for the president's next State of the Union address, Samuel Alito does not plan to be among them.
The justice said the annual speech to Congress has become very political and awkward for the justices, who he says are expected to sit "like the proverbial potted plant."
Published October 16, 2010
| Associated Press
When Supreme Court justices enter the House of Representatives in their black robes for the president's next State of the Union address, Samuel Alito does not plan to be among them.
The justice said the annual speech to Congress has become very political and awkward for the justices, who he says are expected to sit "like the proverbial potted plant."
- Spoiler:
Jan. 27: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, left, and Chief Justice John Roberts arrive for the State of the Union address. (AP)
Of course, Alito did not remain impassive at the most recent State of the Union speech by President Barack Obama. He reacted to Obama's unusual rebuke of the court for its decision in a campaign finance case by shaking his head and mouthing the words "not true."
The 60-year-old justice, an appointee of President George W. Bush, acknowledged with a smile that his colleagues "who are more disciplined refrain from manifesting any emotion or opinion whatsoever."
Alito, answering questions following a speech Wednesday at the conservative Manhattan Institute in New York, also said, "Presidents will fake you out." The institute provided an online video link to Alito's talk and question-and-answer session.
The president will begin a sentence with an invocation of the country's greatness, Alito said. If justices don't jump up and applaud, "you look very unpatriotic," he said.
But, Alito continued, then the president may finish the thought by adding "because we're conducting a surge in Iraq or because we're enacting health care reform." Justices aren't supposed to react to statements about policy or politics.
The better course, Alito said, is to follow the example of more experienced justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the recently retired John Paul Stevens. None has attended in several years.
"So I doubt that I will be there in January," Alito said.
At least one justice, Stephen Breyer, has said he was not bothered by Obama's criticism and believes justices should attend so that viewers can see the three branches of government represented in the same room.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Dim 17 Oct - 12:14
Notre Nancy nationale 
GOP cash flow threatens to swamp Dems
By ALEX ISENSTADT | 10/16/10 11:05 PM
Ou est donc passe le sourire surfait?
GOP cash flow threatens to swamp Dems
By ALEX ISENSTADT | 10/16/10 11:05 PM
Ou est donc passe le sourire surfait?
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Threat Response
Sylvette Dim 17 Oct - 15:50
Imaginez une seconde qu'un president metis, se "produise" devant une assemblee d'etudiants uniquement blancs dans une universite "Blanche" et leur demande d'aller voter pour lui pour prouver aux non-Blancs qu'ils ont tort et pour que ce meme president ne perde pas la face, QUE DIRAIENT NOS MEDIA?
mais la... pour Obama, c'est ok pas de probleme, pas question de racisme. Seulement ceux qui ne partagent pas ses idees sont racistes!
Threat Response
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: October 15, 2010
The president and fellow Democrats have taken a page from the Republican playbook. They’re unabashedly using racial-solidarity politics to animate voters. In this case, the Democrats’ appeal is to black voters, the most unwavering portion of President Obama’s base, and the message is simple: The president is under attack, and black voters must mobilize to protect him.
mais la... pour Obama, c'est ok pas de probleme, pas question de racisme. Seulement ceux qui ne partagent pas ses idees sont racistes!
Threat Response
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: October 15, 2010
The president and fellow Democrats have taken a page from the Republican playbook. They’re unabashedly using racial-solidarity politics to animate voters. In this case, the Democrats’ appeal is to black voters, the most unwavering portion of President Obama’s base, and the message is simple: The president is under attack, and black voters must mobilize to protect him.
- Spoiler:
The Democratic National Committee is spending an unprecedented $3 million on advertising aimed at African-Americans for the midterms this year. As part of that effort, the committee has cut a new radio ad featuring the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the civil rights leader, that outlines the threat and the call to action: “When young people took to the streets, we elected our first African-American president. Right now, there are those doing everything in their power to block the president’s agenda. And that’s why we’re counting on you to vote. In 2008, we changed the guard. This year, we must guard the change.”
Other ads, on black radio and in black newspapers, simply extol their audiences to “stand with President Obama.”
These ads aren’t about policy. They’re personal appeals on behalf of the president. You don’t have to be engaged to get it. This November you’re voting for Obama, again.
As Politico noted this week, “the White House has hesitated to cast the midterm elections as a referendum on President Barack Obama, except when it comes to one key constituency: African-American voters.”
This strategy could prove extremely effective.
A report issued Thursday by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies outlines the fact that black voters are “strategically situated in 2010 to have a major impact” because (1) there is “a significant number of black voters in the states and districts where many of the most competitive elections will be held” and (2) “there is a president who is very popular with African-Americans and who is under attack from Congressional Republicans.”
And Friday, The Washington Post reported that a poll by that newspaper, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that “80 percent of black Democrats are as interested or more interested in the midterms than they were in the 2008 presidential election.”
A large black turnout next month could prove decisive and upset the predictions of most pundits. If blacks do turn out in record numbers, it would almost certainly be because they are drawn out by their devotion to Obama, a devotion he’s counting on.
As the president told an audience last week at Bowie State University, a historically black college, in Maryland: “I think the pundits are wrong. But it’s up to you to prove them wrong. Don’t make me look bad, now.”
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
charly Dim 17 Oct - 16:01
Sylvette a écrit:Imaginez une seconde qu'un president metis, se "produise" devant une assemblee d'etudiants uniquement blancs dans une universite "Blanche" et leur demande d'aller voter pour lui pour prouver aux non-Blancs qu'ils ont tort et pour que ce meme president ne perde pas la face, QUE DIRAIENT NOS MEDIA?
mais la... pour Obama, c'est ok pas de probleme, pas question de racisme. Seulement ceux qui ne partagent pas ses idees sont racistes!
Threat Response
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: October 15, 2010
The president and fellow Democrats have taken a page from the Republican playbook. They’re unabashedly using racial-solidarity politics to animate voters. In this case, the Democrats’ appeal is to black voters, the most unwavering portion of President Obama’s base, and the message is simple: The president is under attack, and black voters must mobilize to protect him.
- Spoiler:
The Democratic National Committee is spending an unprecedented $3 million on advertising aimed at African-Americans for the midterms this year. As part of that effort, the committee has cut a new radio ad featuring the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the civil rights leader, that outlines the threat and the call to action: “When young people took to the streets, we elected our first African-American president. Right now, there are those doing everything in their power to block the president’s agenda. And that’s why we’re counting on you to vote. In 2008, we changed the guard. This year, we must guard the change.”
Other ads, on black radio and in black newspapers, simply extol their audiences to “stand with President Obama.”
These ads aren’t about policy. They’re personal appeals on behalf of the president. You don’t have to be engaged to get it. This November you’re voting for Obama, again.
As Politico noted this week, “the White House has hesitated to cast the midterm elections as a referendum on President Barack Obama, except when it comes to one key constituency: African-American voters.”
This strategy could prove extremely effective.
A report issued Thursday by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies outlines the fact that black voters are “strategically situated in 2010 to have a major impact” because (1) there is “a significant number of black voters in the states and districts where many of the most competitive elections will be held” and (2) “there is a president who is very popular with African-Americans and who is under attack from Congressional Republicans.”
And Friday, The Washington Post reported that a poll by that newspaper, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that “80 percent of black Democrats are as interested or more interested in the midterms than they were in the 2008 presidential election.”
A large black turnout next month could prove decisive and upset the predictions of most pundits. If blacks do turn out in record numbers, it would almost certainly be because they are drawn out by their devotion to Obama, a devotion he’s counting on.
As the president told an audience last week at Bowie State University, a historically black college, in Maryland: “I think the pundits are wrong. But it’s up to you to prove them wrong. Don’t make me look bad, now.”
J'ai mieux compris parce que tu as mis une notice en Français.
Sinon,l'Anglais parlé,je comprends beaucoup,mais l'écrit,c'est difficile
pour moi.
Il faudrait que je le lise 2 ou 3 x.
J'ai appris l'Anglais un peu à l'école,mais surtout en le parlant à l'armée où
nous étions en contact constant avec un régiment d'artilerie US .
En effet,on se demande même s'il a toutes ses neurones.
Rien que d'aborder le sujet de cette manière n'est pas "pédagogique" et
dénote d'un manque de "tact".
charly- Messages : 799
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 77
Localisation : Province de Liège
The Democrats' brutal weekend
Sylvette Lun 18 Oct - 12:35
Charly c'est formidable que vous ayez garde ce que vous avez appris en anglais a l'armee, vous avez assez souvent l'occasion de le pratiquer? Ma premiere langue etrangere etait l'allemand, j'ai malheureusement beaucoup oublie. C'est dommage.
En tout cas, ca me fait plaisir que vous veniez ici.
==========
et Gibb, le porte-parole de Monsieur O qui insiste a essayer de nous faire croire que ca n'a rien, mais alors rien a voir avec son president. Ils continuent vraiment a nous prendre pour des buses.
