osmoothie – Government

July 15, 2010 10:56 am

Obama’s cook named Healthy Food Czar

In a comical move even for a czar-happy president who has rewarded dozens of cronies with distinguished titles, the White House has named the Obama’s personal Chicago cook as “Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives.”

It’s no joke, even though is sounds like a bad one. The Chicago chef’s rapid ascension, reported this week by a conservative Washington D.C. newspaper, has been kept under the radar for the last month. Sam Kass went from being a 20-something, Windy City gourmet cook—privately paid by the Obama’s to feed them—to big-time White House adviser in a matter of months.

In between, Michelle Obama made Kass a “Food Initiative Coordinator” for her new healthy nutrition program which is supposed to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation, especially in the nation’s inner cities. The First Lady claims that childhood obesity is a threat to national security and a crisis equivalent to AIDS and youth violence.

July 15, 2010 9:31 am

House Democrats vent anger over Obama’s lack of support

The Washington Post,

House Democrats are lashing out at the White House, venting long-suppressed anger over what they see as President Obama’s lukewarm efforts to help them win reelection — and accusing administration officials of undermining the party’s chances of retaining the majority in November’s midterm elections.

In recent weeks, a widespread belief has taken hold among Democratic House members that they have dutifully gone along with the White House on politically risky issues — including the stimulus plan, the health-care overhaul and climate change — without seeing much, if anything, in return. Many of them are angry that Obama has actively campaigned for Democratic Senate candidates but has done fewer events for House members.

The boiling point came Tuesday night during a closed-door meeting of House Democrats in the Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) excoriated White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’s public comments over the weekend that the House majority was in doubt and that it would take “strong campaigns by Democrats” to avert dramatic losses.

“What the hell do they think we’ve been doing the last 12 months? We’re the ones who have been taking the tough votes,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (N.J.) said in an interview Wednesday.

July 15, 2010 9:30 am

Amputations without anesthesia in NKorea

My Way News,

North Korea’s health care system is in shambles with doctors sometimes performing amputations without anesthesia and working by candlelight in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power, a human rights watchdog said Thursday.

North Korea’s state health care system has been deteriorating for years amid the country’s economic difficulties. Many of its 24 million people reportedly face health problems related to chronic malnutrition, such as tuberculosis and anemia, Amnesty International said in a report on the state of the health care system.

A 24-year-old defector from northeastern Hamkyong province told Amnesty that a doctor amputated his left leg from the calf down without anesthesia after his ankle was crushed by a moving train when he fell from one of the cars.

July 15, 2010 9:29 am

U.S. paid Iranian nuclear scientist $5 million for information

The Washington Post,

The Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed to have been abducted by the CIA before departing for his homeland Wednesday was paid more than $5 million by the agency to provide intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. officials said.

Shahram Amiri is not obligated to return the money but might be unable to access it after breaking off what U.S. officials described as significant cooperation with the CIA and abruptly returning to Iran. Officials said he might have left out of concern that the Tehran government would harm his family.

“Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the financial sanctions on Iran,” a U.S. official said. “He’s gone, but his money’s not. We have his information, and the Iranians have him.”

July 14, 2010 11:57 pm

New White House report claims “saved or created” ~2.5-3.6 million jobs

CNSNews,

A new White House report says last year’s $862 billion stimulus law has now “saved or created” between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs.

That’s up from 2.2 million to 2.8 million in the last quarterly report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Christina Romer, head of the council, says in congressional testimony prepared for Wednesday that every $1 from the stimulus bill is matched by $3 in private money.

She says the law “appears to be stimulating private investment and job creation at a time when the economy needs it most.”

July 14, 2010 11:57 pm

The Democratic Party: Keeping Blacks Down Since 1964

Human Events,

Shortly after President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced an “unconditional war on poverty” in his State of the Union Address in 1964, his administration embarked on an expansion of bureaucracy rarely seen in American history.

Moreover, within two years of signaling the start of that war, LBJ interwove it with civil rights initiatives so that opposition to the War on Poverty could be branded “racism” by Democrats running against opponents of big government.

Time has shown that if there was any racism attached to the War on the Poverty it was the racism which Democrats brought to the table.
What but “racism” could describe using the federal government to take money from well-to-do citizens of any color and giving it to poor blacks so they would vote Democratic in return?

July 14, 2010 11:56 pm

Obama will go after Arizona, but not sanctuary cities

The Washington Times,

A week after suing Arizona and arguing that the state’s immigration law creates a patchwork of rules, the Obama administration said it will not go after so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement, on the grounds that they are not as bad as a state that “actively interferes.”

“There is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called sanctuary cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law,” Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., told The Washington Times. “That’s what Arizona did in this case.”

But the author of the 1996 federal law that requires states and localities to cooperate with federal authorities on immigration laws thinks the administration is misreading the statute and that sanctuary cities are in violation of federal law. Drawing a distinction between those localities and Arizona, he said, is “flimsy justification” for suing the state.

July 14, 2010 11:55 pm

After government-imposed 24-hour wait, BP begins testing new cap

AP,

BP allayed last-minute government fears of making the disaster worse and began testing the new, tighter-fitting cap Wednesday that could finally choke off the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration’s point man on the disaster, said the government gave the go-ahead after carefully reviewing the risks.

