U.N. Humanitarian Aid Reaches Damascus Suburb
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The United Nations delivered humanitarian aid to a suburb of the Syrian capital on Monday as it takes advantage of an internationally backed cease-fire despite accusations of breaches from both sides.
Senior U.S. commander says Islamic State has become too strong in the divided country to be rolled back without U.S. help.
U.S. Cyberattacks Could Disrupt ISIS Technologyby Lolita C. Baldor / AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. cyberattacks to disrupt ISIS‘ communications and overload their networks could force the militant group to use older technologies that are easier for the U.S. to intercept, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday.
Carter and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided new details about how the Pentagon is using its new aggressive cyber campaign as part of the military operations against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
“As we disrupt the ISIL communications via cyber or other methods, sometimes we do drive them to other means,” Carter told Pentagon reporters. “Sometimes, those other means are easier for us to listen to. So by taking away some of the ways that they are used to operating, they’re protected and that they regard as an information sanctuary, drives them to other, including older technologies. And so one way or another, it is a very effective tool.”
U.S. officials told The Associated Press last week that the military had ramped up cyber operations against the group. The operations include efforts by U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, to prevent the group from using the Internet and social media to communicate and distribute propaganda aimed at attracting and inspiring recruits. It could also force them back to technologies like cell phones to communicate.
Dunford said that using the computer-based attacks alongside bombings and other military actions allows the U.S. to “both physically and virtually isolate” the group and limits its ability to command and control its fighters. And that type of coordinated offensive, he said, will be used to support Iraqi security forces as they try to retake the northern city of Mosul.
The surge of computer-based military operations by U.S. Cyber Command began shortly after Carter prodded commanders at Fort Meade last month to accelerate the fight against ISIS on the cyber front.
Late last year Carter met with commanders, telling them they had 30 days to bring him options for how the military could use its cyberwarfare capabilities against the group’s deadly insurgency across Iraq and Syria, and spreading to Libya and Afghanistan. Officials said he told commanders that beefing up cyberwarfare against ISIS was a test for them, and that they should have both the capability and the will to wage the online war.
The officials described the conversations on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Dunford and Carter didn’t provide a lot of details Monday.
Dunford said the U.S. doesn’t want to reveal too much.
“We don’t want the enemy to know when, where and how we’re conducting cyber operations,” said Dunford. “We don’t want them to have information that will allow them to adapt over time. We want them to be surprised when we conduct cyber operations. And frankly, they’re going to experience some friction that’s associated with us and some friction that’s just associated with the normal course of events in dealing in the information age. And frankly, we don’t want them to know the difference.”
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New Documents Reveal How Osama Bin Laden Wanted to Spend His Fortune by Deb Riechmann & Robert Burns / AP
(WASHINGTON) — In his handwritten will, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden claimed he had about $29 million in personal wealth — the bulk of which he wanted to be used “on jihad, for the sake of Allah.”
The will was released Tuesday in a batch of more than 100 documents seized in a May 2011 raid that killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The al-Qaida leader planned to divide his fortune among his relatives, but wanted most of it spent to conduct the work of the Islamic extremist terror network behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
The threat of sudden death was on his mind years before the fatal raid in Pakistan.
“If I am to be killed,” he wrote in a 2008 letter to his father, “pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home.”
The letters were included in a batch of documents released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They address a range of topics, including fractures between al-Qaida and al-Qaida in Iraq, which eventually splintered off into what is now known as the Islamic State; and bin Laden’s concerns about his organization’s public image and his desire to depict it as a united network.
In another letter, addressed to “The Islamic Community in General,” bin Laden offered an upbeat assessment of progress in his holy war since 9/11 and of U.S. failings in Afghanistan. The letter is undated but appears to have been written in 2010.
“Here we are in the tenth year of the war, and America and its allies are still chasing a mirage, lost at sea without a beach,” he wrote.
“They thought that the war would be easy and that they would accomplish their objectives in a few days or a few weeks, and they did not prepare for it financially, and there is no popular support that would enable it to carry on a war for a decade or more. The sons of Islam have opposed them and stood between them and their plans and objectives.”
Bin Laden sought to portray the U.S. as hopelessly mired in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. In an undated letter that appears to have been written in the 2009-2010 period, he compared the American combat position to that of the Soviet Union in the final years of its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“America appears to be hanging on by a thin thread. Due to the financial difficulties,” he wrote.