Je ne sais pas si les Republicains vont reellement reprendre le Congres ou au moins la Chambre des Representants, bien que ce soit la conclusion de beaucoup de specialistes de sondages, mais bien evidemment que les mauvais resultats pour les Democrates a ce jour sont une expression de la non-acceptation par une large majorite d'Americains (et evidemment puisque ce sont eux qui decident des elections) des centristes de ce qui a ete passe par la force sur les ordres de Monsieur O au Congres avec les resultats desastreux pour le deficit que les connait et le manque total d'amelioration de l'economie US et des chiffres du chomage!
Ceci dit, lorsque Monsieur O debite ses discours il se flatte d'avoir realise justement ce que tant lui reprochent, en particulier Obamacare. On peut se demander s'il ne parle qu'a ceux de la gauche (pour lesquels d'ailleurs il n'a pas fait assez) ou au reste du pays et alors la... il n'a encore rien compris au probleme.
The Democrats' brutal weekend
In the eyes of the experts, the House Democratic majority most likely won’t survive Nov. 2 | AP Photo CloseBy JAMES HOHMANN | 10/17/10 6:10 PM EDT
Updated: 10/18/10 5:06 AM EDT
More bad polls. More bad fundraising numbers. More dreary talk on the Sunday shows.
It added up to a brutal weekend for Democrats, as the consensus among election analysts, already bearish on the party’s prospects, took a turn for the worse over the past 48 hours.
En tout cas, ca me fait plaisir que vous veniez ici.
==========
et Gibb, le porte-parole de Monsieur O qui insiste a essayer de nous faire croire que ca n'a rien, mais alors rien a voir avec son president. Ils continuent vraiment a nous prendre pour des buses.
Je ne sais pas si les Republicains vont reellement reprendre le Congres ou au moins la Chambre des Representants, bien que ce soit la conclusion de beaucoup de specialistes de sondages, mais bien evidemment que les mauvais resultats pour les Democrates a ce jour sont une expression de la non-acceptation par une large majorite d'Americains (et evidemment puisque ce sont eux qui decident des elections) des centristes de ce qui a ete passe par la force sur les ordres de Monsieur O au Congres avec les resultats desastreux pour le deficit que les connait et le manque total d'amelioration de l'economie US et des chiffres du chomage!
Ceci dit, lorsque Monsieur O debite ses discours il se flatte d'avoir realise justement ce que tant lui reprochent, en particulier Obamacare. On peut se demander s'il ne parle qu'a ceux de la gauche (pour lesquels d'ailleurs il n'a pas fait assez) ou au reste du pays et alors la... il n'a encore rien compris au probleme.
The Democrats' brutal weekend
In the eyes of the experts, the House Democratic majority most likely won’t survive Nov. 2 | AP Photo Close
Updated: 10/18/10 5:06 AM EDT
More bad polls. More bad fundraising numbers. More dreary talk on the Sunday shows.
It added up to a brutal weekend for Democrats, as the consensus among election analysts, already bearish on the party’s prospects, took a turn for the worse over the past 48 hours.
- Spoiler:
In the eyes of the experts, the House Democratic majority most likely won’t survive Nov. 2, with political handicappers expanding their predictions to envision the possibility of a Democratic wipeout.
Analyst Stu Rothenberg pegs the number of competitive seats at 100. Charlie Cook says it's 97. Virtually all of those seats are held by Democrats.
Rothenberg is predicting a likely Republican gain of 40 to 50 seats, with 60 seats possible. Republicans need a net pickup of 39 seats to take the House.
One House Democrat, reflecting widespread conversations with his colleagues, guessed Sunday that his party will lose 50 seats. Many, he said, are calling with urgent pleas for more contributions.
The Senate may stay in Democratic hands — but only by the narrowest of margins, so slim that it will make a handful of moderates from both parties the only people who will decide whether anything gets done.
Key races in blue states slipped further from the Republicans’ grasp, and Senate Republicans’ campaign chief, John Cornyn, declined to predict on "Fox News Sunday" that his party will win the upper chamber.
That’s what passed for good news for Democrats, on a weekend when the money followed the GOP momentum at full gallop. In the House, at least 40 House Democrats were outraised by GOP opponents. In the Senate, the Republican candidate had the third-quarter fundraising edge in all but three of the top 20 races, according to a POLITICO review of campaign finance data.
Republicans in these marquee races also are sitting on stockpiles of cash for the stretch run — $50 million in all, a $16 million edge over their Democratic Senate rivals.
Entering the final two weeks, it seemed that no serious Republican hopeful would go wanting for cash — between their own fundraising, party committees and the independent conservative groups like American Crossroads, which pledged to join with other GOP groups to spend $50 million on TV ads slamming House Democrats.
Some of these groups have turned their attention to even second- and third-tier GOP candidates hoping to catch some Democrats by surprise — or at least lure some Democratic dollars away from more winnable races.
National Republican Congressional Committee Communications Director Ken Spain said Sunday that his committee is in the process of spending $50 million on TV ads in 70 districts. He says the NRCC has outspent the DCCC during each of the past seven weeks.
Remaining defiant, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs predicted flatly on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Democrats would retain the House and Senate because voters are becoming more engaged in the final weeks. He pointed to the tens of thousands who have attended rallies in Massachusetts on Saturday and Ohio on Sunday.
Gibbs backtracked from his comments when he appeared on the show in July and said Democrats could lose the House.
"There's no question it is a tough and challenging political environment," Gibbs said Sunday. "We're the beneficiary of a lot of political real estate after 2006 and 2008 that haven't been held by Democrats for a long period of time. But look, I think that campaigns in this cycle are being run on a lot of local issues and issues that are important, not nationally, but to individual states and independent, independent — individual congressional districts."
President Barack Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod didn’t sound as optimistic as Gibbs, predicting on CNN’s “State of the Union” only that “the Republicans will have more seats in Congress regardless of whether they have control or not."
Obama was stumping in Columbus, Ohio, Sunday, but even he is struggling to close the enthusiasm gap. A poll released Sunday by The Associated Press and Knowledge Networks showed many voters who supported Obama in 2008 on track to stay home or support Republicans. One quarter of those who cast ballots for Obama are planning to or thinking about voting Republican this year, according to the poll.
And a National Public Radio survey of likely voters that was released Friday showed that Republican candidates lead in 53 competitive House districts now held by Democrats.
In the Senate, three of the most endangered Democratic incumbents — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas — were outraised by their GOP challengers.
Still, the few bright spots for Democrats were all in the Senate. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee posted a record fundraising quarter this week. Embattled Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was able to surpass deep-pocketed Oshkosh plastics manufacturer Ron Johnson, having raised around $4.2 million
And Democrats outraised Republicans in two races the GOP could use to get a majority.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) took in about $700,000 more than Republican Ken Buck. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), whose $6.2 million haul marked the best performance of any Senate candidate in her party, outraised Republican Carly Fiorina by around $300,000.
Bennet and Boxer wins would go a long way toward denying Republicans the Senate — a task already made harder for the GOP by Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal’s improved showing and by Delaware’s Chris Coons’s double-digit lead over Republican tea party hopeful Christine O’Donnell. O’Donnell has complained about a lack of help from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
"I don't think there's a scenario where the Republicans take control of the United States Senate if I'm successful in this Senate seat,” Coons said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And I've been told that's a critical strategic concern for folks who are looking at this race from outside."
The NRSC’s Cornyn sought to dampen expectations for Republican gains during his Sunday Fox News appearance.
“We’re going to fight for every seat we can possibly get,” he said. “I’m not predicting we're going to get back to the majority. It may be a two-cycle process.”
Chris Frates, David Catanese, Mike Allen and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the amount Sen. Russ Feingold raised during the third quarter. His total exceeded that of Ron Johnson, his GOP opponent.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Dems Find Careers Threatened by Obamacare Votes
Sylvette Lun 18 Oct - 13:20
Dems Find Careers Threatened by Obamacare Votes
By Michael Barone
Seven months ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent a busy week rounding up votes to pass the Senate version of the Democrats' health care legislation.
It wasn't easy. She had to get Democrats who had voted no in November to switch to yes in March. And she had to get Democrats who had refused to vote for the bill in November without an anti-abortion amendment to vote for a bill in March that lacked that language.
...
At least they're running, which is more than can be said for Bart Stupak of Michigan 1, the chief sponsor of the anti-abortion amendment that he forced onto the House bill in November. Just hours before the March roll call, he was persuaded that an executive order, which he was assured Barack Obama would sign, would have the same effect.
Legal experts and strong abortion opponents disagreed. But Stupak cast a critical vote for the bill, as did five other Democrats widely referred to as "the Stupak five," who flanked him at his press conference. If these six votes had gone the other way, Obama would have been defeated.
Stupak promptly announced he was retiring after 18 years...
Suite ...
By Michael Barone
Seven months ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent a busy week rounding up votes to pass the Senate version of the Democrats' health care legislation.
