Press Briefing

Jan 21, 2010

Chomsky's Nightmare: Is Fascism Coming to America?
http://progressive.org/rothschild0610.html

Time to Stand Up to the National Standards Agenda
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/21/morning-bell-time-to-stand-up-to-the-national-standards-agenda

Churchill's Stogie Up In Smoke
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1549/news_detail.asp

On Eric Jaffe's The King's Best Highway - The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route that Made America
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311071004764364.html

WH Blog: President Obama Breaks Ground on 10,000th Recovery Act Road Project; Let the Summer of Recovery begin!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/18/president-obama-breaks-ground-10000th-recovery-act-road-project-let-summer-recovery-

Think Globally, Sue Locally - The plaintiffs bar goes international and focuses on trashing a corporation's image
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704002104575291101685354766.html

On the Precautionary Principle: The Gulf disaster rehabilitates a discredited idea - The 'Paralyzing' Principle
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575304931124455048.html

Pakistan's Medieval Constitution - It is the only Muslim nation to explicitly define who is or is not a 'Muslim'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311043632237762.html

The China Currency Syndrome - World leaders would do better to worry less about imbalances and more about whether their own nations are pursuing policies that contribute to global prosperity
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704365204575317691493370612.html

U.S. Will Contribute Additional $60 Million to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/unrwa_refugees

ObamaCare and the Independent Vote - Voter opposition hasn't changed, and it could be decisive in November
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312610438320480.html

Ending Lobbyist Appointments to Agency Boards and Commissions
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/18/ending-lobbyist-appointments-agency-boards-and-commissions

Capital-Control Comeback - As money flows to Asia, politicians play King Canute
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312080651478488.html

Celebrex: Something to Celebrate
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1548/news_detail.asp

Federal President Weekly Address: Republicans Blocking Progress
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/19/weekly-address-republicans-blocking-progress

Conservatives: Married Fathers-America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/06/Married-Fathers-Americas-Greatest-Weapon-Against-Child-Poverty

Press Briefing

Jan 19, 2010

Why Pakistan Must Change Its Priorities - ISI and the Taliban
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11902

Adjustments to the Basel II market risk framework announced by the Basel Committee
http://www.bis.org/press/p100618.htm

Free eBook: Cult of the Presidency - America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power
http://www.cato.org/cult-of-the-presidency/

The Vanity Tax - The trouble with the government's new tax on indoor tanning services
http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/17/the-vanity-tax

Surfing the Chinternet - What hides behind the "Great Firewall" of China?
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/surfing-chinternet

Why is the United States Always the Supplicant? Part of the answer, no doubt, is our uninhibited displays of eagerness
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-united-states-always-supplicant

US Helps Drought-Affected Niger With First Award Under the Emergency Food Security Program
http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2010/pr100617.html

On NASA's comments to EPA Fears of Formaldehyde
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1540/news_detail.asp

Scoop: KUKA's youBot Mobile Manipulator Unveiled
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/scoop-kukas-youbot

EPA Foments Baseless Fear of Formaldehyde
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1538/news_detail.asp

Keep Your Junk Science Off My Salt
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1541/news_detail.asp

How 'Protectionist' Became An Insult - As Congress dawdles on trade agreements, the harsh results of the Smoot-Hawley tariff should not be forgotten
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296610452014710.html

The Trouble With Teacher Tenure - We can't make progress if bad teachers have jobs for life

The Trouble With Teacher Tenure. By TIMOTHY KNOWLES
We can't make progress if bad teachers have jobs for life.WSJ, Jun 18, 2010

Colorado did right by its kids recently when Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law groundbreaking education reform to overhaul teacher tenure and evaluation. The bill elicited an outcry from many teachers. But the many states now considering similar measures must not be cowed by the firestorm.

As a former teacher, principal and district leader, I've devoted my life to providing children with the excellent education they deserve. And in my 23 years on the job, there are two things I've learned for certain.

First, teachers have a greater impact on student learning than any other school-based factor. Second, we will not produce excellent schools without eliminating laws and practices that guarantee teachers—regardless of their performance—jobs for life.

