Posted by James O'Rourke on July 5, 2008
The American Prospect
Don’t look now but there is a broad consensus on what the next administration should do about Iran.
ILAN GOLDENBERG | June 25, 2008 |
| If two years ago you were to tell me that the Democratic presidential nominee would make engaging with Iran a central element of his campaign, I would have thought you were joking. After all, talking to a country that has historically enjoyed a favorability rating of a whopping 10 percent in the United States and has a president known for his anti-Western rhetoric probably isn’t going to be all that popular. Not to mention the fact that the most substantive interaction Americans have had with Iran over the last 30 years involved watching blindfolded hostages and burning American flags on their television screens.
Yet incredibly, in a feat that defies conventional wisdom, Barack Obama is more than just holding his own against John McCain. When it comes to Iran he has the American public and most foreign-policy experts squarely behind him.
Obama’s position is that we should be willing to engage in direct talks with the Iranian regime and offer them a choice: greater economic incentives and regular diplomatic relations in exchange for greater cooperation or economic sanctions and political isolation for their intransigence. John McCain and President Bush both argue that the United States should only talk to Iran if it first agrees to the precondition of suspending its uranium-enrichment program. Essentially, they are demanding that Iran give up its most significant bargaining chip before even sitting down at the table. In the meantime, McCain has called for more robust sanctions and has continued the Bush administration’s pattern of saber rattling — even jokingly singing about “bomb, bomb, bombing” Iran. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Iran, World Affairs | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James O'Rourke on July 5, 2008
The WSJ reports, ?In another sign of the harsh toll being exacted by the economic downturn, the number of Americans unemployed for six months or more has risen sharply over the past year and is likely to increase even more.? According to new Labor Department data, the number of people unemployed for at least 26 weeks has risen to 1.6 million ? up 37% in the past year.
Posted in *Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James O'Rourke on July 5, 2008
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Bill Moyers Journal. Posted July 5, 2008.
Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn’t a war about oil. That’s cynical and
simplistic, they said. It’s about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling
a dictator.
Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn’t a war about oil. That’s cynical and simplistic, they said. It’s about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be … the bottom line. It is about oil.
Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, “Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, “If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War.”
Remember, also, that soon after the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told the press that war was our only strategic choice. “We had virtually no economic options with Iraq,” he explained, “because the country floats on a sea of oil.”
Shades of Daniel Plainview, the monstrous petroleum tycoon in the movie, “There Will Be Blood.” Half-mad, he exclaims, “There’s a whole ocean of oil under our feet!” then adds, “No one can get at it except for me!” Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by James O'Rourke on July 5, 2008
Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by James O'Rourke on July 5, 2008
Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer.
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer.
“He was obsessed with dotting every `i’ and crossing every `t’,” Melissa Amschwand-Bellinger recalled about her husband, who died in 2001 at age 30.
But Spherion Corp., the temporary staffing company where Amschwand worked, told Amschwand-Bellinger she would not receive any of the $426,000 in benefits she believed she was due. When she went to court, Spherion succeeded in getting her lawsuit thrown out. The Supreme Court on June 27 refused to review the case.
Amschwand-Bellinger received a refund of the few thousand dollars in insurance premiums she and her husband dutifully had paid. The total, she said, would not cover the costs of his funeral.
The story has played out often under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Designed to protect employee benefits, the law has been used by employers as a shield against suits. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in *Healthcare Issues | 1 Comment »
