The relations between Pakistan and America have been strained for some time now. In November 2011, NATO cross-border airstrikes killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers at a checkpoint near the Afghan border. The Pakistani government retaliated by closing down the NATO supply line route and demanded an unconditional apology from the U.S. Pakistan also demanded an end to drone attacks within its territory and increased transit fees for NATO trucks carrying supplies to Afghanistan.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chairman of Pakistan’s People Party (PPP) said in a press statement in New York on March 2012, that US drone attacks violated Pakistan’s sovereignty. Bilawal’s words reflected the public mood across Pakistan, as mass rallies were staged to remonstrate against the deaths of soldiers and impending drone attacks.

The U.S. government launched its drone war in northwest Pakistan in 2004. Unsurprisingly, this  action led to a wave of fury across the Pakistani spectrum, with thousands coming out in the streets to protest against the violation of Pakistan’s territorial space. According to President Obama, the drone strikes target “al-Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

According to Amnesty International, “US drone attacks have doubled overall in Pakistan during the Obama administration. Thousands of people have been killed by the strikes – civilians as well as militants.” While the unmanned drone war is a new strategy in the U.S. war on terror in Pakistan, it does raise questions about the legality of such attacks. Though, the U.S. has assured time and time again that the targets are terrorists and not civilians, not much is known about the rules of engagement and how the new self defense war strategy complies with International humanitarian law.

The diplomatic wikileaks cables disclosure that Pakistan covertly assented to drone attacks, shared intelligence information, and allowed usage of its airfields was a shocking exposure of some prominent names within the Pakistani cabinet. This included interior Minister Rehman Malik, former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and Pakistani Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez.

According to Wikileaks cables, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousaf Razza Gillani permitted the drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The Guardian reported that according to leaked cables, “Malik suggested we hold off alleged Predator attacks until after the Bajaur operation.” The Prime Minister disregarded the remarks, stating, “I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.”

It was not until July 2012, that the U.S. issued its long overdue apology over the role it played in fatalities of Pakistan’s military personals, almost 7 months after the incident. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton delivered a nuanced apology over the telephone to Pakistani foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. Clinton said: “I offered our sincere condolences to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who lost their lives. Foreign minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives.”

The Pakistani Parliament was quick to accept the apology and, against parliamentary resolution, reinstated supply lines to Afghanistan. However, the opposition faction in Pakistan’s National Assembly is not too happy with the elusive apology. According to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, the U.S. has not apologized formally. The Difai-Pakistan Council (DPC) has announced an anti NATO march against the reopening of the supply line on July 8 in Pakistan.

Newstribe.com reported that Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), Imran Khan, said the “US had not sought an unconditional apology over the cross border aggression.” Khan announced that his party will be protesting against the government decision on July 5 in Gujranwala.

While the Pakistani government was all set to convince its public over the resumed relations between the two countries, another US drone attack in Pakistan’s Wazeristan area on Friday has further heightened tensions. Speaking to Pakistani Newspaper, Dawn, Imran Khan condemned the latest attack and said that the “latest drone attack speaks volumes about so-called close working partnership between Pakistan and the US in [the] ongoing war.”

The recent death toll from strikes is estimated at 19-20, subsequently, leading to mounting public fury over the violation of the country’s sovereignty. Khan has been active in his campaign on the social network site, twitter, about identifying those unnamed dead people, including women and children, in the drone strikes.

Judging by the public anger and demonstrations in the streets, even though theoretically the joint venture of the drone war may be successful in eliminating potential nemeses in the barren areas of Pakistan, it is certainly failing to win the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan.

Image Courtesy of  AN HONORABLE GERMAN

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United Nations Peace Envoy, Kofi Annan, has decided to hold an international conference regarding the ever-growing war in Syria, which has left several killed and severely injured. The meeting will take place in Geneva this coming Saturday, but cause for concern is arising, as the United States is having mixed emotions about being a part of the conference.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has confirmed that despite the United State’s lukewarm feelings about the conference, it will be in attendance, in addition to representatives from various countries including Russia, China, Britain, France, Turkey, and others from European Union, as well as the Arab League.

According to Annan, the purpose of the meeting, “is to forge a consensus on the terms for a political solution among international players with stakes and influence in the Syrian conflict over terms for a political solution. The U.N. envoy believes that the best hope of pressing the combatants on the ground to observe his peace plan to which they signed up in April but have not implemented, is for the foreign powers on whose support they variously depend to agree on terms.”

And the main problem that needs to be addressed this coming Saturday, is the conflict in different approaches and decisions that Russia and the United States both want to make. One of the countries that has yet to announce its appearance is Iran, which is a key factor in resolving conflict. “I have made it quite clear that I believe Iran should be part of the solution,” Annan said in Geneva last Friday. “If we continue the way we are going and competing with each other, it could lead to destructive competition and everyone will pay the price.”

The reason for both Iran and Saudia Arabia being excluded from the conference is based on the Obama Administration not wanting them there. According to Tony Karan, reporter for Time World, “The Obama Administration cited Iran’s role in backing up Syria’s bloody crackdown to declare Tehran’s involvement a “red line” for participating in the Geneva talks, and Annan presumably left out Saudi Arabia as a compensatory gesture to Russia which insists that those countries arming and funding Syria’s rebels share major responsibility for escalating the conflict.

A state department official told reporters last week that “If Kofi Annan can get the proposed participants to agree on such a plan for political transition then there will be a meeting, but that’s what we need to find out before we go to any meeting. There’s no point in going just for the sake of it.”

Image Courtesy of  United Nations

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New York, U.S.A – A balanced and healthy diet is crucial to good health and overcoming stress. In his forthcoming book called entitled Stress Pandemic, lifestyle and stress expert Paul Huljich shares a simple and holistic approach to nutrition, paying added attention to the effects of what we eat on our neurochemistry.

“Ensuring that we are supporting a healthy neurochemical balance is a vital and proactive step toward managing our stress,” Hulijch asserts. “When you feel tense, stress eating or emotional-eating is triggered like an automatic response. That’s especially so if your body reacts strongly to stress-released hormones.”

A 2010 study from the University of Michigan showed that when levels of the stress hormone cortisol were boosted in healthy, non-stressed adults, they ate more junk food. When people feel stressed out, most either stop eating altogether or binge on high-fat, high-sodium products such as chocolate, doughnuts, potato chips and other snack foods. And when combined with America’s growing portion sizes, people grow sicker, gain weight and develop bad habits that can endure a lifetime unless they say “NO” and take charge of what and how they eat.

Bad eating habits start young so where else to begin teaching kids about good nutrition outside of home but in this nation’s schools?  Thankfully, people like Michelle Obama are championing this crusade. Hoping to combat the growing problem of childhood obesity, the Obama administration recently announced its long-awaited changes to government-subsidized school meals, a final round of rules that adds more fruits and green vegetables to breakfasts and lunches and reduces the amount of salt and fat.

“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat and ensure that they have a reasonable balanced diet,” Mrs. Obama said in a statement. “And when we are putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria.”

About 32 million children participate in school meal programs each day. The new rules are a major component of Mrs. Obama’s campaign to reduce the number of overweight children through exercise and better nutrition. The announcement came months after the food industry won a vote in Congress to block the administration from carrying out an earlier proposal.

“Children born in the year 2000 or later are not expected to outlive their parents,” stated Dr. David Katzof the Yale Preventive Medicine Research Center at a nutrition conference in April. Why are our kids so sick? One reason is that they eat too much bad food.  In March of last year, Dr. Katz quoted in a Wall Street Journal article that a “poor diet in kids is more dangerous than alcohol, drugs, and tobacco combined!”

If you can believe it, the top 3 foods consumed in America are hot dogs, white bread and coffee. And the marketing industry is capitalizing on our society’s obsession with eating junk food, evidenced by an announcement made last week by 7-Eleven, the nation’s largest convenience chain, of a low-cal line of Slurpees! The move comes at a time when companies have been marketing everything from “Spam Lite” to “skinny cocktails” aimed at calorie-conscious consumers.

Huljich believes that as a society we must revolutionize the ways in which we eat beginning with cutting out all the C-R-A-P (an acronym for coffee, refined food, alcohol and processed food). He also does not endorse the use of fad diets, counting calories or choosing to eat certain food groups over others.