It wasn't easy. She had to get Democrats who had voted no in November to switch to yes in March. And she had to get Democrats who had refused to vote for the bill in November without an anti-abortion amendment to vote for a bill in March that lacked that language.
...
At least they're running, which is more than can be said for Bart Stupak of Michigan 1, the chief sponsor of the anti-abortion amendment that he forced onto the House bill in November. Just hours before the March roll call, he was persuaded that an executive order, which he was assured Barack Obama would sign, would have the same effect.
Legal experts and strong abortion opponents disagreed. But Stupak cast a critical vote for the bill, as did five other Democrats widely referred to as "the Stupak five," who flanked him at his press conference. If these six votes had gone the other way, Obama would have been defeated.
Stupak promptly announced he was retiring after 18 years...
Suite ...
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
charly Lun 18 Oct - 17:56
Oui,Sylvette,nous parlions l'Anglais des soldats US,qui n'est pas très académique,mais avec ce que j'ai retenu,je sais tenir une conversation ordinaire avec quelqu'un qui
ne connaît pas le Français.
J'ai aussi quelques notions d'Allemand,vu que nous sommes à 15 km de la frontière
qui n'existe plus.Donc,tous les frontaliers parlent les 2 langues.
A l'école,nous avions comme 2ème langue l'Anglais,et 3ème (accessoirement),
l'Allemand qui se faisait pendant l'après-midi de congé le mercredi.
Mon père a insisté pour que je suive les cours d'Allemand facultatifs,car il disait
que si les Allemands ont perdu la guerre,et tout étant démoli chez eux,ils bénéficiaient
des retombées du plan Marshall ,que le pays serait remis à neuf,et qu'ils seraient
vite la première puissance industrielle et économique d'Europe.
Et dans les années '50,papa avait déjà raison.
Pour en revenir à ton sujet,chez vous le choix est gauche ou droite (en gros).
Ici,le socialisme vit par ses électeurs ouvriers et employés qui votent à
gauche par tradition.
Le socialisme a toujours fait partie de l'équipe au pouvoir depuis le début du
20ème siècle et il a encore de beaux jours devant lui.
Cà tourne même au fanatisme!
Donc aucune comparaison possible avec les EU et même avec la France.
ne connaît pas le Français.
J'ai aussi quelques notions d'Allemand,vu que nous sommes à 15 km de la frontière
qui n'existe plus.Donc,tous les frontaliers parlent les 2 langues.
A l'école,nous avions comme 2ème langue l'Anglais,et 3ème (accessoirement),
l'Allemand qui se faisait pendant l'après-midi de congé le mercredi.
Mon père a insisté pour que je suive les cours d'Allemand facultatifs,car il disait
que si les Allemands ont perdu la guerre,et tout étant démoli chez eux,ils bénéficiaient
des retombées du plan Marshall ,que le pays serait remis à neuf,et qu'ils seraient
vite la première puissance industrielle et économique d'Europe.
Et dans les années '50,papa avait déjà raison.
Pour en revenir à ton sujet,chez vous le choix est gauche ou droite (en gros).
Ici,le socialisme vit par ses électeurs ouvriers et employés qui votent à
gauche par tradition.
Le socialisme a toujours fait partie de l'équipe au pouvoir depuis le début du
20ème siècle et il a encore de beaux jours devant lui.
Cà tourne même au fanatisme!
Donc aucune comparaison possible avec les EU et même avec la France.
charly- Messages : 799
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 77
Localisation : Province de Liège
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Lun 18 Oct - 19:10
Votre Papa avait en effet bien raison.
Je dois avouer que si je n'etais pas d'accord pour apprendre l'allemand en 2eme langue (mon frere avait epouse une anglaise et j'etais plus attire par la G.B. et avait plus l'occasion d'y aller), je me suis raisonnee en me disant qu'apres tout, ce serait une bonne chose que je comprenne ce qu'ils disent s'ils leur reprenaiet l'envie de repasser la frontiere.
Pour en revenir à ton sujet,chez vous le choix est gauche ou droite (en gros).
Ici,le socialisme vit par ses électeurs ouvriers et employés qui votent à
gauche par tradition.
C'est ce que les Democrates essayent de faire entrer dans le crane des "cols bleus" et des minorites: nous sommes votre parti (Rangel est meme alle jusqu'a traiter ceux qui passent de l'autre cote de la barre des traites) , votez pour nous on prendra soin de vous... Pendant ce temps, les syndicats mettent les grandes societes sur la paille comme ca a ete le cas dans l'industrie automobile et plus generalement pour des etats comme la Californie et plusieurs autres du Nord.
Le socialisme a toujours fait partie de l'équipe au pouvoir depuis le début du
20ème siècle et il a encore de beaux jours devant lui.
Cà tourne même au fanatisme!
Donc aucune comparaison possible avec les EU et même avec la France.
C'est un fait que le socialisme n'est pas accepte par les electeurs de droite un des gros problemes de Bush avec ceux qui l'avaient elus etait qu'il a trop creuse le deficit en augmentant le nombre des employes gouvernementaux et les benefices pour les personnes agees et en donnant son accord au premier "stimulus", creusant ainsi le deficit.
Un homme de gauche est vu comme un depensier qui n'a comme qu'une solution augmenter les impots pour combler les caisses etc La coalition politique avec un president d'un bord et un gouvernement d'un autre n'existe pas en effet, tout juste avons-nous un president d'un parti et un Congres de l'autre.
Ceci dit les ideologies de la gauche sont tres semblables a ce qu'on retrouve en France, en Belgique je n'oserais pas dire, je ne connais pas assez.
Vous parlez de fanatisme, lorsque Kerry (l'ancien candidat presidentiel Democrate) est en train d'essayer de faire passer une loi pour que le gouvernement puisse se servir dans les comptes des gens qui se sont faits leur propre retraite parce qu'il n'y a pas assez d'argent dans les caisses gouvernementales pour payer les pensions. c'est plus que du fanatisme c'est de l'hysterie!
Je dois avouer que si je n'etais pas d'accord pour apprendre l'allemand en 2eme langue (mon frere avait epouse une anglaise et j'etais plus attire par la G.B. et avait plus l'occasion d'y aller), je me suis raisonnee en me disant qu'apres tout, ce serait une bonne chose que je comprenne ce qu'ils disent s'ils leur reprenaiet l'envie de repasser la frontiere.
Pour en revenir à ton sujet,chez vous le choix est gauche ou droite (en gros).
Ici,le socialisme vit par ses électeurs ouvriers et employés qui votent à
gauche par tradition.
C'est ce que les Democrates essayent de faire entrer dans le crane des "cols bleus" et des minorites: nous sommes votre parti (Rangel est meme alle jusqu'a traiter ceux qui passent de l'autre cote de la barre des traites) , votez pour nous on prendra soin de vous... Pendant ce temps, les syndicats mettent les grandes societes sur la paille comme ca a ete le cas dans l'industrie automobile et plus generalement pour des etats comme la Californie et plusieurs autres du Nord.
Le socialisme a toujours fait partie de l'équipe au pouvoir depuis le début du
20ème siècle et il a encore de beaux jours devant lui.
Cà tourne même au fanatisme!
Donc aucune comparaison possible avec les EU et même avec la France.
C'est un fait que le socialisme n'est pas accepte par les electeurs de droite un des gros problemes de Bush avec ceux qui l'avaient elus etait qu'il a trop creuse le deficit en augmentant le nombre des employes gouvernementaux et les benefices pour les personnes agees et en donnant son accord au premier "stimulus", creusant ainsi le deficit.
Un homme de gauche est vu comme un depensier qui n'a comme qu'une solution augmenter les impots pour combler les caisses etc La coalition politique avec un president d'un bord et un gouvernement d'un autre n'existe pas en effet, tout juste avons-nous un president d'un parti et un Congres de l'autre.
Ceci dit les ideologies de la gauche sont tres semblables a ce qu'on retrouve en France, en Belgique je n'oserais pas dire, je ne connais pas assez.
Vous parlez de fanatisme, lorsque Kerry (l'ancien candidat presidentiel Democrate) est en train d'essayer de faire passer une loi pour que le gouvernement puisse se servir dans les comptes des gens qui se sont faits leur propre retraite parce qu'il n'y a pas assez d'argent dans les caisses gouvernementales pour payer les pensions. c'est plus que du fanatisme c'est de l'hysterie!
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
charly Lun 18 Oct - 19:40
Tout-à-fait,
C'est ce qu'on reproche aux socialiste,ici on dit "la rage taxatoire"
Ils ne connaissent rien d'autre.
Ils ne cherchent pas d'autres solutions,c'est la plus facile.
Ce qui fait leur force en Belgique,c'est le nombre de voix de préférence.
Chaque mandataire fait tellement de bien et de plaisirs personnels à
de petites gens que son élection est garantie.