Nearly everyone in public education has a story that illustrates the Kafkaesque process of trying to remove a tenured teacher. Mine involves a teacher in Boston who napped each day in the back of the room while students copied from the board. Despite repeated efforts, the district failed to fire him.

Such anecdotes are reinforced by hard data. An award-winning study of Illinois school districts over an 18-year period found an average of two tenured teachers out of 95,000 were dismissed for underperformance each year. Nationally, between 0.1% and 1% of tenured teachers are dismissed annually, according to the Center for American Progress.

It's not news that students suffer when very low-performing teachers are allowed to remain in the classroom. But teachers suffer too. In a forthcoming article, my colleague Sara Ray Stoelinga of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute illustrates how teacher tenure creates perverse practices in schools across Chicago. In interviews with 40 principals, 37 admitted to using some type of harassing supervision—cajoling, pressuring or threatening—to get teachers to leave in order to circumvent the byzantine removal process mandated by the union contract. One principal plotted to remove a teacher who had trouble climbing stairs by assigning her to a fourth-floor classroom. Another reassigned a teacher who had been teaching eighth-graders for 14 years to a first-grade classroom.

This pathological status quo feeds upon itself: The more difficult it is for principals to address underperformance, the more likely they are to use informal methods to do so. This fuels labor's argument that management is capricious, strengthening their case for increased employment protection.

This cycle leads to what educators call "the dance of the lemons"—the practice of shuffling underperforming teachers from school to school. It's easier to push a teacher to a school down the street than it is to push them out of the profession.

The effect that bad teachers have on relationships among teachers and principals might be the most corrosive aspect of tenure laws. In the book "Organizing Schools for Improvement," University of Chicago researchers showed that the quality of adult relationships in a school profoundly affects student achievement. Analyzing more than a decade's worth of data from Chicago Public Schools, they found that schools where adults demonstrate a shared sense of responsibility for student learning are four times more likely to make substantial gains in reading than schools without strong professional ties. Schools where principals set high standards and involve teachers in decision making are seven times more likely to make substantial improvements in math than schools weak on such measures. But cooperative relationships are difficult to maintain when principals must use underhanded methods to remove ineffective teachers, and when bad teachers undermine staff morale.

The good news is that the majority of teachers are not interested in protecting colleagues who don't belong in the classroom. Last summer the American Federation of Teachers surveyed its members, asking: "Which of these should be the higher priority: working for professional teaching standards and good teaching, or defending the job rights of teachers who face disciplinary action?" According to Randi Weingarten, the union's president, "by a ratio of 4 to 1 (69% to 16%), AFT members chose working for professional standards and good teaching as the higher priority." She elaborated: "Teachers have zero tolerance for people who . . . demonstrate they are unfit for our profession."

The time has come to eliminate tenure. We are facing monumental challenges in our quest to provide all students with an education that will prepare them to compete in a globalized economy. By removing one of the main sources of friction between labor and management, we can focus on the substantive issues: training, evaluating and rewarding teachers to make teaching a true profession.

Mr. Knowles is the director of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute.

Press Briefing

Jan 18, 2010

New START and implications for National Security Programs. By Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State. Opening Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the New START. Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/06/143261.htm

U.S. Assistance in Response to the Current Humanitarian Crisis in the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan. US State Dept
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/06/143229.htm

The Trouble With Teacher Tenure - We can't make progress if bad teachers have jobs for life
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/trouble-with-teacher-tenure-we-cant.html

Good Jobs and a Level Playing Field in the Next Recovery
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/17/good-jobs-and-a-level-playing-field-next-recovery

The Gulf Spill Record - Here's the rest of the story on USA Today's "Oil spills escalated in this decade."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296584097417918.html

The White House Blog: A New Process and a New Escrow Account for Gulf Oil Spill Claims from BP
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/17/a-new-process-and-a-new-escrow-account-gulf-oil-spill-claims-bp

BP at first sounded arrogant and now is so obsequious it won't even stand up for its legal rights
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312833964048458.html

New York and the New England Journal of Medicine. By Peter R. Orszag, Director, OMB
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/blog/10/06/17/New-York-and-the-New-England-Journal-of-Medicine/

