Obama Olympics trip carries political risks
President Obama’s decision to head to Copenhagen, Denmark, later this week to make a push to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago is not without political controversy.
Fact Check: Obama’s Health Care Anecdotes
Some Flaws in the President’s Stories About the Inadequacies of the Health Care System
Can Obama fit any more on his plate?
President Obama faces a daunting fall to-do list against the backdrop of an American public losing enthusiasm on a variety of issues.
Bruno Pellaud: Iran: Botched Nuclear Negotiations
The current Indian Summer over the Lake of Geneva will not ensure a smooth launching next Thursday of the international negotiations about the Iranian nuclear program. Too many participants have decided to make them fail. Provocation and contempt, threats and sanctions without underlying negotiable proposals, an Orwellian stage pitting the Five Nuclear Weapons States – standing on their self-assigned moral high ground – against a paranoiac, but still Non-Nuclear Weapons State. To secure an Iran without nuclear weapons, a more rational approach will be needed, an approach with strong sanctions complemented by specific technical proposals potentially acceptable to Iran, negotiated in a bilateral framework rather the now chosen international extravaganza involving too many parties that disagree openly among themselves on how to proceed.
Iran provokes foolishly – with the launching of missiles and with even more silly sound bites from its president. Tipped by the Russians about the imminent Western announcement of the Qom enrichment site, Iran sends only late September a last-minute letter to the IAEA declaring Qom – like a rebelling child displaying stolen cookies. Exposure is inescapable in the age of satellite surveillance; the Iranians would have been clever-and-a-half to declare their second enrichment facility much earlier if eager to pre-empt Western accusation of non-compliance with safeguards obligations. But confusion prevails in Tehran.
Fellow-blogger Joe Cirincione has pointed out here the strategically correct approach adopted by the Obama Administration, namely to keep confidential all new intelligence information on Iranian activities until bargaining time. Regrettably, last week, tactical considerations got priority when Obama, Brown and Sarkozy went public frenetically with the short-term hope to enlist Russian and Chinese support for subsequent stringent sanctions. Illusion. The Russians will continue to play double games. As only ally, they keep the Iranians on a short political leash, while extorting horrendous prices for the nuclear fuel services they provide. In a broader context, the Russians will do whatever they can to foil a grand bargain between the US, Europe and Iran, a bargain that could see Iranian natural gas flowing to Europe, thereby helping Europe to reduce its dependency on Russia. As to the Chinese, they do not care; they only want Iranian gas to continue flowing their way.
What to expect from the forthcoming Geneva negotiations? Not much. For sure, the negotiating framework is ludicrous. On one side of the table, the Iranian delegation alone. On the other side, a big crowd: the Five Nuclear Weapons States, and Germany, and the European Union. The P5, those who carry the day at the Security Council, will claim the main seats (like five noisy drunkards threatening a boisterous youngster tempted by his first glass of wine). Well, without the presence of Germany, the so-called P5+1 have little moral authority on nuclear proliferation. As to the European Union, it disagrees fundamentally within itself on how to handle Iran. Most members oppose the British and French claim of speaking on behalf of Europe, and most oppose decisive sanctions. As with the North Korean negotiations, the presence of so many people across the table will not impress the Iranians, on the contrary.
Quite clearly, the Obama Administration needs to revert to a strategically more sensible approach, a road map that would see the US engage Iran with a credible Plan B containing specific technical proposals meant to pull the rug from under an emerging nuclear weapons program in Iran. To be realistic, with Iran in political disarray, with its incompetent and quixotic government, the diplomatic logjam could only be broken through a discrete channel that would involve two experienced negotiators enjoying the trust of their respective leaders, personalities with the authority to move an agenda forward. On the Iranian side, there are not too many candidates; the most obvious being Ali Larijani, Speaker of Parliament, a knowledgeable man in an independent position with a direct link to the Supreme Leader. In the US, the former Under Secretary of State, Thomas R. Pickering, would be the best among many possible candidates.
