CHINA - China Sea Disputes

"Biden rebukes China for imposing air defense zone over disputed islands" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 12/3/2013

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Now to rising tensions in Asia and the United States' strong words for China.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:  The only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended.

GWEN IFILL:  The vice president issued that warning in Tokyo today, on the first stop of a weeklong Asia tour.  He sought to reassure an anxious Japan, as a tense standoff continues with China over which country controls a string of uninhabited islands.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN:  We, the United States, are deeply concerned by the attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in the East China Sea.  This action has raised regional tensions and increased the risk of accidents and miscalculation.

GWEN IFILL:  The dispute over the islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan, has spiked sharply during the past 10 days.  It began when China announced a 600-mile-long East China Sea air defense zone, which includes the islands' airspace.

The U.S. ignored that declaration by dispatching two unarmed B-52 bombers to fly over the islands, ostensibly part of a training mission, without informing the Chinese first.  On Wednesday, Beijing announced it knew about the flights, but it offered no insight into how the zone might be enforced.

QIN GAN, Chinese Foreign Ministry (through interpreter):  We have said many times before that we will react accordingly, depending on the extent of possible threats we are facing and the circumstances.

GWEN IFILL:  A day later, Japan announced its aircraft, too, are continuing surveillance missions in the region, also ignoring China's demand that they get permission first.

YOSHIHIDE SUGA, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary (through interpreter):  We have no plans to change what we are doing out of consideration to China.

GWEN IFILL:  South Korea, which has interests in the East China Sea as well, said it also wouldn't recognize China's new defense zone.

KIM MIN-SEOK, South Korean Defense Ministry (through interpreter):  As of now, the South Korean government will allow our airplanes to pass the zone without notifications to China.

GWEN IFILL:  Chinese officials have not backed down and instead accused Japan of refusing to negotiate in good faith.

HONG LEI, Chinese Foreign Ministry (through interpreter):  China proposed that China and Japan should enhance communication and dialogue to properly solve the issue of flight safety in the overlapping zone.  We have demonstrated our sincerity, but the Japanese side on one hand keeps saying we should talk, but when it comes to dialogue, they keep the door closed.

GWEN IFILL:  All of this comes against the backdrop of China asserting its growing economic and military might.  Last week, the Chinese sent their sole aircraft carrier into the South China Sea, where other territorial and mineral rights are in dispute.

Vice President Biden, who will visit South Korea later in the week and Beijing tomorrow, says he will raise the airspace issues with China's president.

"Examining U.S. interests in calming tensions between China and Japan" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 12/3/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Tensions are rising between global powers China and Japan over newly declared air defense zone over disputed islands.  For insight into the seriousness of the dispute and potential ramifications, Gwen Ifill talks to two former State Department officials, Kurt Campbell and Susan Shirk.

POLITICS - The ACA and 2014 Midterm Elections

"What Obama's new health care offensive could mean for midterm elections" PBS Newshour 12/3/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  President Obama attempted to shift focus away from the technically troubled health care website to the benefits Americans are receiving under the law.  For more on the politics behind the president's new push, Judy Woodruff talks to Ron Bonjean of Singer Bonjean Strategies and Brad Woodhouse of Americans United for Change.

ART- New War Photography Exhibit

"World-shattering drama:  War photography" PBS Newshour 12/1/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A wide-ranging exhibit titled "WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY:  Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath" pulls moments from 165 years to reveal what happens before, during and after battle.  Jeffrey Brown talks to a curator from the Houston Museum of Fine Arts about the challenge of reframing images of world-shattering drama as art.

ACA HEALTH CARE - Is the Federal Exchange Site Ready?

"Is healthcare.gov ready for its close-up?" PBS Newshour 11/30/2013

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour):  Starting tomorrow administration officials hope the website will be able to service as many of 50,000 Americans at once.  Their goal is to sign up seven million people by the end of March.  For more about all this we are joined by Sharon Pettypiece, she’s a healthcare reporter for Bloomberg News who has worked the beat for the past decade.

Thanks for joining us.

It’s odd for me to be almost asking for a website update – but how is it doing?  Is it better than those problems we heard about?

SHANNON PETTYPIECE:  Well, it’s better than October 1st, that’s for sure but that doesn’t mean too much because if you remember October 1st, people were logging on and not getting past the homepage.  They have been making progress.  But as of (late) last week, myself and my colleagues were out talking to people – talking to consumers; talking to insurance brokers; talking to non-profits that were trying to sign people up – they were saying that this site is still in pretty rough shape.  A couple people gave it four out of ten as far as its functioning, obviously ten being the best.

One of the problems we’re hearing about most from people is that though the site has improved and now you can get to the last step – you can create an account, shop around for plans, find out if you are eligible for subsidies – but you get to the point where you say ‘OK, I’m ready to buy insurance,’ which if you recall is the whole point of this website, that’s where it locks up.  That’s where it breaks down.  So only a trickle of people is actually being able to buy an insurance plan.

