EU-DIGEST

Labels: Armenian Genocide, China, Turkey, US, US Congress

During a speech today to a joint session of Congress German Chancellor Angela Merkel marked the upcoming 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by urging world leaders to embrace globalization. She said countries should not wall themselves off from each other. In her speech which was punctuated by standing ovations, she also stressed Germany’s ongoing commitment to Afghanistan and said Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons. In an emotional plea for action to reduce global warming she was met with an eerie silence from most Republicans, while Democrats stood and applauded. "We all know we have no time to lose," Merkel said, arguing that at Copenhagen "the world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans" for leadership on setting binding reductions of greenhouse gases. It's a matter "in the interest of our children and grandchildren and in the interest of sustainable development all over the world," she said.

Labels: Angela Merkel, EU, Germany, Globalwarming, US, US Congress

Barack Obama Speaking To US Congress On Health Care Reform

EU-Digest

Obama To Explain His Vision On Remake Of US Health Care Tonight - European Interest To Focus On Similarities With EU Health Care

Tonight, in a special joint session of Congress US President Barack Obama will explain what White House spokesman Robert Gibbs during a Press briefing yesterday called,"not a bill of his own, but what he considers reform to truly be."

In Europe the interest for the US Health Care Reform has mainly focused on two issues. One being, what model US Health Care Program the US will eventually implement. Is it going to be a totally new program, or will it be modeled on an existing European Health Care Program like the Dutch have? The other issue Europeans are looking at is how Obama will emerge from this very important political battle? For additional information on the issues at hand as to the US Health Care Reform, also see the report in the Koster Insurances BV Sure publication.

Labels: Barack Obama, EU, Health Care Reform, Koster Verzekeringen BV, US Congress

US Banker CEOs Lied to Congress - by John Olagues

This article is about how the CEOs of the largest Banks in the world lied to the U.S. Congress about the extent of their equity compensation bonuses. Their deliberate lies were pre-meditated and were intended to deceive the Congress and the viewing public. Specifically at the 1 hour and 24 minutes into the afternoon session of the Congressional hearing on February 11, 2009, Representative Bill Posey from Florida asked the bankers to declare the value of all the equity compensation that they were granted during 2007. They answered with flat out lies or artificially low values.

Labels: Banking Industry, economic meltdown, US Congress

"Some day my dear kids all this will be yours."

For the complete report from the msnbc.com click on this link

US Congressional Confusing Knee-Jerking reactions - Is that AIG tax constitutional? - by Ken Strickland

While the US House acted at "warp" speed to pass a tax bill designed to recoup most of the bonus money given to AIG executives, expect the Senate Republicans to slow up the process next week -- some by echoing the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution. The US Constitution addressing Congress directly says, "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." (Article 1, Sec 9.)

In the simplest terms, that article prohibits legislation punishing or penalizing a specific person or group without trial. In the Federalist Papers #44, James Madison wrote in 1788, "Bills of attainder, ex-post-facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation."

Labels: Economic Crises, US, US Congress

Five Aspects of the Conservative State - by Tom Frank

Everyone's a change-bringer this year. Everyone's a reformer. Even the improbable Sarah Palin tells us she intends to clean up not only Washington but to "stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street" itself. What's more, she wants to do it on behalf of--her own term--the "working class." There are several reasons to cheer for this development. With the Republican standard-bearers now tacitly acknowledging that the Bush administration and the Republican congress were episodes of unexampled misgovernment, much of the right's exculpatory rhetoric can now be dispensed with. The verdict has hereby been reached on Bush, DeLay, Gingrich, and maybe even on Ronald Reagan himself. The case is closed. All that remains is to understand the causes of the catastrophe.

This is an astonishing reversal. It was just ten years ago that CNBC used to run a "CEO wealth-meter" feature so that viewers could track the daily ups and downs of their favorite mogul; today, faced with a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, the public screams for the billionaires' heads. It was just two months ago that, in a review of the book we are preparing to discuss, the New Yorker magazine suggested that to criticize capitalism was the act of a "neo-Marxist"; today, even Republicans are doing it. Things are changing fast.