“What we didn’t want to do is compound that problem by making an irreversible mistake,” he said at the end of a 24-hour roller-coaster of hopes raised, hopes dashed and hopes raised again along the Gulf Coast.

The cap — a 75-ton metal stack of pipes and valves — was lowered onto the well on Monday in hopes of either bottling up the oil inside the well machinery, or capturing it and funneling it to the surface. But before BP could test the equipment, the government intervened because of second thoughts about whether the buildup of pressure from the gushing oil could rupture the walls of the well and make the leak worse.

July 14, 2010 11:55 pm

Obama calls on Bill Clinton to help with job creation

The Washington Post,

Burdened by low approval on the economy, President Obama brought former president Bill Clinton and investor Warren Buffett to the White House on Wednesday to talk about job creation.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Clinton — who oversaw record surpluses and was generally seen as business-friendly — was brought in to mediate between business leaders and Obama, now under fire from corporate leaders for his economic policies.

This week, the US Chamber of Commerce issued a harsh letter complaining that the White House is burdening businesses with too much regulation and hampering job growth.

July 14, 2010 11:54 pm

Russian agent had job at Microsoft

FT,

A 12th Russian spy acting inside the US worked at Microsoft before his arrest and deportation, suggesting that he and the other Kremlin agents apprehended in the country were seeking inside information on technology as well as personal contacts.

Before Alexey Karetnikov, 23, was picked up for immigration law violations on June 28 he had tested codes at the world’s biggest software company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday.

Mr Karetnikov, who was deported on Tuesday, had only been in the junior-level job nine months, and like other spies arrested at the same time apparently collected nothing that would damage US security.

July 14, 2010 11:54 pm

Gallup: Joe Biden’s favorable rating now lower than Al Gore’s

CNSNews,

Vice President Joe Biden’s favorable rating is now nominally lower than former Vice President Al Gore’s, according to the Gallup poll–even though, as Gallup points out in its analysis, the survey was conducted after Gore’s “announcement that he and his wife were separating, and amid a police investigation into allegations that he committed sexual assault in 2006.”

Gore denies the allegations.

Only 43 percent of survey respondents said they had a favorable view of Joe Biden, while 44 percent said they had a favorable view of Al Gore. (The margin of error for the poll, which was conducted July 8-11, is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points. So, the one-point difference in Biden’s and Gore’s favorable ratings is less than the margin of error.)

July 14, 2010 12:59 am

Congressman denies knowledge of Black Panther case

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July 14, 2010 12:58 am

U.S. detains 12th Russian spy – will send him back pronto

The Wall Street Journal,

Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence investigators have been investigating the 23-year-old Russian man since last fall when his name surfaced in a decade-long espionage investigation, the official said.

It’s unclear what drew investigators’ interest in the 12th man, but FBI agents began monitoring him shortly after he entered the U.S. in October 2009, the official said.

However, investigators weren’t able to gather enough evidence against him to bring charges and came to believe his case was different from that of the others who ended up being charged the spy ring, the U.S. official said. It’s not clear whether he had the training of the others arrested.

Instead of being charged, the man was in federal custody Monday in the process of being deported, the U.S. official said. His location wasn’t disclosed.

July 14, 2010 12:58 am

Iran-backed group eyed attack on US bases in Iraq

AFP,

Iranian-backed militants recently received specialist training inside Iran to help mount an attack on American military bases in Iraq, the top US commander in Baghdad said on Tuesday.

General Ray Odierno detailed a plot in which he said Ketaib Hezbollah, a Tehran-sponsored Shiite insurgent group, had planned an attack in recent weeks, prompting the US army to increase its security measures.

“There has been some intelligence of Iranian surrogates attempting to attack US bases, which we are watching very carefully,” Odierno told reporters at Camp Victory, a giant US base west of the capital.

“In the last couple of weeks there has been an increased threat of a potential Iran attack … so we have increased our security in some of our bases,” said the general, who commands all 74,000 US troops stationed in Iraq.

“This is another attempt by Iran and others to attempt to influence the US role here inside of Iraq,” he added, naming Ketaib Hezbollah as the militant group behind the conspiracy, and describing the threat as “consistent”.

July 14, 2010 12:57 am

Obama plans to cut up to 40% of nukes

AP,

A government document reveals that the Obama administration is planning to cut the U.S. nuclear stockpile by up to 40 percent by 2021.

The Energy Department document provides details of the reductions that President Barack Obama has called for on a path to eliminating nuclear weapons. The reductions continue a trajectory of cuts that already has reduced U.S. stockpiles by about 75 percent since 1989.

In May the administration said that it had 5,113 nuclear warheads.

The new document says the administration would like to reduce that number to a range of 3,000 to 3,500.

July 14, 2010 12:57 am

French parliament approves ban on face veils

AP,

France’s lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a ban on wearing burqa-style Islamic veils Tuesday, part of a concerted effort to define and protect French values that has disconcerted many in the country’s large Muslim community.

Proponents of the law say face-covering veils don’t square with the French ideal of women’s equality or its secular tradition. The bill is controversial abroad but popular in France, where its relatively few outspoken critics say conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has resorted to xenophobia to attract far-right voters.

The ban on burqas and niqabs will go in September to the Senate, where it also is likely to pass. Its biggest hurdle will likely come after that, when France’s constitutional watchdog scrutinizes it. Some legal scholars say there is a chance it could be deemed unconstitutional.

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