OPINION - Shields and Books 11/29/2013

"Shields and Brooks on the pope's critique of capitalism, Thanksgiving gratitude" PBS Newshour 11/29/2013

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the week's top news, including the short-term Iran nuclear agreement, the pope's writings on capitalism, proposed changes to campaign finance rules and things to be grateful for.
----
DAVID BROOKS:  .... really have to be tough on, the Iranians are counting on us, or the entire world, that the sanction regimes will begin to dissolve, that once companies get the chance to make some money in Iran, it will all fall apart.  Somehow, if the Western alliance can really hold the sanctions together, then this is a worth -- a risk worth taking.
----
DAVID BROOKS:  The Saudis -- though, to be fair, the Saudis are really upset.  The Gulf states are really upset.  The Israelis are really upset.  The people who are most vulnerable to an Iranian nuclear weapon are really upset.  And that, to me, is to be trusted.  It seems unlikely that a regime that went so far to get a nuclear weapon is suddenly going to pull back and give it up.
----
HARI SREENIVASAN:  OK.  Let's shift gears.

The pope came out with -- I want to get this correct -- his first apostolic exhortation.  It was his first major work, big report.  In there, he takes quite a few very specific jabs at capitalism, calling it a new tyranny.  I mean, popes in the past have had these concerns before, but really he's laying this out.  And some of the sort of pope watchers, experts are saying that this is the agenda for how to reform the Christian church.

DAVID BROOKS:  Yes, well, I -- I actually have a lot of sympathy.

I'm a fan of capitalism, but I have a lot of sympathy for it.  And it should be remembered that Benedict and John Paul II issued some extremely critical statements on capitalism.  That is the job of the Catholic Church, to be a balance to the materialistic drives of our culture and of economy.

I guess I would wish he would emphasize two things, first, that capitalism over the last 25 years has been an incredible moral good.  It has reduced poverty more in the last 25 years than ever before in human history, mostly in Asia.  But that's been a phenomenal good.  That's relieved suffering.  And that has been a product of capitalism.

The second thing I would say is sometimes I think the analysis and some of the language used this time was too narrowly economic.  One of the things capitalism does is, it does enhance and exacerbate the sin of pride, making yourself, the material world the center of your universe, instead of God's will.

But the doesn't only happen in capitalism.  That can happen in faculty clubs.  It can happen at NGOs.  And so that is a spiritual sin.  And to talk about some of the spiritual sins that capitalism encourages in a broader scale seems to me the right way to do it.  To focus on a certain sort of economic theory, that seems to me a little out of the pope's lane.

MARK SHIELDS:  I think it's very much in the pope's lane.

And I think that survival of the fittest has never been a tenet of either Judeo-Christian values or Christian -- our culture.  And I think the pope has confronted us with a fundamental question:  What are we first?  Are we a free market system, that we have confidence that, untrammeled and unfettered, it will eventually provide good for more people?

Or are we a community, a community of human beings of equal dignity, and that a capitalist system, a free enterprise system, under regulation and required regulation -- and that's what he -- that's the difference he makes more than any to me in the economic sphere, which is not private charity and private generosity, which have always been important, but that we have a collective responsibility to make that sure all of us, the least among us, through our collective instrument of government, have education, have health care, have shelter, have food, that that's not just a matter of individual kindness or compassion.

And I -- to me, that was it.  And David's right.  It's not a deviation from John Paul II or Benedict or past popes, but the emphasis that he brings to it, the passion he brings to it, that Pope Francis does, as well as the sense of engaging the world, I mean, it's an optimistic, upbeat, and passionate pope that we are seeing right now who drives a Ford Focus.
---
MARK SHIELDS:  We had 32 years, from 1976 to 2008, in which we had elections.

As somebody who spent his early year in politics, before I turned to journalism, by default, I can tell you, they were clean.  Ronald Reagan three times ran for president.  He accepted the limits on contributions, the limits on what you could spend, and he ran on public financing in the fall elections, when he won 49 states one time and 44 the next, George H.W. Bush twice, Bill Clinton twice, George W. Bush.

And it changed in 2008.  President Obama was the first president not to abide by the limits in the general election.  And then along comes the Citizens United case decision at the Supreme Court, which took off all limits on spending.

We had in the last election $470 million contributed by 100 individuals.  And we don't know through these 501(c)(4)s, which are -- list themselves as social welfare organizations, charitable organizations, we don't know who is contributing.  They can hide behind that.

So, we have gone from total disclosure and limitations to no disclosure and no limits.  And anybody who thinks that is good for politics in the long run, you know, I just wish anybody on the Supreme Court who voted that way had ever run for sheriff, because they would know, people who give money in large amount in politics are basically not altruistic.

They have some issue.  They have some interest.  And it's -- you know, it may be world peace.  It may be preserving carried interest.  But it's not altruistic.

PAKISTAN - Reality-Based U.S. Relationship

Very insightful, especially the U.S. "see the world as divided between allies and enemies."

"Can U.S., Pakistan move forward in building a 'reality-based relationship'?" PBS Newshour 11/29/2013

Excerpts

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour):  Now to one of the United States' most complicated partnerships on the world stage: its rocky alliance with Pakistan.

Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner sat down with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's former ambassador to Washington, to discuss that relationship.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  The Pakistani people and the American people have suffered terribly from terrorism in the past.

