Economists See Long Road to Recovery

By PHIL IZZO

Economists in the latest Wall Street Journal survey see an end to the recession by autumn, but say it will take years for the economy to fully recover.

"In general, I think it will be a subdued recovery," said Paul Kasriel of The Northern Trust Corp.

On average, the 52 economists who participated in the survey project that the recession will end in August. They expect gross domestic product to contract 1.4% at a seasonally adjusted annualized pace in the current quarter, compared with the 6.1% drop recorded in the first quarter. Slow growth is expected to return by the third quarter, with the economy expanding more than 2% in the first half of 2010.

The survey was conducted before the Commerce Department's report this week that retail sales fell 0.4% in April from the previous month, which left some economists questioning whether consumer spending is ready to rebound. Initial unemployment claims released Thursday brought more gloomy news: Seasonally adjusted claims in the week ended May 9 increased 32,000 to 637,000 from a revised 605,000 in the preceding week. Most of the losses can be chalked up to Chrysler LLC's 27,000 layoffs following its April 30 bankruptcy filing.

Separately, the April producer price index, which gauges prices at the wholesale level, rose 0.3%, driven by growth in food prices. The core price index, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.1%.

Even before the new data were released, economists were expecting a major pullback in consumption. Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents said the recent increase in the U.S. saving rate is the beginning of a major behavioral shift.

"Savings rates will remain above pre-bubble levels," said Scott Anderson of Wells Fargo & Co.

A consumer retrenchment is one factor that is likely to make any recovery a long slog. The economists on average expect the unemployment rate to climb to 9.7% by the end of the year, with two million more jobs lost over the next 12 months, even as growth returns to the economy.

The depth of the downturn means it will take years to eat up the slack created by the recession. To gain back ground lost and bring down unemployment, the economy has to grow by more than its potential rate. Nearly half of the economists said it will take three to four years to close the output gap, while more than a quarter say it will take five to six years.

"We're going through a transition in the economy back to a more normal share of consumer spending relative to GDP," said Paul Kasriel of The Northern Trust Corp. "This is a very deep and defining recession that is going to lead to a transformed U.S. economy, and these transformations don't take place overnight."

The survey respondents were more positive about the financial sector. A third of the economists said the recently completed bank stress tests were a well-done and very constructive process, while half said they were helpful even if they understated risks. Last week, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department released the results of tests to gauge how well banks' balance sheets would withstand the recession. The tests found that even though some banks may need more capital, all the top institutions were solvent. Meanwhile, more than three-quarters said President Barack Obama's administration won't have to go back to Congress for more money to aid banks.

"The best things about the stress tests was the timing of the release," said Lou Crandall of Wrightson ICAP. "The tests kept everything in limbo for a while, getting past the hurdle of recapitalization just as the data started to suggest the approach of a floor. That makes this a good time for the banking system to start the next phase of cleaning up the balance sheet.

Half the respondents said that fiscal and monetary stimulus has provided the basis for a sustainable recovery. Twenty-seven percent said it has boosted the economy, but they had doubts about sustainability. "The Fed has the big guns and has effectively averted a depression or a much more severe recession," said Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial.

The role of the Fed in stabilizing the market has boosted the outlook for Chairman Ben Bernanke. On average, the economists say there is a 72% chance that Mr. Obama will reappoint the Fed chairman in 2010. "If there's a hero to this piece, it's Ben Bernanke," Mr. Kasriel said.

Realities of war: 'This is vicious stuff' Ex-Army colonel chides 'civil libertarians who haven't left the comfort of America'

A former Army colonel says President Obama made a "wise decision" when he reversed his stance and announced he would ask the federal courts to block the release of photos depicting enhanced interrogation methods approved by the Bush administration

.

The decision was "obviously one that was informed by the commanders in the field," according to retired U.S. Army Col. Bob Maginnis.

He spoke with Greg Corombos of Radio America/WND. The audio of the exchange is embedded here:

WND Exclusive BORN IN THE USA? 2nd congressman: Prove eligibility Virginia representative signs onto plan to demand evidence

By Bob Unruh

Now there are two.

A Virginia congressman, very quietly, has signed onto a measure in Congress that would require presidential candidates to verify their eligibility to hold the highest elected office in the United States.

WND earlier reported when freshman Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., filed H.R. 1503, an amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.

According to the Library of Congress' bill-tracking website, H.R. 1503 would "require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of president to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution."

The plan has been referred to the House

committee on House administration, where it has remained.

Now, Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte has signed on as a co-sponsor, putting a notice on his website that it's one of the efforts in which he's joining.

"Another man with a spine – there are at least two up there on the Hill," wrote a WND reader who has followed the Posey plan.

Get the new Whistleblower magazine, called "YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE? Why dozens of lawsuits and millions of Americans want Barack Obama to prove he's constitutionally qualified to be president."

George Cecala, a spokesman for Posey office, told WND that constituents had been calling, questioning whether Barack Obama – who has publicized a Certification of Live Birth, but not his official birth certificate – has demonstrated that he meets the Constitution's requirement to be a natural-born citizen.

"Those are legitimate constitutional concerns," Cecala said. "Folks have brought the issue up, and the court really hasn't clarified. And I think American citizens have a right to have answers from their government."

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 365,000 others and sign up now!

"When 7-year-olds play soccer in Brevard County, to be in Little League they have to prove their residency," Cecala said. "To be president there are three requirements: one is citizenship, two is the age of 35, and three, you have to have been a resident for 14 years. We're simply saying when you file your statement of candidacy with the FEC, you should also file documentation that you fulfill the three requirements to be president.

"Opponents of President Bush used the 2000 election results and the court decisions to question the legitimacy of President Bush to serve as president," explained Rep. Posey in an official statement. "Opponents of President Obama are raising the birth certificate issue as a means of questioning his eligibility to serve as president. Neither of these situations is healthy for our republic. This bill, by simply requiring such documentation for future candidates for president will remove this issue as a reason for questioning the legitimacy of a candidate elected as president."