His approach to a healthy diet, which is outlined in detail in his forthcoming book Stress Pandemic, is a balanced and practical one, which first identifies and bases his diet on the good foods and eating patterns in your life while eliminating the bad ones. “The human body is designed to thrive on a variety of foods therefore I feel a more holistic approach to diet is far more effective and supportive to overall health and well-being than any of those revolving popular diet fads can ever be,”  Huljich states.

“When you go on a fad diet and exclude any of the necessary nutrients, you’re putting yourself at risk for illness.” It is precisely as Gary Taubes warned in Newsweek’s recent cover story “The government has spent hundreds of millions telling Americans to exercise more and eat less. But the country is getting heavier every year. It’s time to change the way we think about fat.”

A balanced eating plan supports all of the body’s functions so that it can absorb and use nutrients efficiently and effectively. Health maintenance promotes physical fitness and disease prevention such as the risk for heart disease, heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some forms of cancer.

America is a nation trying to find a cure yet not looking closely enough at the symptoms. By finding the courage to and wisdom to look at the root cause and going back to basics, individuals can learn how to master stress and live longer and healthier lives.

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Last week’s media coverage of the Obama administration’s newly-proposed fracking rules focused so heavily on how drilling companies would have to disclose the chemicals they use that it largely overlooked the toughest provisions: Drillers would be required to test the physical integrity of their wells, and more water would be protected from drilling. Since many wells fail because the cement and casings crack, the new tests could prevent dangerous leakages.

One major limitation: Although widely understood as “national” guidelines, the draft rules would in fact only apply to a sliver of the nation’s natural gas supply. That’s because they would apply to mineral rights managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which means areas beneath most BLM and tribal land, but scarcely any U.S. Forest Service, private or state-owned lands – where most drilling occurs. Industry has criticized the proposed rules as too restrictive.

The draft rules would require companies to conduct “mechanical integrity tests.” These include pressure tests to make sure that the well can withstand the highly pressurized fluid used for fracking. Ensuring that wells are properly sealed is considered critical for preventing water and ground contamination.

The proposed rules also expand the scope of water protected from drilling to include not just fresh water but all “usable water” – meaning lower quality water used for agriculture and construction, as well as water that can be treated to make potable. Currently, only water with up to 5,000 parts per million of total dissolved solids is protected by the BLM. The new rules would expand that definition to include water with up to 10,000 parts per million, which matches the EPA’s definition for an underground source of drinking water.

“The proposed rule will modernize our management of well stimulation activities – including hydraulic fracturing – to make sure that fracturing operations conducted on public and Indian lands follow common-sense industry best practices,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said in a statement.

The lands covered by the proposed rules are the source of “11 percent of the Nation’s natural gas supply and five percent of its oil,” according to the BLM. About 3,400 wells are drilled on these lands each year, according to the bureau, and 90 percent of those wells use hydraulic fracturing, a technique to extract natural gas by injecting into the earth highly pressurized fluids laden with chemicals, sometimes including potentially toxic ones such as benzene and lead.

Environmental activists wonder how likely the rules are to be enforced. In New Mexico, for example, the BLM oversees more than 30,000 active wells ­– with only 69 inspectors. “However strong the rules are, enforcement is only as good as staff on the ground,” said attorney Erik Schlenker-Goodrich of the Western Environmental Law Center.

Environmentalists also lambasted a provision that would require companies to disclose the chemicals they use to frack on some public lands. At issue was timing: The draft rule would allow companies to complete drilling before they make public the chemicals they had injected into the ground. Although some drilling companies report the chemicals they use to online public registries, they are not always required to do so. Many drillers claim that disclosure would amount to revealing “trade secrets.”

The timing of disclosure matters. Landowners who want to see if a nearby well is polluting their land or water need a baseline assessment of chemicals that are present before drilling. If they don’t know the chemicals the company will inject, the only way to get a baseline reading is to test for a vast number of chemicals, an expensive and impractical undertaking.

“Knowing after the fact is nice, but does not allow for any steps to be taken if the chemicals being used are of concern to the public. I urge the Interior Department to strengthen this rule,” Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said in a statement. Hinchey co-authored national legislation to give the EPA the power to monitor all fracking activities in the U.S., which under current law the agency cannot regulate.

The proposed disclosure rules would not demand much more than the standards some states already have in place. For example Colorado and Wyoming have large swaths of public lands targeted by the draft rules, but they already have disclosure regulations that are equally stringent, if not more so, than the federal proposal. Colorado requires that companies disclose the chemicals they use in addition to their concentrations within 60 days of fracking activities. Wyoming requires disclosure of chemicals both before and after fracking, although its regulation has been criticized for not making all of those disclosures public.

“It seems like BLM has looked at state rules as a ceiling, not as a floor, for what should be done,” said attorney Schlenker-Goodrich, who charged that the administration was putting forward “half-measures.”

Industry charges that the rules would slow down drilling too much. The Independent Petroleum Association of America and ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the IPAA head Barry Russell told Reuters that the rules will “will undoubtedly insert an unnecessary layer of rigidity into the permitting and development process.”

Once the draft rule is published in the Federal Register, the BLM will take comments for 60 days before it finalizes the rule.

by Lena Groeger, ProPublica, May 8, 2012, 12:04 p.m.

Image Courtesy of    billb1961

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Washington, U.S.A. – The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency announced that it will no longer initiate enforcement actions against deportable aliens identified by the Secure Communities program who have committed “minor” criminal offenses.

This represents the Obama administration’s latest assault on immigration enforcement, charges the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The new policy is the next step in the Administration’s effort to ensure that only aliens who have been convicted of violent crimes will be subject to deportation.

Secure Communities cross-checks the fingerprints of every person arrested by state and local police against a variety of federal databases, including a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database of immigration law violators. Deportable aliens who are identified through the Secure Communities program are turned over to ICE, rather than released on bail. The new policy will dramatically limit the number of deportable aliens in state and local jails who ICE takes action against.

“Today’s action is clear evidence that this administration will not quit until most immigration enforcement apparatus in the U.S. is shut down and should be a clear signal that this administration believes the violation of immigration laws is entirely inconsequential. The removal of violent criminal aliens only has been the lone factor in the Administration’s ability to maintain the pretense that it is enforcing our immigration laws,” noted Dan Stein, president of FAIR.

“Programs which rely on local law enforcement, like Secure Communities and 287(g) – a congressionally established program that trains local police to identify and detain illegal aliens – have provided ICE with a pipeline to identify deportable aliens,” continued Stein. “The Administration is phasing out 287(g) entirely, and now they are limiting the use of Secure Communities so that non-criminal aliens are ultimately released back onto the street.”

The latest ICE announcement is part of the Administration’s effort to prevent state and local authorities from playing a role in immigration enforcement. The Administration has made it abundantly clear through lawsuits and other actions that it does not want to enforce most U.S. immigration laws and it will not tolerate state and local policies that get in the way of their political objectives.

“We are rapidly approaching the point where violent criminal aliens will be the only people who will be subject to immigration enforcement,” Stein concluded.

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Two years after oil from a BP well began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges alleging that a former BP employee destroyed critical evidence in the early days of the unfolding disaster.

The charges are the first to be filed in what the Obama administration has called the worst environmental disaster in American history, and they are significant because they target an individual employee for his actions.

According to an affidavit and complaint filed Tuesday, April 24 in a Louisiana court, Kurt Mix, a former drilling and completions engineer, deleted email and text messages he had sent to senior BP managers estimating that the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf was many times greater than the amount stated publicly. Mix was specifically instructed by attorneys contracted by BP to retain his records before he deleted them, the affidavit states.

In a statement released to reporters, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder indicated that more charges are likely, describing the indictment as “initial charges” in an ongoing investigation, and saying that the Department of Justice “will hold accountable those who violated the law.”

More than 200 million gallons of crude oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico after a blowout caused the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the death of 11 workers on April 20, 2010. The spill continued, unabated, for nearly three months. Analysts have long expected criminal charges against BP or its employees.

A spokeswoman for the agency declined to say when more charges might be expected, or to explain why the case against Mix was the first to be made public.

Mix could not be reached for comment, and we were unable to leave him a message because his voicemail was full.

