600 Gazan Civilians Dead; Many Palestinian Children Expected to Die of Head Wounds

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BigNewsNetwork.com

Palestinians have been searching for bodies of dead relatives since the pullout of Israeli soldiers from Gaza.
The devastated Gaza Strip is littered with the remains of innocent victims caught up in battles between Israeli soldiers and Hamas members.
More than 100 dead were recovered on Sunday, increasing the Palestinian death toll to 1,250, with half of those civilians.
Thirteen Israeli soldiers and civilians were also killed during the fighting.
Doctors at hospitals in Egypt and Gaza have been overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children injured in the fighting, and have noted a high count of children with bullet wounds to the head.
Hundreds of child victims of Israel's three-week campaign in Gaza have been transferred across the Egyptian border for urgent treatment.
According to Egyptian medical personnel, the Israeli ground assault on Gaza was partly concentrated on the civilian population after Hamas fighters hid in the houses of ordinary Gaza residents, who were used as human shields.
Neurosurgeons at the hospitals have claimed that bullet velocity and penetration evidence has proved some children were shot at very close range.
Because many children have been presented to the hospitals with bullets to the head, their survival will be difficult.
Doctors have said some of the children who are expected to recover will nevertheless be paralyzed for life.

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600 Gazan Civilians Dead; Many Palestinian Children Expected to Die of Head Wounds

Image via Wikipedia

BigNewsNetwork.com

Palestinians have been searching for bodies of dead relatives since the pullout of Israeli soldiers from Gaza.
The devastated Gaza Strip is littered with the remains of innocent victims caught up in battles between Israeli soldiers and Hamas members.
More than 100 dead were recovered on Sunday, increasing the Palestinian death toll to 1,250, with half of those civilians.
Thirteen Israeli soldiers and civilians were also killed during the fighting.
Doctors at hospitals in Egypt and Gaza have been overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children injured in the fighting, and have noted a high count of children with bullet wounds to the head.
Hundreds of child victims of Israel's three-week campaign in Gaza have been transferred across the Egyptian border for urgent treatment.
According to Egyptian medical personnel, the Israeli ground assault on Gaza was partly concentrated on the civilian population after Hamas fighters hid in the houses of ordinary Gaza residents, who were used as human shields.
Neurosurgeons at the hospitals have claimed that bullet velocity and penetration evidence has proved some children were shot at very close range.
Because many children have been presented to the hospitals with bullets to the head, their survival will be difficult.
Doctors have said some of the children who are expected to recover will nevertheless be paralyzed for life.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Israeli troops begin pullout from Gaza after ceasefire
• Will It Be A Real Ceasefire?
• Gazans Dig Bodies From Rubble
• Hamas announces ceasefire
• Militants in Gaza agree to one-week ceasefire

White supremacists watched in lead up to Obama administration

Image via Wikipedia

CNN.com

Hate crimes experts and law enforcement officials are closely watching white supremacists across the country as Barack Obama prepares next week to be sworn in as the first black president of the United States.
So far, there is no known organized effort to express opposition to Obama's rise to the presidency other than a call by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for its members to wear black armbands as well as fly the U.S. flag upside down on Inauguration Day and Obama's first full day in office.
As Tuesday approaches, when Obama stands outside the Capitol to take the oath of office, experts expect anger about the new president to spike. But they don't expect it to go away.
"The level of vitriol, I expect, will go up a bit more around inauguration time," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.
There "is concern" about white supremacist groups during the inauguration, said Joe Persichini, the assistant FBI director who is helping to oversee security during the inauguration. VideoWhat might the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. have said? »
The inauguration of the nation's first minority president increases any potential threat, "particularly stemming from individuals on the extremist fringe of the white supremacist movement," said a recent intelligence assessment by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
But law enforcement has the appropriate resources to respond if needed, Persichini said.
"We have seen a lot of chatter," Persichini said. "We have seen a lot of discussions. We have seen some information via the Internet. But those are discussions. We look at the vulnerabilities and whether or not the groups are taking action.
"You have freedom of speech," he added. "Anyone in this nation can have a discussion about their beliefs, but we are concerned about whether or not they take that freedom of speech and exercise some act that is against the law."
Anger, violence and interest in racist ideology did increase in the hours and days after Obama was elected president in November, hate groups experts said.
Three New York men were indicted on charges of conspiracy to interfere with voting rights -- accused of targeting and attacking African-Americans in a brutal crime spree soon after Obama was declared the winner on November 4.
And interest in racist ideology was so high right after the election that computer servers for two White supremacist Web sites crashed, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
But the violence and interest soon subsided. Leaders within the white supremacist movement are now seeking to capitalize on Obama's presidency by using his election to help grow their organizations.
"President-elect Obama is going to be the spark that arouses the 'white movement,' " reads a posting on the National Socialist Movement Web site. "Obama's win is our win. We should all be happy of this event."
In an interview posted on his Web site on election night, former Louisiana state Rep. David Duke said Obama's election "is good in one sense -- that it is making white people clear of the fact that that government in Washington, D.C., is not our government."
"We are beginning to learn and realize our positioning," Duke, a prominent white supremacist, later said in the election night recording. "And our position is that we have got to stand up and fight now."
Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said the leaders of these groups are frustrated by Obama's win.
"I think the hate groups are desperately looking for a silver lining in a very dark cloud for them," Potok said.
While experts said it is difficult to determine how many people belong to hate groups, they do agree with an SPLC estimate that claims there are about 900 operating now, a 40 percent increase from 2000. The vast majority of these groups promote white supremacist beliefs, and range from skinheads living in urban areas to the KKK ,which is based largely in rural settings.
It is difficult to pinpoint how many people subscribe to white supremacist views, because the Internet allows people to follow the movement under the cloak of anonymity. Leaders of the white supremacist movement are able to use their Web sites to reach a new subset of potential followers and push their racist rhetoric to the limit without outright calling for violence.
Levin said one challenge in protecting Obama is that the identity of a potential attacker would likely be unknown -- a person who believes in white supremacist ideology, but decides to act as a lone wolf.
Threats of violence are more likely to be found on Web sites that allow posters to remain anonymous.
Most white supremacist leaders have been careful in what is posted on their Web sites, "hyper-aware that they are being watched," Potok said.
But not all white supremacist leaders are mindful of their actions or care to be. Two months before the election, American National Socialist Workers Party head Bill White posted a magazine cover on his Web site featuring a picture of Obama in the cross hairs of a rifle scope with a headline "Kill This N-----?"
White is now in jail on unrelated charges that he "threatened use of force against" a juror who had helped convict another white supremacist as well as several other charges of making threats to unrelated victims.
Racism in the U.S. "remains a real problem" even though Obama won the White House, Potok said, and he predicted that hate groups will continue to grow during Obama's presidency.
"I think we are in a very worrisome moment historically," Potok said. "I say that because there are several things converging that could foster the continued growth of these groups: continuing high levels of nonwhite immigration, the prediction by the Census Bureau that whites will lose their majority in 2042, the tanking economy, and what is seen as the final insult, the election of a black man to the White House."
Levin noted that it is common knowledge the U.S. Secret Service is taking great measures to protect Obama (who began receiving coverage in May 2007, the earliest point ever for a candidate in a presidential campaign), and emphasized it is a great challenge.
"President-elect Obama is so used to a public presence, and being among people poses some real difficulties for his protection," Levin said.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve and Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.