As to the substance, the US must realize that Plan A is a non-starter – that is, the complete suspension of sensitive nuclear activities in Iran through sanctions alone or military options alone. In the New York Times of September 17, 2009, Roger Cohen wrote concisely what I have advocated for many years: “I cannot see any deal that will not at some point trade controlled Iranian enrichment on its soil against insistence that Iran accept the vigorous inspections of the I.A.E.A. Additional Protocol and a 24/7 I.A.E.A. presence. The time is approaching for the United States and its allies to abandon “zero enrichment” as a goal — it’s no longer feasible — and concentrate on how to exclude weaponization, cap enrichment and ensure Iran believes the price for breaking any accord will be heavy.” An in-depth 2006 report of the International Crisis Group - of which I was a co-author – dealt with one particular option to cap enrichment in Iran. There are indeed several options to forestall weaponization and to cap enrichment; they deserve consideration, because they could open the door to Iran’s acceptance of the vigorous inspections associated with the Additional Protocol to the existing Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. I will deal with the pros and cons of various options in the coming weeks.
More on Russia
Olympics trip a political gamble for Obama
The president plans to dash to Copenhagen to help Chicago’s bid, leaving healthcare and foreign issues unresolved.
Putting his political prestige on the line, President Obama has decided to fly to Denmark this week to appeal to the International Olympic Committee to choose Chicago, his adopted hometown, as host of the 2016 Games.
Honduran official may reinstate civil liberties
Roberto Micheletti, installed after a coup, says ousted President Manuel Zelaya’s return necessitated a restrictive decree. Earlier, the government shut down two opposition broadcasters.
Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras — Faced with a barrage of criticism abroad and, more importantly, from allies at home, the de facto president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, appeared to retreat Monday from his decision to suspend crucial civil liberties.
Michael Moore: Why the Current Bills Don’t Solve Our Health Care Crisis
Co-authored with Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee
Now we know why they’ve stopped calling this health care reform, and started calling it insurance reform. The current bills advancing in Congress look more like rearranging the deck chairs on the insurance Titanic than actually ending our long health care nightmare.
Some laudable elements are in various versions of the bills, especially expanding Medicaid, cutting the private insurance-padding waste of Medicare Advantage, and limiting the ability of the insurance giants to ban and dump people who have been or who ever will be sick.
But, overall, the leading bills and the President’s proposal are, like the dog that didn’t bark, more notable for what is missing.
Here are 13 problems with the current health care bills (partial list):
1. No cost controls on insurance companies. The coming sharp increases in premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, etc. will quickly outpace any projected protections from caps on out-of-pocket costs.
2. Insurance companies will continue to be able to use marketing techniques to cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.
3. No restrictions on insurance denials of care that insurers don’t want to pay for. In case you missed it, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee uncovered data on the California Department of Managed Care website recently that found six of the biggest California insurers rejected, on annual average, more than one-fifth of all claims every year since 2002.
4. No challenge to insurance company monopolies, especially in the top 94 metropolitan areas, where one or two companies dominate, severely limiting choice and competition.
5. A massive government bailout for the insurance industry through the combination of the individual mandate requiring everyone not covered to buy insurance, public subsidies which go for buying insurance, no regulation on what insurers can charge, and no restrictions on their ability to decide what claims to pay.
6. No controls on drug prices. The White House deal with Big Pharma, which won bipartisan approval in the Senate Finance Committee, opposes the use of government leverage to negotiate real cost controls on inflated drug prices.
7. No single standard of care. Our multi-tiered system remains with access to care still determined by ability to pay.
8. Tax on comprehensive insurance plans. That will encourage employers to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees, promote proliferation of bare-bones, high-deductible plans, and lead to more self-rationing of care and medical bankruptcies.
9. Not universal. Some people will remain uncovered, including those exempted, and undocumented workers, denying them treatment, exposing everyone to communicable diseases and inflating health care costs.