BP issued a statement saying that the company was cooperating with federal investigators and that “BP had clear policies requiring preservation of evidence in this case and has undertaken substantial and ongoing efforts to preserve evidence.”

According to an FBI affidavit submitted to the court along with the indictment, Mix, who worked for BP until January 2012, was directly involved in BP’s efforts to understand how much oil was flowing out of the broken Macondo well. On April 21, 2010, Mix estimated that between 68,000 and 138,000 barrels of oil were leaking each day — far more than the 5,000 barrels that were estimated publicly at the time.

On April 22, Mix received the first of six legal notices instructing him to retain his electronic records.

Yet, according to the affidavit, in early October, Mix allegedly deleted a string of more than 200 text messages on his iPhone that he had sent to a supervisor. The deleted texts, which the Department of Justice said were recovered forensically, included sensitive — and pessimistic — internal BP information sent while the company was attempting what it called a “Top Kill” effort to stop the gushing oil on May 26, 2010.

Mix wrote that the effort — which he was directly involved in — was unlikely to succeed. “Too much flowrate — over 15,000 and too large an orifice. Pumped over 12,800 bbl of mud today plus 5 separate bridging pills. Tired. Going home and getting ready for round three tomorrow.”

At the time, BP said publicly that the measure had a 70 percent chance of success.

Mix, 50, was arrested in Katy, Texas on April 24. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the two counts he is charged with.

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, April 24, 2012, 5:16 p.m.

Image Courtesy of   IBRRC

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On April 2, the U.S. government offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Hafeez Saeed, the spiritual chief of Pakistan’s Lashkar-i-Taiba militant group and an alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

A yearlong investigation by ProPublica and PBS’ Frontline explored the role of American David Coleman Headley in planning the three-day raid by gunmen of Lashkar-i-Taiba supported by Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI.

As Propublica reported, Headley revealed that Saeed helped plan the Mumbai attacks. He credited Saeed for inspiring him to jihad and, after his arrest, told interrogators about Saeed’s ties to Pakistani intelligence. “He is very close to ISI,” Headley said of Saeed. “He is well protected.” (For more, see the complete coverage.) The U.S. State Department also offered a reward for Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, another senior Lashkar boss.

The announcements show how much U.S-Pakistani relations have deteriorated as the Obama administration has taken a harder line with Islamabad. When Headley was indicted in late 2009 for conducting reconnaissance for the attacks that killed 166 people, U.S. authorities tried to avoid diplomatic tensions by refraining from publicly identifying Lashkar masterminds involved in the deaths of six Americans and other Westerners as well as Indians in Mumbai.

Last year, U.S. prosecutors indicted midlevel Lashkar chief Sajid Mir, an ISI officer named Major Iqbal and two other accused plotters. Prosecutors detailed the ISI’s central role in the attacks during a federal trial in Chicago of an accomplice of Headley.

The case, along with the discovery of Osama bin Laden in a military garrison town, raised alarming questions about the ISI’s support for terrorism and escalated tensions with Pakistan.Although U.S. prosecutors have not indicted Saeed, the offer of the reward is clearly intended to increase pressure on Lashkar, the ISI and the Pakistani government.

Saeed is a powerful public figure in Pakistan and has held mass rallies in recent months in which he denounced the West and India.Pakistani authorities have occasionally placed him under brief house arrest, but Western and Indian counterterror officials say he continues to run Lashkar with the support and protection of the Pakistani government.

Pakistani authorities have also refused to arrest Mir, Major Iqbal and other suspects despite abundant evidence against them. Their whereabouts, like Saeed’s, are well-known.

The trial in Pakistan of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Lashkar’s military chief, and a few others charged in the Mumbai case has stalled. As ProPublica reported last year, Lakhvi continues to lead the group from jail and authorities have refused to confiscate his cell phone despite a direct appeal from a senior U.S. official to the director of the ISI.

“This is a name-and-shame tactic directed at two of the most public figures in Lashkar,” said Stephen Tankel, an American University professor and author of the book “Storming the World Stage” about the group. “It appears to be part of a long-term effort to exert pressure on the Pakistani government.”

by Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica, April 3, 2012, 2:22 p.m.

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With the Obama administration, U.S. Congress and the world’s governments now united in their opposition to the application of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) to international aviation, Airlines for America (A4A), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, appropriately ended its private lawsuit against the EU ETS and urged the administration to accelerate its work to reverse this unilateral tax.

“Our legal action was critical in bringing to light that the EU ETS violates international law and is an exorbitant money grab, which are now key points in the governments’ unified opposition to the scheme,” said A4A President and CEO Nicholas E. Calio. “There is a clear path for the United States to force the EU to halt the scheme and protect U.S. sovereignty, American consumers, jobs and international law.”

A4A and its members remain steadfastly opposed to the application of this cap-and-trade tax scheme to U.S. airlines and aircraft operators, and are committed to seeing it overturned. A4A has long maintained that world governments, as signatories to the Chicago Convention, are best situated to enforce international laws and obligations and drive to a global solution within the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

ICAO has authority to address violations of the Chicago Convention under Article 84 of that treaty, and also is working to complete the global framework for aviation greenhouse gas emissions provisionally agreed at its 2010 Assembly.

A4A and its member airlines are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from aviation and, with fuel-efficiency improvements saving over 3.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide since 1978, have a strong record of improvement.

A4A maintains that the unilateral and extraterritorial approach taken under the EU ETS not only violates international law, but imposes costly policies that siphon away funds the airlines need to continue to invest in technology, operations and infrastructure improvements that bring real environmental benefit.

Image Courtesy of   Walter G Arce / Shutterstock.com

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The Obama administration announced on Thursday (Feb. 23) a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights as part of a comprehensive framework to enhance consumers’ privacy online, and to ensure that the Internet ecosystem remains innovative and a sector for economic growth.

The following statement should be attributed to Kathryn C. Brown, Verizon senior vice president for public policy development and corporate responsibility: ”Verizon commends the administration’s leadership in developing a new policy framework for consumer privacy in the Internet age.

“The online privacy policy report and consumer bill of rights that the White House released today are important first steps toward defining the right policy structure for privacy online.  While we have not yet reviewed the report in detail, we believe the structure it outlines will help consumers navigate this new world with a clear, uniform set of policies that apply to all players in the Internet ecosystem.

“We also are pleased to hear that the administration’s policy framework and process are dependent on industry involvement. The bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model the administration has endorsed to address specific privacy issues should help create a framework that is nimble enough to keep pace with the speed of innovation and changes in technology and to meet consumers’ evolving needs and preferences.

“Verizon will continue to work through multi-stakeholder processes to develop these principles into practices, and we welcome the administration’s ongoing engagement on this issue. We believe industry must step forward to develop these principles into company practices, and we are committed to providing the necessary support and leadership to make this happen.”

Verizon Communications, headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business, government and wholesale customers.  Verizon Wireless operates America’s most reliable wireless network, with nearly 109 million total connections nationwide.

Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America’s most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers in more than 150 countries, including all of the Fortune 500.  A Dow 30 company with $111 billion in 2011 revenues, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of nearly 194,000.  For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

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Srdja Trifkovic, has said that the US and Russia must work together to fight aggression in the world, despite the recent unveiling of the US’ new Defense Strategy.

Trifkovic said: “The Obama Administration’s “Defense Strategic Guidance” (DSG) was unveiled on January 5 as part of the broader programmatic document, Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. Presenting the DSG, President Obama spoke of “enduring national interests” in maintaining the unparalleled U.S. military superiority, “ready for the full range of contingencies and threats” amidst “a complex and growing array of security challenges across the globe.”

“The DSG further asserted that in the decades ahead it will be the task of the United States to “confront and defeat aggression anywhere in the world.” The ideological framework behind the concept was evident in Obama’s State of the Union address three weeks later, when he repeated Madeleine Albrigtht’s irritating dictum that “America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs.”

“As long as I am President,” he added sternly, “I intend to keep it that way.” This is some light years away from candidate Obama bewailing “the consequences of a foreign policy based on a flawed ideology, and a belief that tough talk can replace real strength and vision.”