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• A Klan Initiation Murder: A Backlash to Obama's Victory?

White supremacists watched in lead up to Obama administration

Image via Wikipedia

CNN.com

Hate crimes experts and law enforcement officials are closely watching white supremacists across the country as Barack Obama prepares next week to be sworn in as the first black president of the United States.
So far, there is no known organized effort to express opposition to Obama's rise to the presidency other than a call by the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for its members to wear black armbands as well as fly the U.S. flag upside down on Inauguration Day and Obama's first full day in office.
As Tuesday approaches, when Obama stands outside the Capitol to take the oath of office, experts expect anger about the new president to spike. But they don't expect it to go away.
"The level of vitriol, I expect, will go up a bit more around inauguration time," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.
There "is concern" about white supremacist groups during the inauguration, said Joe Persichini, the assistant FBI director who is helping to oversee security during the inauguration. VideoWhat might the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. have said? »
The inauguration of the nation's first minority president increases any potential threat, "particularly stemming from individuals on the extremist fringe of the white supremacist movement," said a recent intelligence assessment by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
But law enforcement has the appropriate resources to respond if needed, Persichini said.
"We have seen a lot of chatter," Persichini said. "We have seen a lot of discussions. We have seen some information via the Internet. But those are discussions. We look at the vulnerabilities and whether or not the groups are taking action.
"You have freedom of speech," he added. "Anyone in this nation can have a discussion about their beliefs, but we are concerned about whether or not they take that freedom of speech and exercise some act that is against the law."
Anger, violence and interest in racist ideology did increase in the hours and days after Obama was elected president in November, hate groups experts said.
Three New York men were indicted on charges of conspiracy to interfere with voting rights -- accused of targeting and attacking African-Americans in a brutal crime spree soon after Obama was declared the winner on November 4.
And interest in racist ideology was so high right after the election that computer servers for two White supremacist Web sites crashed, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
But the violence and interest soon subsided. Leaders within the white supremacist movement are now seeking to capitalize on Obama's presidency by using his election to help grow their organizations.
"President-elect Obama is going to be the spark that arouses the 'white movement,' " reads a posting on the National Socialist Movement Web site. "Obama's win is our win. We should all be happy of this event."
In an interview posted on his Web site on election night, former Louisiana state Rep. David Duke said Obama's election "is good in one sense -- that it is making white people clear of the fact that that government in Washington, D.C., is not our government."
"We are beginning to learn and realize our positioning," Duke, a prominent white supremacist, later said in the election night recording. "And our position is that we have got to stand up and fight now."
Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said the leaders of these groups are frustrated by Obama's win.
"I think the hate groups are desperately looking for a silver lining in a very dark cloud for them," Potok said.
While experts said it is difficult to determine how many people belong to hate groups, they do agree with an SPLC estimate that claims there are about 900 operating now, a 40 percent increase from 2000. The vast majority of these groups promote white supremacist beliefs, and range from skinheads living in urban areas to the KKK ,which is based largely in rural settings.
It is difficult to pinpoint how many people subscribe to white supremacist views, because the Internet allows people to follow the movement under the cloak of anonymity. Leaders of the white supremacist movement are able to use their Web sites to reach a new subset of potential followers and push their racist rhetoric to the limit without outright calling for violence.
Levin said one challenge in protecting Obama is that the identity of a potential attacker would likely be unknown -- a person who believes in white supremacist ideology, but decides to act as a lone wolf.
Threats of violence are more likely to be found on Web sites that allow posters to remain anonymous.
Most white supremacist leaders have been careful in what is posted on their Web sites, "hyper-aware that they are being watched," Potok said.
But not all white supremacist leaders are mindful of their actions or care to be. Two months before the election, American National Socialist Workers Party head Bill White posted a magazine cover on his Web site featuring a picture of Obama in the cross hairs of a rifle scope with a headline "Kill This N-----?"
White is now in jail on unrelated charges that he "threatened use of force against" a juror who had helped convict another white supremacist as well as several other charges of making threats to unrelated victims.
Racism in the U.S. "remains a real problem" even though Obama won the White House, Potok said, and he predicted that hate groups will continue to grow during Obama's presidency.
"I think we are in a very worrisome moment historically," Potok said. "I say that because there are several things converging that could foster the continued growth of these groups: continuing high levels of nonwhite immigration, the prediction by the Census Bureau that whites will lose their majority in 2042, the tanking economy, and what is seen as the final insult, the election of a black man to the White House."
Levin noted that it is common knowledge the U.S. Secret Service is taking great measures to protect Obama (who began receiving coverage in May 2007, the earliest point ever for a candidate in a presidential campaign), and emphasized it is a great challenge.
"President-elect Obama is so used to a public presence, and being among people poses some real difficulties for his protection," Levin said.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve and Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.