“We need to be patient a bit longer. With patience, there is victory!”
Beginning last summer, the CIA spearheaded an interagency review of the classified documents under the auspices of the White House’s National Security Council staff. Representatives from seven agencies combed through the documents.
“This was no easy feat as members of the task force dedicated themselves over a long period of time working in an intelligence community facility to review and declassify as many documents as possible,” said Brian Hale, a spokesman for the national intelligence director.”
The review is ongoing, with the next release expected later this year.
Shortly before his death, bin Laden hailed the overthrow and death of Libya’s strongman leader Moammar Gadhafi.
In a Feb. 25, 2011 letter addressed “to our people in Libya,” bin Laden said al-Qaida had triumphed over Gadhafi.
“Praise God, who made al-Qa’ida a great vexation upon him, squatting on his chest, enraging and embittering him, and who made al-Qa’ida a torment and exemplary punishment upon him, this truly vile hallucinating individual who troubles us in front of the world!” he wrote.
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Life after Ukraine: the 'invisible' Russian fighters struggling to return ...by Georgy Pereborshchikov for Meduza, part of the New East network
I went to the Donbass in July 2014 to defend our Russian world from attacks by the west. It was necessary to meet ... Starting in July 2014, I saw frequent news on TV about the events in the Donbass. All that was happening ...
First test for Syrian truce after breaches reported on both sides ... by Mark Tran and agencies
But Lt Gen Sergei Kuralenko, head of Moscow's coordination centre in Syria, was quoted by Russiannews agencies as saying that on the whole, the ceasefire was holding. The White House said it had always expected ...
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In a national poll from CNN, the billionaire has 49 per cent of Republican support just 24 hours before the crucial vote in 11 states
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Service says it is "very close" to developing the technology while the Air Force pushes ahead with further trials
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Gyulcherkhra Bobokulova, a citizen of Uzbekistan, was found pacing around a western Moscow suburb carrying the head of a four-year old child and claiming to be a terrorist on Monday morning
The Nation |
Bin Laden documents outline inheritance wishes, division of funds
Reuters WASHINGTON Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden outlined in letters and other documents how at least $29 million of his funds and possessions should be apportioned after his death, requesting that most of it be used to continue global jihad. One of the ... Osama Bin Laden Wanted Much of His Fortune Used 'on Jihad'New York Times New Osama Bin Laden Letters Show Paranoid Micromanager in Hiding ABC News New declassified documents reveal Osama bin Laden was wary of spies, dronesTimes of India all 104 news articles » |
Russia Seeks Scapegoats After Nanny Arrested With Child’s Severed Head by support@pangea-cms.com (Tom Balmforth)
The reactions in Russia to the apparent beheading of a child in Moscow by an Uzbek nanny were varied and kneejerk, with authorities calling for a clampdown on nannies and nationalists.
Hamas Commander, Accused of Theft and Gay Sex, Is Killed by His Own by DIAA HADID and MAJD AL WAHEIDI
The death of Mahmoud Ishtiwi, who was accused of homosexuality, had all the trappings of a soap opera: sex, torture and embezzlement, in the armed wing of Hamas.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's leaders were increasingly worried about spies in their midst, drones in the air and secret tracking devices reporting their movements as the U.S.-led war against them ground on, documents seized in the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout and reviewed by Reuters reveal.
GOP badly split as Trump, Clinton seek Super Tuesday winsby By JULIE PACE and JILL COLVIN
VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) -- On the eve of Super Tuesday's crucial primaries, a sharp new divide erupted between Republicans who pledge to fall in line behind Donald Trump if he wins their party's nomination and others who insist they can never back the bombastic billionaire....
Russian warplanes sit idle on Syria base during cease-fireby By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
HEMEIMEEM AIR BASE, Syria (AP) -- Dozens of Russian warplanes sat idle Tuesday on the tarmac at this Russian air base in Syria on the fourth day of a cease-fire brokered by Moscow and Washington....
WASHINGTON — The State Department on Monday released the last set of emails from the 30,000 messages on Hillary Clinton’s private computer server, including an email about North Korea that remains a point of dispute between the department and one of the nation’s spy agencies over the secrecy of information that passed through the server.
That email — written on July 3, 2009, after a North Korean ballistic missile test — was one of four that prompted intensified scrutiny of the emails for classified information and a referral last year to the F.B.I. for a review of the handling of classified information by Mrs. Clinton, her aides and other State Department officials while she was secretary of state.