Labels: Conservatives, Politics, Republicans, The Senate, US Congress

Wiretapping US: House approves Democratic surveillance bill that denies immunity to companies for spying on Public on behalf of US Government

A terror surveillance bill that President Bush has promised to veto is on its way to the Senate. The House bill approved this afternoon doesn't grant immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the government spy on Americans after September 11th without warrants. The Senate has passed its own version, and it includes that immunity. Bush says the companies shouldn't be punished for helping the government, and that he'd veto the version approved by the House. The majority say a judge should decide if laws were broken. About 40 lawsuits are pending before a single federal judge in California. Telecommunications companies are being sued by people and organizations alleging the companies violated wiretapping and privacy laws.

In Europe the fact is that in most of the countries there wiretapping is still de rigueur—practiced more regularly and with less oversight than in the United States. Most Europeans either don't know about this or, more likely, simply don't care. The extensive European taps are not new developments, made in the heat of passion after the London and Madrid bombings. European governments have been bugging phones for decades.

Recently Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Britain gave the green light for wiretap evidence to be used in court cases, "provided strict conditions" are met. The move would end an unusual culture of secrecy surrounding telephone taps in Britain, one of the few countries where secret tapings are not used to secure convictions.

In theory, the European Convention on Human Rights forbids "arbitrary wiretapping," but, as we've learned in the United States, "arbitrary" is in the ear of the wiretapper. In this case credit must be given to the US House of Representatives for attacking the Bush Administrations infringement on the citizens right to privacy while the EU Parliament is backing away from tackling the problem.

Labels: EU, Europe, Human Rights, security, US Congress, Wiretapping

Rep. Lantos offends Dutch Lawmakers - by Desmond Butler

Dutch lawmakers who visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison this week said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat. The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that "Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay."

Before the Guantanamo exchange, the lawmakers had discussed a debate in the Netherlands about whether the country should maintain its 1,600 troops serving in NATO's Afghanistan operations. "You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany," Lantos said, according to the Dutch lawmakers. "The comments killed the debate," said Harry van Bommel, a member of the Socialist Party. "It was insulting and counterproductive." It was not the first time that Lantos had offended European political circles. In May, he lashed out at the former leaders of France and Germany. His comments, which included calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a "political prostitute," provoked a rebuke from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Labels: Afghanistan, EU, Guantanamo, Netherlands, Tom Lantos, US Congress

Bill to Condemn Genocide in Jeopardy - by Anne Flaherty

A House vote to label the century-old deaths of Armenians as genocide was in jeopardy Tuesday after several Democrats withdrew their support and sounded alarms it could cripple U.S. relations with Turkey. The loss of support is a major setback to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, who have fiercely defended the resolution to Republicans and the Bush administration as a moral imperative in condemning the World War I-era killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. President Bush called Pelosi on Tuesday to ask her not to call for a House vote on the resolution.

"The president and the speaker exchanged candid views on the subject and the speaker explained the strong bipartisan support in the House for the resolution," Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said, noting that Bush initiated the phone call.

Labels: Armenian Genocide, EU, Turkey, US Congress

Michael Rubin on Armenian Genocide - it's amateur hour in the US Congress

Last week, a congressional committee passed a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide. There is no doubt that up to a million Armenians died during World War I, although historians still debate whether their deaths constitute deliberate genocide or are collateral casualties of war.For Congress, though, the resolution was less about rectifying history than grandstanding. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos (D., Cal.) called a vote. It passed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) pooh-poohed the episode. This was not about Turkey, she explained, but rather “about the Ottoman Empire.” Unclear, though, is why congressional Democrats felt the urgent need to condemn an entity that hasn’t existed for 85 years.

The resolution, while important to the Armenian-American community — perhaps less so to Armenians living in Armenia who worry much more about economic development — also raises a host of questions about how Congress picks and chooses which atrocities to weigh in on.Will the House Foreign Affairs Committee condemn Beijing for the millions who perished during the Cultural Revolution? Or bring Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Masud Barzani to justice for ordering the disappearance and summary executions of perhaps 3,000 Kurds during the 1994-1997 Kurdish civil war. This is not to suggest that such cases should not be pursued. But, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is not the place to pursue such historical investigations; universities are. It’s amateur hour in the US Congress.

Labels: Armenians, Turks, US Congress