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• A Klan Initiation Murder: A Backlash to Obama's Victory?

UK Jewish lawmaker: Israeli forces acting like Nazis

Image by Amir Farshad Ebrahimi via Flickr

CNN.com

Israeli military action in Gaza is comparable to that of German soldiers during the Holocaust, a Jewish UK lawmaker whose family suffered at the hands of the Nazis has claimed.
Gerald Kaufman, a member of the UK's ruling Labour Party, also called for an arms embargo on Israel, currently fighting militant Palestinian group Hamas, during the debate in the British parliament Thursday.
"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed," said Kaufman, who added that he had friends and family in Israel and had been there "more times than I can count."
"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."
Kaufman, a senior Labour politician who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, has often opposed Israeli policy throughout his career.
Israel has said it initiated the operation into Gaza -- which is controlled by Hamas -- to stop rocket fire on its southern cities and towns. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died in the operation in Gaza and from rocket strikes on southern Israel, according to the Israeli military.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, including many civilians, Palestinian medics said.
During Thursday's debate, Kaufman also said that Israel needed to seek real peace and not peace by conquest, which would be impossible.
He also accused the Israeli government of "ruthlessly and cynically exploiting the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."
But Kaufman added that while it is necessary to talk to Hamas, which had been chosen by an electorate, it nevertheless is a "deeply nasty organization."
Bill Rammell, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, said the UK government backed an EU presidency statement calling Israeli action disproportionate. But he also criticized Hamas rocket attacks on Israel during the cease-fire between June and December 2008, adding that the militant group's "whole ethos is one of violence" and that it had "made a brutal choice to step up attacks against innocent civilians."
"Nothing, not the restrictions on Gaza nor its frustration with the peace process, justifies what Hamas has done and continues to do," Rammell said. "In December, I was in Ashkelon near the Gaza border, and I heard the sirens. The fear was palpable: This is daily psychological and actual warfare."
Rammell added that Hamas has "committed acts of terrorism, it is committed to the obliteration of the state of Israel, and its statement last week that it was legitimate to kill Jewish children anywhere in the world was utterly chilling and beyond any kind of civilised, humanitarian norm."
The debate came on the day that Saeed Siam, Hamas' third-ranking leader in the territory, was killed by an Israeli airstrike, the Islamic militant group reported.
The United Nations' main relief compound in the territory was also hit and set on fire, which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blamed on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed sorrow over the incident but said Israeli forces were responding to militant fire near the complex.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the shelling of the compound as "indefensible," media agencies reported.
Speaking to Ban during a call, Brown said the UK would increase its calls for a cease-fire and also deliver aid to Gaza once a cease-fire took hold.
Britain has witnessed several demonstrations since the conflict in Gaza began late last month.
Last Saturday, up to 20,000 people gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in London, Metropolitan Police said.
Later, parts of the crowd began pelting officers with sticks, rocks and pieces of metal barriers, police said. A similar protest Sunday was peaceful.
Rallies were also held in London and Manchester last weekend in support of Israeli action against Hamas.
All AboutHamas • Israel • Gaza • Ban Ki-moon
Links referenced within this article
Gaza
Israeli
Hamas
Ban Ki-moon
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/16/uk.israel.debate
� 2008 Cable News Network.