It was released as part of a chain of five replies and forwards on Monday with portions blocked out on the grounds that they contained information now classified “secret,” though not “top secret,” the higher classification that the spy agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, had cited last summer.
The State Department released this email that was sent to Hillary Clinton's private computer server from one of her top aides while she was secretary of state. The email, now classified, is at the center of a dispute over the handling of government data on her server.
OPEN Document
“The original assessment was not correct, and the document does not contain top secret information,” a State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said. He added that the department had agreed to classify some of it “provisionally” pending further review, an indication that the dispute over the contents had not yet been resolved.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, Brian Fallon, said the “ongoing disagreement” about the North Korean test “means that the intelligence community’s inspector general was wrong in his belief that this email was ‘top secret.’ ”
Mrs. Clinton and her aides have said that the intelligence agencies are overzealously classifying information, and in this case the State Department agreed. The designation of “secret” nevertheless added to the list of emails that the department has released only after removing information that is now considered sensitive on national security grounds.
Among the final 1,723 emails released on Monday were 23 that the department upgraded to “secret,” bringing the total classified as such to 65. Another 2,028 have had portions blocked out, or redacted, because the information is now “confidential.”
Of the four emails that prompted the referral to the F.B.I., only one has now been classified as “top secret.” It was among 22 emails that the State Department — at the demand of the C.I.A. — said it would not disclose, even in part, because they contained some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.
In addition to the email involving North Korea’s missile test, another was released last fall in full, while the third was released with portions blocked out as “confidential,” the lowest level of classification. Officials have declined to specify those.
In all, less than 10 percent of the emails that passed through Mrs. Clinton’s server contained confidential or secret information. That was enough to prompt reviews by the inspectors general of the State Department and the intelligence agencies, and by Congress and the F.B.I., over the mishandling of classified information.
The focus of those reviews, officials have said, has been on the advisers privy to her personal email address and on diplomats who sent messages that were forwarded by those aides, like Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, who served as a deputy chief of staff during Mrs. Clinton’s term.
None of the emails were marked as classified at the time they were sent. And while the State Department has said that the “upgrades” do not reflect any judgment of their sensitivity at the time, the designations nonetheless suggested that at least some of the information should not have been sent over an unsecured system like hers, officials have said.
Mr. Kirby also announced that one more email between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama would not be released, adding to 18 that the State Department said in January it would not release, citing longstanding precedent that the White House controls presidential communications. Another email was being withheld, Mr. Kirby said, at the request of a law enforcement agency, presumably because it was related to a continuing investigation.
An email sent to Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state from one of her top aides, Huma Abedin, encouraged her to follow up on an issue concerning North Korea using a secure line, showing at least some intent on the part of her staff to follow classification protocols.
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Mr. Kirby declined to discuss either email, except to say that both were unclassified.
The end of the department’s releases of the 30,068 emails, which came in 14 batches, including four in February, did not mean the end of the legal and political controversy over Mrs. Clinton’s use of the private server.
In the case of the email about North Korea, the State Department also disputed the initial effort to assert that it contained classified information. The assertion came through the inspector general for the intelligence agencies, I. Charles McCullough III.
The email in question was written by a senior watch officer in the department’s operations center, Shelby Smith-Wilson, and sent to Mrs. Clinton’s executive staff. Although that portion was entirely redacted, one government official familiar with the contents said it described a conference call among senior officials, including Mrs. Clinton, about the ballistic missile test that North Korea conducted that day in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The email chain was forwarded with additional comments and the unofficial translation of a statement by the Japanese Foreign Ministry to Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides, including Ms. Abedin, Mr. Sullivan and Cheryl D. Mills, her chief of staff.
In another email later marked as classified, Mr. Sullivan forwarded Mrs. Clinton a news article about a likely move by the Obama administration to shift some decisions on drone strikes to the White House from the Pentagon. “What Panetta is raising,” Mr. Sullivan wrote in the May 2011 note, referring to Leon E. Panetta, then the head of the C.I.A.
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Puerto Rico governor calls for legalizing marijuana
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Puerto Rico's governor has called for the legalization of marijuana during his last public address as leader of the U.S. territory.
Alejandro Garcia Padilla said Monday that taking such action would lower crime and target hypocrisy. He said legislators should at a minimum approve a bill filed in 2013 that would decriminalize marijuana. Puerto Rico's Health Department recently adopted a regulation allowing the cultivation, manufacturing and distribution of medical marijuana.