Goodlatte appeared to have issued no such formal announcement as he signed onto the plan.

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

Although Obama officials have told WND all such allegations are "garbage," here is a partial listing and status update for some of the cases over Obama's eligibility:

• New Jersey attorney Mario Apuzzo has filed a case on behalf of Charles Kerchner and others alleging Congress didn't properly ascertain that Obama is qualified to hold the office of president.


• Pennsylvania Democrat Philip Berg has three cases pending, including Berg vs. Obama in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a separate Berg vs. Obama which is under seal at the U.S. District Court level and Hollister vs. Soetoro a/k/a Obama, (now dismissed) brought on behalf of a retired military member who could be facing recall to active duty by Obama.
  
  
• Leo Donofrio of New Jersey filed a lawsuit claiming Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court but denied a full hearing.


• Cort Wrotnowski filed suit against Connecticut's secretary of state, making a similar argument to Donofrio. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a full hearing.


• Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes headlines a list of people filing a suit in California, in a case handled by the United States Justice Foundation, that asks the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office. The case is pending, and lawyers are seeking the public's support.


• Chicago lawyer Andy Martin sought legal action requiring Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle to release Obama's vital statistics record. The case was dismissed by Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe.
  
  
• Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Electoral College vote in North Carolina until Barack Obama's eligibility could be confirmed, alleging doubt about Obama's citizenship. His case was denied.
  
  
• In Ohio, David M. Neal sued to force the secretary of state to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii. The case was denied.
  
  
• Also in Ohio, there was the Greenberg v. Brunner case which ended when the judge threatened to assess all case costs against the plaintiff.
  
  
• In Washington state, Steven Marquis sued the secretary of state seeking a determination on Obama's citizenship. The case was denied.
  
  
• In Georgia, Rev. Tom Terry asked the state Supreme Court to authenticate Obama's birth certificate. His request for an injunction against Georgia's secretary of state was denied by Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter.


• California attorney Orly Taitz has brought a case, Lightfoot vs. Bowen, on behalf of Gail Lightfoot, the vice presidential candidate on the ballot with Ron Paul, four electors and two registered voters. She also has brought forward several other cases and has conducted several public campaigns to generate awareness of the issue.
  

• In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.
  
  
• In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.
  
  
• In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.
  
  
• In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.
  
  
• In Hawaii, Keyes vs. Lingle, dismissed.

In addition, other cases cited on the RightSideofLife blog as raising questions about Obama's eligibility include:

• In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.
  
  
• In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.
  
  
• In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.
  
  
• In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

Chinese imports could bring GM political troubles

By TOM KRISHER

DETROIT (AP) - As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.

The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration's desire to preserve the company's 90,000 U.S. jobs.

The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.

"GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," Alan Reuther, the union's Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.

The carmaker, which was in danger of running out of cash early this year, faces a June 1 government deadline to cut costs and complete other restructuring measures or go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It also has requested another $11.6 billion in government loans to make it through this year, and faces the prospect that the government will soon be its largest shareholder.

On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson in Detroit would not comment on the reports. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"GM is reviewing various options," GM's China office said in a written statement received Thursday. "We are not discussing details of our future portfolio, beyond what we have disclosed in auto shows and our viability plans."

But the report reiterated the company's emphasis on first meeting demand in the Chinese domestic market.

"GM's philosophy has always been to build where we sell, and we continue to believe that is the best strategy for long-term success, both from a product development and business planning standpoint," it said.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkley who specializes in labor issues, said increased overseas production and imports could prove politically tricky for GM.

"The reason is simple - production location is a corporate decision, but when it's on the taxpayer dime, there are different sensitivities, so the notion of billions for a rescue package and offshore production, I think, could be politically combustible," he said.

Shaiken said GM needs to lower costs, which is accomplished with cheaper overseas labor. But it must also address concerns of the U.S. government, which wants to preserve American jobs.

"GM is getting funding from U.S. taxpayers to help save the company," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said. "Taxpayers deserve more than Chinese imports in return. Taxpayer funds should be used to build the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., not abroad. This is about creating jobs and rebuilding our economy."

GM, though, says the percentage of cars made and sold in the U.S. will remain stable.

Company documents show that American-made cars will comprise 67 percent of all vehicles sold in the country this year. The number drops slightly to 66 percent in GM's 2014 projections. Imports will amount to 33 percent this year, rising to 34 percent by 2014.

The company says the import mix could change by 2014, with fewer vehicles produced in Canada and more produced in Mexico and other countries.

"The percentage sold in the U.S. will stay constant within a percent or two," Wilkinson said. "The number of vehicles built in the U.S. will increase as the market recovers."

He reiterated that the company's goal is to build vehicles in the regions where they are sold, in part to avoid getting stung by currency fluctuations. GM, he said, builds 90 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. in North America, and that is not expected to change.

Of the 3 million vehicles GM sold in the U.S. last year, it imported the Chevrolet Aveo and Pontiac G3 subcompacts from South Korea, the Pontiac G8 muscle car from Australia and the Saturn Astra compact from Belgium. The Saturn Vue, Chevrolet HHR small sport utility vehicles and several pickup truck models were imported from Mexico. Full-size pickup trucks, several sedans and small SUVs and the Chevrolet Camaro were brought in from Canada.

Still, the UAW generally opposes importing vehicles into the U.S. According to its figures, the percentage of GM's U.S. sales from Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China will increase from 15.5 percent now to 23.5 percent in 2014.

Reuther wrote that GM's increased imports would be equal to the output of four U.S. assembly plants, "the same number that GM plans to close."

The union currently is negotiating with GM for government-demanded labor cost cuts, including 16 plant closures. At a leadership meeting in Cleveland Wednesday, leaders were told to expect a vote on concessions before the June 1 deadline.

GM millwright Ron Bear of Belleville, Mich., who attended the meeting, said the rank-and-file would be unhappy with any more imports.

"As far as importing cars, what is that going to do for our jobs? I guess that's the question," he said.