Ils ne s'adressent pas à la masse,mais à chacun en particulier,puis
l'effet "boule de neige" fait son travail.
C'est ce qu'on reproche aux socialiste,ici on dit "la rage taxatoire"
Ils ne connaissent rien d'autre.
Ils ne cherchent pas d'autres solutions,c'est la plus facile.
Ce qui fait leur force en Belgique,c'est le nombre de voix de préférence.
Chaque mandataire fait tellement de bien et de plaisirs personnels à
de petites gens que son élection est garantie.
Ils ne s'adressent pas à la masse,mais à chacun en particulier,puis
l'effet "boule de neige" fait son travail.
charly- Messages : 799
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 77
Localisation : Province de Liège
Obama: Voters "Scared", Not Thinking Clearly About Election
Sylvette Lun 18 Oct - 21:12
Meme topo, et puis il y a les syndicats. Notre fille est enseignante et qu'elle le veuille ou non, elle doit se syndiquer! La gauche tient l'enseignement bien serre.
=========
En plus, quand on n'est pas d'accord avec eux, ils vous insultent... Enfin bon, c'est tout de meme un peu minable pour un president. Les electeurs ont peur, ils ne pensent pas clairement S'il y en a un qui ne comprend pas, c'est lui! Mais il a l'arrogance de l'elite gauchiste, il sait ce qui est bon pour les Americains mieux qu'ils ne le savent eux-memes.
Depuis le debut j'ai dit qu'il etait un gauchiste extremiste et que ses idees ne calquaient absolument pas celles de la majorite des Americains.
Obama: Voters "Scared", Not Thinking clearly About Election
Published October 18, 2010
| FoxNews.com
Americans are so "scared" they're not thinking straight about the upcoming elections, President Obama said over the weekend, as he sought to explain why voters are turning to Republican candidates.
=========
En plus, quand on n'est pas d'accord avec eux, ils vous insultent... Enfin bon, c'est tout de meme un peu minable pour un president. Les electeurs ont peur, ils ne pensent pas clairement
S'il y en a un qui ne comprend pas, c'est lui! Mais il a l'arrogance de l'elite gauchiste, il sait ce qui est bon pour les Americains mieux qu'ils ne le savent eux-memes.Depuis le debut j'ai dit qu'il etait un gauchiste extremiste et que ses idees ne calquaient absolument pas celles de la majorite des Americains.
Obama: Voters "Scared", Not Thinking clearly About Election
Published October 18, 2010
| FoxNews.com
Americans are so "scared" they're not thinking straight about the upcoming elections, President Obama said over the weekend, as he sought to explain why voters are turning to Republican candidates.
- Spoiler:
The president, speaking at several rallies and fundraisers as part of his final get-out-the-vote stretch, said Republican candidates are "playing on fear" and suggested voters are falling for it. He said Americans have every reason to be worried, but lamented that "facts" aren't doing his party any good this year.
"People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared. And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared," Obama said at a Democratic fundraiser Saturday in Boston. "And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be."
The president is trying to fire up the base and drive up turnout to help minimize the party's expected losses in Congress come Nov. 2. He's scheduled a series of rallies in states he won in the 2008 presidential election and is using them to warn about the direction a Republican-led Congress would take the country.
Obama said Saturday that voters can respond to their "trauma" by either "looking backwards" or looking "forward."
The rhetorical development comes after Obama and the Democratic Party raised alarm about the possibility that foreign contributions could be making their way into the U.S. elections. They suggested groups like the Chamber of Commerce were guilty of this, though they did not offer proof and were quickly rebuffed by the Chamber.
The president touched again on this theme Sunday night at an Ohio rally, where he warned about the influence of "special interests that would profit from the other side's agenda."
"They're fighting back. The Empire is striking back," Obama said to laughter.
At the same rally, where he was joined by first lady Michelle Obama, he described the election as "a contest between our deepest hopes and our deepest fears."
"And the other side is playing on fear," he said. "That's what they do."
But some have accused the White House of turning to cheap tactics to draw voters in the final leg.
Chamber Vice President R. Bruce Josten accused Obama of playing the "fear" card himself in a bid to "change the subject" at a time when the polls are tilted against Democrats.
"We are playing clean. We're abiding by the law. He knows that," Josten told Fox News. "Why they continue to kind of toss up this fear of foreign money can only be to distract and divert attention."
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Morning Jay: Obama's Dime Store Sociology, Grijalva In Trouble, and New Polling Data!
Sylvette Lun 18 Oct - 22:06
Morning Jay: Obama's Dime Store Sociology, Grijalva In Trouble, and New Polling Data!
1. Obama’s Dime Store Sociology. This recent story from Politico caught my attention.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
President Barack Obama said Americans' "fear and frustration" is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.
"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”
1. Obama’s Dime Store Sociology. This recent story from Politico caught my attention.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
President Barack Obama said Americans' "fear and frustration" is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.
"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”
- Spoiler:
Not the first time we’ve heard comments like this. Remember these comments about the Israeli people?
<BLOCKQUOTE>
During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that "some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion."</BLOCKQUOTE>
And who could forget this shot at the bitter clingers of small town Pennsylvania?
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.</BLOCKQUOTE>
This kind of dime store sociological explanation is pretty common for the president, despite the fact that it landed him in hot water back in the spring of 2008. These comments have three traits in common.
(a) He doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. Obama might seem like a sociological expert, but he really just plays one on television. For instance, explaining the cultural conservatism of small town Pennsylvania as an artifact of economic decline sounds extremely ill-informed to anybody with at least passing familiarity of the subject.
(b) Hardships generate a false consciousness that always seems to manifest itself as irrational opposition to...Obama. As far as Obama is concerned, the fact that the country is disappointed with his performance is not a sign that he hasn’t done what he promised, but that the country is not thinking clearly.
(c) He turns fellow citizens into sociological subjects. It is one thing for a professor doing a study to treat other human beings as subjects; it’s another for the president of the United States to do it. There is a condescending, anti-republican quality to these statements. Rather than take opposition at face value – President Obama locates the hidden causes behind it, causes that his fellow citizens do not even understand themselves.
This is a terribly bad habit of President Obama's. It comes across as arrogant and condescending, and it doesn’t do a thing to help persuade people.
2. Latest Sign of the Dempocalypse.Wow. This ad courtesy of the Hill:
Ruth McClung is challenging Democrat Raul Grijalva, who represents Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District, which stretches across the southwest corner of the state. It gave both Obama and Kerry 57% of the vote, and is majority Hispanic.
And yet the DCCC has dropped a negative ad in the district. That’s the kind of year this is.
3. NPR Poll. This poll has grabbed plenty of attention:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
GOP candidates have a four-point edge among likely voters in the 53 most competitive congressional districts held by Democrats, and they're tied with Democrats in an additional 33 seats that make up a group of the next-most-competitive Democratic-held seats, the new NPR Battleground Survey found. Forty-eight percent of voters on the first "tier" said they planned on voting Republican on Nov. 2, while 44 percent said they planned to back a Democrat. The voters in this tier reside in 53 currently Democratic seats rated as "likely Republican," "lean Republican" or "toss-up" by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Five percent were undecided. </BLOCKQUOTE>
It squares pretty well with the generic ballot numbers we have been seeing. It’s important, however, not to take these numbers at face value. After all, we can’t know what this means for any particular district based on aggregate results.
Personally, I think the generic ballot is a much more informative metric. It can't tell us about specific districts, either, but we can compare it to history and get a sense of what it means for seat switches this year.
4. Obama Voters Bailing? Another poll that has been making waves:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Nearly two years after putting Obama in the White House, one-quarter of those who voted for the Democrat are defecting to the GOP or considering voting against the party in power this fall. Just half of them say they definitely will show up Nov. 2, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released two weeks before Obama's first midterm elections.
Yet in a reflection of broad dissatisfaction with politics, just as many people who backed Republican presidential nominee John McCain are either supporting Democrats now or still considering how to vote.</BLOCKQUOTE>
I’m not sure why this is such big news. These kinds of numbers are pretty typical when the macro forces are against an incumbent party as much as they are lined up against the Democrats this cycle.
Consider, for instance, this bit of data from the 2008 national exit polls:
Notice the percentage of people who claimed to back Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008. It’s 17%, just about where the Obama defection rate is right now, according to the AP. Similarly, in 2000 George W. Bush stole about 15% of the Clinton ’96 vote (while Gore stole just 7% of the Dole vote). Bill Clinton took 21% of the 1988 George H.W. Bush electorate in 1992, and Ronald Reagan took 29% of Carter’s 1976 vote in 1980.
There is no doubt that the Obama campaign drew new voters to the polls, but ultimately the election hinged largely on the swing vote. If McCain had kept that 17% of the old Bush vote in his coalition, he would have been elected president. Independents and soft-partisans put Obama into office in 2008, and they are gearing up to vote Republican here in 2010. That's why we call them swing voters!