Reforming Main Street - A trial-lawyer bonanza gets air-dropped into the financial bill
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308970937631194.html

Greenspan: U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy - Don't be fooled by today's low interest rates. The government could very quickly discover the limits of its borrowing capacity.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575310962247772540.html

New York and the New England Journal of Medicine. By Peter R. Orszag, Director, OMB
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/blog/10/06/17/New-York-and-the-New-England-Journal-of-Medicine/

In Medical Malpractice Reform, States Should Shirk the Washington Way
http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/in-the-news/in-medical-malpractice-reform-states-should-shirk-the-washington-way

U.S. Treasury Department Targets Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs. Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/143265.htm

Cisneros Rewriting HUD History
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/cisneros-rewriting-hud-history.html

Missile Defense: We've committed to developing proven technologies, and the new START Treaty won't stand in our way. By M Flournoy, Under Sec of Defense for Policy & A Carter, Under Sec of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/missile-defense-weve-committed-to.html

Rahming Through a Lame Duck Climate Bill?
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11904

Expert: Obama speech too 'professorial' for his target audience
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/16/obama.speech.analysis/index.html

An Offer BP Couldn’t Refuse
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/17/morning-bell-an-offer-bp-couldnt-refuse

The Water Cost of Carbon Capture
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/the-water-cost-of-carbon-capture

Cisneros Rewriting HUD History

Posted by Tad DeHaven, Cato, June 17, 2010 @ 1:50 pm

In a recent speech to real estate interests, former Clinton HUD secretary Henry Cisneros preposterously claimed that the recent housing meltdown “occurred not out of a governmental push, but out of a hijacking of the homeownership process by some unscrupulous interests.”
The only criticisms Cisneros could muster for the government’s housing policies over the past 20 years were that regulations weren’t tough enough and it should have focused more on rental subsidies.

The reality is that Cisneros-era HUD regulations and policies directly contributed to the housing bubble and subsequent burst as a Cato essay on HUD scandals illustrates:

• Cisneros’s HUD pursued legal action against mortgage lenders who supposedly declined higher percentages of loans for minorities than whites. As a result of such political pressure, lenders begin lowering their lending standards.

• On Cisneros’s watch, the Community Reinvestment Act was used to pressure lenders into making more loans to moderate-income borrowers by allowing regulators to deny merger approvals for banks with low CRA ratings. The result was that banks began issuing more loans to otherwise uncreditworthy borrowers, while purchasing more CRA mortgage-backed securities. More importantly, these lax standards quickly spread to prime and subprime mortgage markets.

• The Clinton administration’s National Homeownership Strategy, prepared under Cisneros’s direction, advocated “financing strategies, fueled by creativity and resources of the public and private sectors, to help homebuyers that lack cash to buy a home or income to make the payments.” In other words, his policies encouraged the behavior that he now calls “unscrupulous.”

• Cisneros’s HUD also put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under constant pressure to facilitate more lending to “underserved” markets. It was under Cisneros’s direction that HUD agreed to allow Fannie and Freddie credit toward its “affordable housing” targets by buying subprime mortgages. Fannie and Freddie are now under government conservatorship and will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Cisneros now serves as the executive chairman of an institutional investment company focused on urban real estate. Might that explain why Cisneros is now a fan of subsidizing rental housing?
“Unscrupulous” would be a good word to describe the millions of dollars Cisneros has made in the real estate industry following his exit from government.
From the Cato essay:

In 2001, Cisneros joined the board of Fannie Mae’s biggest client: the now notorious Countrywide Financial, the company that was center stage in the subprime lending scandals of recent years. When the housing bubble was inflating, Countrywide and KB took full advantage of the liberalized lending standards fueled by Cisneros’s HUD. In addition to the money he received as a KB director, Cisneros’s company, in which he held a 65 percent stake, received $1.24 million in consulting fees from KB in 2002.
When Cisneros stepped down from Countrywide’s board in 2007, he called it a “well-managed company” and said that he had “enormous confidence” in its leadership. Clearly, those statements were baloney—Cisneros was trying to escape before the crash. Just days before his resignation, Countrywide announced a $1.2 billion loss, and reported that a third of its borrowers were late on mortgage payments. According to SEC records, Cisneros’s position at Countrywide had earned him a $360,000 salary in 2006 and $5 million in stock sales since 2001.