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• Israel Bombs UN Headquarters
• Israel rebuffs UN resolution, pushes ahead militarily

UK Jewish lawmaker: Israeli forces acting like Nazis

Image by Amir Farshad Ebrahimi via Flickr

CNN.com

Israeli military action in Gaza is comparable to that of German soldiers during the Holocaust, a Jewish UK lawmaker whose family suffered at the hands of the Nazis has claimed.
Gerald Kaufman, a member of the UK's ruling Labour Party, also called for an arms embargo on Israel, currently fighting militant Palestinian group Hamas, during the debate in the British parliament Thursday.
"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed," said Kaufman, who added that he had friends and family in Israel and had been there "more times than I can count."
"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."
Kaufman, a senior Labour politician who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, has often opposed Israeli policy throughout his career.
Israel has said it initiated the operation into Gaza -- which is controlled by Hamas -- to stop rocket fire on its southern cities and towns. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died in the operation in Gaza and from rocket strikes on southern Israel, according to the Israeli military.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, including many civilians, Palestinian medics said.
During Thursday's debate, Kaufman also said that Israel needed to seek real peace and not peace by conquest, which would be impossible.
He also accused the Israeli government of "ruthlessly and cynically exploiting the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."
But Kaufman added that while it is necessary to talk to Hamas, which had been chosen by an electorate, it nevertheless is a "deeply nasty organization."
Bill Rammell, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, said the UK government backed an EU presidency statement calling Israeli action disproportionate. But he also criticized Hamas rocket attacks on Israel during the cease-fire between June and December 2008, adding that the militant group's "whole ethos is one of violence" and that it had "made a brutal choice to step up attacks against innocent civilians."
"Nothing, not the restrictions on Gaza nor its frustration with the peace process, justifies what Hamas has done and continues to do," Rammell said. "In December, I was in Ashkelon near the Gaza border, and I heard the sirens. The fear was palpable: This is daily psychological and actual warfare."
Rammell added that Hamas has "committed acts of terrorism, it is committed to the obliteration of the state of Israel, and its statement last week that it was legitimate to kill Jewish children anywhere in the world was utterly chilling and beyond any kind of civilised, humanitarian norm."
The debate came on the day that Saeed Siam, Hamas' third-ranking leader in the territory, was killed by an Israeli airstrike, the Islamic militant group reported.
The United Nations' main relief compound in the territory was also hit and set on fire, which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blamed on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed sorrow over the incident but said Israeli forces were responding to militant fire near the complex.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the shelling of the compound as "indefensible," media agencies reported.
Speaking to Ban during a call, Brown said the UK would increase its calls for a cease-fire and also deliver aid to Gaza once a cease-fire took hold.
Britain has witnessed several demonstrations since the conflict in Gaza began late last month.
Last Saturday, up to 20,000 people gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in London, Metropolitan Police said.
Later, parts of the crowd began pelting officers with sticks, rocks and pieces of metal barriers, police said. A similar protest Sunday was peaceful.
Rallies were also held in London and Manchester last weekend in support of Israeli action against Hamas.
All AboutHamas • Israel • Gaza • Ban Ki-moon
Links referenced within this article
Gaza
Israeli
Hamas
Ban Ki-moon
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/16/uk.israel.debate
� 2008 Cable News Network.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Israel Bombs UN Headquarters
• Israel rebuffs UN resolution, pushes ahead militarily

