Obama administration

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Post-Madoff SEC Bites Goldman Sachs


 Post-Madoff SEC 
 Bites Goldman Sachs 
analysis

Post-Madoff SEC Bites Goldman Sachs

After Ponzi scheme debacle, regulator is back, with bigger fangs

(Newser) - Having let the Madoff scandal unfold virtually under its nose, the SEC sounded an alert with the announcement of its lawsuit charging Goldman Sachs with fraud. "The message: The SEC is back on the job," Greg Gordon writes for McClatchy . "The release is very judgmental about the...

Gates: US Lacks Cohesive Strategy in Iran

White House downplays defense secretary's missive to Jones

(Newser) - The US lacks a viable long-term plan for dealing with Iran's nuclear program, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in a January memo that one anonymous White House official called a "wake-up call." As the New York Times reports, the missive came amid an administration push to develop a...

Wow! Obama Saved Us from the Canadians!
Wow! Obama Saved Us from the Canadians!
Charles Krauthammer

Wow! Obama Saved Us from the Canadians!

That nuclear summit looked a lot like a waste of time, didn't it?

(Newser) - President Obama convened the biggest meeting of world leaders on US soil since the founding of the UN in 1945. And what did this week's historic gathering accomplish? Well, it generated a nonbinding statement saying that Ukraine, Chile, Mexico, and Canada will get rid of some enriched uranium. “What...

Obama Doubles Special Ops in Afghanistan

Administration fears time is running out to stop Taliban

(Newser) - The Obama administration has more than doubled the number of special forces in Afghanistan, tasking them with hunting down Taliban leaders—in part because it’s worried that the US has a dwindling window to defang the insurgency before its scheduled 2011 withdrawal, senior officials tell the LA Times . They’...

Karzai's the Best We've Got. Deal With It
Karzai's the Best We've
Got. Deal With It
Fareed Zakaria

Karzai's the Best We've Got. Deal With It

We need him to win the Afghanistan war, so grow up and stop undercutting him

(Newser) - Sure, Hamid Karzai is a "vain, mercurial, hypersensitive man" presiding over "a system that is massively corrupt." But the US still should—and must—learn to work with him, Fareed Zakaria writes in the Washington Post . There is no alternative to Karzai, Zakaria argues; if the US...

After Stevens: What's Next?
 After Stevens: What's Next? 
OPINION Roundup

After Stevens: What's Next?

Expect a fierce battle for liberal justice's replacement

(Newser) - What will John Paul Stevens’ retirement mean for the Supreme Court? Here are three early thoughts on what comes next:
  • Expect the tea partiers to get extremely riled up over whoever President Obama nominates, writes Chris Good of the Atlantic . They have a “very strict (one could almost say
...

Larry Summers Will Be Gone by Year's End
Larry Summers Will Be Gone
by Year's End
ANALYSIS

Larry Summers Will Be Gone by Year's End

Adviser irked that Geithner, not he, has Obama's ear

(Newser) - Economics guru Larry Summers will be out the Obama administration by November’s election, or shortly thereafter, Joshua Green contends —mainly out of frustration that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and not he, has become President Obama’s go-to adviser in that area. Blogging for the Atlantic, Green notes that,...

Court Smacks Down FCC in Net Neutrality Case

Agency had no standing to regulate Comcast, 3-judge panel rules

(Newser) - A federal court today said the FCC does not have the power to force Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally. The ruling, in a closely watched case concerning Comcast's ban on BitTorrent, is a blow to the Obama administration’s crusade for net neutrality. But the FCC failed...

Crazy Karzai Regime Is 'Too Big to Fail'

Erratic Afghan leader understands how deep US is in, acts accordingly

(Newser) - The US is engaged in “asymmetrical” warfare with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Fred Kaplan writes, but it also suffers an asymmetrical relationship with an increasingly erratic head of state—Hamid Karzai. His regime “depends entirely on the United States,” sure, but because Western powers “have—and...