GM would be the first company to import cars from China although automakers have brought in components in the past to save on labor costs. Most Chinese automakers have been daunted by meeting U.S. safety standards. They also face the uphill battle of winning consumer confidence for unfamiliar brands.

According to Chinese media reports, the primary exports to the U.S. would be small cars similar to the Chevrolet Spark subcompact.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, says it makes good business sense for GM to import subcompacts from China because the U.S. market for them is uncertain, but there is strong demand in China.

With gas prices around $2 per gallon most Americans will keep driving bigger cars. U.S. sales would be too small to justify the expense of building and equipping an assembly plant, he said. At the same time, exports to the U.S. would allow GM to keep its Chinese plants running at maximum capacity, which is the formula to make money, he said.

"In the short term, you're going to locate your plants where the core of the market is for that product," he said.

Cole suggested that for Obama, returning the company to viability would outweigh the drawbacks of importing some cars.

"What's more important, some jobs in a particular factory somewhere or the overall success of the company?" Cole asked. "That is really far more important."

---

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington, Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland, Dan Strumpf in New York and Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai contributed to this report.

4th Grade Teacher grades OBAMA

(Compiler's note: Another interesting must read letter.)

Source: A friend

April 17, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500


Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States... You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage.. Do you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia. You don’t show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can’t find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don’t want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey. You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What’s the matter with you?

I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members – on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven’t said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn’t!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million – not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven’t you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do.

We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.

I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities.

I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Every real American

P.S. I rarely ask that emails be 'passed around'...PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST...it's past time for all Americans to wake up!

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy. C
Hillsboro , MO 63050

UPDATE: Russia Views US,NATO As Top Security Threats-Document

from nasdaq.com

(Adds detail, analyst quote)

MOSCOW (AFP)--Russia views the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as major threats to global security and potentially to its own military, according to a sweeping new security document presented by the Kremlin Wednesday.

The document, outlining Russia's national security strategy through 2020, reflected continuing fears of old Cold War foes but also said Moscow would pursue a "rational and pragmatic" foreign policy and avoid a new arms race.

The 13-page document was posted on the Kremlin web site Wednesday, one day after being approved by President Dmitry Medvedev and following months of discussion among Russia's top security officials.

"The instability of the existing global and regional architecture, oriented, especially in the Euro-Atlantic region, only toward NATO...is an increasing threat to the guaranteeing of international security," it said.

The document stressed the "unacceptability" of NATO expansion to include countries bordering Russia, an apparent reference to Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet republics which have sought to join the alliance.

It also criticised a U.S. plan to deploy elements of a global missile shield in Eastern Europe, which has infuriated Russia.

"The opportunity to uphold global and regional security will substantially narrow if elements of the U.S. worldwide missile defence system are deployed in Europe," the document said.

The security strategy did not name the U.S. in a list of direct military threats to Russia, but the list left little doubt that Moscow's generals were preoccupied with U.S. military might.

The new security strategy said Moscow would seek "the most cost-effective level for retaining parity with the United States in the field of strategic attack weapons."

At the same time, Moscow will seek to avoid a Cold War-style arms race, the document said.

"Russia... will pursue a rational and pragmatic foreign policy, refraining from costly confrontation, including a new arms race," it said.

Relations between Moscow and Washington were deeply strained last year amid bitter disputes over the Russia-Georgia war and U.S. missile defence, but ties have warmed somewhat since the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

The wide-ranging document also called for raising Russians' standard of living and diversifying the country's economy away from oil and gas.

"The preservation of a natural resources-export model of development" was one of the "main strategic risks and threats to national security in the economic sphere," the document said.

The criticisms of NATO and the U.S. in the new strategy are largely a rehash of Moscow's previous positions, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.

But the emphasis on economic factors reflects a shift in thinking from the traditional military-dominated approach, he told AFP.

"In my view, this is a significant shift toward a more modern understanding of national security - the awareness that socio-economic factors in society can have no less an effect than external factors," Lukyanov said.

Hard Questions In Wake of Reputed Health Data Theft

from Associated Press

RICHMOND, May 12 — Legislators had sharp questions for state officials Tuesday about how hackers stole millions of personal pharmaceutical records from a prescription drug database that was supposed to be secure.

"It doesn't sound like the proper firewalls, the proper backing up, the proper security measures were in place at the time,'' said Del. Joe T. May (R-Loudoun), who chairs the Joint Commission on Technology and Science. "The question is . . . why weren't they?''

The pointed questions came at a House Appropriations Committee meeting almost two weeks after hackers claimed to have taken 8 million patient records and 35 million prescriptions collected by the Prescription Monitoring Program. The hackers then attempted to blackmail the state, threatening to sell the data if they did not receive $10 million last week.

Pat Paquette, technology director for the Department of Health Professions, defended the agency and its security measures.

"Those things were in place, have always been in place,'' she told the lawmakers.

The state has a multimillion-dollar contract with Northrop Grumman to update its computers to include better security, she said. The upgrades at the Department of Health Professions are expected to be completed in August.

The FBI, along with the U.S. attorney's office and Virginia State Police, are conducting an investigation into the alleged theft.

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, but they do have the ability to find the needle and they will,'' said Marilyn Tavenner, secretary of health and human resources.

It's unclear whether the hackers followed through on their threat — the deadline for the state to pay up passed last week. Tavenner said the state has yet to verify that the hackers actually succeeded in stealing patient records, as they have claimed. If the theft is real, it would be among the most serious cybercrimes the state has ever faced.

"I don't think this is the last time we are going to see something like this happening,'' Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Prince William) said. "I have some question as to whether there is a comprehensive approach to cyber security in the commonwealth.''

Lingamfelter, who suggested that the hackers could be cyber-terrorists, called for a "top-down review." Other legislators and privacy advocates are questioning whether the database is needed in the first place.

The database was designed to help doctors and pharmacies track powerful narcotics and painkillers to reduce the abuse, theft and illegal sale of the controlled substances sold under labels that include OxyContin and Vicodin.