Israel shells Gaza U.N. warehouse, hospital, news bureaus

Image via Wikipedia

Tri-City Herald

The Israeli military punched deeper into Gaza City on Thursday with a series of strikes that hit the United Nations' headquarters, a major hospital and the offices of international news media groups, even as Israeli leaders weighed an Egyptian initiative for ending the 20-day-old conflict.
For the second time in the offensive, Israel said it had killed a top Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip. Late Thursday, an airstrike hit Said Siam, who served as interior minister when Hamas won elections to take control of the Palestinian Authority in 2006. On Jan. 1, Israeli forces killed Nizar Rayan, a top military strategist.
Israeli forces hit a Red Crescent hospital Thursday, and more than 100 staff members and patients were trapped as a blaze engulfed the administration building. However, the most spectacular strike came when Israeli forces fired on the U.N. compound in Gaza City, setting off a blaze that sent a pillar of charcoal-black smoke hundreds of feet into the sky.
The attacks coincided with visits to Jerusalem by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Both protested vigorously.
"It is unacceptable that wounded people receiving treatment in hospitals are put at risk," Kellenberger said.
Ban said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had apologized for the attack on the U.N. compound.
"The defense minister said to me it was a grave mistake and he took it very seriously," Ban said before meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to discuss U.N. efforts to end the fighting immediately.
Another strike hit several high-rise buildings, including one that houses the Reuters news offices.
Reuters had given the Israeli military the location of its office before the fighting broke out last month. On Thursday, as the Israeli forces moved in, Reuters staff members said, they called the Israeli military to remind it where they were.
Two minutes after the call, a shell hit the office, the Reuters staff said.
The Associated Press reported that gunfire struck its office in a separate building.
Thursday's attacks came as Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad met with Egyptian diplomats who are trying to broker an end to the fighting, which has claimed nearly 1,100 Palestinian lives.
While Hamas leaders say they back the Egyptian plan in principle, they haven't yet agreed to the details.
In addition to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Israel is seeking a side agreement with the United States for an expanded international effort to stop arms shipments from reaching Hamas, diplomats said.
In a sign that the U.S.-Israeli agreement is close, Israel announced that Livni would travel to Washington. The side agreement would make it easier for Israel to accept a cease-fire, and it represents the country's last chance to secure support from the outgoing Bush administration.
The diplomats said that under the draft agreement, the United States and Israel would share intelligence and cooperate to prevent weapons from reaching Egypt's side of the border with Gaza. Most of the weapons are thought to come overland across Egypt's Sinai peninsula, while some are smuggled by ship in the Mediterranean.
The diplomats spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are ongoing.
Relations between the U.N. and Israel have been strained by Israeli attacks in Gaza that have killed U.N. staff members, students and refugees seeking refuge in temporary shelters, and they came under new stress Thursday.
Israeli officials issued contradictory versions of why their forces had fired on the U.N. An anonymous Israeli military official first told the AP that Gaza militants had fired anti-tank weapons and machine guns from within the U.N. compound.
Then Israeli officials came forward to say that preliminary results showed that the militants had run into the compound for safety after firing from outside it.
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, dismissed the Israelis' claims as baseless and challenged them to produce evidence to back up their story.
In the worst such incident, 43 Palestinians were killed last week when an Israeli strike hit a U.N. school where hundreds had sought safety.
Then, as now, Israeli officials initially claimed that Hamas militants had fired from the school. After the U.N. denied that charge, Israel later said that its soldiers had fired at Hamas militants who'd been firing mortars near the school.
On Thursday, Gunness said that Israel's shifting stories raised questions about its veracity.
"With every flip-flop, Israel's credibility is severely undermined," he said.
About 1,100 people have died and more than 4,500 reportedly have been wounded as Israeli forces have taken aim at densely populated civilian areas that military officials say Hamas fighters use as cover. On the Israeli side, 13 people have died, 10 of them soldiers.
As Israeli soldiers clamped down Thursday on Gaza City, thousands of residents fled their homes looking for safety, many in their nightclothes.
Responding to the assaults on buildings housing media, the Foreign Press Association in Israel denounced the "unconscionable breaches" and urged members not to distribute or broadcast photos or video that the Israeli military gave them until there's a formal apology.
Since early November, Israel has imposed a near-blanket ban on international reporters entering Gaza.
Israel's high court has directed Israel to allow reporters into Gaza during the fighting, but the Israel Defense Forces have refused to do anything more than take selected journalists on short embeds with troops.
"The FPA rejects and condemns the IDF policy of controlling the news coverage of the events in Gaza," the association said Thursday in a statement. "By preventing the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza and bombing buildings housing offices of international media - contrary to IDF assurances that these media buildings would be safe - the IDF is severely violating basic principles of respect for press freedom."
Israeli officials have said that their forces don't intentionally target civilians and they reject allegations that they have violated international laws in the conflict.
(Hamda is a McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent. Nissenbaum reported from Jerusalem. Correspondent Warren P. Strobel contributed to this report from Washington.)