“The implications of the DSG for Russia’s strategic planners are clear: the rhetoric in Washington may vary from one administration to another, but the substance is constant. Obama made no attempt to support his claim that the security threats to America are growing, or to provide his own definition of “enduring national interest,” because he sees the entire world as a legitimate sphere of interest of the United States.

The DSG is intrinsically a challenge to Russia and other powers outside the U.S. orbit, and that challenge may only become more acute if Mitt Romney wins in November. A sober reassessment of the “reset” will be needed soon after V.V. Putin’s expected return to the helm of the Russian Federation. U.S.-Russian relations over the past two decades reveal a remarkable role reversal.

The Soviet Union came into being as a revolutionary state that challenged any given status quo in principle, starting with the Comintern and ending three generations later with Afghanistan. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, however, Russia has been trying to define her policies in terms of traditional national interests: stable domestic institutions, secure borders, friendly neighbors.

The old Soviet dual-track policy of having “normal” relations with America, on the one hand, while seeking to subvert her, on the other, gave way to sometimes naive attempts to forge a “partnership” with Washington.

“By contrast, the early 1990′s witnessed America’s strident attempt to assert her status as the only global “hyperpower.” This ambition was inimical to post-Soviet stabilization. Washington refused to accept that Russia has any legitimate interests in her near-abroad, while reserving the right to meddle in her internal affairs. In essence, America adopted her own dual-track approach.

“Contemporary U.S. strategic doctrine is reminiscent of an old blueprint for Soviet policy: the Brezhnev Doctrine. It was defined by its author as the principle that the sovereignty of a socialist country is limited by the will of the Kremlin: “The norms of law cannot be interpreted narrowly, formally, in isolation from the general context…”

The key difference between Brezhnev and the leaders of modern America is the limited scope of the Soviet leader’s self-awarded outreach. His doctrine applied only to the “socialist community,” as opposed to the unlimited scope of meeting “security challenges across the globe” by the “indispensable country.” No “interests of world socialism” could beat “universal human rights” when it came to determining where and when to intervene.

The “socialist community” led by Moscow stopped on the Elbe. It was replaced by the “International Community,” led by Washington, which stops nowhere. ”Under President Obama, this remains the self-referential framework for the policy of permanent global interventionism.

Sooner or later, however, U.S. foreign policy will collide with reality-Iraq and Afghanistan appear not to have been sufficient wake-up calls-and Washington, shorn of its ideological blinkers, will finally embrace the foreign policy imperative of the 21st century: Solidarity and strategic cooperation between the United States, Europe and Russia on the basis of their shared moral, intellectual and cultural foundations, as they face similar challenges in the years to come.”

Srdja Trifkovic is Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, and Executive Director of The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies

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Americans United for Life joined forces with other pro-life legal organizations to file the leading pro-life amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration’s healthcare law, violates the Constitution by forcing Americans to pay for abortion.

AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest stated, “President Obama’s healthcare overhaul includes an ‘abortion premium mandate’ that blatantly violates the conscience rights and First Amendment religious rights of millions of Americans. Nowhere in the Constitution does it require Americans to violate their beliefs and pay for abortions.”

Yoest noted that courts agreed with her assessment. “The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Affordable Care Act, including the ‘abortion premium mandate’, was ‘an unprecedented exercise of congressional power.’ Today’s amicus brief demonstrates to the Supreme Court that the Eleventh Circuit was correct in their analysis,” she said.

Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Act—that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government-approved insurance or pay a penalty—is an “abortion premium mandate.”

This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion. As a result, pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

“Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a clear abortion agenda hidden in the pages of the healthcare law through the controversy surrounding the abortion-inducing drug mandate,” said Dr.Yoest.

“Forcing either companies or individuals to pay for abortion-inducing drugs against their consciences is a clear violation of the rights of individuals under the First Amendment. This case is further evidence that abortion is included throughout the healthcare law.

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Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers (USW), on February 07, 2012 issued a positive but cautious reaction to the signing of understandings reached by the U.S. with the European Union, and separately with Japan, in long running trade disputes over antidumping methodology called ‘zeroing.’

“USW members have been a petitioner or supporter of more than a third of the antidumping cases brought against imports during the last twenty years,” Gerard said.  “Strong trade remedy laws are important for stopping the destructive practices of many of our trading partners who dump products in our market that harm our union members and domestic producers.”

Historically, U.S. law has captured 100 percent of dumping found with no reduction based on non-dumped sales. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body, in a series of decisions in the last decade, viewed the WTO Antidumping Agreement as requiring WTO members to give ‘credit’ for non-dumped sales. The U.S. under two Administrations has viewed the WTO Appellate Body decisions as overreaching and contrary to what the U.S. had negotiated.

The agreements made by the USTR with the European Union and Japan were the result of U.S. efforts to settle long standing disputes with two major trading partners.

The USW has long urged a clarification of U.S. rights within the WTO in the ongoing Doha negotiations to specifically permit capture of 100 percent of dumping found, while also seeking to clarify the intended limits on the power of the WTO Appellate Body. The announcement from U.S. Ambassador Ron Kirk is a positive development on two counts – and raises cautions on a third.

“One count of our core objectives has been met with these announced agreements – a prospective application of any change – meaning no retroactivity – while avoiding retaliation is certainly a very positive outcome,” Gerard said.

“Also positive is Ambassador Kirk’s confirmation that the U.S. will continue to pursue clarification of our rights within the WTO to apply zeroing, which is important to all companies and their workers who rely on conditions of fair trade in the U.S.  We will be working with the Administration to see that the clarification happens as quickly as possible,” he added.

The USW President acknowledged there was no question that the modification will significantly undermine the historic ability of our antidumping duty law to address all injurious dumping. ”U.S. manufacturers and their workers will be disadvantaged, which now makes clarification of such rights extremely important.”

Gerard said the USW will be monitoring how the changes are implemented and trusts that the Administration will rebalance the operation of U.S. law so jobs are not needlessly lost to international price discrimination. “This is a highly technical area of the law but, it has a huge impact on the jobs of our members,” he explained.

“The Administration has the opportunity to review and alter existing U.S. practices by reviewing our rights under international law and determining how we can alter our approach to address the predatory pricing of our competitors to implement our rights and fight for our producers and workers.”

Gerard emphasized: “Rebalancing must be a priority of the Obama Administration and of the Congress.  No group has a greater interest in the vigorous enforcement of our antidumping law than the men and women who are employed in American manufacturing facilities.”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/unitedsteelworkers/

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The Alzheimer’s Association commends the Obama Administration for dedicating new resources in the fight against Alzheimer’s in a uniquely challenging fiscal year in advance of the first ever National Alzheimer’s Plan.

“This infusion of funds is important and the Alzheimer’s Association appreciates this step by the Administration,” said Harry Johns, President and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association. “We are committed to working with the Administration, Congress and the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services to ensure the development and implementation of an effective National Alzheimer’s Plan.

In order to meet the expectations of all Americans affected by this epidemic, the plan must address the critical need for care and support as well as accelerate research toward prevention, treatment and ultimately a cure.”

After the passage and enactment of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act with full bipartisan support last January, Americans affected by Alzheimer’s made impassioned demands for decisive action on Alzheimer’s during the Alzheimer’s Association’s nationwide public input campaign.

The more than 40,000 individuals who participated in the process live on the frontlines with Alzheimer’s disease. The struggles they face reflect the experiences of the estimated 5.4 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s and their 15 million unpaid caregivers. They are eagerly waiting to see if the federal government’s commitment to solving this crisis is proportionate to the magnitude of this disease.

Within just 38 years, as many as 16 million Americans will have the disease and it is projected to cost the country more than $1 trillion annually.

The Association will continue to support the process underway to develop the first National Alzheimer’s Plan led by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  All of these efforts will help to ensure the nation is at last equipped to overcome Alzheimer’s – the public health crisis of this century – and meet the goal set forth by the Administration to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025.

One of the Alzheimer’s Association’s recent contributions to this process has been to convene a taskforce of leading Alzheimer’s scientists to determine the scope of work and scale of investment need to achieve this goal. Results of this assessment are expected to be released later this month.

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The Obama administration, to justify its widely criticized mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage in private health plans, has posted a set of false and misleading claims on the White House blog (“Health Reform, Preventive Services, and Religious Institutions,” February 1).  In what follows, each White House claim is quoted with a response.