5. Quotes for the Day.
"I want to warn you about something...Right now the same special interests who would profit from the other side's agenda - they're fighting back. The empire is striking back. To win this election, they are plowing ten's of millions of dollars into front groups. They are running misleading negative ads all across the country...This isn't just a threat to Democrats, this is a threat to our democracy!"
-Barack Obama, October 17, 2010
"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we have come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
-Barack Obama, January 20, 2009
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Top Canadian Commander Pleads Guilty to Murders, Sexual Assaults
Sylvette Mar 19 Oct - 14:20
Les media n'ont pas manque chaque fois qu'un soldat americain s'est comporte de facon criminelle en essayant d'amalgamer les rares brebis galeuses avec tous les GIs, parle-t-on de cet homme eu Europe? Meurtrier de 2 femmes, violeurs de deux autres, et malade sexuel qui volait et portait des petites culottes de gamines de 11 ans.
Top Canadian Commander Pleads Guilty to Murders, Sexual Assaults
Published October 18, 2010
| Associated Press
AP
Feb.18, 2010: Artist's sketch shows Col. Russell Williams as he appears in court via a video link in Belleville, Ontario, Canada.
BELLEVILLE, Ontario – A commander who was a rising star in Canada's military pleaded guilty Monday to the murders of two women, the sexual assaults of two others and dozens of breaking and entering charges in which he stole panties from the bedrooms of girls as young as 11.
Top Canadian Commander Pleads Guilty to Murders, Sexual Assaults
Published October 18, 2010
| Associated Press
AP
Feb.18, 2010: Artist's sketch shows Col. Russell Williams as he appears in court via a video link in Belleville, Ontario, Canada.
BELLEVILLE, Ontario – A commander who was a rising star in Canada's military pleaded guilty Monday to the murders of two women, the sexual assaults of two others and dozens of breaking and entering charges in which he stole panties from the bedrooms of girls as young as 11.
- Spoiler:
Col. Russell Williams, who once flew prime ministers and served as a pilot to Queen Elizabeth II during a 2005 visit, was the commander of Canada's largest Air Force base until he was charged earlier this year.
He pleaded guilty Monday to two first-degree murder charges, two sexual assaults and 82 breaking and entering charges in a Belleville, Ontario court. The 47-year-old faces an automatic sentence of life in prison with no possibility for parole for at least 25 years.
Williams was expressionless and dressed in a somber dark suit, and he kept his head down as the charges were read. The list of charges was so long that it took nearly 40 minutes to read it into the record.
"Guilty, your honor," he said after the charges were entered.
Prosecutors said Williams targeted girls and women in their teens and 20s and often photographed himself in their underwear.
At the sentencing hearing following his guilty plea, prosecutors warned the court they would be presenting evidence that was "extremely disturbing." Prosecutor Lee Burgess said much of the facts will be difficult for his victims to hear, but said it was "important to have a full account of the crimes."
Burgess began presenting photos showing Williams wearing a 12-year-old girl's cartoon-decorated underwear. Other photos showed him wearing underwear belonging to 11-year-old twins.
Many of the photos showed Williams masturbating in the stolen lingerie, either wearing it or with it draped over himself. People in the courtroom, many of them victims and their families, were in tears and appeared stunned. Roxanne Lloyd, the mother of murder victim Jessica Lloyd, clutched a frame photo of her daughter, wiping away tears as the prosecution relayed details of Williams' fetish behavior.
In another photo, Williams appears to be wearing his military uniform with his trousers dropped to show he is wearing pink panties. Burgess also presented evidence of Williams photographing himself naked with one of his victim's sex toys.
In each photo, he looks serious, with little expression. As prosecutors presented the evidence, Williams was again void of expression, his eyes cast downward the entire time.
Authorities said Williams carefully catalogued the photos of himself in the victims' underwear with time and date stamps on hard drives in his Ottawa home. Some of the photos were panoramic shots of the victims' bedrooms. He would take the lingerie with him, keeping them in bags and boxes in his home and would sometimes burn them if he ran out of space.
Prosecutors also said Williams videotaped the assaults and murders.
Williams, who was born in England and raised in Canada, had a promising future with the military. The square-jawed officer was pictured with the British queen and her husband, Prince Philip, on the front page of the newspaper of Canadian Forces Base Trenton during their visit five years ago. He was photographed in January with Defense Minister Peter MacKay and Canada's top general during an inspection of a Canadian aircraft on its way to support relief efforts in Haiti.
He is alleged to have killed his second victim just over a week after he appeared with MacKay.
Williams pleaded guilty to the murder of Jessica Lloyd, 27, whose body was found in February, and Marie Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal under his command who was found dead in her home last November. Both women were asphyxiated.
Williams also pleaded guilty to forcible confinement, breaking and entering and sexual assault after two other women were attacked during separate home invasions in the Tweed, Ontario area in September 2009.
Williams, a 23-year military veteran, has never been in combat but has been stationed across Canada and internationally, including a stint in 2006 as the commanding officer for Camp Mirage, the secretive Canadian Forces base widely reported to be near Dubai. Investigators looked into other areas where he has been posted.
Williams' wife, Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, works as the associate executive director at the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Ottawa.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
charly Mar 19 Oct - 18:48
L'information est devenue désinformation,mésinformation et déformation
de ce qui se dit et se fait,mais c'est souvent dans le même sens.
C'est pour çà que je ne lis plus que les dépêches d'agences,brutes,comme
elles tombent,avant que les scribouillards journaleux les arrangent à leur sauce.
Les champions dans ce domaine,c'est la gauche et l'extrème gauche.
Ils ont pris leurs leçons avec les communistes Russes,Chinoix et ceux du
sud-est asiatique.
de ce qui se dit et se fait,mais c'est souvent dans le même sens.
C'est pour çà que je ne lis plus que les dépêches d'agences,brutes,comme
elles tombent,avant que les scribouillards journaleux les arrangent à leur sauce.
Les champions dans ce domaine,c'est la gauche et l'extrème gauche.
Ils ont pris leurs leçons avec les communistes Russes,Chinoix et ceux du
sud-est asiatique.
charly- Messages : 799
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 77
Localisation : Province de Liège
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Mer 20 Oct - 8:29
Aie aie aie aie aie aie
Iranian Weapon Shipment to Afghan Taliban Raises Alarm
By Jennifer Griffin
Published October 19, 2010 - | FoxNews.com
Two weeks ago Afghan officials intercepted a shipment of Iranian weapons en route to the Taliban in the Afghan province of Nimroz.
Iranian Weapon Shipment to Afghan Taliban Raises Alarm
By Jennifer Griffin
Published October 19, 2010 - | FoxNews.com
Two weeks ago Afghan officials intercepted a shipment of Iranian weapons en route to the Taliban in the Afghan province of Nimroz.
- Spoiler:
“The police chief of Nimroz announced that they had intercepted a couple tons of Iranian explosives marked as food and toys,” said Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, who just returned from a two week visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Until recently U.S. military commanders would quietly slip journalists information about the unhelpful role that Iran and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were playing in Afghanistan. A role that often provides some of the same support and weaponry to the Taliban that it did to militant groups that were fighting U.S. troops in Iraq.
Commanders provide journalists with examples of Iran spreading its economic influence in the Western part of Afghanistan and trying to buy candidates and their loyalty in Afghanistan's recent Parliamentary elections.
But on Monday Iranian diplomats were seated at a NATO conference in Rome at the invitation of the Obama administration to discuss the way forward in Afghanistan. It was the ninth meeting of the NATO contact group which included foreign ministers and high level dignitaries, including U.S. Special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.
“We recognize that Iran….has a role to play in the peaceful settlement of the situation in Afghanistan,” Holbrooke said.
He added, “for the United States today, there is no problem with their presence [at the meeting]."
NATO's top commander General David Petraeus briefed the group which included this high ranking Iranian diplomat about "transition," another word for handing over control to Afghanistan's security forces.
"That's not admitting defeat,” Holbrooke said. “That's, as we've all said, we are not going to win this war by purely military means. General Petraeus said it again this morning in our briefings. The war will not end on a battleship in Tokyo Bay or at Dayton, Ohio. It will end through a different kind of process.”
That process is raising concerns among some Afghans, Pakistani officials, and U.S. military experts.
“Perhaps General Petraeus and the Obama Administration and NATO want to make it appear as if the Iranians are cooperating, but it's all smoke in mirrors,” AEI’s Rubin said. “All the Afghans I talked to said that Iranians were up to no good and unfortunately sitting down with the Iranians and including them in our talks about the future structure in Afghan security forces is going to be perceived by Afghans as the United States is surrendering, of the United States leaving and allowing the Iranians to fill the vacuum.”
President Obama's announcement that the first U.S. troops would be leaving in July 2011 changed the equation in Afghanistan. Afghan officials want assurances that the U.S. and NATO aren't leaving.