Israel shells Gaza U.N. warehouse, hospital, news bureaus

Image via Wikipedia

Tri-City Herald

The Israeli military punched deeper into Gaza City on Thursday with a series of strikes that hit the United Nations' headquarters, a major hospital and the offices of international news media groups, even as Israeli leaders weighed an Egyptian initiative for ending the 20-day-old conflict.
For the second time in the offensive, Israel said it had killed a top Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip. Late Thursday, an airstrike hit Said Siam, who served as interior minister when Hamas won elections to take control of the Palestinian Authority in 2006. On Jan. 1, Israeli forces killed Nizar Rayan, a top military strategist.
Israeli forces hit a Red Crescent hospital Thursday, and more than 100 staff members and patients were trapped as a blaze engulfed the administration building. However, the most spectacular strike came when Israeli forces fired on the U.N. compound in Gaza City, setting off a blaze that sent a pillar of charcoal-black smoke hundreds of feet into the sky.
The attacks coincided with visits to Jerusalem by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Both protested vigorously.
"It is unacceptable that wounded people receiving treatment in hospitals are put at risk," Kellenberger said.
Ban said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had apologized for the attack on the U.N. compound.
"The defense minister said to me it was a grave mistake and he took it very seriously," Ban said before meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to discuss U.N. efforts to end the fighting immediately.
Another strike hit several high-rise buildings, including one that houses the Reuters news offices.
Reuters had given the Israeli military the location of its office before the fighting broke out last month. On Thursday, as the Israeli forces moved in, Reuters staff members said, they called the Israeli military to remind it where they were.
Two minutes after the call, a shell hit the office, the Reuters staff said.
The Associated Press reported that gunfire struck its office in a separate building.
Thursday's attacks came as Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad met with Egyptian diplomats who are trying to broker an end to the fighting, which has claimed nearly 1,100 Palestinian lives.
While Hamas leaders say they back the Egyptian plan in principle, they haven't yet agreed to the details.
In addition to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Israel is seeking a side agreement with the United States for an expanded international effort to stop arms shipments from reaching Hamas, diplomats said.
In a sign that the U.S.-Israeli agreement is close, Israel announced that Livni would travel to Washington. The side agreement would make it easier for Israel to accept a cease-fire, and it represents the country's last chance to secure support from the outgoing Bush administration.
The diplomats said that under the draft agreement, the United States and Israel would share intelligence and cooperate to prevent weapons from reaching Egypt's side of the border with Gaza. Most of the weapons are thought to come overland across Egypt's Sinai peninsula, while some are smuggled by ship in the Mediterranean.
The diplomats spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are ongoing.
Relations between the U.N. and Israel have been strained by Israeli attacks in Gaza that have killed U.N. staff members, students and refugees seeking refuge in temporary shelters, and they came under new stress Thursday.
Israeli officials issued contradictory versions of why their forces had fired on the U.N. An anonymous Israeli military official first told the AP that Gaza militants had fired anti-tank weapons and machine guns from within the U.N. compound.
Then Israeli officials came forward to say that preliminary results showed that the militants had run into the compound for safety after firing from outside it.
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, dismissed the Israelis' claims as baseless and challenged them to produce evidence to back up their story.
In the worst such incident, 43 Palestinians were killed last week when an Israeli strike hit a U.N. school where hundreds had sought safety.
Then, as now, Israeli officials initially claimed that Hamas militants had fired from the school. After the U.N. denied that charge, Israel later said that its soldiers had fired at Hamas militants who'd been firing mortars near the school.
On Thursday, Gunness said that Israel's shifting stories raised questions about its veracity.
"With every flip-flop, Israel's credibility is severely undermined," he said.
About 1,100 people have died and more than 4,500 reportedly have been wounded as Israeli forces have taken aim at densely populated civilian areas that military officials say Hamas fighters use as cover. On the Israeli side, 13 people have died, 10 of them soldiers.
As Israeli soldiers clamped down Thursday on Gaza City, thousands of residents fled their homes looking for safety, many in their nightclothes.
Responding to the assaults on buildings housing media, the Foreign Press Association in Israel denounced the "unconscionable breaches" and urged members not to distribute or broadcast photos or video that the Israeli military gave them until there's a formal apology.
Since early November, Israel has imposed a near-blanket ban on international reporters entering Gaza.
Israel's high court has directed Israel to allow reporters into Gaza during the fighting, but the Israel Defense Forces have refused to do anything more than take selected journalists on short embeds with troops.
"The FPA rejects and condemns the IDF policy of controlling the news coverage of the events in Gaza," the association said Thursday in a statement. "By preventing the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza and bombing buildings housing offices of international media - contrary to IDF assurances that these media buildings would be safe - the IDF is severely violating basic principles of respect for press freedom."
Israeli officials have said that their forces don't intentionally target civilians and they reject allegations that they have violated international laws in the conflict.
(Hamda is a McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent. Nissenbaum reported from Jerusalem. Correspondent Warren P. Strobel contributed to this report from Washington.)

Bernanke drops pretense of secrecy and airs Fed's plans

McClatchy Washington Bureau

With its benchmark lending rate effectively at zero, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday, in a move without modern precedent, publicly laid out an aggressive agenda for the nation's otherwise secretive central bank and suggested that he's hardly out of ammunition to fight the global financial crisis.
In a lengthy speech to the London School of Economics, Bernanke also gave explicit support to efforts by Congress and President-elect Barack Obama to create the largest short-term economic stimulus plan the nation's ever seen.
He cautioned, however, that any stimulus plan would be doomed if problems in the financial and credit markets aren't fixed. Bernanke outlined a number of steps that'll be taken this year to have the Fed purchase, as a buyer of last resort, the distressed assets that financial markets can't price or for which buyers can't be found.
The Fed last month dropped the federal funds rate -- an overnight bank lending rate that serves as the benchmark for a wide range of consumer and business lending -- to a range between zero and a quarter percent. That's the lowest it's ever been.
Interest rates are a prime tool used by the Fed to stimulate or slow the economy, depending on what's needed. A rate of effectively zero gives the impression that the Fed is now on the sidelines because it can't take rates any lower.
Not so, Bernanke said.
"Even if the overnight rate is close to zero, the committee should be able to influence longer-term interest rates by informing the public's expectations about the future course of monetary policy," he said.
In other words, communicating the Fed's thinking is now more important than ever since expectations of future inflation -- the rise in prices across the economy -- influence investment decisions.
The Fed long has been a relatively closed institution. Transcripts of the meetings of its rate-setting Open Market Committee are classified as secret for five years. Even the minutes of the rate-setting meeting are delayed for weeks before they're published.
So it was noteworthy that in Tuesday's speech, Bernanke was crystal clear about his plans.
"The Federal Reserve retains powerful policy tools and will use them aggressively to help achieve this objective," Bernanke said. "Fiscal policy can stimulate economic activity, but a sustained recovery will also require a comprehensive plan to stabilize the financial system and restore normal flows of credit."
That comprehensive plan also includes sharply increasing the Fed's balance sheet, the listing of its financial obligations, which already has soared from $800 billion last August to more than $2.3 trillion currently.
"I would be surprised if it didn't go up another 50 percent," said Vincent Reinhart, a former top Fed economist and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy research organization in Washington. "Wrapping your mind around this is very hard."
The Fed's books already include short-term lending to banks and other financial institutions, as well as the purchase of promissory notes from U.S. corporations and mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants taken over by the federal government in September.
Bernanke said Tuesday that the Fed and Treasury Department next month will begin providing three-year loans to investors willing to purchase top-rated securities whose collateral is recently originated consumer and small-business loans. This move, he said, effectively substitutes a government balance sheet for private sector balance sheets in the absence of private lending.
"If the program works as planned, it should lead to lower rates and greater availability of consumer and small-business credit," the Bernanke said.
By expanding the Fed's balance sheet, he conceded, the Fed effectively is printing money, which history shows could sharply push up inflation. As the financial crisis subsides, the Fed's balance sheet will shrink, Bernanke said, and the Fed "will be able to return to its traditional means of making monetary policy -- namely, by setting a target for the federal funds rate."
When the Fed announced late last year it would purchase $600 billion of debt and mortgage bonds issued or backed by Fannie and Freddie, mortgage rates fell sharply. Now, Bernanke said, the Fed wants to purchase longer-term securities issued by the Treasury Department to lower 15-year and 30-year fixed mortgage rates, boosting the housing market.
"In determining whether to proceed with such purchases, the committee will focus on their potential to improve conditions in private credit markets, such as mortgage markets," he said.
Implicit in that statement, however, is that interest rates may have to increase more than many Americans are accustomed to, or inflation may be higher than the Fed is comfortable with. Neither will be pleasant choices.
"We are not going to be back to normal in two years, where our problem will be controlling inflation and the budget deficit," said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist who thinks the current crisis will be prolonged and that the Fed's actions will hurt long-term growth. "We are going to be dealing with a structural breakdown in the system that we have lived with for 50 years and we're going to be dealing with it for quite some time."
McClatchy Newspapers 2008