Claim: ”Churches are exempt from the new rules: Churches and other houses of worship will be exempt from the requirement to offer insurance that covers contraception.”

Response: This is not entirely true.  To be eligible, even churches and houses of worship must show the government that they hire and serve primarily people of their own faith and have the inculcation of religious values as their purpose.  Some churches may have service to the broader community as a major focus, for example, by providing direct service to the poor regardless of faith.

Such churches would be denied an exemption precisely because their service to the common good is so great.  More importantly,   the vast array of other religious organizations – schools, hospitals, universities, charitable institutions – will clearly not be exempt.

Claim: “No individual health care provider will be forced to prescribe contraception: The President and this Administration have previously and continue to express strong support for existing conscience protections.  For example, no Catholic doctor is forced to write a prescription for contraception.”

Response:  It is true that these rules directly apply to employers and insurers, not providers, but this is beside the point:   The Administration is forcing individuals and institutions, including religious employers, to sponsor and subsidize what they consider immoral.

Less directly, the classification of these drugs and procedures as basic “preventive services” will increase pressures on doctors, nurses and pharmacists to provide them in order to participate in private health plans – and no current federal conscience law prevents that from happening.

Finally, because the mandate includes abortifacient drugs, it violates one of the “existing conscience protections” (the Weldon amendment) for which the Administration expresses “strong support.”

Claim: “No individual will be forced to buy or use contraception: This rule only applies to what insurance companies cover.  Under this policy, women who want contraception will have access to it through their insurance without paying a co-pay or deductible.   But no one will be forced to buy or use contraception.”

Response: The statement that no one will be forced to buy it is false.  Women who want contraception will be able to obtain it without co-pay or deductible precisely because women who do not want contraception will be forced to help pay for it through their premiums.  This mandate passes costs from those who want the service, to those who object to it.

Claim: ”Drugs that cause abortion are not covered by this policy:  Drugs like RU486 are not covered by this policy, and nothing about this policy changes the President’s firm commitment to maintaining strict limitations on Federal funding for abortions. No Federal tax dollars are used for elective abortions.”

Response: False.  The policy already requires coverage of Ulipristal (HRP 2000 or “Ella”), a drug that is a close analogue to RU-486 (mifepristone) and has the same effects.[i]  RU-486 itself is also being tested for possible use as an “emergency contraceptive” – and if the FDA approves it for that purpose, it will automatically be mandated as well.

Claim: “Over half of Americans already live in the 28 States that require insurance companies cover contraception: Several of these States like North Carolina, New York, and California have identical religious employer exemptions.  Some States like Colorado, Georgia and Wisconsin have no exemption at all.”

Response: This misleads by ignoring important facts, and some of it is simply false.  All the state mandates, even those without religious exemptions, may be avoided by self-insuring prescription drug coverage, by dropping that particular coverage altogether, or by taking refuge in a federal law that pre-empts any state mandates (ERISA).

None of these havens is available under the federal mandate.   It is also false to claim that North Carolina has an identical exemption.  It is broader:  It does not require a religious organization to serve primarily people of its own faith, or to fulfill the federal rule’s narrow tax code criterion.

Moreover, the North Carolina law, unlike the federal mandate, completely excludes abortifacient drugs like Ella and RU-486 as well as “emergency contraceptives” like Preven.

Claim: “Contraception is used by most women: According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, most women, including 98 percent of Catholic women, have used contraception.”

Response: This is irrelevant, and it is presented in a misleading way. If a survey found that 98% of people had lied, cheated on their taxes, or had sex outside of marriage, would the government claim it can force everyone to do so? But this claim also mangles the data to create a false impression.

The study actually says this is true of 98% of “sexually experienced” women.  The more relevant statistic is that the drugs and devices subject to this mandate (sterilization, hormonal prescription contraceptives and IUDs) are used by 69% of those women who are “sexually active” and “do not want to become pregnant.”  Surely that is a minority of the general public, yet every man and woman who needs health insurance will have to pay for this coverage.

The drugs that the mandate’s supporters say will be most advanced by the new rule, because they have the highest co-pays and deductibles now, are powerful but risky injectable and implantable hormonal contraceptives, now used by perhaps 5% of women.  The mandate is intended tochange women’s reproductive behavior, not only reflect it.

Claim: “Contraception coverage reduces costs: While the monthly cost of contraception for women ranges from $30 to $50, insurers and experts agree that savings more than offset the cost.  The National Business Group on Health estimated that it would cost employers 15 to 17 percent more not to provide contraceptive coverage than to provide such coverage, after accounting for both the direct medical costs of potentially unintended and unhealthy pregnancy and indirect costs such as employee absence and reduced productivity.”

Response: The government is violating our religious freedom to save money?  If the claim is true it is hard to say there is a need for a mandate: Secular insurers and employers who don’t object will want to purchase the coverage to save money, and those who object can leave it alone.

But this claim also seems to rest on some assumptions: That prescription contraceptives are the only way to avoid “unintended and unhealthy pregnancy,” for example, or that increasing access to contraceptives necessarily produces significant reductions in unintended pregnancies.  The latter assumption has been cast into doubt by numerous studies

Claim: ”The Obama Administration is committed to both respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services. And as we move forward, our strong partnerships with religious organizations will continue.”

Response: False.  There is no “balance” in the final HHS rule—one side has prevailed entirely, as the mandate and exemption remain entirely unchanged from August 2011, despite many thousands of comments filed since then indicating intense opposition.  Indeed, the White House Press Secretary declared on January 31, “I don’t believe there are any constitutional rights issues here,” so little was placed on that side of the scale.

The Administration’s stance on religious liberty has also been shown in other ways.  Recently it argued before the Supreme Court that religious organizations have no greater right under the First amendment to hire or fire their own ministers than secular organizations have over their leaders – a claim that was unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court as “extreme” and “untenable.”

The Administration recently denied a human trafficking grant to a Catholic service provider with high objective scores, and gave part of that grant instead to a provider with not just lower, but failing, objective scores, all because the Catholic provider refused in conscience to compromise the same moral and religious beliefs at issue here.

Such action violates not only federal conscience laws, but President Obama’s executive order assuring “faith-based” organizations that they will be able to serve the public in federal programs without compromising their faith.

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American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an international development and human rights organization, and The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), the public affairs arm of the organized American Jewish community, have spearheaded an effort to organize faith-based leaders to warn of an impending humanitarian disaster in Sudan and urge the Obama administration to step up diplomacy aimed at convincing the Sudanese government to allow international humanitarian aid into Sudan’s border regions.

Over the past five months, fighting has escalated and millions remain trapped in the conflict without access to food. The region faces famine unless the Sudanese government allows a resumption of aid.

The AJWS and JCPA released letters to Secretary Clinton signed by over 350 rabbis and Jewish leaders and 15 prominent figures from across the faith community. These faith leaders called on the Obama administration to amplify efforts to reach a negotiated solution with the Sudanese government. If an agreement cannot be reached, the faith community hopes the U.S. will develop alternative plans to ensure aid reaches at-risk civilians.

“The faith community has joined together, calling in one voice for the U.S. to use its leadership and influence to protect the Sudanese people from what appears to be intentional starvation,” said JCPA president Rabbi Steve Gutow. “This disaster is not brought by weather or accidental circumstance, but rather because available food supplies are being prevented from reaching the people of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

We will not stand idly by, watching as entire populations are denied the opportunity to live a full life. Humanitarian groups are ready and able to help, and the U.S. must ensure that they are free to do so.”

“Food is an essential human need, not a weapon of war,” said Ruth Messinger, president of AJWS. “We know that people will soon begin dying and becoming malnourished in staggering numbers. The world cannot and must not passively watch people starve as humanitarian aid supplies are being obstructed and those who wish to flee are blocked. The faith community expects our leaders in government to step up their efforts and their level of urgency to stop this preventable disaster.”

Messinger and Rabbi Gutow will meet with Samantha Power, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs, National Security Council, to discuss the Obama administration’s efforts in the region.

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The U.S. Border Control, Border Control Foundation and other organizations received the consent of the Clerk of the House of Representatives to file amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting an effort to prevent the Obama Administration from using a flawed 2010 Census that included foreign nationals in the count to alter radically the allocation of political power in the United States.