"It is critical that the international community speaks with one voice in reiterating to the respected constituency the message that has been repeated over and over again in this meeting that transition will not mean withdraw or exit," said Afghan foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul.
The Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini tried to ease Rassoul’s concern.
"We shouldn't talk about exit strategy,” Frattini said.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
President Obama’s white working-class problem
Sylvette Mer 20 Oct - 14:43
Buh Bye!!
President Obama’s white working-class problem
White independent voters have abandon President Obama over the struggling economy. | Reuters CloseBy GLENN THRUSH | 10/20/10 4:31 AM EDT Updated: 10/20/10 6:15 AM EDT
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is taking a political battering, thanks to his support of Barack Obama, so he’s uniquely qualified to offer counsel on what many think is the president’s central political problem - his failure to connect with white working-class voters.
His advice: Go to where they live and work. Listen. And don’t talk down to them.
President Obama’s white working-class problem
White independent voters have abandon President Obama over the struggling economy. | Reuters Close
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is taking a political battering, thanks to his support of Barack Obama, so he’s uniquely qualified to offer counsel on what many think is the president’s central political problem - his failure to connect with white working-class voters.
His advice: Go to where they live and work. Listen. And don’t talk down to them.
- Spoiler:
“If I were him, I’d start going to the places where people don’t like you that much,” says Manchin, who is locked in a close race to replace Robert Byrd in the Senate and struggling mightily to shrug off his opponents’ description of him as Obama’s “rubber stamp.”
“You can’t win if you only go where you are comfortable,” added Manchin, who was speaking to POLITICO a day before Obama appeared in a place that was very much in his comfort zone - before a crowd of 35,000 admirers at Ohio State University.
In the two weeks before the Nov. 2 midterms, Obama has focused on helping his party energize its demoralized base, travelling to seven states that delivered him double-digit margins of victory two years ago and to comfortable venues like big city stadiums and university campuses. But in the process he is also re-living one of the few unsuccessful phases of his campaign – the spring of 2008, when Sen. Hillary Clinton struck a chord with white blue collar voters in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Ceding the Appalachian heartland to Clinton helped Obama sew up the nomination quickly, but it deprived him of a chance to make inroads with voters who have become increasingly alienated, even hostile.
Obama advisers analyzed Clinton’s success and applied some of the lessons to his general election campaign. But this year they have reverted to a base strategy, even as it’s increasingly clear Obama must reconcile with disaffected white supporters to stand a chance in 2012.
“It’s becoming a crisis,” says one Democratic House member, who asked not be identified.
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, arguably Obama’s most effective 2008 surrogate with working-class voters, says it’s a “tragedy” Obama hasn’t been able to convince blue-collar families he’s on their side, and her solution is the same as Manchin’s.
“He’s just got to get out there and hear more bad news,” McCaskill added. “That event, where the woman said ‘I’m exhausted with defending you,’ was perfect. He needs a lot more of that.”
The confrontation took place at a CNBC forum, precisely the kind of semi-hostile environment McCaskill was referring to. Obama has also embarked on a series of quick trips and “backyard barbeques” in purple-red zones like St. Louis, Charlotte, Kansas City, Richmond and Columbus.
But by necessity, they have taken a back seat to Obama’s central strategy in 2010 of pumping up turnout among blacks, Latinos, urban voters, union members and educated whites.
Apart from a last-ditch effort to energize women voters, there’s been no equivalent push to regain lost white independents and conservative Democrats, who flocked to Obama in 2008 – only to abandon him over huge spending bills and the sputtering recovery.
Twice as many non-college educated whites (60 percent) now plan to vote for a Republican this year than a Democrat (31 percent). And approval of Obama’s handling of the economy has tanked by 20 percentage points among white Democrats since April, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken earlier this month.
Embattled Democrats – even friendly ones like Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), whose districts are awash in stimulus funding – don’t want Obama anywhere near them.
Instead, the president has been forced to stick, for the most part, to college campuses and big cities, like Seattle, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Madison, Wisconsin and Portland, where he is heading Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the white, blue-collar bastions such as Youngstown, Scranton and Louisville have been outsourced to surrogates like Vice President Joe Biden and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Obama’s West Wing aides argue that his national approval ratings – stable in the mid-40s since spring – are actually pretty good, considering the unemployment rate is hovering around 10 percent.
The president himself, while acknowledging his administration’s shortcomings in getting out its message, has dismissed the idea that communication alone would improve his political standing.
"I was looking over some chronicles of the Clinton years," Obama told Peter Baker of the New York Times earlier this month. "[I] was reminded that in '94 -- when President Clinton's poll numbers were lower than mine, and obviously the election ended up being bad for Democrats -- unemployment was only 6.6 percent.
“And I don't think anybody would suggest that Bill Clinton wasn't a good communicator or was somebody who couldn't connect with the American people or didn't show empathy."
Republicans agree, saying it’s Obama’s policies – especially cap-and-trade, the stimulus and health reform – that are dragging him down. So do some white Democrats, especially union members, who don’t think Obama has delivered on promises to pass new worker protections – or protect the auto industry rank-and-file from mass layoff during a government-initiated restructuring effort.
“It's not whether Obama is doing enough politicking,” says John Russo, co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University. “The real issue is policy, all the things have not happened over the last two years.
“We're in a situation much like 1994, when after the labor movement and community groups did so much for Bill Clinton, he did not follow through on the promises he made to them. And it took 12 years in Ohio and 14 years nationally for working people to suspend their disbelief and again support the Democrats.”
The long-term danger for Obama is that if his approval ratings among whites stay low, the revolt takes root – shredding a 2008 map that included single-digit wins in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Virginia, Michigan, Florida and all-important Ohio, which Obama won by three percentage points with the political wind at his back.
“Would he win the state now? Can he win it in 2012? Geez, that’s going to be a tough one for him,” says a staffer to an endangered Democratic House member in the state.
“Right now, he couldn’t sell ice water in hell,” says Dee Davis, who runs a Kentucky nonprofit that studies voting patterns in the Appalachian belt, which encompasses southern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, western Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
Davis and other analysts say racism, especially among older voters, plays some role in Obama’s plummeting popularity. But even Obama’s friends concede that much of his trouble attracting working-class whites is less racial than cultural -- and some wounds have been self-inflicted.
“Here’s the gorilla in the room,” says McCaskill. “He can roll up his sleeves and he can take of his jacket and he could not wear a tie, but it is very hard for a lot of people in working-class families to imagine him next to them at the Laundromat.
His vocabulary is beyond impressive [but] the fact that he stays visionary sometimes, slows him down” when he needs to be “granular and really nitty-gritty and saying things in a way that make people relate to him,” McCaskill says.
Her solution: Obama needs to go out on a listening tour – more like a let-them-yell-at-you tour – to establish a more visceral rapport with people’s anxieties and fears. It’s something he’s successfully done in the past.
When Obama first ran for the Senate in Illinois in 2004, his staff had to coach him on the ways of the state’s southern agricultural belt -- urging him to ditch the suit jacket for rolled-up shirtsleeves.
In the summer of 2008 Obama enlisted two highly-regarded young Clinton staffers, Aaron Pickrell and Isaac Baker, to craft a strategy for reducing John McCain’s advantage among rural and Rust Belt whites.
The result was a well-received barnstorming tour through small Ohio towns like New Philadelphia and Steubenville, accompanied by similar trips through non-urban Indiana and western Pennsylvania.
At his best, Obama can be charming, funny, witty and warm – such as earlier this year in Jefferson County, Mo., when he commiserated with laid-off workers at a Chrysler plant. During a trip to Iowa in April, he shooed away the press to chat with the wait staff at a diner.
Yet sometimes he can be windy – he delivered a nearly half-hour answer to simple health-care question posed to him at Charlotte plant this spring – and diffident, injecting complex policy discussions when confronted with wrenching kitchen-table problems.
He can’t bowl. He can’t pronounce Yuengling Beer. And at his worst, he sounds less “I feel your pain” than like America’s anthropologist-in-chief.
During one infamous April 2008 speech to wealthy Democrats in San Francisco, Obama explained that some Pennsylvania voters, made “bitter” by the bad economy, “cling to guns or religion.”
Despite the huge backlash against those comments, he’s strayed back into social science. At a forum for young voters last week sponsored by MTV, Obama blamed a “tribal attitude” among economically-strapped Americans for a recent rise in racial incidents.
At a recent event in Massachusetts, he declared that “fear and frustration” among “scared” voters fueled anti-Democrat sentiments. That earned Obama the scorn of liberal blogger Mickey Kaus, who termed it “political malpractice” adding, “Insulting voters is rarely a good way to win them over.”
Obama’s shortcomings, friends say, are embedded in his strengths – a searching intellect, a Roget’s vocabulary and a lofty determination to elevate the public discourse – and not dumb down his public utterances.
Hence, McCaskill’s frustration when she learned Obama had apologized for the God-and-guns remark by blaming his own tortured “syntax.”
