Thursday, March 11, 2010
Israel: Biden Visits as the Israelis go ahead with provocative settlement building. It wasn’t a productive visit.
The US vice-president has said there should be no delay in resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Speaking at Tel Aviv University on Thursday, Joe Biden said the "most important thing is for the talks to go forward promptly and go forward in good faith".
"We can't delay because when progress is postponed, extremists exploit our differences," he said.
Biden's remarks came amid media reports that tens of thousands of housing units in Jerusalem neighbourhoods are in various stages of planning and approval.'
The reports in Haaretz newspaper followed the announcement earlier in the week of construction of 1,600 units in the occupied territories, a development that has derailed Israeli-Palestinian "proximity" talks. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031185438950547.html
An open diplomatic row during the visit of Vice President Joe Biden has shined a spotlight on the U.S. failure to rein in Israeli settlement ambitions and deepened Palestinian suspicions that the United States is too weak to broker a deal. Biden's handshakes and embraces gave way to one of the strongest rebukes of Israel by a senior U.S. official in years after Israel's announcement during his visit that it plans to build 1,600 homes in disputed east Jerusalem. Israel apologized for the poor timing but is sticking to its plan to build the homes, enlarging one of the settlements that have impeded negotiations with Palestinians.
The vice president on Wednesday assured Palestinians the U.S. is squarely behind their bid for statehood and urged the sides to refrain from actions "that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100310/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
So, peace talks remain moribund
The Palestinians pulled out of a new round of indirect peace talks last night, even before they had begun, as a protest at Israel's decision to announce approval for hundreds of new homes in a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. The decision to pull out, announced in Cairo by Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League, represents a major setback to months of diplomacy by the US administration and comes after the US vice-president, Joe Biden, delivered an unusually strong rebuke to Israel.
Amr Moussa said he had been told by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, that even this low-key process of so-called "proximity talks" could not start unless Israel stopped expanding its settlements. "The Palestinian side is not ready to negotiate under the present circumstances," Moussa said.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders have not held direct negotiations since Israel's war in Gaza last year. The White House had won agreement on Monday from the two sides to begin the indirect talks, hoping they would lead to face-to-face meetings. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/palestinian-peace-snub
Afghanistan: Kucinich Proposes, Patrick Kennedy Scolds Media Overdue debate in the House and welcomed criticism of the infotainment press.
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) railed against the Washington press corps today on the House floor for paying more attention to the likes of scandal-ridden Eric Massa than the war in Afghanistan.
"There's two press people in this gallery," Kennedy yelled during a debate over an anti-war resolution. "We're talking about Eric Massa 24-7 on the TV, we're talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press? No press."
"You want to know why the American public is fit?" he continued. "They're fit because they're not seeing their Congress do the work that they're sent to do. It's because the press, the press of the United States is not covering the most significant issue of national importance and that's the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country. It's despicable, the national press corps right now."
Kennedy's comments came during a three-hour floor debate over a resolution sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that would force President Obama to bring troops home from Afghanistan within 30 days, or longer if it were necessary because of safety issues. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000251-503544.html
Greece: Massive protest against Government’s policies dealing with their significant debt crisis. If 1,000,000 Greeks can protest the shafting of “Main Street,” you’d think / hope that a comparable number of Americans would raise their voices.
A general strike starting from Wednesday midnight in protest of the government's new austerity measures crippled the Greek capital Thursday.
The 24-hour strike, the latest in a series of protests called by two biggest trade unions, the civil servants' union ADEDY, and the country's umbrella labor union GSEE, was in reaction to plans of tax increases and reductions in holiday pay in the public sector.
The plans, which were aimed at solving the country's debt crisis, cleared the Parliament last Friday. The move was welcomed by the European Union which is expecting an early fiscal improvement in Greece.
More than a million people took to the streets in Athens to vent their anger, accusing the government of making an unwise sacrifice of common people's interests.
…Prime Minister George Papandreou said he was sympathetic to the strikers, but his government has no other choice but to resort to austerity measures.
Tax hikes and spending cuts were "inevitable after many years of negligence," he said. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-03/11/c_13206879.htm
GOP’er: Madoff and Social Security, Ponzis All. The Colorado GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton terms Social Security a "Ponzi scheme.”
Former Colorado Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, a candidate for the Republican nomination for Senate, called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" at a recent public event.
Appearing at a Tea Party-hosted Republican candidate forum on Tuesday, Norton was asked to name federal programs that she thought were unconstitutional, under the scope of the federal government's enumerated powers, and also whether it was constitutionally permissible for the government to run the Social Security program as it exists now, with the government controlling the money.
"The federal government is fundamentally out of control," Norton answered. "They are seizing control of things like car companies, banks, insurance companies. They're encroaching in areas of education, of the EPA and its endangerment finding, circumventing the rule of law, circumventing legislative processes. They are absolutely out of control. With regard to Social Security, it has turned into a Ponzi scheme. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/co-sen-gop-candidate-jane-norton-social-security-has-turned-into-a-ponzi-scheme-video.php?ref=fpblg
S.C. vs Executive: Roberts Fans the Flames Irked by Obama’s speech, he wonders if the Supremes should attend future SOTU speeches.
When President Obama ripped the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision during his State of the Union address in January, Justice Samuel Alito, for one, appeared to be none-so-pleased.
But Chief Justice Roberts? During the telecast, the chief sat impassively, hands at his sides, while many of our nation’s elected leaders cheered. But on Tuesday, the chief confirmed that the incident left a bad taste in his mouth, calling the scene “very troubling” and saying that the annual speech has “degenerated to a political pep rally.”
The remarks came during the Q&A portion of a speech Roberts gave Tuesday at the University of Alabama law school. Responding to a question, according to the AP, Roberts said anyone was free to criticize the court.
“So I have no problems with that,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum.
“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
According to the story, Roberts pushed forward, wondering if the justices should continue the tradition of attending the speech. “I’m not sure why we’re there.” Justice Antonin Scalia seems to agree with Roberts — he no longer attends the speech. Only six of the nine justices attended Obama’s address in January.
During his remarks, Roberts also criticized the Senate’s method of confirming new justices, saying, according to the AP, that senators improperly try to make political points by asking questions they know nominees are ethically barred from answering. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/03/10/roberts-on-the-state-of-the-union-im-not-sure-why-were-there/?KEYWORDS=john+roberts
Reid to McConnell: Rare Bluntness from the Senate leader:
As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree. http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=323016&
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