House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong (D-Henry), who was one of 40 delegates who opposed the creation of the database in 2003, said the alleged theft provides fresh evidence that the program should be scrapped. "That's the problem when you gather up private information in one location,'' he said.

As of October, 38 states had established similar programs. In Florida, legislators who passed a bill to create such a database are asking Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to veto it because of concerns stemming from Virginia's incident.

Virginia's database was set up as a pilot program in 2003 and went statewide in 2006. The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia lobbied aggressively against it.

"We warned them at the time,'' said Kent Willis, the group's executive director. "The database was too big, all-encompassing. . . . It was not clear how they intended to protect this. [A breach] was almost inevitable."

The database includes only certain drugs such as oxycodone, Vicodin, morphine and Ritalin. Patient names and dates of birth are listed. Some customer identification numbers, which may be Social Security numbers, were included, but medical histories were not. About 2,600 health-care professionals have access to the data using a password.

Tavenner said the state will begin notifying individuals within days if their information was in the database at the time of the breach. She said they were not able to do so earlier because it would have interfered with the investigation.

The program's computer system has been shut down since the incident, but the state is gradually restoring some functions.

"There was a lot of security on this database," Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said. "It was a very sophisticated effort to do it. But that means we've got to create more sophisticated security, and we take that very seriously."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

Danger Room What’s Next in National Security Ex-Air Force Chief: Recruit Bloggers to Wage Afghan Info War

(Compiler's note: An interesting - must read - article.)

By Noah Shachtman

Every time an American bomb kills civilians in Afghanistan, the U.S. loses another battle in the information war to the Taliban. And despite more accurate weapons, more careful targeting, and speedier responses to the press, the Pentagon can’t seem to figure out how to stop the setbacks in this decisive struggle for influence. A former top military official believes he may have the answer, however: let troops blog in combat, so they can ward off the accusations of atrocities as they fight.

The latest tangle over civilian casualties came last week, when American airstrikes killed dozens of innocents, during a battle in western Afghanistan. Locals said a hundred or more civilians might have died in the crossfire. In response, the U.S. military launched an investigation. Senior American officials hinted that the Taliban might’ve staged the whole thing — while the President and the Secretary of State apologized for the loss of life. After a few days, investigators concluded that the civilian death toll was only about a third of what was initially reported. But the damage was done: innocents were killed; the Americans looked blood-thirsty; and the Taliban notched another win in the campaign for hearts and minds. The Afghan president even demanded an end to American airstrikes.

“We have to figure out how to get inside that strategic communications cycle to get in front of this issue. This is a principal strategic tactic of the Taliban, is the use — is either provoking or exploiting civilian casualties,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday.

We have done a lot.. in recent months to try and reduce the level of civilian casualties. The fact of the matter is, civilian casualties since January in Afghanistan are down 40 percent over a year ago during the same period. And U.S., Afghan and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] casualties are up 75 percent during the same period. So there is a tremendous effort going on on our part to try and avoid civilian casualties. But figuring out how to come out better on the strategic communications side of this is an ongoing challenge for us.

Former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne thinks the best solution may be to let the troops themselves document the story. “We need to make sure we capture the news cycle by providing our troops with something like a combat blogger,” Wynne tells Danger Room.

But that means changing the Defense Department’s often-schizophrenic approach to bloggers in uniform. Within the armed services, there’s a growing recognition that average soldiers are the most trusted voices the military has. But leaders are squeamish about letting their troops publish online. The result: Army secrecy regulations, read literally, make it next-to-impossible for average soldiers to blog — while leading generals, deployed to war zones, are keeping online journals of their own.

Wynne thinks it’s time to let military bloggers have a freer hand. “This thing of letting the Taliban, letting Al Jazeera, letting the enemy public affairs unit get a hold of 24 to 48 hours of news cycle and then you announce that you’re forming an investigative team — what is that?” Wynne says. “The sad part is, that when [the military] forms an investigative team, it looks like it’s only for one reason: to cover it up.”

“I mean, it’s not like a soldier blog,” Wynne continues. Those firsthand accounts are seen to have more authenticity. “If [that soldier] walked into a hut and blogged that there were 20 bad guys, they had 15 computers, 20 AK-47s — if he blogged that right away, even if it went to a command center — you’d be far better off that what we’re doing now.”

During its war in Gaza earlier this year, the Israeli Defense Forces embedded combat cameramen in infantry units, to defend often-controversial attacks on Hamas militants, camping in schools and mosques. But the documentary tactic was obscured by brutal tactics, controversial weapons, and a larger communications strategy of indifference towards world opinion.

Similarly, U.S. soldier-bloggers won’t be able to make much of a dent in the Afghan information campaign, if American aircraft kill dozens of innocents on a regular basis. Battlefield actions speak louder than uploaded words.

But if the Taliban are manipulating the information environment to make American attacks looks worse than they actually are, then the bloggers and photographers might be able to help.

“If you take down a place in Afghanistan, you’ve got to be in there with your cameras before the bad guys unload the truck of bodies (if that’s what they’re doing). Or, if they’ve put a bunch of women and children in there so you can blow them up — you need to be in there first to know that,” Wynne says.

“We’re saddened when… the President has to go on the record and say, ‘we hate it when any casualties occur.’” Wynne adds. But the President “might not know” what actually occurred in such an incident — “because nobody blogged it.”

China deploys secure computer operating system

from AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) — China has installed a secure operating system known as "Kylin" on government and military computers designed to be impenetrable to US military and intelligence agencies, The Washington Times reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said the existence of the secure operating system was disclosed to Congress during recent hearings which included new details on how China's government is preparing to wage cyberwarfare with the United States.

Kevin Coleman, a private security specialist who discussed Kylin during the April 30 hearing of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said its deployment is significant because it has "hardened" key Chinese servers.

Coleman told the Times that Kylin has been under development since 2001 and the first Chinese computers to use it are government and military servers that were converted beginning in 2007.

