Washington Extra – Gift of the gas
After negotiating a tricky stretch of road, the Obama campaign may be easing into the straightaway in the gas-driven presidential race.
News on Monday of a delay in the planned closure of the largest refinery on the East Coast could mean an end to skyrocketing gas prices. And that would effectively take the wind out of a forceful Republican line of attack — that the president is to be blamed for $4 a gallon gas, arguably the most visible price in the American economy today.
The narrative was working against the president, who currently gets some of his lowest poll marks for his handling of energy prices, even though the causes of higher prices are largely beyond his control. Even so, we shouldn’t expect the Republicans to simply drop the rhetoric.
“Until we are at the point where people don’t feel like they’re squeezing their entire paychecks into the gas tank, it’s an issue that Republicans are going to keep talking about,” said a Senate Republican aide.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Signs of cheaper gas could brighten Obama campaign – New signs of lower gas prices could give a boost to President Obama’s re-election hopes and blunt a potent weapon that Republicans have used to attack him. News of a month long delay in the planned closure of the largest refinery on the East Coast was the latest indication sky-rocketing gasoline prices may have peaked. Industry experts say keeping Sunoco’s Philadelphia refinery open will ease supply concerns and help underpin a gradual decline in gasoline prices during the summer. For more of this story by Alister Bull, read here.
Best of the debate: Ron Paul v. Michele Bachmann
Presidential debates allow voters to hear how candidates differ, and there are few policy differences as great as that between Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Michele Bachmann on Iran. Take this exchange from last night:
Bachmann:
“Without a shadow of a doubt, Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map and they’ve stated they will use it against the United States of America.”
For what it’s worth, Politifact has looked into Bachmann’s claim and rated it “false.”
Paul responded:
“I think this wild goal to have another war in the name of defense is the dangerous thing, the danger is really us overreacting.”
I don`t think that we should have a war with iran because the U.S. does not have that kind of money just to spend on having a war with iran. What we need to do is that, we need to allow Israel to handle it for them selves more than we should help them. We need jobs and protect kids from going into bad schools where there`s drug smugglin into class. And america needs to shut off all the beer factorys and stop selling beer in stores too as well. And america needs to stop going against Same-sex marriage too as well. And america needs to aband straight marriage and only allow same-sex marriage. Nobody is really following the Bible anymore, so please keep on allowing gay marriage more please
Washington Extra – Waiting for Hugo
Grab a chair, some drinks and snacks and get ready for the show.
The United States slapped sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil giant PVDSA for trading with Iran, a move that could worsen Washington’s already sour relations with Caracas. Now we’re waiting for President Hugo Chavez to respond.
Expect a lot of noise, in typical Chavez fashion. In the warm-up act, one ally called the sanctions “ridiculous” and accused the United States of wanting to “once again…turn into the global policeman.”
Chavez himself might make some threats against his biggest foe, including an old one about cutting off oil supplies to the United States. He’s done it before — in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010, and maybe more times than we can count.
But it never comes to anything. The fact that 45 percent of Venezuela’s oil goes to the United States might explain why. With that kind of dependence, Venezuela is unlikely to stop the shipments, though there may be some tit-for-tat retaliation. The United States and Venezuela need each other, no matter what the Presidente says and no matter how long he talks.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Clinton doesn’t want Iran taking ‘one iota of credit’ for Mideast revolutions
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says when it comes to the pro-democracy movements sweeping through the Middle East give credit where credit is due. And that means not to Iran.
The United States has long been at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear program — the West suspects Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, Iran says it is trying to provide energy for its people.
Now the United States, which sees Iran as a major threat to the region, is also suspicious that Tehran is trying to capitalize on the Middle East revolutions.
“We see Iran trying to take advantage of what is going on, which is the height of hypocrisy, but that has never stopped the regime before,” Clinton said. “And what they are doing is trying to somehow connect their failed revolution in 1979 with the movements for aspiration and change that are now moving through the region.”
The United States has a lot of friends in the region, she said at the State Department in a conversation with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger moderated by Charlie Rose which will be broadcast later Wednesday on PBS.
“What we are saying both publicly and privately is don’t do anything that gives any ammunition, so to speak, to the Iranians,” Clinton said.