MARGARET WARNER (Newshour):  It's a critical relationship for the United States these days, key to Washington's fight against terrorism and its plans to leave Afghanistan next year.

But relations with Pakistan have been rocky ever since that country's birth in 1947.  They united against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but fell out over Pakistan's secret development of a nuclear weapon in the 90s.

Since 9/11, while nominally cooperating against terrorists, they have been at odds over Taliban and al-Qaida-linked fighters sheltering in Pakistani territory, and over U.S. drone strikes against those militants.

The low point?  The 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden hiding out in a city near Pakistan's capital.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. from 2008 to 2011, examines the roots of this fractious partnership in a new book, "Magnificent Delusions:  Pakistan, the United States, and an Epic History of Misunderstanding."
----
MARGARET WARNER:  Do you think this dysfunction that you describe is also rooted in the national characters of each people, of each country?

HUSAIN HAQQANI:  Well, Americans have a tendency to not take other people's history very seriously.

In America, when you say, that's history, it actually means that's irrelevant.  Pakistan, on the other hand, has spent a lot of time and energy trying to create a narrative of history that justifies its existence, because its existence is often questioned by other nations.

MARGARET WARNER:  Do you think that Pakistanis are suspicious of the rest of the world?

HUSAIN HAQQANI:  I think Pakistanis are suspicious of the rest of the world.

In fact, in recent years, I have complained that my compatriots are becoming rather xenophobic. Conspiracy theories are rampant in Pakistan.  And that comes from a sense of insecurity.
----
HUSAIN HAQQANI:  I think that neither Pakistan nor the United States should look upon each other as allies.  That would be the first step towards a reality-based relationship.

Both should understand that we do not have a shared enemy and we do not have a shared interest.  Pakistan needs to educate its children who don't go to school.  Pakistan needs to get away from a religion-based nationalism to a nationalism of shared interests of the population.

The United States can't see the world as divided between allies and enemies.  Actually, there are many countries that are neither, and Pakistan is one of them.

HIV - Laws That Provide Disincentive For Testing

"Sex, Lies and HIV:  When What You Don’t Tell Your Partner Is a Crime" by Sergio Hernandez, ProPublica 12/1/2013

Excerpt

Nick Rhoades was clerking at a Family Video store in Waverly, Iowa, one summer afternoon in 2008 when three armed detectives appeared, escorted him to a local hospital and ordered nurses to draw his blood.  A dozen miles away, his mother and stepfather looked on as local sheriff’s deputies searched their home for drugs — not illegal drugs, but lifesaving prescription medications.

Lab results and a bottle of pills found in the Rhoades’ refrigerator confirmed the detectives’ suspicions: Nick Rhoades was HIV-positive.

Almost a year later, in a Black Hawk County courtroom, Judge Bradley Harris peered down at Rhoades from his bench.

“One thing that makes this case difficult is you don’t look like our usual criminals,” Harris said.  “Often times for the court it is easy to tell when someone is dangerous.  They pull the gun.  They have done an armed robbery.  But you created a situation that was just as dangerous as anyone who did that.”

The judge meted out Rhoades’ sentence: 25 years in prison.

His crime: having sex without first disclosing he had HIV.

Officially, the charge, buried in Chapter 709 of the Iowa code, is “criminal transmission of HIV.”  But no transmission had occurred.  The man Rhoades had sex with, 22-year-old Adam Plendl, had not contracted the virus.

That’s not a surprise, because Rhoades used a condom.

And medical records show he was taking antiviral drugs that suppressed his HIV, making transmission extremely unlikely.  A national group of AIDS public health officials later submitted a brief estimating that the odds of Rhoades infecting Plendl were “likely zero or near zero.”

After his lawyers petitioned the court, Rhoades’ prison sentence was changed to five years’ probation.  But for the rest of his life — he is 39 — he will remain registered as an aggravated sex offender who cannot be alone with anyone under the age of 14, not even his nieces and nephews.

Rhoades’ is not an isolated case.  Over the last decade, there have been at least 541 cases in which people were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, criminal charges for not disclosing that they were HIV-positive, according to a ProPublica analysis of records from 19 states.  The national tally is surely higher, because at least 35 states have laws that specifically criminalize exposing another person to HIV.  In 29 states, it is a felony.  None of the laws require transmission to occur.

Defendants in these cases were often sentenced to years — sometimes decades — in prison, even when they used a condom or took other precautions against infecting their partners.  In 60 cases for which extensive documentation could be obtained, ProPublica found just four involving complainants who actually became infected with HIV.  Even in such cases, it can be hard to prove who transmitted the virus without genetic tests matching the accused’s HIV strain to their accuser’s.

People with HIV have even done time for spitting, scratching or biting.  According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spitting and scratching cannot transmit HIV, and transmission through biting “is very rare and involves very specific circumstances” — namely, “severe trauma with extensive tissue damage and the presence of blood.”

Many law enforcement officials and legislators defend these laws, saying they deter people from spreading the virus and set a standard for disclosure and precautions in an ongoing epidemic.