She got him on his cell phone, and opened up on him: “The only time I want to hear you use that word is when you’re talking about the tax people in Missouri pay on their beer!”
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Democrat: Pelosi "Probably Not Going To Run For Speaker Again"
Sylvette Mer 20 Oct - 15:03
Oooooh, ca va etre difficile de s'en remettre!
"From what we're hearing, she's probably not going to run for Speaker again. And if she does, I'm confident she's going to have opposition, and I look forward to supporting that opposition," Rep. McIntyre (D-NC) said.
Posted on October 19, 2010
"From what we're hearing, she's probably not going to run for Speaker again. And if she does, I'm confident she's going to have opposition, and I look forward to supporting that opposition," Rep. McIntyre (D-NC) said.
Posted on October 19, 2010
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
charly Mer 20 Oct - 17:30
Sylvette a écrit:Oooooh, ca va etre difficile de s'en remettre!
"From what we're hearing, she's probably not going to run for Speaker again. And if she does, I'm confident she's going to have opposition, and I look forward to supporting that opposition," Rep. McIntyre (D-NC) said.
Posted on October 19, 2010
Si je comprends bien,c'est la zizanie chez les socialos!
Cà n'arriverait pas ici,ils sont soudés entre eux,même quand il y en a un qui se fait
prendre pour malversations,ils le défendent.
C'est comme la pieuvre.Tu leur enlève une patte,les autres se liguent jusqu'à
ce qu'elle ait repoussé.
charly- Messages : 799
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 77
Localisation : Province de Liège
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Mer 20 Oct - 21:35
Charly, dans le cours normal de leur mandat, oui, ils se defendent tous mais la le probleme est autre: Ils ne sont pas du tout certains d'etre reelus.
Or la Speaker de la Chambre est detestee par les Americains et les candidats democrates veulent donc etre certains de ne pas etre percus comme etant trop proches d'elle (Nancy Pelosi) ou de Monsieur O.
En plus, il est a peu pres certain que les Republicains vont reprendre la Chambre alors ces candidats osent se distancer d'elle, sinon, il reflechirait a 2 fois sachant qu'elle a la reputation de se venger.
Ils sont tres courageux et honorables alors ils l'abandonnent apres lui avoir leche les pieds Les rats quittent le navire, quoa.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Desperate Obama tries demagoguery
Sylvette Jeu 21 Oct - 1:50
Excellente si peu flatteuse analyse de Monsieur Obama!
Desperate Obama tries demagoguery
ByJOE SCARBOROUGH |
10/19/10 4:57 AM EDT Updated: 10/19/10 6:00 AM EDT
It’s not easy to judge a president’s character when his approval rating is at 70 percent. Those kind of numbers make any politician look like a statesman. More revealing are the actions a leader takes when his White House faces certain defeat.
For many admirers of President Barack Obama, these past few weeks have been painful to watch.
Desperate Obama tries demagoguery
In his piece, Joe Scarborough argues that President Obama is starting to look like a run-of-the-mill politician. | AP Photo Close
ByJOE SCARBOROUGH |
10/19/10 4:57 AM EDT Updated: 10/19/10 6:00 AM EDT
It’s not easy to judge a president’s character when his approval rating is at 70 percent. Those kind of numbers make any politician look like a statesman. More revealing are the actions a leader takes when his White House faces certain defeat.
For many admirers of President Barack Obama, these past few weeks have been painful to watch.
- Spoiler:
The president seems unfocused. His message sounds jumbled. His party is desperate. Rather than campaigning on two years of accomplishments, Obama and his staff are swinging wildly at windmills.
The White House wasted a week attacking House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) — a man so irrelevant to the lives of millions of Americans that I doubt he could bum a pack of cigarettes off a bartender outside the District of Columbia.
The president then turned his fire on former President George W. Bush and those folks who “drove America into a ditch.”
But the “ditch” routine is getting old. Besides, Americans are telling pollsters that it’s a tossup whether they would prefer being led by the guy who drove America into the ditch or the guy who keeps promising to get us out of the ditch. That is, of course, after he tells us one more time about the guy who drove us into the ditch.
But attacking Bush and Boehner didn’t resonate with swing voters. So Team Obama shifted tactics again and decided to go all Glenn Beck on the GOP, ominously accusing opponents of “stealing democracy” by hanging out with shady foreigners who carried around stacks of Asian cash.
So much for my earlier suggestion in this space that Obama spend the last weeks of the 2010 campaign rising above partisan pettiness.
Two years ago, Obama played the role of inspired political prophet, telling Americans that his elevation to the White House would be seen by future generations as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
But two years later, followers of that grandiose dream have awakened to a grim reality: that their transcendent leader is beginning to look like a run-of-the-mill politician.
The president’s foreign money charges were blasted this week by The Washington Post, which accused Obama of “stoking xenophobia without any evidence for his accusations.” The Post’s editorial page also attacked the White House’s campaign against the Chamber of Commerce for being “irresponsibly alarmist,” “over the top” and “ill-informed.”
The New York Times piled on, reporting that “a closer examination shows that there is little evidence that what the Chamber does is improper or even unusual.” The Times then noted that the same president who claims to loathe the Washington spin cycle seized upon a partisan Internet blog and made its misleading claims his own.
FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan organization run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, rebuked Obama for “peddling an unproven claim” that had “little basis in fact.”
And the most stinging challenge came from CBS News’s Bob Schieffer, who brushed away David Axelrod’s foreign money spin with a contemptuous laugh.
Schieffer expressed disbelief that “the only charge three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign.” The CBS News legend then delivered the stinging question that many Obama supporters are starting to ask of the president: “Is that the best you can do?”
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Barack Obama may not feel that way about Bob Schieffer, but one thing is certain: If the president’s closing argument for why Democrats should stay in control of Congress is mocked on “Face the Nation” by one of broadcasting’s most trusted figures, it may again be time for the White House to change course.
But don’t expect that to happen.
“The president will continue making the argument,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told the press corps when he was confronted about the foreign funding argument. Gibbs was predictably dismissive of the criticism. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”
And why should it? Campaign finance controversies have long been a blind spot for Obama.
The White House may be hyperventilating over anonymous GOP donors in 2010, but that same practice helped Democrats take control of Congress in 2006. And in 2008, then-Sen. Obama deliberately put in place practices that allowed untraceable donors to send cash to his campaign, according to The Washington Post.
It leads one to wonder when exactly the president experienced his road-to-Damascus conversion.
Perhaps it was earlier this year, when he delighted partisans by criticizing the Supreme Court during this State of the Union address. In what proved to be a warm-up for last week’s “foreign money” attacks, Obama declared that the court’s Citizens United decision allowed the opening of “the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”
“I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people,” the president declared.
But with apologies to those Internet bloggers who declared the Citizens case to be the end of democracy as we know it, Obama’s foreign money charge once again missed its mark. Actually, that’s generous. The facts now suggest that Obama, a former constitutional law professor, deliberately demagogued the issue to score political points.
The reality of the situation is quite different.
An article in the September issue of Yale Law and Policy Review declared the impact of Citizens United to be “incremental” and “mild.”
“The day before the Citizens United decision,” Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles wrote, “corporations had the constitutional right to spend unlimited funds telling voters that ‘Candidate Smith hates puppies.’ Citizens United added only protection for these corporations to convey an incremental ‘Vote Smith out’ exhortation.”
Some experts quoted in an article in Columbia Law School Magazine’s current issue dismiss Obama’s State of the Union argument and opine that far from overturning a century of constitutional law and turning American elections over to “foreign entities,” Citizens United is neither revolutionary nor consequential.
In that article, Columbia constitutional law professor Henry Paul Monaghan told writer Adam Liptak that “the court has been unfairly excoriated by the media, and members of the court were treated rather poorly by Mr. Obama.”
The president’s appeal to xenophobes and ideologues alike in that address was so obviously misleading to anyone who understood election law that one didn’t have to be an Ivy League law professor to realize the president was playing politics with the issue. Even a guy who got through law school while reading Hunter S. Thompson saw the scam right away. (I did and I did. “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72” helped me survive Securities Law.)
Because I assume former Harvard Law Review editor Barack Obama actually paid attention during his law school classes, the butchering of constitutional law by the former University of Chicago professor seems deliberate and depressing.
But that’s not as depressing as the president of the United States trying to hold onto power by resorting to “xenophobic” and “irresponsibly alarmist” campaign tactics. Bob Schieffer got it right. If that’s the best the White House can do after two years in power, Nov. 2 may prove to be a long night for Obama and his allies in Congress.
A guest columnist for POLITICO, Joe Scarborough hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
A return to the norm
Sylvette Lun 8 Nov - 10:22
A return to the norm
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 5, 2010
For all the turmoil, the spectacle, the churning - for all the old bulls slain and fuzzy-cheeked freshmen born - the great Republican wave of 2010 is simply a return to the norm. The tide had gone out; the tide came back. A center-right country restores the normal congressional map: a sea of interior red, bordered by blue coasts and dotted by blue islands of ethnic/urban density.