"This action also made our offensive cybercapabilities ineffective against them, given the cyberweapons were designed to be used against Linux, UNIX and Windows," he said, citing three popular computer operating systems.

The newspaper said US offensive cyberwar capabilities have been mainly focused on getting into Chinese government and military computers outfitted with less secure operating systems like Microsoft's Windows.

Coleman said Chinese state or state-affiliated entities are on a wartime footing in seeking electronic information from the US government, contractors and industrial computer networks.

The Chinese have also developed a secure microprocessor that, unlike US-made chips, is known to be hardened against external access by a hacker or automated malicious software, Coleman said.

"If you add a hardened microchip and a hardened operating system, that makes a really good solid platform for defending infrastructure," he said.

"In the cyberarena, China is playing chess while we're playing checkers," Coleman said, adding that China is equal to the United States and Russia in military cyberwarfare.

"This is a three-horse race, and it is a dead heat," he said.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned last year that China has developed a sophisticated cyber warfare program and stepped up its capacity to penetrate US computer networks to extract sensitive information.

"China is aggressively pursuing cyber warfare capabilities that may provide it with an asymmetric advantage against the United States," the commission said in the report released in November.

China rejected the findings of the commission and has also dismissed more recent US newspaper reports that Chinese hackers were behind a cyber attack on computers linked to the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter project.

Somalia president signs Islamic sharia bill into law

How Far Does ACORN Influence Go?

by Ms Placed Democrat

ROTTEN ACORN

How far does ACORN influence go? It reaches its tentacles far into Congress. Two things happened recently that are direct evidence of their influence.

First Conyers decided there is no need to investigate ACORN any longer. Why? We don’t know but I suspect Conyers may have received pressure from another Congressman — Nadler. The American Spectator has the following story:

Conyers Kills ACORN Probe

While obviously of a much lesser magnitude, the House Judiciary Committee chairman’s May 4 statement exonerating ACORN couldn’t have come out at a worse time. “Based on my review of the information regarding the complaints against ACORN, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time,” Conyers said in a statement aired that night on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

Just hours earlier his fellow Democrats in Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto dropped a bombshell. ACORN and two former senior ACORN employees in the state, they announced, had been charged with a total of 39 felony counts related to voter registrations.

[...]

When on Wednesday this reporter asked Conyers spokesman Jonathan Godfrey to explain the decision not to move forward with a probe, he declined to do so and instead emailed the same statement that was aired on CNN earlier in the week.

It’s unclear what exactly crystallized Conyers’s thinking, but his reversal is all the more puzzling given the enthusiasm the 23-term congressman showed for holding an ACORN hearing mere weeks ago.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin (this state is one of those states that claimed voter fraud at the hands of ACORN during the election), the ranking Republican on the committee’s panel on the Constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties, had some worries about ACORN that reached as far as the White House.

(He) said the Obama campaign’s alleged involvement with ACORN might violate federal election law. “ACORN has a pattern of getting in trouble for violating federal election laws,” he said.

He also slammed the Old Gray Lady herself. “If true, the New York Times is showing once again that it is a not an impartial observer of the political scene,” Sensenbrenner said. “If they want to be a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, they should put Barack Obama approves of this in their newspaper.”

And what or whom exactly made Conyers change his mind? Was the Congressional inquiry stopped with in Congress or at the top in the White House? Why isn’t anyone asking this question? No one is answering these questions either.

Purple People Vote has this story about Barney Frank’s reversal to support Michelle Bachmann’s amendment that would stop taxpayer funding of groups like ACORN under indictment for fraud.

Representative Bachmann has offered what appears to be a very simple and logical amendment to the “Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.” It simply states that no organization under federal indictment will receive government funds. Listen to what happened in Congress when ACORN recently came under federal indictment (again).

Barney Frank said he will support the amendment only if it states that senior employees are convicted of fraud, watering down the amendment. Interesting…that doesn’t necessarily leave ACORN out of the fray. They were fined in Washington state not to mention the fraud convictions of several ACORN employees in Missouri

So how far does the pressure on Congress go from ACORN? Does it come from the “community organizer” in chief in the White House or one of his underlings? You decide.

Al-Qaeda to Yemen: "The time for the rule of Islam has come so that you could bask in the justice and tolerance it brings"

Move over Pakistan and Somalia: jihad is bringing sharia to Yemen. "Al Qaeda calls for Islamic rule after Yemen violence," by Inal Ersan for Reuters, May 13:

DUBAI, May 13 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda called on Wednesday for Islamic rule in Yemen and vowed to retaliate for what it said was the killing of civilians in clashes between police and locals in the south, where secessionist sentiment is strong.

The country in the Arabian Peninsula is trying to shake off an image of violence and lawlessness to promote tourism and foreign investment. It is battling al Qaeda, separatist calls in the south and Shi'ite rebels in the north.

"The time for the rule of Islam has come so that you could bask in the justice and tolerance it brings," Abu Basir Nasser al-Wahayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said in a recording posted on an Islamist website on Wednesday. "The injustice that befell you, God willing, will not pass without punishment. The killing of Muslims in the streets is a great crime that has no justification."[...]

President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on Yemenis earlier this month to hold a dialogue to maintain national unity following a a week of clashes in the south between the police and locals.

"As far as we are concerned, Ali Abdullah Saleh is an infidel and an agent ... and today he is using all forms of oppression with the pretext of preserving unity," said Wahayshi.

Saleh, who took power in the former North Yemen in 1978 and has been president since union with the south in 1990, has backed U.S. moves to crack down on al Qaeda after the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities...

Scientist arrested for smuggling vials used in Ebola research into US

A Canadian scientist has been arrested for smuggling 22 vials stolen from Canada's National Microbiology Lab, used in Ebola and HIV research, into the United States, Canadian and US officials said Wednesday.

Konan Michel Yao, 42, "was taken into custody" while crossing the border from Manitoba province into the western US state of North Dakota on May 5, said a spokeswoman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which operates the lab.