Garcia spoke for about an hour and addressed other issues, including the island's deepening economic crisis. He stressed the government's $69 billion public debt needs restructuring and said key decisions will be made in the coming months that will decide Puerto Rico's future.
Garcia is not seeking re-election as the island prepares to hold general elections in November.
Finally, support from Congress for something other than a federal bailout for Puerto Rico or letting the commonwealth break its contracts and constitutional obligations.
The Republican Study Committee issued the following position:
The RSC opposes granting access to Chapter 9 bankruptcy for Puerto Rico or access to similar forced restructuring of debt. The RSC does support enacting pro-growth reforms that would alleviate the burden that current federal policies place on the territory.
This is precisely the right course of action. The heart of Puerto Rico’s financial crisis is an economic crisis.
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Throwing money at the commonwealth or allowing it to abandon the rule of law won’t fix Puerto Rico’s economy. Rather, it would be akin to bringing a new engine to move a stalled train without first removing some dead weight to see if the train can move on its own. Likewise, intervening in Puerto Rico before removing existing barriers to growth would waste taxpayer resources and set a dangerous precedent.
So what pro-growth reforms can Congress enact?
For starters, it can exempt Puerto Rico from the federal minimum wage, which is roughly equivalent to a $20 minimum wage on the U.S. mainland. In other words, it has crippled Puerto Rico’s labor market, making it impossible for certain businesses to operate on the island and pushing many workers into underground employment, where they lack legal protections, don’t contribute to the island’s taxes, and don’t become eligible for Social Security.
Congress can also provide Puerto Rico with the same exemption from the maritime Jones Act that is gives the U.S. Virgin Islands.
An antiquated and protectionist law, the Jones Act requires that all shipments between two U.S. destinations occur on a vessel that is U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, and at least 75 percent U.S.-crewed. This roughly doubles the cost of shipping goods from Puerto Rico to the mainland. As a result, businesses that have to ship goods are unlikely to set up shop in Puerto Rico, and Puerto Ricans pay more for everyday products such as energy because shipping costs preclude their buying from the mainland.
To be clear, however, Congress cannot solve Puerto Rico’s problems. While the federal government can reduce its drag on Puerto Rico’s economy, it cannot change problems of Puerto Rico’s own making.
For decades, the commonwealth has been living beyond its means, plagued by incompetent administrations, political corruption, cronyism, and financial mismanagement.
Just this past December, Puerto Rico’s governor made the decision to hand out $120 million inChristmas bonuses to government employees just weeks before it defaulted on $37 million in payments to its creditors. Decisions like this show that Puerto Rico is not serious about making the right choices and necessary reforms to transform its economy.
Part of the reason it is not serious may be that the government is holding out hope for a federal bailout.
But as Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, rightly points out, “[a] direct taxpayer-funded bailout would not only cost Americans tens of billions of dollars, it would fail to address the root drivers of Puerto Rico’s debt.” Moreover, changing the bankruptcy law to the Puerto Rican government’s advantage would set a dangerous precedent that Congress can “delegitimize future transactions.”
Congress should take a do-no-harm approach with Puerto Rico, relieving it from economically damaging regulations such as the minimum wage and Jones Act and then allowing the commonwealth to implement its own reforms and negotiate its own debts.
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Puerto Rico’s governor has called for the legalization of marijuana during his last public address as leader of the U.S. territory.
EVERY few years, a news event demonstrates how dysfunctional, arbitrary and counterproductive the country’s system of classifying information really is. Sometimes it’s an article or book about government conduct that causes hand-wringing among intelligence officials. Sometimes it’s a prosecution under the nearly 100-year-old Espionage Act for mishandling classified information, instead of for actual spying. Now we have calls for prosecuting Hillary Clinton because, when she was secretary of state, she had documents on her private email server that have since been declared top secret.
Mrs. Clinton, along with others accused of mishandling classified information, argues that government information is “overclassified” and that it is poorly labeled, making it impossible to know what is actually top secret. They are right. This debate might prove useful if it forces the government to deal with a bigger issue: the need for a saner system for classified information.
Too much information is classified, and those restrictions last too long. Right now, there are thousands of people in the government who can classify information. Think about the reality: A person can put a “classified” stamp on a document and ensure it is kept secret, or can leave it unclassified, subject to disclosure, and later be accused of having revealed something needing protection. No one risks any real penalty for using the stamp; the only punishment comes from not using it. The result is overclassification.