10. No definition of covered benefits.
11. No protection for our public safety net. Public hospitals and clinics will continue to be under-funded and a dumping ground for those the private system doesn’t want. Public monies going to hospitals serving low-income communities will be shifted to subsidies for private insurance.
12. Long delay in implementation. Many reforms don’t go into effect until 2013.
13. Nothing changes in basic structure of the system; health care remains a privilege, not a right.
We may be slow learners, but the rest of the industrial world has figured it out: Universal, single-payer or national health care systems. That’s the reason why all those other countries cover everyone, have better patient outcomes, cause no one to declare bankruptcy or lose their homes because of medical bills, and spend less than half per capita on health care than we do.
We could do it too, by reducing the starting age for Medicare from 65 to 0. There’s still time to act.
Call on your Congress member to support the vote coming up on the House floor on the Anthony Weiner amendment to protect, expand and improve Medicare for All. Senators have the same opportunity in a vote on Senate bill 703, being offered as a floor amendment by Senator Bernie Sanders.
Democrats must also ensure that whatever bill passes includes a provision enabling states to set up their own single-payer systems. These votes are the true litmus tests of the Democrats’ commitment to guaranteeing health care for all, and finally solving our health care crisis.
More on Michael Moore
AKMuckraker: The Real Story of the “Rogue” in Sarah Palin’s New Book Title.
“Going Rogue,” is the title of Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be released memoir. It’s cute, it’s catchy and it will sell some books. The 400-page tome will hit the shelves on November 17th, with a massive first printing of 1.5 million copies. And each one of those book jackets is another jab at two of the many casualties of the Palin administration in Alaska.
Politico reports that the phrase has its roots in an Oct. 20 story by Slate’s John Dickerson, with the lead: “Has Sarah Palin “gone rogue”?”
But those of us who live in Alaska, and who have been following this story from the beginning know the real root of that phrase, and will understand the ugly irony of Palin’s title.
During the ethics investigation of Sarah Palin now known as “Troopergate,” that phrase became seared into the collective consciousness of Alaskans. Palin’s spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton used that word referring not to Palin, but to the former Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan. Palin had pressured Monegan to fire her ex-brother in law Trooper Mike Wooten whose nasty divorce from Palin’s sister had left bitter feelings. Monegan refused to fire him, and was subsequently dismissed by the governor, leaving the Department of Public Safety without leadership, and leaving many Alaskans with a bad taste in their mouths.
In a stinging press conference, Stapleton said that Monegan, a particularly well-liked and respected public servant, former police chief and ex-Marine had displayed “egregious rogue behavior.” Stapleton, who had been a respected news anchor before her association with Palin, suffered withering criticism from Alaskans on both sides of the political spectrum. Alaska is a small town. Monegan was no “rogue,” everyone knew it, and the use of the term disgraced her.
What had Monegan done, according to the governor, that earned him this brand? He had planned a trip to Washington D.C. to seek funding to help combat sexual assault in a state that leads the nation in that category. Rogue, indeed.
In September of 2008, Alaskans for Truth held a rally in downtown Anchorage. More than 1500 Alaskans showed up to protest the administration’s handling of “Troopergate,” the insinuation of the McCain campaign’s attorneys into Alaska’s Department of Law, and the outrageous behavior of Meg Stapleton, then Attorney General Talis Colberg, and Palin herself. One of the speakers at the rally was Betty Monegan, the mother of Walt Monegan, who carried a sign referencing the outrageous accusations made by the Palin administration.
But Monegan was not the only one to stand accused of being a “rogue.” Mike Wooten, the infamous ex-brother-in-law was called a “rogue trooper” and Palin said he was a danger to her family and to the public. She made it clear that in no uncertain terms that being a “rogue” was not a good thing. These accusations were soundly refuted by Steven Branchflower, an independent investigator hired by the bipartisan Legislative Council to investigate Troopergate.
“I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins’ real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family reasons,” Branchflower wrote.
The Branchflower report states Todd Palin used his wife’s office and its resources to press for Wooten’s removal, and the governor “failed to act” to stop it. But because Todd Palin is not a state employee, the report makes no finding regarding his conduct.