“Shifting the burden of HIV disclosure from the infected person, who is aware of a known danger, to one who is completely unaware of their partner’s condition smacks of a ‘blame the victim’ sort of mentality,” Jerry Vander Sanden, a prosecutor in Linn County, Iowa, wrote in an email to ProPublica.  “It would be like telling a rape victim that they should have been more careful.”

Even many people with HIV support the laws.  In a recent survey of HIV-positive people in New Jersey, 90 percent said that people with the virus bore most of the responsibility to protect their partners.  More than half approved of the kind of laws that resulted in Rhoades’ sentence.

But some health and legal experts say using criminal penalties to curtail the epidemic could backfire and fuel the spread of HIV.  According to the CDC, 1.1 million Americans are currently living with HIV, but one-fifth of them don’t know it.  And studies show that about half of newly infected people got the virus from those who didn’t know they had HIV.  So relying on a partner to know, let alone disclose, their HIV status is a risky proposition.

The laws, these experts say, could exacerbate this problem:  If people can be imprisoned for knowingly exposing others to HIV, their best defense may be ignorance.  Such laws, then, provide a powerful disincentive for citizens to get tested and learn if they carry the virus.

POLITICS - 'Monopoly Capitalism' vs Proportional Representation

An old but very good idea for governance.  Of course, in the U.S. this would be very, very hard to change our current system since it would require a Constitutional Amendment.

Since our political parties are in control of Congress they will not want to give up their strangle hold on the political system.  This goes double for the big-money that buys votes.

Our present system means that voters who do not believe or belong to the winning party have to be represented by a party they did NOT vote for.

Usenet Post in alt.politics.usa, from Marcus Aurelius

The voting turn out in both the USA and Canada is extremely low.

Both nations have the "winner take all", "gerrymandered", and "bought" form of electoral representation which, in effect, politically disenfranchises the majority of the electorate while concentrating both political and economic power in a few individuals and entities (Monopoly Capitalism).

The politicians in both nations are extremely happy with the low voter turn out and the lack of efficacious political representation as the same further entrenches the political establishments supporting the two party systems and the special interests which they represent.

Of course, both in the USA and Canada, for the aforementioned reasons the electorates should organize and demand a change the current electoral system to some form of "proportional representation" so as to provide true electoral representation for the electorates of both nations.

Proportional Representation

Excerpt

Proportional representation (PR) is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council.  PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received.  For example, under a PR voting system, if 30% of voters support a particular party then roughly 30% of seats will be won by that party.  PR is an alternative to voting systems based on single-member districts or on bloc voting; these non-PR systems tend to produce disproportionate outcomes and to have a bias in favor of larger political groups.  PR systems tend to produce a proliferation of political parties. There are many different forms of proportional representation.  Some are focused solely on achieving the proportional representation of different political parties (such as list PR) while others permit the voter to choose between individual candidates (such as STV-PR).  The degree of proportionality also varies; it is determined by factors such as the precise formula used to allocate seats, the number of seats in each constituency or in the elected body as a whole, and the level of any minimum threshold for election.

HEALTH CARE - What Should Be the Government's Involvement

My answer, government at all levels has a moral responsibility to see that citizens get health care.  Look at Norway.

"What role should the government play in the health care of its citizens?" PBS Newshour 11/28/2013

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour):  Now a look at some of the larger issues raised in the ongoing debate over the Affordable Care Act, questions of how deeply a government should involve itself in the personal welfare of its citizens, of individual rights and collective responsibilities, even whether the law's troubled rollout might be seen as a challenge to the viability of the liberal philosophy at its core.

The latest major setback came yesterday, when the Obama administration announced a one-year delay in launching the federal Web site for small businesses to enroll their employees with insurers.

Jeffrey Brown gets two views on these bigger issues at stake.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  And for that, we're joined by Jacob Hacker, director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.  He worked on the broad blueprint of the health care law and has written a number of books about social policy in the U.S.  And Avik Roy is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the new book "How Medicaid Fails the Poor."  He served as Mitt Romney's health care adviser during the 2012 presidential campaign.

U.S. NAVY - Bribery Scandal

A personal note, as retired Navy I can tell you that at the very least all the officers involved, including the two Admirals, carriers are dead.  Those not criminally charged will retire.

"Navy commanders accused of taking bribes for contracts in fraud scandal" PBS Newshour 11/27/2013

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  For decades, Leonard Francis, known as "Fat Leonard" for his imposing girth, has been well-connected in top U.S. Navy circles, perhaps too connected.

His company, Glenn Defense Marine, provided logistics support to U.S. warships at ports in East Asia.  Since 2011, the company has won more than $200 million in Navy contracts, contracts that federal investigators now charge are at the center of an elaborate criminal conspiracy involving bribery, fraud and more.

Last month, The Washington Post reported that Francis plied top Navy commanders with prostitutes, cash, luxury hotel rooms...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JEFFREY BROWN:  ... even tickets to a Lady Gaga concert in Thailand.  In return, officials at the Justice Department say, Francis received classified information on ship deployments.  He also allegedly pressured commanders to steer ships to ports where his company would then overcharge for services like sewage disposal and tugboats.