The amicus brief was filed in support of the State of Louisiana’s motion to file an original complaint against the Secretary of Commerce who oversees the Census Bureau.  Louisiana took this unusual step of bypassing U.S. District Courts and filing this action directly in the U.S. Supreme Court due to the critical urgency to obtain a swift ruling.

In a shameful attempt to manipulate the census for political advantage, the Obama’s Census Bureau chief falsely claimed that the Constitution compels him to count ”everyone living in this country, regardless of immigration or citizenship status.”

The Census Bureau unlawfully counted illegal aliens and the President reported these flawed Census results to the House of Representatives as the basis to reapportion the House.

“The result of this corrupted census would be to reward those states that provide “sanctuary” and taxpayer funded benefits to illegal aliens with additional seats in the House of Representatives, while punishing those states that observe the Constitution and the rule of law,” said Edward I. Nelson, U.S. Border Control Chairman.

“If allowed to go uncontested, the State of Louisiana’s filing demonstrates that Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, and North Carolina would lose one representative each, while California and Texas would each gain two seats and Florida one.  Even worse, since representation in the Electoral College is based, in part, on the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the composition of the electoral college will also be significantly altered.

“In a close race for the White House, this politicized and illegal census could deliver the presidency to the candidate that most favors illegal aliens, by giving additional electoral college votes to states like California.” said Nelson.

In addition to using the Constitution as the basis for our arguments, we also used a 1990 Supreme Court opinion that states emphatically that persons who enter our country in violation of the law are not entitled to the rights guaranteed to “the People.”  If illegal aliens are not entitled to the rights of the American people, then they should not be counted in the Census, not have their illegal presence effect reapportionment or the electoral college.

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Pointing to a study he delivered at a recent (Congressional Health Care Caucus), Phil Lebherz, Founder and Executive Director of the Foundation for Health Coverage Education (FHCE), has called upon Congress and the Obama administration to make 2012 a watershed year for adopting a “Point-of-Care” approach with Medicaid’s administrative program in an effort to save as much as $56 billion in administrative costs.

The costs being targeted are derived from complicated and duplicative steps that keep government administrative costs high and prevent qualified Medicaid recipients from seeking needed care.  Delayed treatment often results in higher overall costs, as patients are treated in hospital emergency rooms with higher incidence of requiring surgery and expensive intensive care services.

“If we continue to run government’s biggest program – Medicaid utilizing the program with 1980s technology, we will be out of money before we reach 2014,” said Lebherz.

In his testimony before the Congressional forum, Lebherz laid out the reasoning behind changing Medicaid from a complicated enrollment system to a “point-of-care” program by describing the current holes. The proposed (Point-of-Care Eligibility) system would target a large segment of the population who are eligible for Medicaid, yet are not enrolled, and access their care in hospitals’ Emergency Rooms. With these patients, the hospital is often left with unpaid bills that should be turned into Medicaid or another liable public entity.

The solution of moving to a Point-of-Care concept was created following (Onsite Study) conducted at four Emergency Rooms in San Diego, California in 2011. Over a period of a year, Sharp Healthcare asked 20,000 uninsured patients FHCE’s Eligibility Quiz, and 80.2% were found eligible for free or low-cost public health coverage.

A previous analysis of Medicaid numbers, detailed in this 2011 (Health Affairs article), demonstrates that a “point-of-care” system could solve the uninsured problem for an estimated 17 million Americans and trim billions of dollars from the government budget.

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LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – called the reported decision by the Obama Administration to block permitting for Keystone XL pipeline “politics at its worst.”

Last fall the Administration delayed consideration of a permit for the pipeline until after the 2012 elections. On January 18, in response to Congressional legislation requiring a 60-day decision, the Administration reportedly denied a permit.

“The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed. This is politics at its worst,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”

The project would create thousands of jobs at a time when unemployment in the construction industry is 16 percent with 1.3 million men and women jobless.

Environmental groups have cited the Keystone XL toward the argument against global warming. But proponents argue the pipeline would carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada’s Tar Sands to the U.S., reducing reliance on oil from hostile nations.

While environmental groups decry Tar Sands development, the Canadian government and Trans-Canada, the company developing the Tar Sands, have made clear the oil will be developed – and possibly sold to China – regardless of whether Keystone XL is built.

Some experts believe the project would be the safest ever constructed. Design included 21,000 sensors, monitored by satellites to immediately detect leaks and automatically stop the flow of oil. In addition, a revised route alleviated concerns in Nebraska over the project crossing water resources. Overall, the pipeline has undergone more than 1,100 days of governmental review.

“The Administration and environmentalists have blown the whistle on workers trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads,” said O’Sullivan. “Instead of celebrating their victory by hugging a tree they should hug a jobless construction worker because they’re the ones who are going to need it.”

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Green America strongly commends President Obama for his wise decision, announced  to reject the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed pipeline would extend nearly 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf Coast.

This Canadian project poses severe consequences for human health and the environment while further entrenching the dirty fossil fuel economy and failing to generate lasting jobs. Investment in clean energy generates 3-4 times as many jobs as investments in fossil fuels.

“This is the right decision, a brave decision, and one that shows the President took into account profound concerns about the pipeline’s impacts on health, climate change, the environment, and the need to build a clean energy economy that can create lasting U.S. jobs,” said Fran Teplitz, Green America’s director of strategic outreach.

Last November, the Obama Administration pushed the deadline on its pipeline decision into early 2013, determining that current impact studies on the pipeline were insufficient. A fair and measured period of scrutiny for the proposed pipeline is exactly what Big Oil and Republicans in Congress don’t want, because this project fails on every score. Congressional Republicans pushed legislation in December designed to force a presidential decision on the pipeline in February 2012.

“The President made the right call today,” stated Alisa Gravitz, Green America’s executive director. “Green America and our allies will continue to work to oppose tar sands pipelines at every turn. We will continue to lend our voice and our organizing power to this issue which has dire consequences for Native communities, the earth, and the clean energy future that the times demand we create,” she affirmed.

Proponents of the pipeline tout it as a major job creator. Data show, however, that the Keystone XL pipeline can actually be a jobs killer in the U.S., through pipeline spills and increased fuel costs in the Midwest as current tar sands oil gets diverted. Moreover, with a significant portion of the Keystone XL oil intended for the export market, there is no credibility to the claim that tar sands oil represents a “friendly” oil source for the United States.

President Obama has used his decision-making power on the Keystone pipeline in a prudent and sensible way that will benefit current and future generations. Big Oil should not determine the direction of our energy future when we need a new direction based on clean and renewable power.

Green America is a national membership organization that uses the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society

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American Airlines has applauded the Obama Administration’s initiatives to increase travel and tourism to the United States and within our nation’s borders.

“The initiatives set forth and outlined today by the Obama Administration will definitely benefit all who work in the nation’s travel and tourism industry, which can only add jobs and strengthen the economy,” said Tom Horton, American’s Chairman and CEO. “President Obama is to be commended for his leadership in this effort.

“We have long advocated for enhancements to the distribution of non-immigrant visas in such important emerging markets as Brazil and China and have told the Administration that improving the process will not only allow more tourists to visit but create travel and tourism jobs in the United States. Increasing non-immigrant visa capacity in China and Brazil by 40 percent and ensuring that 80 percent of those applicants interviewed receive their visas within three weeks is a laudable goal,” said Horton.

“Additionally, the new pilot program that was announced to simplify and expedite the non-immigrant visa process for certain applicants and the opportunity for low-risk applicants to have visa interviews waived is exciting news.

“We also applaud the Administration for its initiative to expand the Visa Waiver Program to include more participants and assist more travelers through an expansion of trusted traveler programs such as the Global Entry program, which truly enhances the customer experience when passengers are able to expedite customs and immigration processing,” Horton added.

“Creating a task force to recommend ways to promote domestic and international travel opportunities for U.S. citizens and promoting visits to our nation’s parks, wildlife refuges, cultural and historic sites also will have a positive effect on the transportation industry,” said Horton.