One person’s decision may not be consistent with that of another. Many times, I’ve seen information in a document marked “top secret” that is easily available on the Internet. Similarly there are numerous examples where the exact same paragraph is marked “secret” in one document but left unclassified in another. Yet people have been prosecuted for disseminating such information, and at trial, the government blocks them from using the unclassified document as a defense.
Moreover, the courts will not accept the argument that information should not have been classified in the first place. Given how almost random the decision to classify is, this is astounding.
Classifications typically last 10 years. There is no real system for reviewing decisions, so information that was stale weeks after it was classified remains secret for years longer. The government may prosecute someone for discussing information that was classified long ago for a reason that is no longer valid. Here, too, the inappropriate length of classification is not a defense.
Often, the motive for classifying something is to protect not that information, but its source. For example, a document states that Kim Jong-un of North Korea had a hamburger for lunch. That is not information that has to be protected, but that we know that he ate it reveals a source that needs protecting. This is where the classification system has to operate properly because real lives and methods are in peril. Yet this kind of information, in my experience, is typically not what is being protected.
The laws used to charge improper dissemination of classified information also subject people to the most selective prosecution imaginable. Consider these real examples.
A high-ranking official gives behind-the-scenes intelligence to a reporter in hopes of putting the administration in a good light. No one is charged. But a lower-ranking official tells a different reporter classified information calling attention to a Middle Eastern terrorist organization and is charged with a felony.
The former head of the C.I.A. gives classified information, including code words for intelligence programs and war strategy, to a biographer with whom he is in a relationship and then lies about it. He is allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. But a State Department analyst who speaks to a reporter about the threat of North Korea’s nuclear program, and then lies about it, is charged with a felony and serves 11 months in jail.
In Mrs. Clinton’s case, people can reasonably assert that in using a private email server she thwarted open government rules or risked the possibility that sensitive information would be disclosed. But the idea that she violated laws about classified information is simply wrong. Any investigation based on after-the-fact determinations of classification would do nothing to protect national security and would distract from the need to reform classification laws.
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In an interesting summary of the possible outcomes of the Apple vs FBI standoff, Quartz notes that some experts believe that CEO Tim Cook could be held personally liable for defying a court order and face jail time. Attorney ...
How did Barack Obama join Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to become one of the three most transformative presidents in the past century? He was greatly aided by the financial crisis that erupted during the 2008 campaign. This gave the new president a mandate and a large Democratic congressional majority that fully embraced his progressive agenda.
Having learned from previous progressive failures, President Obama embarked on a strategy of minimizing controversial details that could doom his legislative efforts. But no factor was more decisive than his unshakable determination not to let Congress, the courts, the Constitution or a failed presidency—as America has traditionally defined it—stand in his way.
Americans have always found progressivism appealing in the abstract, but they have revolted when they saw the details. President Clinton’s very progressive agenda—to nationalize health care and use private pensions to promote social goals—was hardly controversial during the 1992 election. But once the debate turned to the details, Americans quickly understood that his health-care plan would take away their freedom. Even Mr. Clinton’s most reliable allies, the labor unions, rebelled when they understood that under his pension plan their pensions would serve “social goals” instead of maximizing their retirement benefits.
In its major legislative successes, the Obama administration routinely proposed not program details but simply the structure that would be used to determine program details in the future. Unlike the Clinton administration’s ill-fated HillaryCare, which contained a detailed plan to control costs through Regional Healthcare Purchasing Cooperatives and strictly enforced penalties, ObamaCare established an independent payment advisory board to deal with rising costs. The 2009 stimulus package was unencumbered by a projects list like the one provided by the Clinton administration, which doomed the 1993 Clinton stimulus with ice-skating warming huts in Connecticut and alpine slides in Puerto Rico.
The Obama stimulus offered “transparency” in reporting on the projects funded but only after the money had been spent. Similarly the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law defined almost nothing, including the basis for designating “systemically important financial institutions” that would be subject to onerous regulation, what bank “stress tests” tested, what an acceptable “living will” for a financial institution looked like or what the “Volcker rule” required.