Missile Defense: We've committed to developing proven technologies, and the new START Treaty won't stand in our way

The Way Forward on Missile Defense. By M Flournoy, Under Sec of Defense for Policy & A Carter, Under Sec of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics
We've committed to developing proven technologies, and the new START Treaty won't stand in our way.
WSJ, Jun 17, 2010

Ballistic missile defenses have matured from a Cold War idea to a real-world necessity. Threats today from ballistic missiles are real, present and growing. Iran and North Korea have extensive inventories of these weapons that threaten their neighbors. Both are working on longer-range missiles capable of posing a direct danger to the United States in the coming years. Iran's continued pursuit of an illicit nuclear program and North Korea's rash intimidation after sinking a South Korean navy ship are but the most recent reminders of the real need for effective U.S. missile defenses.

To counter Iran's ballistic missile program, President Obama announced a phased adaptive approach for European missile defense last September—a move unanimously welcomed by our NATO allies. The first phase begins next year with the deployment of radars and ship-based systems in southern Europe. Romania and Poland have agreed to host land-based defenses for the second and third phases.

A similar phased adaptive approach is being applied to missile defenses in the Middle East and East Asia. While the details of the deployments and host-country arrangements will differ by region, the common thread is significant improvement in ballistic missile defense capabilities, meant to protect our deployed forces overseas and our allies and partners.

In a departure from past approaches, we are no longer building systems anchored in one place and wedded to current threat assessments. We know that the capabilities of potential adversaries do not always progress according to intelligence assessments. Our program must adapt accordingly in the face of evolving and unpredictable threats.

We are also making continued progress in improving our ability to defend the U.S. homeland from ballistic missile attack. By the fall, the U.S. will have 30 deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, with eight more missile defense silos near completion.

The U.S. is committed to a "fly before you buy" approach supported by a rigorous and independently-monitored testing program. An essential element of that program, and a key capability for the phased adaptive approach, is the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptor. The SM-3 version deployed on Navy ships today has hit—within inches—its exact target in nine out of 10 tests. The accuracy of these tests has been confirmed in a variety of ways: by fiber-optic grids that can precisely indicate the point of impact on the target; by images taken from the interceptor in the very last moment before impact (images not available to the public for security reasons); by data from highly accurate radars and airborne sensors; and by extensive rocket sled tests and computer simulations on the ground. All these verification sources confirm that when a missile warhead was hit, it was destroyed. These results have been validated by an independent panel of experts with access to all of the classified and unclassified test data.

Missile defenses have become a topic of some discussion in the context of the Senate's consideration of the New START Treaty with Russia. The fact is that the treaty does not constrain the U.S. from testing, developing and deploying missile defenses. Nor does it prevent us from improving or expanding them. Nor does it raise the costs of doing so. We have made clear to our Russian counterparts that missile defense cooperation between us is in our mutual interest, and is not inconsistent with the need to deploy and improve our missile defense capabilities as threats arise.

U.S. ballistic missile defenses are effective, affordable and increasingly adaptable. These capabilities are critical to protecting U.S. citizens, our forces abroad, and our allies from real and growing threats.

Press Briefing

Jan 17, 2010

The White House Blog: More Support for Curbing Special Interest Influence in Our Elections
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/16/more-support-curbing-special-interest-influence-our-elections

Conservative: The Bad News About ObamaCare Keeps Piling Up - It's now obvious that many millions will lose the coverage they have.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575310773636609374.html

At Last, Financial Reform - Barney Frank helps prevent another crisis in the credit markets
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575310851924122716.html

A Stealth Attack on Capital Gains - Congress has proposed a discriminatory 'enterprise value tax' on hedge funds and other partnerships. It is a threat to any business or industry that politicians decide is no longer popular
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308981778779248.html