Afghan President Threatens to Join the Taliban

Under pressure, Karzai becomes increasingly erratic

(Newser) - Hamid Karzai has told Afghan lawmakers he will join the Taliban if his western backers kept pushing him to reform. The legislators said the Afghan president's comments shouldn't be taken at face value—he was pandering to pro-Taliban members of parliament, and he seems unconcerned about losing western support. The...

New Jobs Bring Out New Job Seekers— and Boost Unemployment

Administration says trend is positive, if counterintuitive

(Newser) - As the economy generates more jobs, giving hope to previously “discouraged” workers, the jobless rate could actually spike instead of declining, the Washington Post reports. Still, what's happening in the economy is good, the White House says, laying the groundwork for the likelihood that job creation will lag behind...

Karzai Calls Clinton, Backs Off

Afghan president 'clarifies' his knock on international community

(Newser) - A day after accusing the US of "vast fraud" that nearly denied him a second term, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to back off. The 25-minute phone call came as the Obama administration labeled his comments "genuinely troubling" and dispatched its ambassador to...

'Kumar' Bails on White House Gig

Kal Penn leaves Obama administration to resume acting

(Newser) - Kal Penn is done with politics: The actor will resign as President Obama's associate director of public engagement to return to show business, starting with a new Harold & Kumar movie that begins shooting in June. The film will see the two buddies reunited at Christmastime under the direction of...

Maybe Obama Isn't American Enough
Maybe Obama Isn't
American Enough
Charles Krauthammer

Maybe Obama Isn't American Enough

Upbringing could explain why he disses US allies

(Newser) - The Obama administration has dissed one traditional American ally after another, with Britain the worst example, writes Charles Krauthammer. In trying to figure out why, he quotes a British diplomat who notes that President Obama is someone who "grew up in Hawaii, whose foreign experience was of Indonesia and...

Obama Boosts Fuel Efficiency Standards

Transportation Department, EPA make new targets official

(Newser) - The Obama administration is setting tough gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines, and electric cars. The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency will today sign final rules requiring 2016 model-year vehicles to meet fuel...

Karzai Becoming a Paranoid, Unreliable Ally

Insiders say Afghan president thinks US wants to stay indefinitely

(Newser) - Tensions are mounting between the US and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who appears to be becoming an increasingly unreliable ally. “Karzai was enraged,” an insider tells the New York Times of Obama's decision to rescind a White House invitation to Karzai over his decision to...

Obama Legal Team Can't Decide on Detention Rules

Administration dodges big question in War on Terror

(Newser) - The Obama administration’s legal team can’t decide who it can and can’t detain indefinitely without trial, with interviews and legal briefs revealing deep internal disagreement. President Obama doesn’t subscribe to George W. Bush’s view of presidential detention powers as essentially unlimited, so his Justice Department...

Obama Rallies US Forces in Afghanistan

On surprise visit, president speaks to cheering crowd

(Newser) - Wrapping up his 6-hour surprise visit to Afghanistan with a speech before a crowd of service members, President Obama said today, "There's no visit that I considered more important than this visit that I'm making right now." After spending the early part of his overnight trip pressing Hamid...

White House Renews Seder Tradition

(Newser) - Among the families around the world gathering tomorrow to celebrate the beginning of Passover with a dinner, or seder, will be a high-profile group: the Obamas. The White House seder tradition started on the campaign trail in 2008, when then-senator Barack Obama surprised three staffers by showing up for their...

Dems Get Mojo Back: Here Comes Financial Reform
Dems Get Mojo Back: Here Comes Financial Reform
analysis

Dems Get Mojo Back: Here Comes Financial Reform

Suddenly, it looks like smooth sailing for Dodd's bill

(Newser) - Health care has given the White House and Democrats a serious dose of momentum, and it looks as though that will result in easy passage of a stronger-than-expected financial reform bill. Republicans are backing off, and Democrats are sticking together to fend off Wall Street lobbyists who assumed they could...

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