American operates a daily flight to Beijing and Shanghai from its cornerstone hub in Chicago and a daily flight to Shanghai from Los Angeles. American also operates flights from Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami and New York JFK each day to Brazil. American serves Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Salvador Bahia,Recife and Belo Horizonte in Brazil.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a final rule that will list four species of huge, non-native constrictor snakes as “injurious species” under the federal law that gives the FWS the power to prohibit their importation to the United States and their use in interstate commerce.

In 2010, the FWS proposed rule included the listing of nine species of huge constrictor snakes. The final FWS rule drops five of these species and lists a total of four non-native constrictor snakes as injurious species. The four species that will be listed as injurious are the Burmese python, yellow anaconda, northern African rock python, and southern African rock python.

The five snakes that were dropped from the list finalized by FWS are the reticulated python, boa constrictor, DeSchauensee’s anaconda, green anaconda, and Beni anaconda.

“While we are pleased that four extremely harmful constrictor species will no longer be allowed into this country, we are disappointed that five of the proposed snakes were not included in the rule,” said Peter Jenkins, spokesperson for the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species (NECIS).

“The snakes that were excluded pose a serious threat to our already fragile ecosystems and to humans. If your boat is leaking, why would you only plug some of the holes?” ”Of the nine species originally proposed three are already found outside of captivity and breeding in the wild in Florida.

Of those three, only two were listed,” said Kristina Serbesoff-King who directs The Nature Conservancy’s Florida Invasive Species Program. “Four of the five that were dropped from the final list have not yet become established in U.S. ecosystems, and that’s the very reason they should be restricted.

We believe this is an important iterative step, but also strongly encourage the FWS to develop regulations aimed at preventing the import of harmful species, rather than trying to close the proverbial barn door after these species have already taken hold within our lands and waters and are virtually impossible to eradicate.”

This rulemaking process initially began in 2006 at the request of the South Florida Water Management District, and, after a lengthy process of agency action and a public comment period, the resulting rule had been awaiting release by the Office of Management and Budget since March 2011.

The Administration was approached by numerous members of Congress from all over the country, both Republicans and Democrats, as well as almost the entire south Florida congressional delegation to encourage the release of the rule.

“A small but vocal sector of the pet industry concerned with importing and breeding these dangerous exotic snakes seems to have put a stranglehold on a sensible rule,” said Dr. Bruce Stein of the National Wildlife Federation. “Unfortunately, when it came to weighing the economic interests of these few breeders against the enormous economic and ecological damage these snakes can cause, the Administration was sold a bottle of snake oil.”

For years the federal government has come under sharp criticism for allowing invasive animal species into the country that have caused major damages to the environment and agriculture, leading to economic costs and environmental and safety risks.

Recent invasions by imported animal species such as the constrictor snakes, Asian carp, and red lionfish are together costing federal, state, and local governments hundreds of millions of dollars annually in efforts to control them. These costs could have been avoided if authorities had considered their risks beforehand and restricted their importation.

“This listing is one step toward limiting the massive flow of harmful species into this country, but the current listing approach doesn’t even come close to keeping up with the 21st century trade of live animals,” said Jenkins. “We are urging Congress and the Administration to advance broader regulatory reforms of the injurious species listing process.”

As a leading import market, the United States receives hundreds of millions of non-native animals each year, which represent thousands of different wildlife species. In practice, very few risk assessments are done before these animals arrive in the country, and the 111-year-old law that gives the FWS regulatory authority to prohibit importation has only 25 entries on the injurious species list.

These species were typically restricted only after years of importation, and damage had already occurred. In contrast, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel require all new animal species to be assessed for the likelihood of invasion before they are allowed into those countries.

“For several years, Congress has considered bills that would modernize our antiquated and broken regulatory system, but the legislation has stalled,” said Jennifer Nalbone, director of Navigation and Invasive Species for Great Lakes United. “Right now, the next damaging invader could be on its way here. All species being proposed for trade into the United States must be screened to weed out the next Burmese python or Asian carp.”

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The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, is urging a federal appeals court to uphold Alabama’s immigration law saying the measure “mirrors federal immigration provisions” and warns that if the Obama Administration challenge to the Alabama law succeeds, states will be effectively rendered “powerless over unchecked illegal immigration and the associated social and economic costs that their citizens must bear.”

“This is fast becoming one of the most important issues for the American people,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “This latest case underscores the growing clash between the federal government and the rights of states.

The fact is many states are doing what Alabama and Arizona already have done – enacting laws that promote Congressional immigration policy by enforcing the very laws that the Obama Administration fails to enforce. We contend the Alabama measure impedes no federal law and is actually consistent with federal immigration policy that promotes increasingly greater roles for states in enforcing immigration law.”

The ACLJ filed an amicus brief yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, backingAlabama’s HB 56.

The brief, posted here, argues:

“The Administration’s attack on HB 56 undermines federalist and separation of powers principles by permitting the Administration’s policy preferences to trump Congress’s statutory acknowledgement that states have inherent authority to enforce laws that profoundly affect their citizens’ welfare. A decision sustaining the Administration’s claims will effectively leave the states powerless over unchecked illegal immigration and the associated social and economic costs that their citizens must bear.”

The Alabama appeal comes as the Supreme Court has decided to hear a challenge to Arizona’s immigration measure, SB 1070. The ACLJ, representing 59 members of Congress and nearly 60,000 Americans, filed an amicus brief urging the high court to take the case arguing the Arizona measure, like the one in Alabama, is constitutional because it mirrors federal immigration law and incorporates federal standards.

The ACLJ is now preparing an amicus brief in support of the Arizona measure to be filed with the Supreme Court, which is expected to hear oral arguments in the case this spring.

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice focuses on constitutional law and is based in Washington, D.C.  The ACLJ is online at www.aclj.org.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

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The American Lung Association applauds the Obama Administration for adopting public health safeguards to reduce mercury and toxic air pollution from power plants.  The new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for Power Plants are long overdue and will reduce the harm from air pollution like mercury, lead, arsenic, and a host of other pollutants.

“Since toxic air pollution from power plants can make people sick and cut lives short, the new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are a huge victory for public health,” said Albert A. Rizzo, M.D., National Volunteer Chair of the American Lung Association, and pulmonary and critical care physician in Newark, Delaware.

“The Lung Association expects all oil and coal-fired power plants to act now to protect all Americans, especially our children, from the health risks imposed by these dangerous air pollutants.”

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will reduce toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants that are found in more than 40 U.S. states and are the largest producers of mercury pollution. Air pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants contains 84 of the 187 hazardous pollutants identified for control by the Clean Air Act.

Many of these pollutants, such as, dioxins, arsenic, and lead, can cause cancer and cardiovascular disease; harm the kidneys, lungs, and nervous system; and even kill. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will reduce these pollutants and prevent 130,000 childhood asthma attacks and 11,000 premature deaths each year.

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments required the tighter standards on power plants in an effort to reduce toxic emissions in communities across the country. However, big polluters have fought for and won delays for more than 21 years.

“Attempts to delay or dismantle the Clean Air Act, or rules like the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, reward industry polluters and punish those most vulnerable to dirty air,” said Dr. Rizzo. “These new standards mark a huge step forward in clean air protections and will be responsible for saving thousands of lives each year.”

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The Coalition for U.S.-Russia Trade, comprised to date of more than 70 business associations, companies and agricultural groups, including  the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Farm Bureau Federation, welcomed the announcement made by the WTO’s Ministerial Conference in Geneva to formally invite Russia to become a member of the global rules-based body.

The Coalition’s task now is to work with the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration to pass necessary legislation that makes Russia’s market concessions fully available to U.S. business and agriculture.

“Russia is the 11th largest economy in the world, yet it is still not bound by the international principles and standards of the WTO.  Today’s invitation brings Russia one step closer to abiding by and adhering to global rules.

We applaud the negotiators from the United States, Russia and other WTO members, without whose dedication and hard work this historic moment would not have been possible,” said Edward Verona, President and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Business Council (USRBC), the Washington, D.C.-based trade association that serves as Secretariat of the Coalition for U.S.-Russia Trade.

“The terms of Russia’s WTO accession agreement will provide businesses in the United States the opportunity to operate with greater transparency and predictability in the Russian market – but only once the U.S. Congress graduates Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment and extends Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR),” Verona added.