“Because we don’t want the Iranians to be given one iota of credit for what is a non-Iranian phenomenon. It is an Egyptian phenomenon, a Tunisian phenomenon, a Libyan phenomenon.”
Riiiiight. And Russia “invaded” Georgia. Might she be a pathological liar?
One Washington day is not like another for Mr. Hu
China’s President Hu Jintao was feted with full fanfare at the White House on Wednesday, with a 21-gun salute, honor guards and a state dinner. Things might not be quite so fancy on Thursday when he goes to Capitol Hill.
There he will see Republican Speaker John Boehner in the House of Representatives, then cross the Capitol to meet Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Neither bothered to attend Wednesday’s state dinner.
Also attending the House and Senate meetings will be several other lawmakers who want a word with Hu about human rights in China, as well as China’s dealings with Iran and Chinese trade practices.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen plans to hand Hu an entire list of complaints in the form of a letter she sent to Obama ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit.
The letter from the Republican complains of Beijing’s “military posturing,” as well as reports that China allowed the trans-shipment of North Korean missile parts to Iran via Beijing aiport. It also calls for the closure of labor camps in China, the release of political prisoners, and “unrestricted religious freedom”.
Also attending the House meeting with Hu will be the former Speaker, now Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. The Chinese media once called her a “defender of arsonists, looters and killers” after she visited the Dalai Lama and criticized Chinese “oppression” in Tibet.
Another lawmaker Hu will see is Democrat Sander Levin, one of Congress’s many critics of China’s trade practices. When he was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee last year, he pushed a bill through the House that threatened trade sanctions on China in retaliation for Beijing’s currency manipulation.
McCain sees India, U.S. teaming up against “troubling” China
As President Barack Obama begins his visit to India, his erstwhile rival John McCain is voicing hope that Washington and New Delhi will tighten up their military cooperation in the face of China’s “troubling” assertiveness.
McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a think-tank audience in Washington on Friday that the two huge democracies were natural allies in the quest to temper China’s ambitions.
“While India and the United States each continue to encourage a peaceful rise for China, we must recognize that one of the greatest factors for shaping this outcome and making it more likely is a robust U.S.-India strategic partnership,” McCain said.
McCain suggested that India and the United States could increase the level of representation at each other’s central military commands and work to make their armed forces more “interoperable” through joint military exercises and sharing of intelligence.
“There’s no reason why we can’t work to facilitate India’s deployment of advanced defense capabilities such as nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, missile defense architecture as well as India’s inclusion in the development of the joint strike fighter,” the next generation fighter aircraft being developed by the United States, the United Kingdom and others, McCain said.
The United States should also firmly back India’s desire for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, he said.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves why John McCain would want to escalate the rhetoric in an already tense situation with China so publicly. Does anyone think that the best way to bring our situation with China to a peaceful conclusion would include teaming up with another country and issuing daily public insults about your supposed world partners (ie China)?
I have two theories. One, though certainly no proof exists, is that McCain would like Obama to look bad at all costs, so he has set him up to fail in foreign policy by picking the easiest public fight in history!
The second, though less develish is probably the most likely. McCain really does believe that the best way to change things is through public feuding and insult escalation and furhter through military action and intimidation. This itself is a problem. Shouldn’t war still be the “last resort”? And if you want to go to war or pick a fight with somebody, why not North Korea? They are dangerous and they are furthermore testing nuclear weapons and shooting up South Korean islands with missles.
I can only surmise that McCain really believes these things because the initial explanation is just too scary to think about. That would make him an out and out traitor to the United States and I certainly hope that this war hero would never be on the level of Boehner and that he could somehow rise above that Republican Charleton.
But that leaves this aweful explanation about the military being first and foremost on his mind to use in nearly any situation. He has often said that he would never negotiate with what he perceived to be terrorists. He has made marked comments on how he would never even open lines of communication with people that he perceived to be threats. Well, I ask you, what would be the outcome of that disastrous policy 100% of the time? War. No thanks. Bush gave us enough unjustified war. Let’s work it out this time.
Happy Birthday, Mr President? Palin takes on State Dept in Twitterburst
Sarah Palin has a beef — and a tweet or two — for the U.S. State Department.