ASIA - East China Sea's Disputed Territory

"How China's push into disputed territory is increasing tension in East Asia" PBS Newshour 11/26/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The U.S. flew two B-52 bombers over disputed territory in the East China Sea, rejecting an air defense restriction from China for islands that are also claimed by Japan.  Judy Woodruff talks to Julian Barnes of The Wall Street Journal about increased volatility in the region.

LOTTERY - Credit Union Lotteries

"Save to Win:  A lottery where you can't lose" PBS Newshour 11/23/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Credit unions in four states offer a lottery that gives savers the chance to win small monthly prizes or a yearly grand prize -- even if you don't win you get to keep the money you put in, plus interest.  Supporters of this approach say it appeals to low and moderate income households; who have a harder time building assets.

ANNOUNCER:  “Tonight’s Mega millions jackpot is an estimated annuitized $149,000,000…”

KARLA MURTHY:  it’s a moment that millions of Americans wait for each week.

ANNOUNCER:  “Tonight’s Mega millions jackpot is an estimated annuitized $149,000,000…”

KARLA MURTHY:  It’s a moment that millions of Americans wait for each week.

It’s something called a prize-linked savings account.

ACA HEALTH CARE - Enrollment Deadline Extended

"Enrollment delay for health care law coverage raises concerns for insurers" PBS Newshour 11/22/2013

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  The Obama administration announced changes to the health care law, pushing back the deadline to sign up for coverage.  Due to the troubled HealthCare.gov rollout, people will now have until December 23 to enroll in a policy that begins in 2014.  Jeffrey Brown gets details from Louise Radnofsky of The Wall Street Journal.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  Some of the key changes involve timelines for enrollment.

First, consumers trying to get new coverage starting January 1 now have an extra week to finish enrolling.  The new deadline to sign up is December 23.  The administration also announced it will push back the start of next year's enrollment period by one month.  That effectively means that in year two of the program, Americans can start signing up in mid-November 2014.

And late this afternoon, officials announced another change for this year.  Insurers will be able to directly enroll people in three states, Florida, Texas and Ohio.

Louise Radnofsky of The Wall Street Journal has been following these developments and is here to explain.

WALL STREET - The New Bubble

Now on the Cathedral of Greed, Wall Street, where they never learn....

"Bubble in the making?  How the stock market might not reflect the current economy" PBS Newshour 11/22/2013

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  At the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow ended above 16,000, another record high.  Meanwhile, companies continue to report healthy profits.  And yet the recovery is weak and unemployment is high.  Economics correspondent Paul Solman looks for answers and asks whether the Federal Reserve's stimulus has had the impact it intended.

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  This has been a notable week for the stock markets, particularly for the Dow Jones industrial average, the benchmark index that's closely monitored and that's reaching new milestones.

But there are questions about what's behind the rally of late and whether it reflects the fundamentals of the economy.

NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman hit the trading floor yesterday in search of some answers.

The story is part of his ongoing reporting Making Sense of financial news.
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PAUL SOLMAN (Newshour):  And so companies can pay labor less (for workers), keep more for themselves and their mostly wealthy shareholders.  Yes, half of us own stock, if you include our pension funds.  But the top 10 percent own something like 90 percent of the stock market; the top 1 percent something like 40 percent of it.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 11/22/2013

"Shields and Brooks look at long-term impact of Senate's 'nuclear' rule change" PBS Newshour 11/22/2013

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss their takes on Senate Democrats' move to invoke the "nuclear option" and how that rule change will affect partisanship.  They also look back at how President John F. Kennedy shaped public service in America.

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist:  David's -- David's analysis is, as always, interesting, but erosion of partisan -- of comity and good feelings is not beginning with this.  This is not -- this is not a cause.

This is an effect of what has happened.  I mean, this is a consequence of what has been going on.  In running administration, Judy, personnel is policy.  If you can't have your own people at a department or an agency, you can never -- you can never execute or be responsible for -- for the administration of justice and the law, which is your obligation.

Take the case of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Because Republicans objected to the law, they refused to confirm Rich Cordray, first Elizabeth Warren, who is now a member of the United States Senate, who, as a consequence of their opposition, became a national folk hero, and finally Rich Cordray.  And only with the threat of the nuclear option did they do it.

I mean, so it had reached a point -- it will be more partisan, no question about it.  It will be more like the House.  But I don't -- I think this was a -- this was one more step at a time when there wasn't that willingness that there was eight years ago for a gang of 14 to emerge and to say, we're going to break with our own party.  Seven Democrats and seven Republicans, they did that on judicial nominees.

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  David, the Democrats argue that -- that the obstruction under this president is much worse than it was under his predecessors.

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times columnist:  Well, I think, overall, that's true.

No kidding.  The Republicans started their anti-Obama campaign the day after he was elected.  They try to block EVERYTHING Obama, even policies that Republicans supported before President Obama's election.

AMERICA - Fair Housing Update

"A Year Later, Feds Inch Forward on Fair Housing" by Nikole Hannah-Jones,
ProPublica 11/22/3013

Tonight’s episode of “This American Life” will feature a story based on ProPublica’s yearlong investigation “Living Apart:  How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law.”

Called “House Rules,” the TAL segment will examine the ways zip code determines the destiny of many Americans.  The show will feature some of the actors who go undercover to test the market for hidden housing discrimination, a highly effective tool seldom used by the government.