Bernanke drops pretense of secrecy and airs Fed's plans

McClatchy Washington Bureau

With its benchmark lending rate effectively at zero, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday, in a move without modern precedent, publicly laid out an aggressive agenda for the nation's otherwise secretive central bank and suggested that he's hardly out of ammunition to fight the global financial crisis.
In a lengthy speech to the London School of Economics, Bernanke also gave explicit support to efforts by Congress and President-elect Barack Obama to create the largest short-term economic stimulus plan the nation's ever seen.
He cautioned, however, that any stimulus plan would be doomed if problems in the financial and credit markets aren't fixed. Bernanke outlined a number of steps that'll be taken this year to have the Fed purchase, as a buyer of last resort, the distressed assets that financial markets can't price or for which buyers can't be found.
The Fed last month dropped the federal funds rate -- an overnight bank lending rate that serves as the benchmark for a wide range of consumer and business lending -- to a range between zero and a quarter percent. That's the lowest it's ever been.
Interest rates are a prime tool used by the Fed to stimulate or slow the economy, depending on what's needed. A rate of effectively zero gives the impression that the Fed is now on the sidelines because it can't take rates any lower.
Not so, Bernanke said.
"Even if the overnight rate is close to zero, the committee should be able to influence longer-term interest rates by informing the public's expectations about the future course of monetary policy," he said.
In other words, communicating the Fed's thinking is now more important than ever since expectations of future inflation -- the rise in prices across the economy -- influence investment decisions.
The Fed long has been a relatively closed institution. Transcripts of the meetings of its rate-setting Open Market Committee are classified as secret for five years. Even the minutes of the rate-setting meeting are delayed for weeks before they're published.
So it was noteworthy that in Tuesday's speech, Bernanke was crystal clear about his plans.
"The Federal Reserve retains powerful policy tools and will use them aggressively to help achieve this objective," Bernanke said. "Fiscal policy can stimulate economic activity, but a sustained recovery will also require a comprehensive plan to stabilize the financial system and restore normal flows of credit."
That comprehensive plan also includes sharply increasing the Fed's balance sheet, the listing of its financial obligations, which already has soared from $800 billion last August to more than $2.3 trillion currently.
"I would be surprised if it didn't go up another 50 percent," said Vincent Reinhart, a former top Fed economist and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy research organization in Washington. "Wrapping your mind around this is very hard."
The Fed's books already include short-term lending to banks and other financial institutions, as well as the purchase of promissory notes from U.S. corporations and mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants taken over by the federal government in September.
Bernanke said Tuesday that the Fed and Treasury Department next month will begin providing three-year loans to investors willing to purchase top-rated securities whose collateral is recently originated consumer and small-business loans. This move, he said, effectively substitutes a government balance sheet for private sector balance sheets in the absence of private lending.
"If the program works as planned, it should lead to lower rates and greater availability of consumer and small-business credit," the Bernanke said.
By expanding the Fed's balance sheet, he conceded, the Fed effectively is printing money, which history shows could sharply push up inflation. As the financial crisis subsides, the Fed's balance sheet will shrink, Bernanke said, and the Fed "will be able to return to its traditional means of making monetary policy -- namely, by setting a target for the federal funds rate."
When the Fed announced late last year it would purchase $600 billion of debt and mortgage bonds issued or backed by Fannie and Freddie, mortgage rates fell sharply. Now, Bernanke said, the Fed wants to purchase longer-term securities issued by the Treasury Department to lower 15-year and 30-year fixed mortgage rates, boosting the housing market.
"In determining whether to proceed with such purchases, the committee will focus on their potential to improve conditions in private credit markets, such as mortgage markets," he said.
Implicit in that statement, however, is that interest rates may have to increase more than many Americans are accustomed to, or inflation may be higher than the Fed is comfortable with. Neither will be pleasant choices.
"We are not going to be back to normal in two years, where our problem will be controlling inflation and the budget deficit," said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist who thinks the current crisis will be prolonged and that the Fed's actions will hurt long-term growth. "We are going to be dealing with a structural breakdown in the system that we have lived with for 50 years and we're going to be dealing with it for quite some time."
McClatchy Newspapers 2008