Russia’s WTO membership agreement stipulates that the Russian government must ratify the accession package by June 15, 2012.  Once the agreement is approved by Russia’s legislature and signed by the Russian President, the Russian government will notify the WTO of its approval, and 30 days later Russia will officially become a member of the WTO.

For now, the Obama Administration has invoked what is known as “non-application,” notifying the WTO that the United States cannot yet offer Russia immediate and unconditional free trade status, as WTO rules require.  Thus, Russia is not obligated to grant U.S. business and agriculture full rights to the wide range of concessions it made to become a WTO member.

Thus, while the achievement of a high-standards deal on Russia’s accession is cause for celebration, the U.S. business and agricultural communities realize their work is not done.

“We now need to help Congress understand that, without Russia PNTR, the U.S. private sector is going to miss out on growing export and investment opportunities in Russia that will create and sustain jobs here in the United States,” said Randi Levinas, Executive Director of the Coalition and Executive Vice President of the USRBC.

“The Jackson-Vanik amendment no longer provides us with leverage in our relationship with Russia.  It now stands only as an impediment for U.S. economic interests. We will be working hard in the coming months with the Congressional leadership, the committees of jurisdiction and the Administration so that U.S. interests can take full advantage of Russia’s accession in a timely fashion.

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The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) deplores Washington Post’s editorial – A U.S. plan to save Iranians who remain in Iraq – , endorsing a US plan for relocation of 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to an Iraqi-run de facto detention center near Baghdad’s International airport, formerly known as Camp Liberty.

The insidious piece, replete with double-entendre and mixing of absolutely no facts and lots of fiction, is effectively a farewell gift to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, on his way back to Baghdad, to set in motion the plan for the massacre of Camp Ashraf residents.

The Post is suggesting to have the lives of these Iranians under the control of Maliki, a man, who David Ignatius of the Post has described as “the conspirator turned chief executive” and a “backroom plotter,” whose “own Dawa Party bombed the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in 1983.” The editorial’s case about relocation of the residents to such a detention center as the best plan to end this humanitarian crisis peacefully is at best wishful thinking.

It is an extremely dangerous suggestion that could prepare the ground for yet another Srebrenica-style massacre. Without any practical and actionable guarantees by the international community, nothing would deter the Iraqi forces of al-Maliki from repeating the massacres they perpetrated in July 2009 and April 2011, killing 47 residents – including eight women – and wounding 1070.

To cover its bloody tracks, the Iraqi government, with the help of the US Embassy, has blocked any investigation into these crimes – as UN had demanded – by the US and European Union parliamentary fact-finding missions.

In light of these killings and the three-year illegal and barbaric siege of Camp Ashraf, the Post’s blindness to volume of facts all pointing to Iraq’s systematic and deliberate breach of its commitment toward Ashraf residents, and to the equally abhorring United States’ inaction in the face of Iraq’s repeated violation of its so-called written assurances to the United States, is ominously suspect.

Astonishingly, in line with Iran’s thirty-year-old policy of blaming the MEK’s leadership for whatever atrocities Iran’s ruling tyrants have committed against the organization – a ploy widely used by Maliki following the July 2009 and April 2011 attacks – the Post’s editorial, in an ultimate act of falsification, sinisterly attempts to shift the blame for an impending massacre away from Maliki – and by extension from the Obama administration – to MEK’s leadership, accusing it of making “unrealistic demands.”

The following facts must be repeated:

Camp Ashraf residents were recognized by the United States as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and as such the US provided them protection until January 2009. According to article 45 of the Convention, that responsibility does not elapse if the new protecting power (Iraq since 2009) does not have the capacity and the intent to provide protection.

Iraq has failed on both fronts and thus from a legal standpoint the United States, as the original protecting power, is still bound to ensure the residents’ protection whether or not it has a presence in Iraq.

In 2003 and again in 2004, the United States gave written guaranteed commitment of protection to every individual in Ashraf as long as they remain in Iraq. America is, therefore, still morally and legally responsible for their safety and security. Last September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declared that Camp Ashraf residents have applied for refugee status and therefore, under international law as “asylum seekers” they must be able to benefit from basic protection of their security and well-being.

Against this background, the demand by Camp Ashraf residents and its leadership that “U.S. troops or U.N. peacekeeping forces provide security at the new camp,” is indeed completely “realistic” and in line with America’s promises and UNHCR’s declaration.

If the Post’s editorial finds the residents’ morally and legally justified and actionable demand “unrealistic,” then it is acting as a de facto voice of an administration that is dishonoring America by reneging on its commitment to a group of unarmed men, women and children, who in the words of Brig. Gen. David Phillips, former Commandant of U.S. Army Military Police Corps and former Senior Commanding Officer at Camp Ashraf, were vetted and completely investigated by several US agencies which were not able to find an iota of evidence linking any of them to any act of violence.

Furthermore, the Washington Post refers to some of the most patriotic Americans as a “stable of handsomely-paid” mouthpieces of the MEK. This is astonishing as the paper itself has never wasted any time to support the misguided policy of the US State Department to designate the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997 for purely political considerations and appeasement of the mullahs of Tehran.

The designation, legally and factually discredited and revoked in the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union, and declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals as it violated the due process rights of the MEK, has been used by the Maliki government as a pretext to slaughter the residents.

Additionally, the editorial alleges that the MEK was responsible for killing Americans more than four decades ago when multiple credible independent sources have provided ample countervailing evidence that the current MEK in its entirety has had nothing to do with it.

The Washington Post is wise to remember that history may not judge kindly its expediency in support of an administration that seeks reelection by throwing a group of innocent men and 1,000 Muslim women, who have already been victimized by the barbarism of Iraqi soldiers, into the wolves.

Unfortunately, in this case of the impending humanitarian catastrophe of monumental dimension, the Post has opted to take the wrong side and has issued a license to murder the residents by blaming the victims instead of the butchers.

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According to the bureau of Labor statistics, the American economy added a shocking “zero” number of jobs in the month of August. This makes it the worst monthly job report this year, fueling doubts about economic recovery and increasing the pressure on President Obama.

Despite a big effort by the Obama administration to design a simulative fiscal policy in the recent past, the overall picture is still very negative. The greatest impact of this may be the Democrats’ ability to contest elections in 2012; in effect, the presidential approval index fell to the lowest of its time in office.

In August people who strongly approved of Obama’s performance fell 3 percent from 24 percent to 21 percent. On the other hand the number of people who strongly disapprove of the President’s performance rose to 42 percent from 38 percent.

Variations in this index show to what degree voters are satisfied with the performance of the President; if there is a rise in approval rating it shows that people’s concerns are being taken care of, or they feel happy. Likewise, if there is a fall in this index then voters are unhappy with the President.

The essential idea is that the President is in the midst of an uncertain economy and the political crisis will have major bearing on his hopes for a return to the White House in 2012. Everything depends on what the President has in store this time, but it will be far less ambitious than the $825 billion stimulus package of 2009.

Economists in the U.S. who advocated for government intervention call for a package of at least $300 billion to avoid backsliding of the economy. Overall unemployment rates are steady at 9.1 percent; anything less than 100,000 jobs a month would be catastrophic for the democratic campaign in 2012.

Economists estimated that the economy needs 150,000 jobs per month in order to keep pace with the growth rate of the population. But to reduce unemployment to below 8 percent, the economy needs to create more than 275,000 jobs in one month.

Initially President Obama had agreed to deliver the speech on his new job proposal on September 7, but incidentally (or intentionally) the Republican Party chose the same date to hold a televised debate. Just like with the debt deal, this incident became a platform for conflict between democrats and republicans, but the White House said it was just a matter of coincidence.

The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, asked Obama to rescheduled his speech on September 8 and the White House agreed. This shows the basic idea that even in dire economic condition and undeniable uncertainty over the future of U.S economy, Republicans are enjoying their play in politics.

But all in all, the campaigning for 2012 is firing up. From the President to the presidential candidates — everyone is preparing to roll out thier agendas in order to cement their chances. They are very much concerned with what voters are concerned with, and of utmost importantly: Jobs, jobs, and jobs.

The political environment in the U.S. is driven by the unemployment agenda because ultimately it will determine the destiny of the front-runners for 2012. Everything depends on how well they sail the American citizens out of this mess.

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