In addition to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Mr. Obama benefited from unprecedented Democratic support in Congress. Congressional Quarterly reported that “Obama’s 98.7% Senate success score in 2009 was the highest ever,” surpassing LBJ’s 93%, Clinton’s 85% and Reagan’s 88%. Reagan’s budget, tax cuts, Social Security reform and tax reform programs all had significant bipartisan input and garnered the strong Democratic support they needed to become law. But ObamaCare had no bipartisan input and did not receive a single Republican vote in Congress. The Obama stimulus package received no Republican votes in the House and only three Republican votes in the Senate. Dodd-Frank received three Republican votes in the House and three in the Senate.
Voters used the first off-year election of the Obama presidency to express the same disapproval that they had expressed in the Clinton presidency. Democrats lost 54 House and eight Senate seats in 1994, and 63 House and six Senate seats in 2010.
Mr. Clinton reacted to the congressional defeat by “triangulating” to ultimately support a bipartisan budget and tax compromise that fostered broad-based prosperity and earned for him the distinction of being one of the most successful modern presidents. Mr. Obama never wavered. When the recovery continued to disappoint for six long years he never changed course. Mr. Clinton sacrificed his political agenda for the good of the country. Mr. Obama sacrificed the good of the country for his political agenda.
The Obama transformation was achieved by laws granting unparalleled discretionary power to the executive branch—but where the law gave no discretion Mr. Obama refused to abide by the law. Whether the law mandated action, such as income verification for ObamaCare, or inaction, such as immigration reform without congressional support, Mr. Obama willfully overrode the law. Stretching executive powers beyond their historic limits, he claimed the Federal Communications Commission had authority over the Internet and exerted Environmental Protection Agency control over power plants to reduce carbon emissions.
When Obama empowered himself to declare Congress in “recess” to make illegal appointments that the courts later ruled unconstitutional, he was undeterred. In an action that Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon would have never undertaken, Mr. Obama pushed Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to “nuke” the rights of minority Senators to filibuster judicial nominees and executive appointments by changing the long-standing 60-vote supermajority needed for cloture to a simple majority.
American democracy has historically relied on three basic constraints: a shared commitment to the primacy of the constitutional process over any political agenda, the general necessity to achieve bipartisan support to make significant policy changes, and the natural desire of leaders to be popular by delivering peace and prosperity. Mr. Obama has transformed America by refusing to accept these constraints. The lock-step support of the Democrats’ supermajority in the 111th Congress freed him from having to compromise as other presidents, including Reagan and Mr. Clinton, have had to do.
While the Obama program has transformed America, no one is singing “Happy Days Are Here Again” or claiming it’s “morning in America.” Despite a doubling of the national debt and the most massive monetary expansion since the Civil War, America’s powerhouse economy has withered along with the rule of law.
The means by which Mr. Obama wrought his transformation imperil its ability to stand the test of time. All of his executive orders can be overturned by a new president. ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank can be largely circumvented using exactly the same discretionary powers Mr. Obama used to implement them in the first place. Republicans, who never supported his program, are now united in their commitment to repeal it.
Most important, the American people, who came to embrace the Roosevelt and Reagan transformations, have yet to buy into the Obama transformation. For all of these reasons it appears that the Obama legacy rests on a foundation of sand.
Mr. Gramm, a former Republican senator from Texas and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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The “Three Shocks to the Political System” (Politics & Ideas, Feb. 10) described by William Galston all are attributable to an American transformation that President Obama promised, nurtured, hastened and spearheaded. With regard to reduced GOP passion about social conservative issues, there really isn’t much traditional-values turf to defend after Mr. Obama’s two terms in office. Two decades of progressive indoctrination in universities and liberal spin from Hollywood produced younger generations steeped in a victimization and social-justice broth. Youth-driven rejection of traditional values and a capitalist economic order associated with white male privilege accounts for the retreat and demoralization of social conservatives in the GOP and the emergence of a strong socialist branch in the Democratic Party. President Obama capitalized on progressive trends that were under way well before he moved into the White House, but fundamental change required a confluence of economic crisis and activist leadership to fully bloom.
The economic woes bestowed by seven years of Obamanomics now may be the catalyst (and the president’s most important legacy) for revolutionary change engineered by a populist successor who appeals to our insecurities, discontent, anger and envy. The speed of our descent into this political state of affairs has been breathtaking.
Roger Kelly
Ormond Beach, Fla.
What might plans for a Russian sovereign bond issue, being circulated now among international banks, have to do with events in Syria?