The President's Meeting with BP Executives: "An Important Step Towards Making the People of the Gulf Coast Whole Again"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/16/important-step-towards-making-people-gulf-coast-whole-again

Pakistan-U.S. Strategic Dialogue Energy Working Group Meets in Islamabad
http://blogs.state.gov/ap/index.php/site/entry/pakistan_us_strategic_dialogue_energy

The President's Animosities - Since when was the American idea us versus them?
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/way-mr-obama-sees-life-in-xxi-century.html

Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, USAID Administrator Raj Shah, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
2010 World Food Prize Laureate Announcement Ceremony, Ben Franklin Room, Washington, D.C.
http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2010/sp100616.html

Crude Politics - The drilling experts speak out on the Obama deepwater moratorium
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311033371466938.html

United States identifies science and innovation as critical drivers to end global hunger
http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2010/pr100616.html

Conservatives on the oil spill and federal president: A Crisis of Competence
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/16/morning-bell-a-crisis-of-competence

U.S. Engagement With The International Criminal Court and The Outcome Of The Recently Concluded Review Conference. By Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Advisor, & Stephen J. Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, State Dept
Washington, DC, June 15, 2010
http://www.state.gov/s/wci/us_releases/remarks/143178.htm

Libertarian: Obama's Vision Deficit on Display
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-oval-office-address-obamas-vision-deficit-on-display/19518002

The way Mr. Obama sees life in XXI century America: a tooth-and-fang world of private interests in constant struggle against the benevolent goals of government

The President's Animosities. By DANIEL HENNINGER
Since when was the American idea us versus them?WSJ, Jun 17, 2010

The oil company formerly known as British Petroleum is starting to look kind of beaten up. So it goes when a business finds itself tossed into the ring with the current president of the United States.

"We will make BP pay," Mr. Obama said Tuesday night.

There is a mood in the land that BP is getting what it deserves. Maybe so. But players in the political game who've found it convenient to join the president in the BP bear-baiting should not delude themselves that BP is a free hit. In politics, nothing happens in isolation.

The beating Mr. Obama is giving BP isn't the exception. It's the rule when this president finds himself in tension with the private sector. I can't recall any previous president with this depth of visceral, antibusiness animosity.

Amid the BP crisis, the president traveled to Carnegie Mellon University to give what was billed as a major speech on the economy. In its entirety, the speech is a guided tour through Mr. Obama's mind. The pundits carping yesterday that the president's oil-spill apologia was limp—even as BP gave him $20 billion in tribute—should check out this one.

That Pittsburgh speech wasn't just about "the economy," but the way Mr. Obama sees life in 21st century America: a tooth-and-fang world of private interests in constant struggle against the benevolent goals of government. All of this described in a tone that is extraordinary for a president.

"As November approaches," the president said, "leaders in the other party will campaign furiously on the same economic arguments they've been making for decades." They gave "tax cuts . . . to millionaires who didn't need them. They gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of oversight."

Mr. Obama believes that "if you're a Wall Street bank or an insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else." Al Gore campaigned hard against these same targets, but never with such ill will.

Americans, he says, want to compete but can't "if the irresponsibility of a few folks on Wall Street can bring our entire economy to its knees." A president is not some backwater pol running for sheriff. But his explanation of the financial crisis—the whole economy brought down by "a few" on Wall Street—is a scenario found nowhere outside a James Bond movie.

He punched out WellPoint and other insurers verbally for months until they dropped and the Democrats passed the president's health-care bill. And they'd better stay down. No longer, said Mr. Obama, would it be possible for people to be "thrown off" their coverage for reasons "contrived" by an insurance company.

He complains his predecessor left him with projected deficits of $8 trillion caused by unpaid-for tax cuts, a familiar analysis, except that Mr. Obama adds that the cuts were "skewed to the wealthy."

When in the Carnegie Mellon speech Mr. Obama turns from what he called "the dangers of an unfettered market" and discusses government—"only government has been able to do what individuals couldn't do and corporations wouldn't do"—he is virtually delirious with joy.