The bipartisan Legislative Council, which commissioned the investigation after Monegan was fired, unanimously adopted the 263-page public report…
The Branchflower Report was to find Governor Palin guilty of abusing her power as governor under the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Attorney General Talis Colberg would ultimately resign his position, and Todd Palin and several administration officials would be found guilty of contempt of the Legislature for ignoring subpoenas.
Trooper Mike Wooten ended up with a desk job because Palin’s accusations that he was a “rogue” and a danger to the public had brought about threats that made it impossible for him to work out in the open as a trooper, despite the findings of the Branchflower Report.
Walt Monegan was denied a request for a due process hearing before the governor-appointed Alaska Personnel Board to address reputational harm because of the insults he endured from an administration who chose to call him a “rogue.” That’s the same board to which Palin filed a complaint against herself, and was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing.
And now Sarah Palin apparently hopes to make the term “rogue” impish and endearing, and hopes it will help her sell a lot of books. But that term is no such thing to many Alaskans. It wasn’t “cute” when it was used as a finely sharpened tool in the Palin toolbox, used to malign the characters of those who stood in the way of her power scramble to become the Vice President of the United States.
She may have fooled her ghost writer, and the folks at Harper-Collins, and she may fool many of those in the Lower 48 who will wait on line for their copy of “Going Rogue,” but she will not fool Alaskans.
Craig Crawford: Get Over Guns, America
Once again, Democrats face the vortex of gun rights. They probably lost Congress in 1994 largely because then-President Bill Clinton backed the outlawing of assault weapons. This is so nuts. I grew up learning to shoot critters with my 20-guage shotgun, but I never EVER considered it a constitutional right. As an 11-year-old stripping the skin off squirrels I decided against such a thing. Frankly, it made a bit ill, and I suddenly resolved to give up killing animals, even if it was for food. (Squirrel stew is tasty, by the way.) But I never imagined such a thing as defining my status as an American — and I still don’t.
Craig blogs daily on CQ Politics.
Chris Weigant: Best Government Dollar Spent — The National Park System
[Note: This column originally ran August 17, 2009. I don't usually re-run columns (and never so soon after their original appearance), but after watching the debut of Ken Burn's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" last night, I had to dig this out. I strongly encourage everyone to watch the rest of Burns' series, which is running all week long on your local PBS station. I also strongly urge everyone to visit our National Parks, as well. This column was written just after a road trip I took this summer, and just after President Obama had visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.]
Everyone has their own opinion as to what the federal government does best — which government dollar is the most well-spent, in other words. Some would say the military, or Medicare, or farm subsidies. For me, it’s a close tie between the Interstate Highway System and the National Park System, both of which I appreciate whenever I get a chance to use them.
Which is why it was heartening to see President Obama taking his family to visit two of the crown jewels of the National Park System — Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Most presidents don’t even get around to visiting a National Park in their first year in office, unless you count the many places in Washington, D.C. which are administered by the National Park Service (technically, even the White House would count, under this designation). And even when most presidents do visit National Parks, it is usually to make a political point or push a specific piece of legislation, with a park as a convenient photo-op backdrop.
But Obama and his family weren’t pushing any environmental legislation or making any kind of political point this past weekend. They looked like any other tourist family, there to enjoy the spectacular beauty with their kids (except for the Secret Service detail, of course). Barack Obama made a trip West with his own mother and grandmother when he was a young boy, and he obviously was taking the opportunity to do the same with his children. What could be more American and more family-oriented than that?
Some in the media didn’t agree, and wrote fairly snarky reports of the Obamas in the parks. I chalk this up to the elitism of the coastal set, who sneeringly look down their noses at anything in what they like to call “flyover country” (since you’re obviously supposed to fly over it on your way from one coast to the other).
Their loss. America has lots to offer, and much of it is hundreds of miles from a coast. Admittedly, there are some pretty boring parts of America (the Great Plains spring to mind), but there are also wonders to behold, tucked away here and there, that you’ll never see unless you get in a car and drive there.