The Russian economy is reeling from the effects of sanctions imposed by the West following the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2014. With the rouble in freefall, oil prices sinking and a population facing deteriorating living standards, Russia needs access to capital markets.
But, according to the Financial Times, banks interested in participating are being reminded by the United States Treasury that great care should be taken to avoid any investments that run counter to American foreign policy interests.
It is a mistake to associate US power exclusively with global military prowess. American financial regulators are able to wield fiscal sticks that can be just as effective in securing strategic compliance.
The US wants Mr Putin to fall in with its plans for Syria by ceasing to provide broad-spectrum military support aimed at keeping Syrian president Bashar Al Assad in power. It expects this while seeking to deny the Russian leader a measure of economic equilibrium at home.
It is thus worth reflecting on how events in Syria are shaped by the re-emerging Cold War dynamic between Russia and the West. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nato expanded eastwards, penetrating old Soviet spheres of influence. The expansion eastwards of European Union membership provided a social, political and economic underpinning to the expansion of Nato.
The growth of western military influence throughout the Middle East in the same period also threatened Russian ambitions in the region.
Russia has always been subject to a degree of geographic, and thus strategic, isolation. This has proved beneficial in the face of invasions by Napoleon’s, and then Hitler’s, armies, but disadvantageous when it came to projecting power.
Russia is short of warm water ports. Most of the all-important “breakout points” to the oceans of the world, through which credible global influence is demonstrated, are blocked by geography, international treaty or Nato affiliation. The annexation of Crimea, home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, together with Russia’s involvement in Syria, show just how determined Mr Putin is to retain his strategic line of sight to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Much is made of Mr Putin’s resolve, his ability to exploit divisions and establish facts on the ground favourable to Moscow in the face of international vacillation. But Russia, despite the weakening of the western strategic consensus, is not in the same league economically or militarily as its old adversaries (for as long as it threatens US interests, at least). Its economy is stagnant and undiversified. More and more citizens are sinking below the poverty line. Mr Putin’s famous resolve is fuelled in equal parts by principle and desperation.
But the US has shown itself to be indecisive and inconsistent since the failure of the post-invasion Iraq settlement and this looks set to continue. The success of Donald Trump, and indeed of all those who have done well in the US primaries, has been influenced by their isolationist rhetoric. By the end of the election process, whoever wins the presidency will have to account in US policy for America’s weariness with foreign adventures.
The European Union is stricken financially, demographically and politically. The lack of strategic cohesiveness was perhaps best illustrated by the lukewarm response to the killing of nearly 300 people – 70 per cent of them EU citizens – when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed over Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile in 2014.
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The transatlantic alliance through which the joint leaders of the Anglosphere, America and the UK, used to demonstrate global intent has fallen into disrepair. A recent Atlantic Council report said that deployment of a single UK brigade to face up to a sudden Russian challenge from the East would be a major logistical challenge. The looming referendum in the UK on separation from the EU represents a further fragmenting of the western European consensus in the face of increased aggression from the East.
At home, despite economic decline, Mr Putin’s approval ratings continue to soar. Throughout history, under the tsars and Soviet strongmen, Russia has demonstrated a readiness to unite (and suffer) under autocracy to defend or project the “Rodina” – the Motherland. Mr Putin’s approach in Syria will remain substantially the same unless one of two approaches are adopted: flight or fight.
The flight scenario is one in which concessions are made, sanctions are eased and Russian interests in its sphere of influence in Europe and the Middle East are recognised. This would give Mr Putin a measure of prestige at home and recognition of his claims in a world that in any case is becoming increasingly politically Balkanised.
The less realistic fight scenario demands that the West stands firm, that Russia be made to alter course or face military sanctions such as a US-administered air exclusion zone over Syria and a far more aggressive military posture by western forces in Europe.
Earlier this year, US Senator John McCain was succinct in his assessment of Mr Putin: “…We have seen this movie before in Ukraine: Russia presses its advantage militarily, creates new facts on the ground … negotiates an agreement to lock in the spoils of war and then chooses when to resume fighting … this is diplomacy in the service of military aggression … the only deterrence that we seem to be establishing is over ourselves.”
Prevarication on the part of the West will permit Mr Putin to establish new political and strategic realities in Syria and elsewhere. It remains to do a deal or to threaten real consequences. Anything in between will not suffice.
Martin Newland is a former editor-in-chief of The National
One-page article
What might plans for a Russian sovereign bond issue, being circulated now among international banks, have to do with events in Syria?