Of his proposed research and experimentation tax credit he says, "The possibilities of where this research might lead are endless." Regenerative medicine, educational software, intelligent prosthetics. "Imagine all the workers and small business owners and consumers who would benefit from these discoveries."

He then identifies what stands in the way of "a better future." It's that "there will always be lobbyists for the banks or the insurance industry that don't want more regulation; or the corporation that would prefer to see more tax breaks . . ." A president seeking tax breaks to the horizon for green industries wouldn't say this, unless whacking "corporations" was just too much fun.

The agenda Mr. Obama described at Carnegie Mellon is so vast you'd think he'd at least enlist the private sector's help. But there's nothing in the speech's enumerations to suggest any desire to have them along on these projects. If they contribute or comply, it will be out of intimidation. It's all him or the government or its "investments."

Some might say that instead of being a cheerleader for business, Mr. Obama is simply a tough-minded public official holding well-shod feet to the fire. I don't buy it. His tone and vocabulary, in use since he took office, goes beyond public policy. It sounds personal. Too personal for a president.

Populism in the United States is a trickier proposition than in, say, South America. Here, the private sector isn't automatically a suspect proposition. Bill Clinton played the populism card as well as anyone. Harry Truman and JFK had famous fights with big steel. But none of these Democratic presidents routinely pistol-whipped private interests in the language this one does. No previous president assembled a Cabinet with not one member from the private sector, as now.

The worldview in this White House is distinct and unusual. It wasn't a voting issue in 2008. The opposition should make it an issue in 2012, and this November. Since when was the American idea us versus them?

Press Briefing

Jan 16, 2010

The New START Treaty, by Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation.
Opening Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/143159.htm

Russia Rises While Kyrgyzstan Burns - The violence highlights Moscow's power in a country with an important U.S. military base
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308773623569614.html

Libertarians: Guns and Free Speech - The NRA sells out to Democrats on the First Amendment
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308470831235224.html

U.S. Priorities on sub-Saharan Africa. By Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs
Remarks for the Diplomacy Briefing Series Conference, Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm/2010/143144.htm

Hungary Goes for Growth - Glimmers of policy hope on the Continent
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575306243153045062.html

Good Business in the Global Landscape. By Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs
Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/g/143136.htm

A Smart Response to China’s ‘Indigenous Innovation’ Policies. By Dieter Ernst
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/news-center/east-west-wire/a-smart-response-to-chinas-indigenous-innovation-policies/

EPA Paints Rosy Picture of American Power Act
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/06/15/epa-paints-rosy-picture-of-american-power-act/

Government to the Economic Rescue - Historians will look back at this time and say the three-pronged strategy of TARP, fiscal stimulus and bank stress testing kept us out of the abyss
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575307071188294124.html

Captains of Subsidy - Famous CEOs plead for more energy cash from Washington
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575298802622225806.html

BP Doesn't Deserve a Liability Cap - The best way to deter future spills is to expose drillers to the full costs of any mistake and not let any company without proper insurance near an oil derrick
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575298902528808996.html

Oil Talk - Obama is trying to link the Gulf gusher to his moribund green agenda
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309272270223654.html

Susan Rice Accepts Possibility of International Investigation of U.S. Military
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/rice-accepts-possibility-international-investigation-us-military

Libertarian: Obama vs. BP (and You) - The government holds a company's stock price hostage
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308763321043220.html

The White House Blog - Keeping the Plan You Like
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/14/keeping-plan-you

Conservatives: "Side Effects: Obamacare Adds to the Ranks of the Uninsured"
http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/in-the-news/side-effects-obamacare-adds-to-the-ranks-of-the-uninsured

Lifetime Learners: One Student at a Time
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11893

The Obama Energy Tax Game Plan
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/15/morning-bell-the-obama-energy-tax-game-plan

The White House Blog - Cooking as a Way of Life
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/14/cooking-a-way-life

Conservatives: Don't Repeal "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" - Don't sacrifice unit cohesion for a social experiment
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/dont-repeal-dont-askdont-tell

Press Briefing

Jan 16, 2010

Good Business in the Global Landscape. By Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs
Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/g/143136.htm