According to US prosecutor Lynn Jordheim, Yao was detained for carrying unidentified biological materials in vials wrapped in aluminium foil inside a glove and packaged in a plastic bag, along with electrical wires, in the trunk of his car.

Yao said in an affidavit he stole the vials, described as research vectors, from the Winnipeg lab on his last day of work there on January 21.

He told US border guards he was taking them to his new job with the National Institutes of Health at the Biodefense Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland.

US authorities feared their contents could pose a terrorist threat. But tests later showed "they are not hazardous," said Jordheim.

"This turned out not to be a terrorism-related case," he said by telephone from North Dakota. "It appears to be exactly as he (Yao) said. However, he still faces possible charges for smuggling the vials into the United States."

Yao, meanwhile, remains in US custody after waiving his right to bail and preliminary hearings, as he awaits a possible grand jury indictment for smuggling, he said.

A Public Health Agency of Canada spokeswoman told AFP Yao "was working on vaccines for the Ebola virus and HIV, among other things."

"But he only had access to harmless and non-infectious materials, similar to what you'd find in a hospital or university lab. He did not have access to dangerous materials."

The Ivory Coast-born scientist is said to have studied at Laval University in Quebec and briefly worked at the University of Manitoba's plant sciences department.

Obama’s ‘Public’ Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation

By Larry Kudlow

Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least.

So let’s be serious when evaluating President Obama’s goal of universal health care, and the idea that it’s a cost-cutter. Can’t happen. Won’t happen. Costs are going to explode.

Think of it: Can anyone name a federal program that ever cut costs for anything? Let’s not forget that the existing Medicare system is roughly $80 trillion in the hole.

And does anybody believe Obama’s new “public” health-insurance plan isn’t really a bridge to single-payer government-run health care? And does anyone think this plan won’t produce a government gatekeeper that will allocate health services and control prices and therefore crowd-out the private-insurance doctor/hospital system?

Federal boards are going to decide what’s good for you and me. And what’s not good for you and me. These boards will drive a wedge between doctors and patients.

The president, in his New York Times Magazine interview with David Leonhardt, said his elderly mother should not (in theory) have had a hip-replacement operation. Yes, Obama would have fought for that operation for his mother’s sake. But a federal board of so-called experts would have told the rest of us, “No way.”

And then there’s the charade of all those private health providers visiting the White House and promising $2 trillion in savings. Utter nonsense.

And even if you put aside the demerits of a government-run health system, Obama’s health-care “funding” plans are completely falling apart. Not only will Obama’s health program cost at least twice as much as his $650 billion estimate, but his original plan to fund the program by auctioning off carbon-emissions warrants (through the misbegotten cap-and-trade system) has fallen through. In an attempt to buy off hundreds of energy, industrial, and other companies, the White House is now going to give away those carbon-cap-emissions trading warrants. So all those revenues are out the window. Fictitious.

Anyway, the cap-and-tax system won’t pass Congress. The science is wrong. The economics are root-canal austerity — Malthusian limits to growth. And there are too many oil and coal senators who will vote against it.

All of this is why the national-health-care debate is so outrageous. At some point we have to get serious about solving Medicare by limiting middle-class benefits and funding the program properly. There is no other way out. We can grow our way out of the Social Security deficit if we pursue pro-growth policies that maintain low tax and inflation rates. Prospects for that don’t look any too good right now, though it could be done. But government health care is nothing but a massive, unfunded, middle-class entitlement problem. (The poor are already in Medicaid.)

Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) proposes to solve health care by limiting employer tax breaks. He’s on to something, but he’s only got half the story. All the tax breaks for health care should go to individuals and small businesses. Let them shop around for the best health deal wherever they can find it with essentially pre-tax dollars.

Additionally, insurance companies should be permitted to sell their products across state lines. And popular health savings accounts — which combine investor retirements with proper insurance by removing the smothering red tape — should be promoted. This approach of consumer choice and market competition will strengthen our private health-care system.

So private enterprise can coexist with public health care and not be crowded out by the heavy-handed overreach of government. But the Obama Democrats are determined to force through a state-run system that will bankrupt the country.

I’m not somebody who obsesses about the national debt or deficit. But I have to admit: Today’s spending-and-borrowing is blowing my mind. As a share of GDP, we’re looking at double-digit deficits as far as the eye can see. Over the next ten years, the CBO predicts federal debt in the hands of the public will absorb 80 percent of GDP. And that doesn’t include the real cost of state-run health care. Other than the temporary financial conditions surrounding WWII, we’ve never seen anything like this.

The president’s grandiose government-takeover-and-control strategies are going to make things worse and worse — that is, unless members of that tiny band known as the Republican party can stand on their hind legs and just say no. The Republicans must come up with some pro-competition, private-enterprise alternatives for health, energy, education, taxes, and trade that will meet the yearning of voter-taxpayers for a return to private-enterprise American prosperity and opportunity.

Free-market competition will lower costs in health care just as it has every place else. It also will grow the economy. The GOP must return to this basic conservative principle and reject Obama’s massive government assault.

MSNBC's Shuster asks 'what if Cheney is right'

Obama threatens to limit U.S. intel with Brits

By Eli Lake

The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee.

A court filing from the British Foreign Office released recently includes a letter from the U.S. government, identified as the "Obama administration's communication." Other information identifying the U.S. agency and author of the letter appears to have been redacted.

The letter says:

"If it is determined that [her majesty's government] is unable to protect information we provide to it, even if that inability is caused by your judicial system, we will necessarily have to review with the greatest care the sensitivity of information we can provide in the future."

The letter stands in contrast to President Obama's decision last month to release four memos from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing fresh detail on the CIA's enhanced interrogation program.

But, the U.S. letter points out: "Neither in [those four] memoranda, nor in any statements of the administration accompanying their release, was reference made to the identity of any foreign government that might have assisted the United States.

"Given the declassification of the highly sensitive information contained in the memoranda, the fact that the president refrained from providing any information about foreign governments is indicative that the United States continues to preserve the secrecy of such information as critical to our national security."