Our reporting chronicled the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s repeated failures in enforcing the 1968 Fair Housing Act.  This landmark legislation not only barred discrimination in housing sales and rentals – it also required communities to “affirmatively further” residential integration.

Since we published our first stories late last year, there have been several significant developments on matters we reported.  Here’s what’s happened.

HUD Proposes Regulation

In July, HUD issued a proposed regulation that for the first time clearly defined the steps local and state governments that receive HUD funding must take to examine housing segregation based on race and show they are in line with the Fair Housing Act.  The effort to define such rules began under the Clinton Administration, but stalled because of objections from cities and counties.  President Obama had promised the regulation would be issued by the end of 2010, but conflicts within HUD and pressure from powerful outside groups kept it bottled up for years.

The proposal would create a new planning process under which HUD grantees must use data provided by the federal government on segregation, racially concentrated areas of poverty, access to education, employment, transportation and environmental health to set housing and development priorities.

Advocacy groups such as the National Fair Housing Alliance and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council have praised the regulation.  Others, including The Weekly Standard, have accused HUD of social engineering.

The public comment period on the proposal ended Sept. 17.  The final regulation has not yet been issued.

Westchester County Loses Grant Dollars

In August, HUD took the unprecedented step of stripping $7.4 million in community development block grants from Westchester County, N.Y., the tony New York City suburb that settled a landmark fair housing lawsuit in 2009.

The second installment of ProPublica’s “Living Apart” series documented how, even with the explicit backing of a federal court, HUD had not taken steps to make Westchester County comply with requirements of the Fair Housing Act.  But this summer, after years of defiance by county leaders, Westchester became the first jurisdiction ever to lose its allocation of HUD grant dollars for not affirmatively furthering fair housing.

“It is unfortunate the County continues to fall short in its duty to identify barriers to fair housing choice and to work to overcome these obstacles,” HUD Deputy Secretary Maurice Jones said in a press release.  “This continuing failure to meet these requirements offers HUD no choice but to make these funds available to other jurisdictions that are willing to meet their civil rights obligations.”

Case Settles, Enforcement Tool Saved

For the second time since early 2012, a tool of fair housing enforcement has been saved from possible extinction by a case settling before it reached the Supreme Court.  Last week, the town of Mount Holly, N.J., settled a lawsuit slated to go before the court on Dec. 4.

As ProPublica reported in February, the Mount Holly case centered on allegations of what’s called “disparate impact”:  That a policy or practice disproportionately harmed racial minorities or other protected groups.  The Fair Housing Act does not explicitly mention disparate impact, but federal courts have consistently affirmed the principle in rulings over a 40–year period.  Since modern-day discrimination is rarely overt, this precedent has become a powerful tool for the government and civil rights groups, allowing them to bring cases against landlords, lenders or jurisdictions by showing their policies or actions had disproportionate effects on certain groups of people.  (Not all such impacts violate the law; if a legitimate business practice leads to the disparity, it’s not a violation.)

Mount Holly was sued a decade ago over its development efforts in a predominately black and Latino part of town.  The town bought and destroyed most of the homes in the neighborhood, planning to build more expensive housing that never came to be.  Residents sued, saying the town’s actions had a disparate impact on African Americans and Latinos.

The legal battle finally made its way to the nation’s highest court this year, setting the stage for a potential challenge from its conservative wing, which has revisited aspects of several pieces of landmark civil-rights legislation in recent sessions. This summer, the court limited the reach of the Voting Rights Act.

In 2011, the Supreme Court accepted a disparate impact case out of St. Paul, Minn., but federal officials and civil rights activists persuaded the city to withdraw the case to avert a ruling that might strike down the principle.

In February, as the Court contemplated whether to hear the Mount Holly case, the Obama Administration released a long-promised disparate-impact regulation aimed at solidifying the principle’s place in fair housing enforcement.

Last week, Mount Holly avoided the Supreme Court showdown when its town council voted to compensate those who’d lost their homes.

Disparate impact lives to fight another day.

OPINION - U.S. Power and Foreign Policy in the Middle East

"Reflections On American Power And Foreign Policy" by George Brent Mickum, The Public Record 11/18/2013

Excerpt

The deteriorating political landscape in the Middle East stands as a monument to the Bush and Obama Administrations.  While the United States attempts to extricate itself from another long, costly, lost cause – the twelve-year Afghanistan war – military intervention in Syria and Iran is now being considered.  Financially dependent upon the golem of war, members of Congress, Neocons, think tanks, and, of course, a claque of lobbyists clamor for a new conflict, despite positive overtures from that nation’s newly elected president, Hassan Rouhani.  Senator Lindsey Graham, among others, is actively stumping for war with Iran, threatening to introduce legislation authorizing military intervention in Iran without Congressional approval if “nothing changes” regarding Iran’s nuclear program by the end of the year.

The vicissitudes of history are “dross” – to borrow from Ezra Pound’s Pisan Canto #81 – unless the concomitant will to learn from history exists.  Based on an historical review since the Second World War, the United States seems incapable of learning from foreign policy mistakes, and this inability is becoming more and more pronounced.  There is one other possibility: the United States understands precisely what it is doing and does it anyway, spending trillions of dollars to protect corporate access around the world while vastly increasing the specter of terrorism and misery in the rest of the world.