The Russian economy is reeling from the effects of sanctions imposed by the West following the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2014. With the rouble in freefall, oil prices sinking and a population facing deteriorating living standards, Russia needs access to capital markets.
But, according to the Financial Times, banks interested in participating are being reminded by the United States Treasury that great care should be taken to avoid any investments that run counter to American foreign policy interests.
It is a mistake to associate US power exclusively with global military prowess. American financial regulators are able to wield fiscal sticks that can be just as effective in securing strategic compliance.
The US wants Mr Putin to fall in with its plans for Syria by ceasing to provide broad-spectrum military support aimed at keeping Syrian president Bashar Al Assad in power. It expects this while seeking to deny the Russian leader a measure of economic equilibrium at home.
It is thus worth reflecting on how events in Syria are shaped by the re-emerging Cold War dynamic between Russia and the West. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nato expanded eastwards, penetrating old Soviet spheres of influence. The expansion eastwards of European Union membership provided a social, political and economic underpinning to the expansion of Nato.
The growth of western military influence throughout the Middle East in the same period also threatened Russian ambitions in the region.
Russia has always been subject to a degree of geographic, and thus strategic, isolation. This has proved beneficial in the face of invasions by Napoleon’s, and then Hitler’s, armies, but disadvantageous when it came to projecting power.
Russia is short of warm water ports. Most of the all-important “breakout points” to the oceans of the world, through which credible global influence is demonstrated, are blocked by geography, international treaty or Nato affiliation. The annexation of Crimea, home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, together with Russia’s involvement in Syria, show just how determined Mr Putin is to retain his strategic line of sight to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Much is made of Mr Putin’s resolve, his ability to exploit divisions and establish facts on the ground favourable to Moscow in the face of international vacillation. But Russia, despite the weakening of the western strategic consensus, is not in the same league economically or militarily as its old adversaries (for as long as it threatens US interests, at least). Its economy is stagnant and undiversified. More and more citizens are sinking below the poverty line. Mr Putin’s famous resolve is fuelled in equal parts by principle and desperation.
But the US has shown itself to be indecisive and inconsistent since the failure of the post-invasion Iraq settlement and this looks set to continue. The success of Donald Trump, and indeed of all those who have done well in the US primaries, has been influenced by their isolationist rhetoric. By the end of the election process, whoever wins the presidency will have to account in US policy for America’s weariness with foreign adventures.
The European Union is stricken financially, demographically and politically. The lack of strategic cohesiveness was perhaps best illustrated by the lukewarm response to the killing of nearly 300 people – 70 per cent of them EU citizens – when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed over Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile in 2014.
The transatlantic alliance through which the joint leaders of the Anglosphere, America and the UK, used to demonstrate global intent has fallen into disrepair. A recent Atlantic Council report said that deployment of a single UK brigade to face up to a sudden Russian challenge from the East would be a major logistical challenge. The looming referendum in the UK on separation from the EU represents a further fragmenting of the western European consensus in the face of increased aggression from the East.
At home, despite economic decline, Mr Putin’s approval ratings continue to soar. Throughout history, under the tsars and Soviet strongmen, Russia has demonstrated a readiness to unite (and suffer) under autocracy to defend or project the “Rodina” – the Motherland. Mr Putin’s approach in Syria will remain substantially the same unless one of two approaches are adopted: flight or fight.
The flight scenario is one in which concessions are made, sanctions are eased and Russian interests in its sphere of influence in Europe and the Middle East are recognised. This would give Mr Putin a measure of prestige at home and recognition of his claims in a world that in any case is becoming increasingly politically Balkanised.
The less realistic fight scenario demands that the West stands firm, that Russia be made to alter course or face military sanctions such as a US-administered air exclusion zone over Syria and a far more aggressive military posture by western forces in Europe.
Earlier this year, US Senator John McCain was succinct in his assessment of Mr Putin: “…We have seen this movie before in Ukraine: Russia presses its advantage militarily, creates new facts on the ground … negotiates an agreement to lock in the spoils of war and then chooses when to resume fighting … this is diplomacy in the service of military aggression … the only deterrence that we seem to be establishing is over ourselves.”
Prevarication on the part of the West will permit Mr Putin to establish new political and strategic realities in Syria and elsewhere. It remains to do a deal or to threaten real consequences. Anything in between will not suffice.
Martin Newland is a former editor-in-chief of The National
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