At issue is whether the British courts will disclose a seven-paragraph summary of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a former detainee who was released from Guantanamo Bay prison in February.

The British terrorism suspect was set free after charges that he had collaborated with convicted terrorist Jose Padilla in a plot to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States fell apart. Mr. Mohamed says he was tortured while in U.S., Pakistani and Moroccan custody.

In February, the British Foreign Office claimed that the U.S. government had threatened to reduce intelligence cooperation if details of the interrogations and treatment of Mr. Mohamed were disclosed.

The High Court agreed on Feb. 4 to keep the details of Mr. Mohamed's treatment from the public. But two days later, the court decided to take up the matter again in response to an argument that the position of the U.S. government may have represented the Bush administration's view and not that of the Obama administration.

The letter, however, put to rest any doubt that it reflects the position of Mr. Obama's administration. Depending on what the court decides, it also may quash Mr. Mohamed's efforts to get the court to disclose any U.S. confirmation that he was tortured.

"The seven paragraphs at issue are based upon classified information shared between our countries," the U.S. letter said. "Public disclosure of this information, reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the United Kingdom's national security.

"Specifically, disclosure of this information may result in a constriction of the U.S.-U.K. relationship, as well as U.K. relationships with other countries."

Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney for Mr. Mohamed, said in a telephone interview that he was disappointed.

"What they are doing is twisting the arm of the British to keep evidence of torture committed by American officials secret," said Mr. Smith, a U.S. citizen. "I had high hopes for the Obama administration. I voted for the guy, and one hopes the new administration would not continue to cover up evidence of criminal activity."

The Metropolitan Police of London is investigating whether Mr. Mohamed was tortured when he was in American custody.

Mr. Smith said that by attempting to keep evidence of Mr. Mohamed's "abuse" secret, the U.S. official who communicated the threats to the British Foreign Office was in breach of British law, specifically the International Criminal Court Act of 2001.

"The U.S. is committing a criminal offense in Britain by seeking to conceal this information. What the Obama administration did is not just ill-advised, it is illegal," he said.

Mr. Smith said he is scheduled to meet with the Metropolitan Police next week. "One of the questions that will come up is whether these statements by the U.S. government are an independent crime that should be investigated," he said.

David Rose, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and one of the parties in the case petitioning the British court to release the details of Mr. Mohamed's interrogation, said the U.S. government might be helping the British government shroud its own hand in Mr. Mohamed's treatment.

"Binyam Mohamed has always alleged that MI5 agents colluded in his maltreatment and reiterated this in an interview with me after his release," Mr. Rose said. "The British government's attitude towards this case has been characterized by an absence of candor for many months. One has to wonder if this is in order to protect the true role the British agencies played."

The White House and Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

Last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to proceed with another case Mr. Mohamed was bringing against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, claiming the company renditioned him to foreign jails from Pakistan to Morocco.

In that case, the Obama Justice Department requested that the circuit court vacate the case on the grounds that it would disclose state secrets, a plea the Justice Department lost.

Last month, Mr. Obama said at a press conference that the state secret privilege should be modified and that it was "overly broad."

"But keep in mind, what happens is we come into office; we're in for a week and suddenly we've got a court filing that's coming up," the president said. "And so we don't have the time to effectively think through what exactly should a[n] overarching reform of that doctrine take. We've got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.

"There - I think - it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national-security interests are genuinely at stake, and that you can't litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety," the president said.

Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who represents Mr. Mohamed and others in a civil lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, which is accused of supplying the equipment and personnel used to transport prisoners among nations, said the Obama administration should have no problem releasing the seven paragraphs disclosing details of Mr. Mohamed's treatment.

"The U.S. actions viewed as a whole seem aimed at preventing accountability in either the United States or in Europe for the past administration's crimes," Mr. Wizner said.

Ed Freeman

(Compiler's note: Source -- a friend.)

You're a 19 year old kid.

You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley ,

11-14-1965, LZ X-ray , Vietnam .. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it... Ed Freeman is coming for you.

He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.
He's coming anyway.. And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses. And, he kept coming back.... 13 more times..... And took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise , ID

........ May God rest his soul......

I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing, but we sure were told a whole
bunch about some Hip-Hop Coward beating the crap out of his "girlfriend".


Medal of Honor Winner
Ed Freeman!

The WWII/Korean War Version of "Before You Go" A tribute and thank-you to Veterans of WWII and Veterans of the Korean War

Obama Breaks With Gates, Cancels Nuke Program

(Compiler's note: He told us he’d do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4sVQV3Lhk The Russians and the Chinese are licking their chops. They are modernizing and increasing their nuclear weapons capabilities while we are doing this.)

Obama's new budget plan includes a little-noted sea change in U.S. nuclear policy, and a step towards his vision of a denuclearized world. It provides no funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, created to design a new generation of long-lasting nuclear weapons that don't need to be tested. (The military is worried that a nuclear test moratorium in effect since 1992 might endanger the reliability of an aging US arsenal.) But this spring Obama issued a bold call for a world free of nuclear weapons, and part of that vision entails leading by example. That means halting programs that expand the American nuclear stockpile. For the past two budget years the Democratic Congress has refused to fund the Bush-era program. But Obama's budget kills the National Nuclear Security Administration program once and for all.

"My colleagues just stared at that line," says Joe Cirincione, a longtime nonproliferation expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund. "They had never seen anything like that." Killing the program, he said, was "the first programmatic impact of the new [zero nukes] policy. People have said they want to see more than words, this is the very first action."

Here's the relevant language from Obama's budget explaining the thinking behind the move:

In the upcoming year, NNSA will participate in the national debate to lay out a vision for our nation’s nuclear security and non-proliferation goals. This vision is based on the reality that nuclear security is not just about warheads and the size of the stockpile. The vision emphasizes that we must increase our focus on nuclear security and transforming the Cold War nuclear weapons complex into a 21st century national security enterprise. We must ensure our evolving strategic posture places the stewardship of our nuclear arsenal, nonproliferation programs, missile defenses, and the international arms control objectives into one comprehensive strategy that protects the American people and our allies.