The chaos in the Middle East affords an opportunity to consider whether the United States’ foreign policy around the world is hurting the country rather than helping it, to consider whether U.S. policies are increasing enmity against the United States and increasing the likelihood of terror attacks against the West.  As the drumbeat for military intervention in Syria and Iran increases, the question is whether additional U.S. military intervention in the Middle East is even rational when political destabilization has resulted virtually everywhere the U.S. has left its footprint.

The war in Syria has become a religious civil war that is marked by internecine fighting among forces opposing Assad, including al Qaeda.  Libya grows more chaotic by the day.  The corrupt and effete governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are incapable of influencing events in the Middle East and tremble at the prospect of civil uprisings and religious strife in their own kingdoms.  Saudi Arabia recently turned down a coveted position on the United Nations Security Council, blaming the U.S. The reason for turning down a Security Council seat: The U.S. refuses to attack Saudi Arabia’s political and religious enemies, Syria and Iran. Equally unpardonable is the fact that the U.S. is engaging in diplomacy with both countries.  Finally, there is no mystery that Israel desperately seeks U.S. conflict with both Syria and Iran for its own strategic reasons.

HISTORY - Terrorist Abu Zubaydah's Diaries, an Excerpt

"Former CIA Captive’s Top Secret Diaries Sheds New Light on 9/11, Afghanistan Invasion" The Public Record 11/15/2013

A new exclusive investigative story by Jason Leopold, who obtained the long sought after personal diaries of Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11 subjected to a brutal torture regimen by US government interrogators.  The six volumes of diaries shed light on Zubaydah’s evolution from computer engineering student to student of jihad in Afghanistan during a civil war in 1991.  Leopold’s second installment of his five part series deals with the events leading up to and after the 9/11 attacks, as taken directly from Zubaydah’s diaries. :

Abu Zubaydah clearly knew something big was in the works.  Returning from Pakistan in mid-2001,he writes in his diary about an atmosphere of restless anticipation in Afghanistan, which was now his home, “People were waiting for the new operation, which Sheikh Bin Laden announced.”  But when the news comes that Al-Qaeda hijackers had killed almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, Abu Zubaydah is awed by the scale and audacity of the attacks.

Al-Qaeda had twice struck high-profile blows against U.S. interests abroad — the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the December 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.  But spectacular strikes at the power centers of what bin Laden liked to call “the far enemy” was beyond the imagination of even many of bin Laden’s acolytes and fellow travelers in Afghanistan.

“On the 11th of September, a passenger airplane hit one of the giant towers … and people were surprised by something that was unimaginable,” Abu Zubaydah writes 17 days later.  “As soon as they caught up their breath, another airplane hit the other tower, so screaming and crying was heard and the surprise was magnified.  A third airplane hit the American Department of Defense building (the Pentagon).  Then, the fourth airplane tried to hit the White House, but it did not hit the target, so it swerved away from its target; then we later heard that it crashed or was downed in another location, and news kept coming.”

“Happiness was not enough,” he adds.  “As soon as the news came out on the radio, lambs were slaughtered, and juice and sweets were distributed for several days.  News on the radio reflected American threats and preparation [for retaliation], close to a world war, while we were in a state of elation that God only knows.”

CHARITIES - Telemarketing Sharks

"One donation to charity telemarketer spawns more solicitation calls" by Kendall Taggart, Center for Investigative Reporting 11/14/2013

Excerpt

Judith Johnson of Stacyville, Iowa, doesn’t get out much anymore.

Legally blind and living on a small Social Security pension, the 72-year-old used to go to church once a week.  She stopped out of fear that her new walker would snag on the railroad tracks she had to cross to get there.

But Johnson, whose tiny apartment is decorated with crucifixes, still believes it’s her duty to help those less fortunate.

So when telemarketers call on behalf of cancer patients, homeless veterans or disabled firefighters, the retired secretary finds it hard to say no.

That penchant for giving made Johnson the target of America’s billion-dollar charity fundraising industry.

In one recent year, callers persuaded her to write 25 checks to 11 different charities.

The repeated calls were no fluke.

Each one can be traced back to a single source – Associated Community Services, a Michigan-based company that is one of the nation’s largest charity telemarketing firms.

After Johnson gave to one charity, the firm put her on a list that got her bombarded with calls for nearly a dozen more company clients.  Telemarketers sometimes called several times a day.

Johnson told one phone solicitor she couldn’t afford to give to a charity called Children with Hair Loss.

“She said, ‘You’re going to let this poor little child be bald-headed when they’re only 4 years old?’ ” Johnson recalled.  “I really felt bad for the children, so I think I gave her around $10.”

Unbeknownst to Johnson, about $1.75 of that donation made it to the charity.  The telemarketing firm pocketed the rest.

Johnson’s story is just like that of millions of Americans who give once over the phone only to find themselves flooded with calls for more causes.

To track how this happens, the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting scrutinized how a single company, Associated Community Services, operated in one state that has amassed a treasure trove of data.