To be fair, I have to admit my own bias, which you’ve probably already guessed by now. I am unashamedly and unabashedly pro-park. I just got back from a trip where I visited my thirty-second National Park (Capitol Reef, in Utah). Since there are only 58 parks in all (eight of which are in Alaska, which I have yet to visit), I consider myself well on my way to seeing most of them in my lifetime.
Of course, the number of official National Parks changes over time, too. When I was growing up, for instance, there were only 35 National Parks. Some other sites (National Monuments, National Historic Parks, etc.) got upgraded to National Park status, and a few even got downgraded (to National Recreation Areas, for one). National Monuments I’ve visited have since become National Parks (Great Sand Dunes, in Colorado, for instance). But whatever their official designations, all are encompassed within the National Park System.
The Obamas picked a good park to start with, since Yellowstone was the first National Park in not just America but in the whole world. It became a National Park before the National Park Service or System even existed (which took place around 50 years later, in 1916). Yellowstone became a National Park owned by the federal government because there wasn’t any state government in the area at the time (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho all became states later). And anyone who has been to see it can easily tell why it had to be protected — because it is simply spectacular. Beautiful enormous canyons, waterfalls, rivers, and mountains all lie within the park’s boundaries, but what makes it truly unique are the hot springs and geysers. Everyone knows “Old Faithful” of course, but there are hundreds of other thermal miracles to see as well, including deep pools of hot water the color of emeralds — or any other color in the rainbow you’d care to look at.
Likewise, the Grand Canyon does not disappoint. Some sights you travel to and kind of shrug your shoulders and say “Eh… it’s not as spectacular as I thought it would be.” Some things look a lot bigger in photos than they do when you’re standing in front of them, leading to a sense of disappointment. The Grand Canyon is not one of these sights. It’s big. Really, really big. Stupendously big. Mere words cannot describe its bigness. Even mere photos cannot capture its gargantuan size — because no lens is that wide. You stand on its rim and look way, way off in the distance, and you can barely see the other side of it, miles away. You look down into it — down, down, down — and when you think you’ve spotted the bottom, you find there are more layers beneath that. You finally focus on the Colorado River (the culprit who carved the thing), and it is hard to believe how far down you’re actually seeing. Quite plainly, it is almost too big for human minds to conceive.
The word “awesome” is massively overused, mostly because it’s just so darn awesome to say. But only very rarely is anything labeled “awesome” truly full of awe, or awe-inspiring. Both Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, however, measure up to the word — I defy anyone to see either of them and not leave with a sense of awe.
In fact, I encourage everyone, no matter what part of these United States you live in (or even if you live elsewhere), to take a “trip out West” at some point in your life. Get in a car, and go explore everything west of Denver. Your choices of what to see along the way are numerous and varied. You can see the most beautiful mountains this country has to offer (my personal choice, as well as every magazine advertisement ever to use a mountainous backdrop, would be the Grand Tetons). You can also see: glaciers, deserts, canyons, natural bridges, giant trees, huge cliffs and waterfalls, cacti, rivers, sand dunes thousands of miles from an ocean, oyster shells on the top of a mountain ridge, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, 282 feet below sea level), the highest point in America (Denali), volcanoes (dormant ones in the continental U.S., active ones in Hawai’i), seashores, lakeshores, landscapes that make you think you’re on another planet (White Sands, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree), humongous caverns, balancing rocks, Native American ruins, a rain forest (Olympic), petrified wood, dinosaur bones, hot springs, and (of course) geysers like Old Faithful.
That’s all just west of Denver, mind you. There’s plenty of other stuff to see in the other direction, too. But seeing President Obama and his family take in two of the western parks (just after I got back from seeing some of them myself) prompted me to write this paean to the parks out West, to strongly encourage everyone — yes, even you! — to plan on a trip like this at some point. It’s worth it.
And it’s worth every single one of my tax dollars that go to pay for it. Yours, too.
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
More on Barack Obama