Palin tweeted her outrage following a tongue-in-cheek tweet from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley that wished Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a happy birthday.
Crowley, who regularly tweets as @PJCrowley to about 6,250 followers, marked the Iranian leader’s birthday on Thursday with a plea for the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two American hikers who have been detained in Iran for more than a year and face trial on suspicion of espionage.
“Happy birthday President #Ahmadinejad. Celebrate by sending Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home. What a gift that would be,” Crowley’s first message read.
“Your 54th year was full of lost opportunities. Hope in your 55th year you will open #Iran to a different relationship with the world.” he continued.
Palin, the former Alaska governor who has become a favorite of conservative Tea Party activists, was incensed and quickly communicated her outrage to the more than 285,000 followers who track her on Twitter as @SarahPalinUSA.
Andrew,
I see no issue, if someone wants to wish a person from the rival side for thier birthday, at the end of the day, we need our leaders to build bridges and build peace and try negotiation between nations.
Arvind Pereira
http://www.ArvindLeoPereira.co.nr
Washington Extra – Storm clouds over Haiti
There was a tremendous outpouring of goodwill and money for Haiti after the quake, which prevented a further humanitarian catastrophe. But so far, nine months after the capital was devastated, progress in “building back better” seems painfully slow. Rubble still chokes the narrow streets of Port-au-Prince, and 1.3 million people occupy every available scrap of land in tents awaiting resettlement, or even just a government plan on what to do with them.
Given the mind-boggling scale of the disaster, the weakness of the government and economy even before the earthquake, the lack of land as well as clearly defined land ownership records, it is unfair to expect too much.
But today everyone seems to be asking: What has all this goodwill achieved in terms of lasting benefits to Haiti? One thing that is clear from our interviews this week is the government, local elites and the international community seem to be playing something of a blame game.
Last week six people in the camps died when a freak storm struck Port-au-Prince, and today more bad weather could be on its way. There has been a spike in births in the camps as the first “earthquake babies” arrive, but the future they face looks as uncertain as ever.
Here are our top stories from today…
from Reuters Investigates:
In case you missed them
Just because it was summer, doesn't mean we weren't busy here at Reuters. Here are a few of our recent special reports that you might have missed.
Tracking Iran's nuclear money trail to Turkey. U.N. correspondent Lou Charbonneau -- who used to cover the IAEA for Reuters -- followed the money to Turkey where an Iranian bank under U.S. and EU sanctions is operating freely. Nice to see the New York Times follow up on this today, and the Washington Post also quizzed Turkey's president about it.
Blue-collar, unemployed and seeing red -- Chicago correspondent James Kelleher went on the road for this story about the long-term unemployed and what that means for Obama and the Democrats at November's midterm elections.
Even though he's been forced to move back in with his parents and has virtually no income, Stevenson opposes Obama's proposal to let some tax cuts for the wealthy, dating back to George W. Bush's presidency, expire at year's end in order to raise revenue and reduce the deficit.
"How is more people, keeping more of the money they earn, bad for the economy?" he said. "The answer is -- it's not."
Iraqi political haggling a big headache for American spies
What keeps U.S. spies awake at night? Iran. Al Qaeda. The bickering of Iraqi politicians.
With the United States officially ending its combat role in Iraq, one senior American spy said he was more worried about the lack of political reconciliation in Baghdad than whether Iran gets more meddlesome in Iraq or al Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate makes a new, violent push there.
“I’m more concerned about the internal (Iraqi) situation than Iranian influence or the long arm of al Qaeda, which really doesn’t exist,” the senior intelligence official told reporters. He asked not to be named (as spies do).
Tehran could be expected to try to influence Iraq, because that has been its attitude historically, he noted.
As for Al Qaeda in Iraq, it has been “substantially degraded.” It has only about 10 percent of the manpower that it had at its peak in 2006 and 2007. And it is only “loosely” affiliated with al Qaeda elements outside the country, he said.
But the fact that coalition-building talks between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and former premier Iyad Allawi have stalled repeatedly: that is a bigger worry.
“For me personally, the greater concern is the political reconciliation,” the senior intelligence official said. The stalemate “can’t drag on indefinitely,” because people might “take things into their own hands.” Violence already has mounted as insurgents seek to exploit the political vacuum.