Reporters interviewed 10 current and former employees and examined internal company documents subpoenaed by the Iowa attorney general.  Iowa regulators used the records, which provide a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the charity industry, to build a case against the firm.  Earlier this year, a judge in Iowa ordered Associated Community Services to stop soliciting in that state until it fully complied with a subpoena.  The telemarketer is appealing the ruling.

In interviews, phone solicitors described the tactics they used to persuade donors to give.  Along with the records, which include details about every Iowa donor who gave 10 times or more, their descriptions reveal a deliberate strategy of targeting trusting donors and exploiting their generosity to fuel profits in the name of charity.

From March 2010 through June 2011, nearly 400 Iowans made 10 or more donations to the firm’s charity clients.  Total number of donations from the frequent-donor group: more than 5,500, worth a combined $102,000.

Associated Community Services would hit up its most reliable givers dozens of times in a year, with no regard for their age or financial situation.

Calls came so often that nearly half of the repeat donors gave to two different charity clients in a single day.

In an email, company officials said they call people on their hot list randomly and do not purposefully call multiple times a day.

“If the stars aligned properly, it is possible that a potential donor phone number could be called for several charities in one day,” President Richard Cole wrote.  “But this would be an unusual incident.”

Cole also said the company does not target the elderly and has no way of knowing the age or financial situation of the people they call.

But the Iowa attorney general found that most of the company’s prolific donors – those who gave 20 times or more – were 69 or older.

The top donor was a man in his 80s in Dubuque.  In just over a year, he made 38 donations totaling $1,375 to 13 of the telemarketer’s charities.

Six times, he gave to two of the firm’s clients on the same day.

The Iowa data details one company’s operations in a state with roughly 3 million residents.  But industry experts and the firm’s employees who worked the phones say it is representative of how Associated Community Services and many other telemarketers do business across the nation.

Industry experts said such practices are used primarily by telemarketing companies that do cold-calling and take a percentage of the donations raised, rather than a flat fee, for their service.

The vast majority of the nation’s 1.6 million nonprofits do not use telemarketing firms.  Charities that hire these phone solicitors wind up with a fraction of what gets raised.  Financial filings by clients represented by Associated Community Services show the firm and its related companies keep as much as 85 cents of every dollar donated.  Once charities pay their own administrative costs – including rent and salaries – it often means pennies on the dollar make it to those in need.

"America's Worst Charities"

AMERICA - President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

"Nation long remembers short remarks by Lincoln on Gettysburg Address anniversary" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 11/19/2013

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  Abraham Lincoln thought the world would little note nor long remember what he said at Gettysburg, but his call for a new birth of freedom out of the carnage of the Civil War has long endured.

Now, fourscore and 70 years later, Jeffrey Brown looks back at the legacy of the address.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  It was just five months after the Civil War's bloodiest battle when Abraham Lincoln came to help dedicate a national cemetery to honor the 51,000 men killed, wounded, captured, or missing.

About 15,000 spectators were in attendance.  The keynote speaker, famed orator and politician Edward Everett, spoke for two hours, Lincoln for two minutes, and, with some 270 words, delivered one of the most memorable addresses in American history, helping make sense of the great sacrifice and loss of the war, reshaping and, for many, redefining the nation's identity going forward.

One of five existing copies of the manuscript is now on display at the Library of Congress in Washington.  It's believed to be the first draft and the one from which Lincoln read that day.  It's written on two pieces of paper, one formal in pen, the other on a notebook page and in pencil.

Michelle Krowl is the exhibit's curator.

MICHELLE KROWL, Library of Congress:  What you see is that Lincoln worked on the address in Washington first, and then probably got to Gettysburg and changed his mind about the ending.  So you can think about what might have inspired Lincoln to change that ending about a new birth of freedom and a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

JEFFREY BROWN:  A century-and-a-half later, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is honoring those sacred words by urging Americans to post videos of themselves reading Lincoln's speech on the Web site learntheaddress.org.

Dozens of notable public figures, including all five living U.S. presidents, have submitted recordings.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:  That this nation under God.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:  Shall have a new birth of freedom.

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:  And that government of the people.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH:  By the people, for the people.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  Shall not perish from the earth.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Those same words were also echoed today in Gettysburg, as thousands flocked to the site of Lincoln's address for a ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary.

"Lincoln's words to honor loss spark debate and dedication to American freedom" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 11/19/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address articulated a powerful message 150 years ago that endures today.  How did a speech with so few words come to effect such great meaning in American history?  Drew Gilpin Faust of Harvard University and Richard Norton Smith of George Mason University join Jeffrey Brown to offer reflections.

RICHARD NORTON SMITH, George Mason University:  Lincoln came to dedicate the field of honor that had been fought over, and at the same time he came to define the war, in some ways to define the nation.  One way he did that was to begin with a history lesson.  Fourscore and seven years ago refers to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian ideal, the egalitarian ideal that all men are created equal.

Lincoln is telling his countrymen that the ideal of America, the egalitarian ideal of America existed before it was codified in the Constitution.  That's critical.  That's absolutely essential, because that's the America in a very real sense that Lincoln was rededicating his countrymen when he talked about a new birth of freedom.