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 5, 2010
For all the turmoil, the spectacle, the churning - for all the old bulls slain and fuzzy-cheeked freshmen born - the great Republican wave of 2010 is simply a return to the norm. The tide had gone out; the tide came back. A center-right country restores the normal congressional map: a sea of interior red, bordered by blue coasts and dotted by blue islands of ethnic/urban density.
- Spoiler:
Or to put it numerically, the Republican wave of 2010 did little more than undo the two-stage Democratic wave of 2006-2008 in which the Democrats gained 54 House seats combined (precisely the size of the anti-Democratic wave of 1994). In 2010 the Democrats gave it all back, plus about an extra 10 seats or so for good - chastening - measure.
The conventional wisdom is that these sweeps represent something novel, exotic and very modern - the new media, faster news cycles, Internet frenzy and a public with a short attention span and even less patience with government. Or alternatively, that these violent swings reflect reduced party loyalty and more independent voters.
Nonsense. In 1946, for example, when party loyalty was much stronger and even television was largely unknown, the Republicans gained 56 seats and then lost 75 in the very next election. Waves come. Waves go. The republic endures.
Our two most recent swing cycles were triggered by unusually jarring historical events. The 2006 Republican "thumpin'" (to quote George W. Bush) was largely a reflection of the disillusionment and near-despair of a wearying war that appeared to be lost. And 2008 occurred just weeks after the worst financial collapse in eight decades.
Similarly, the massive Republican swing of 2010 was a reaction to another rather unprecedented development - a ruling party spectacularly misjudging its mandate and taking an unwilling country through a two-year experiment in hyper-liberalism.
A massive government restructuring of the health-care system. An $800 billion-plus stimulus that did not halt the rise in unemployment. And a cap-and-trade regime reviled outside the bicoastal liberal enclaves that luxuriate in environmental righteousness - so reviled that the Democratic senatorial candidate in West Virginia literally put a bullet through the bill in his own TV ad. He won. Handily.
Opposition to the policies was compounded by the breathtaking arrogance with which they were imposed. Ignored was the unmistakable message from the 2009-10 off-year elections culminating in Scott Brown's anti-Obamacare victory in bluer-than-blue Massachusetts. Moreover, Obamacare and the stimulus were passed on near-total party-line votes - legal, of course, but deeply offensive to the people's sense of democratic legitimacy.
Never before had anything of this size and scope been passed on a purely partisan basis. (Social Security commanded 81 House Republicans; the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 136; Medicare, 70.)
Tuesday was the electorate's first opportunity to render a national verdict on this manner of governance. The rejection was stunning. As a result, President Obama's agenda is dead. And not just now. No future Democratic president will try to revive it - and if he does, no Congress will follow him, in view of the carnage visited upon Democrats on Tuesday.
This is not, however, a rejection of Democrats as a party. The center-left party as represented by Bill Clinton remains competitive in every cycle. (Which is why he was the most popular, sought-after Democrat in the current cycle.) The lesson of Tuesday is that the American game is played between the 40-yard lines. So long as
Democrats don't repeat Obama's drive for the red zone, Democrats will cyclically prevail, just as Republicans do.
Nor should Republicans overinterpret their Tuesday mandate. They received none. They were merely rewarded for acting as the people's proxy in saying no to Obama's overreaching liberalism. As one wag put it, this wasn't an election so much as a restraining order.
The Republicans won by default. And their prize is nothing more than a two-year lease on the House. The building was available because the previous occupant had been evicted for arrogant misbehavior and, by rule, alas, the House cannot be left vacant.
The president, however, remains clueless. In his next-day news conference, he had the right demeanor - subdued, his closest approximation of humility - but was uncomprehending about what just happened. The "folks" are apparently just "frustrated" that "progress" is just too slow. Asked three times whether popular rejection of his policy agenda might have had something to do with the shellacking he took, he looked as if he'd been asked whether the sun had risen in the West. Why, no, he said.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Lun 29 Nov - 21:20
ah! tout-de-meme!
Top Republican congressman calls on the State Department to designate WikiLeaks as a 'foreign terrorist organization,' as he and other lawmakers demand the White House find a way to prosecute founder Julian Assange in the wake of the group's latest document dump.
Top Republican congressman calls on the State Department to designate WikiLeaks as a 'foreign terrorist organization,' as he and other lawmakers demand the White House find a way to prosecute founder Julian Assange in the wake of the group's latest document dump.
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Op-Ed
Sylvette Mar 30 Nov - 13:24
Op-Ed
A WikiLeaks wakeup call
In the end, what these documents confirm is that President Obama's foreign policy is a messBy Jonah Goldberg
November 30, 2010
Washington is reeling from the latest WikiLeaks document dump. The foreign policy wonks insist that there are few, if any, major surprises. "Much of what we've seen thus far," opined Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, "confirms more than it informs." And, in the end, what these documents confirm is that President Obama's foreign policy is a mess.
- Spoiler:
Even if you're supportive of Obama's foreign policy efforts, the WikiLeaks dump is a bigger deal than the know-it-alls are suggesting. It's one thing to believe something as a generality; it's another to dispel plausible deniability for all concerned.
Everyone may know that the Saudis are worried about the Iranian bomb. But knowing that isn't quite the same as learning that the Saudi monarchy has implored the U.S. to attack Iran and "cut off the head of the snake," in the words of a Saudi envoy. Egypt and other Arab states have called the Iranian program an "existential threat" and have begged the U.S. to use military force to stop it (of course, if the U.S. did take out the program, these same regimes, not to mention countless domestic critics of Israel, would insist that the U.S. was doing the bidding of the Israel lobby).
Around the globe, diplomats, dignitaries and potentates feel betrayed and exposed. Certainly, the news that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered American diplomats at the United Nations to spy on other delegations will make lunchtime at the Turtle Bay commissary a bit awkward.
Politically, the one advantage for the White House is the sheer volume of the leaks. If these stories came out one by one, there'd be room for them to flare up as full-fledged controversies, but with a quarter of a million documents, each story robs oxygen from the next.
Still, the (relative) lack of surprises is hardly an exoneration for anybody — not for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has declared himself an enemy of the United States, nor for the Obama administration, which seems utterly lost about how to deal with him.
The administration's formal response to the revelations was to have State Department attorney Harold Koh pen a tersely worded cease-and-desist letter to Assange, asking him to pretty please stop publishing thousands of state secrets. With the important and complicated exception of Afghanistan, such high-minded legalism is par for the course.
Ever since his bizarre campaign stop in Berlin and his primary debate promise to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without preconditions," Obama has consistently stressed his preference for soft diplomacy and gauzy platitudes about international cooperation. For instance, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany proved, according to then-candidate Obama, that "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one" — an incomprehensible claim that would earn an F from any high school history teacher.
Since then, on issue after issue, Obama's rhetorical globaloney has met the grinder. Perversely, his best moment was when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize and felt compelled to explain why he didn't deserve it — yet — and give a legitimately stirring defense of military action.
It is certainly true that Obama inherited many of his foreign policy challenges. Iran was pursuing nukes back when he was in the Illinois state Senate, and North Korea has been crazy since before he was born. But Obama insisted that his would be the better way. Engagement, dialogue,kumbaya would all win the day.
And yet they keep losing. A month after his inauguration, the North Koreans tested a ballistic missile. Since then, they've revealed yet another nuclear program and attacked South Korea just weeks after Obama's embarrassing failure to win a trade deal from Seoul during an official visit. Meanwhile, according to WikiLeaks and other sources, the North Koreans have been selling ballistic missiles to the Iranians.
The irony is that Assange represents a purer form of Obama's own idealism. According to Assange's dangerous utopianism, in governance purity must define means, not just ends. He is convinced that he has revealed the hypocrisy and corruption of U.S. foreign policy, when in reality all he has revealed is that pursuing foreign policy ideals is messier and more complicated in a world where bad people pursue bad ends. We can hope that Obama has been learning that lesson. Assange, meanwhile, is simply blind to it.
jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
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Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
Re: In Englishhhh...
Sylvette Ven 3 Déc - 18:47
Eleven of the 18 members of President Obama’s fiscal commission voted Friday to embrace a controversial blueprint to slash deficits by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade -- too few to command a quick vote in Congress, but far more than even the panel’s most ardent supporters had predicted just a few weeks ago.
The panel has proposed dramatic cuts in military spending, raising the future retirement age and eliminating popular tax breaks.
For more information, visit washingtonpost.com
Aie aie aie aie aie!
The panel has proposed dramatic cuts in military spending, raising the future retirement age and eliminating popular tax breaks.
For more information, visit washingtonpost.com
Aie aie aie aie aie!
Sylvette- Messages : 322
Date d'inscription : 26/09/2010
Age : 71
Localisation : Port Gentil, Gabon ou Houston, Texas
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