One particularly interesting angle here: Obama has overruled his secretary of defense, Robert Gates, who has been pushing for months to maintain the warhead program. Last October, Gates warned that

"[t]o be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program."

But even though "modernization" has now been halted, Obama will almost certainly not resume nuclear testing. So one has to presume Gates is not a happy camper on this score.

--Michael Crowley

Amateur Biological Research Raises Security Concerns

The growing market for preassembled DNA and public access to genetic blueprints for smallpox, Ebola and other diseases have raised concerns that an individual might build a devastating biological threat from scratch, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, Dec. 24, 2008).

Synthetic DNA is routinely sought out by professional biologists as well as "biohackers," typically well-intentioned hobbyists who tinker with the genetic material of simple organisms.

However, existing biological material regulations leave open the risk that a skilled amateur could construct a dangerous pathogen, scientists and FBI officials warned in a Nature Biotechnology article published two years ago. "Current government oversight of the DNA-synthesis industry falls short of addressing this unfortunate reality," the article said.

The federal government should require firms that market synthetic DNA to watch for suspicious orders, according to the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. Washington should also mandate that amateur and professional biologists obtain a license before buying DNA, added George Church, a Harvard University genetics professor.

The FBI is attempting to communicate biological security risks to academic institutions and private industry, "particularly in light of the expansion of affordable molecular biology equipment" and genetic data, said a high-level official in the bureau's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.

One new graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the threat is being overblown.

Amateur researchers hope to "build a slingshot ... and there are people out there talking about, oh, no, what happens if they move on to nuclear weapons?" said Katherine Aull, who is seeking to further cancer research through work with a transformed E.coli at her apartment (Jeanne Whalen, Wall Street Journal, May 13).

Machiavelli, Misunderstood Now is not the time to keep our enemies closer than our friends.

By Alexander Benard

After 100 days in office, a discomforting pattern has emerged in Barack Obama’s approach to foreign relations: He is keeping friends close, but enemies closer. Although this might have been a shrewd tactic in the royal court when Niccolo Machiavelli voiced the idea (or when Michael Corleone put it into that memorable phrase), it is not a viable foundation on which the United States can build a 21st-century foreign policy.

To be sure, President Obama has met with the prime ministers of two important American allies, Canada and the United Kingdom, and last week played host to the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan; his most visible diplomatic initiatives, however, have been directed at Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, and North Korea. Obama taped a video message for the Iranian regime and people, offering his best wishes for the Islamic New Year and stating his desire to pursue “constructive ties among the United States, Iran, and the international community.” He smilingly shook hands with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and declined to criticize the strongman for removing limits on his term of office. He made overtures to Cuba in what one senior administration official described as a test of whether the two countries could develop a “serious, civil, open relationship.” And during his first month in office, he sent conciliatory messages to Syria and North Korea.

Obama’s supporters argue that this outreach has no downside. If effective, it will enable the administration to solve foreign-policy problems, such as nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, without military confrontation. If it is ineffective, the United States will at least have appeared reasonable and accommodating, making it easier for Obama to garner international support for sanctions or other punitive measures.

But this analysis ignores several important considerations, beginning with the acutely dispiriting effect Obama’s efforts are having on dissidents and human-rights activists in countries such as Iran and Venezuela. Speaking of term limits in Venezuela, Obama said that it is “important for the United States not to tell other countries how to structure their democratic practices and what should be contained in their constitutions.” But the problem in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba is not the structure of democratic practices, but their total absence. In these and similar countries, advocates of civil liberties and free elections are routinely intimidated and jailed, as are political opponents of the regime. These dissidents need an American president who is willing to cry foul and to encourage their efforts to hold the leaders of their countries accountable.

The dictators Obama has courted so far have reacted to his overtures with contempt rather than courtesy. In Cuba, Fidel Castro suggested that the United States was looking to “return [Cuba] to the fold of slaves.” And Venezuela’s Chávez used his first meeting with Obama to give the president a book titled Open Veins of Latin America, which chronicles, among other things, the alleged abuses Latin Americans suffered at the hands of the United States.

This sort of gamesmanship might not matter much in Latin America. It matters in Iran, where the Grand Ayatollah graciously indicated that he might be interested in talks once the United States renounced its backing of Israel and lifted sanctions against Tehran, and it matters in North Korea, which test-fired a missile in early April. Every passing day allows these countries to further develop their nuclear capabilities.

Our allies, meanwhile, are unsettled. On a recent trip to the Middle East, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was peppered with questions about whether the United States is on the cusp of a “grand bargain” with Iran. Gates replied that the United States will “keep our friends informed about what is going on so that nobody gets surprised,” but the Obama administration can expect allies—including Israel—to be nervous. Their cooperation will be harder to secure if they begin to hedge against what they perceive as an increasingly unreliable partnership with the United States.

That hedging may yet develop into something more sinister. Allies will see a president who glad-hands Hugo Chávez but has no time for Colombia’s President Uribe, one who does nothing to shepherd a free-trade agreement with Colombia through Congress, who sends holiday greetings to Ahmadinejad in Iran but not to Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan or Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, and who pens a letter to Russia’s President Medvedev offering to forgo missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for U.S.-Russian cooperation in other areas. Our allies may begin to wonder: If all the special treatment is reserved for America’s foes, is there any point in being America’s friend?

— Alexander Benard, a New York attorney, has worked at the Department of Defense and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Treasury nominee to keep corporate pay $3 million in deferred pay

President Obama's nominee for the Treasury Department's top legal job still can receive almost $3 million in pay over the next three years from one of the nation's largest financial-services companies under a compensation plan approved by government ethics lawyers.

If confirmed as the department's next general counsel, George W. Madison would earn a government salary of $153,200 and get an additional $955,000 next year from his previous employer, TIAA-CREF, as a participant in the New York-based company's "long-term compensation plan," according to a government ethics filing.

• Click here to view the financial disclosure form for George Madison. (PDF) ....