A Smart Response to China’s ‘Indigenous Innovation’ Policies. By Dieter Ernst
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/news-center/east-west-wire/a-smart-response-to-chinas-indigenous-innovation-policies/

EPA Paints Rosy Picture of American Power Act
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/06/15/epa-paints-rosy-picture-of-american-power-act/

Government to the Economic Rescue - Historians will look back at this time and say the three-pronged strategy of TARP, fiscal stimulus and bank stress testing kept us out of the abyss
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575307071188294124.html

Captains of Subsidy - Famous CEOs plead for more energy cash from Washington
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575298802622225806.html

BP Doesn't Deserve a Liability Cap - The best way to deter future spills is to expose drillers to the full costs of any mistake and not let any company without proper insurance near an oil derrick
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575298902528808996.html

Oil Talk - Obama is trying to link the Gulf gusher to his moribund green agenda
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309272270223654.html

Susan Rice Accepts Possibility of International Investigation of U.S. Military
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/rice-accepts-possibility-international-investigation-us-military

Libertarian: Obama vs. BP (and You) - The government holds a company's stock price hostage
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308763321043220.html

The White House Blog - Keeping the Plan You Like
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/14/keeping-plan-you

Conservatives: "Side Effects: Obamacare Adds to the Ranks of the Uninsured"
http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/in-the-news/side-effects-obamacare-adds-to-the-ranks-of-the-uninsured

Lifetime Learners: One Student at a Time
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11893

The Obama Energy Tax Game Plan
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/15/morning-bell-the-obama-energy-tax-game-plan

The White House Blog - Cooking as a Way of Life
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/14/cooking-a-way-life

Conservatives: Don't Repeal "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" - Don't sacrifice unit cohesion for a social experiment
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/dont-repeal-dont-askdont-tell

Press Briefing

Jan 15, 2010

PM: Statement on Saville Inquiry about the Bloody Sunday events, Jan 2972
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/statements-and-articles/2010/06/pm-statement-on-saville-inquiry-51888

Trafficking in Persons: Ten Years of Partnering to Combat Modern Slavery
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/fs/2010/143115.htm

It's Time to Nationalize Fannie and Freddie - Any solution that allows private companies to have a special relationship to government is destined to fail
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509404575301132120330798.html

Immigration: What Would Reagan Do? - The Gipper repeatedly declared that openness to immigration represents adefining aspect of our national identity
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282431263367708.html

Who's the Enemy in the War on Terror? - The U.S. is at war with violent Islamist extremism, and the Obama administration does moderate Muslims no favor by refusing to recognize this
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509404575300420668558244.html

Latest BIS Quarterly Review discusses financial turbulence
http://www.bis.org/press/p100614.htm

Afghan Staying Power - The President needs to speak up for his war strategy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575306884228293658.html

The United States and Africa: Partnering for Progress
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/fs/2010/143133.htm

Obama's Political Oil Fund - In its Gulf spill panic, the White House runs roughshod over the rule of law
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575307111725173500.html

China's high saving rate: myth and reality, by Guonan Ma and Wang Yi
BIS Working Papers No 312, June 2010
http://www.bis.org/publ/work312.htm
The saving rate of China is high from many perspectives - historical experience, international standards and the predictions of economic models. Furthermore, the average saving rate has been rising over time, with much of the increase taking place in the 2000s, so that the aggregate marginal propensity to save exceeds 50%. What really sets China apart from the rest of the world is that the rising aggregate saving has reflected high savings rates in all three sectors - corporate, household and government. Moreover, adjusting for inflation alters interpretations of the time path of the propensity to save in the three sectors. Our evidence casts doubt on the proposition that distortions and subsidies account for China's rising corporate profits and high saving rate. Instead, we argue that tough corporate restructuring (including pension and home ownership reforms), a marked Lewis-model transformation process (where the average wage exceeds the marginal product of labour in the subsistence sector) and rapid ageing process have all played more important roles. While such structural factors suggest that the Chinese saving rate will peak in the medium term, policies for job creation and a stronger social safety net would assist the transition to more balanced domestic demand.

The Government Bailouts Must End
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/14/morning-bell-the-government-bailouts-must-end