Only a "For America" PAC Can Stop the Madness

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Informed Comment

I want to follow up today on my postings over the weekend on how organizing to defend progressive congressional representatives and punish reactionary ones is far superior to street protests as political action on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Cont'd
People wrote to defend street protests or minded that I said I was annoyed. I stand by what I said. Street protests have not stopped the US Congress from turning Israel into a massive arms arsenal in the Middle East or from granting it $3 billion a year, in part for such military purposes. (Israel has received the lion's share of US foreign aid in recent decades, even though people in Rwanda need the help more and even though the Israeli per capita income in the early zeroes has been something like $17,000 a year, more than Potugal or Poland and similar to Greece.) Protests have not stopped US complicity in the creeping Israeli colonization of the West Bank, including the area around Jerusalem. They have not stopped the 2006 or 2009 wars of their client on weak and virtually defenseless opponents such as the south Beirut tenement buildings or Gaza hospitals.
Street protests have their uses as a means of creating a political movement, but they are helpless in this case because the important decisions are taken on Capitol Hill. I wrote on Saturday:

'Europe has ceded dealing with the Israelis to the United States. The people of the United States have ceded dealing with the Israelis to the US Congress. The US Congress generally abdicates its responsibilities when faced with large powerful single-issue lobbies such as . . . the Israel lobbies. So Congress has ceded Israel, and indeed, most Middle East, policy to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its myriad organizational supporters, from the Southern Baptist churches to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The Israel lobbies take their cue on what is good policy from the Israeli government and the Likud Party. So, US Israel policy is driven by . . . the Israeli rightwing. That is why Congress voted 309 to five to support Israel's war on the people of Gaza, with 22 abstaining. '

The US Senate and the US House of Representatives are not afraid of street protests in San Francisco. And why should they be? What sort of threat is it to them, that we say if they don't change their legislation we will . . . walk in the street? Their response would be, "Make sure you have comfortable shoes; now, I have to see this nice lobbyist in my office in a thousand dollar suit and alligator shoes who has an enormous check for my current political campaign."
The representative would say to us, "I want to be reelected. You cannot stop that by walking in the street, nor can you help me win by doing so. This televangelist from an Israel lobby, in contrast, is going to help me buy loads of television commercials dissing my opponents in the next election. And, if I don't help the gentleman out, he's threatening to give the money instead to my rival and unseat me. So you'll forgive me if I turn my back on you and wish you well with your, uh, walking. But I've got an election to win, rather than to lose, and you are irrelevant to that task."
nd the big oak door in the Dirksen building slams in our faces.
The US Congress is the best proof of evolution. Its members are constantly subjected to unnatural selection by single-issue lobbies.. Run for office demanding gun control, and you will likely lose, because the National Rifle Association will arrange for its members to fund your opponent's campaign. If you do win, the NRA will redouble its efforts for the next time, which if you are a representative, is only 2 years later. After a while, there just aren't a lot of strong gun control proponents in Congress.
It is the same with the Israel lobbies, which are just as single-minded. We have had people in Congress who dared criticize Israel. They were Paul Findley, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Roger Jepson, Pete McCloskey, Earl Hilliard, and Cynthia McKinney. They were all successfully ousted by AIPAC-coordinated campaigns. US political races are close and candidates have flaws, so AIPAC often denies in public that it made the difference and implies with high dudgeon that there is something wrong with alleging that it did. In private, AIPAC officials boast endlessly on the HIll about how no one messes with them and survives.
The reason AIPAC and its constituencies among the Evangelicals and American Likudniks has been so successful is that there is virtually no countervailing political force. Madison and other Founding Fathers set up the US, as Ian Lustick has argued, on the assumption that on most important issues there would be opposing factions who would check each other in the legislature. The drawback of their system is that when there is only one effective faction on an issue, it completely dominates politically. Madison's system worked to prolong the heyday of Big Tobacco far beyond what was reasonable. Anti-smoking campaigners who knew that smoking kills you dead could not make headway with Congress because the tobacco-growing and cigarette industries would counter-lobby.
But on some issues there is no one on the other side of it to lobby and threaten Congressmen. Thus, there was not much precentage until recently in pushing for an end to the boycott on Communist Cuba, since the Florida Cuba lobby would punish you politically and virtually no one would reward you.

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Only a "For America" PAC Can Stop the Madness

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Informed Comment

I want to follow up today on my postings over the weekend on how organizing to defend progressive congressional representatives and punish reactionary ones is far superior to street protests as political action on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Cont'd
People wrote to defend street protests or minded that I said I was annoyed. I stand by what I said. Street protests have not stopped the US Congress from turning Israel into a massive arms arsenal in the Middle East or from granting it $3 billion a year, in part for such military purposes. (Israel has received the lion's share of US foreign aid in recent decades, even though people in Rwanda need the help more and even though the Israeli per capita income in the early zeroes has been something like $17,000 a year, more than Potugal or Poland and similar to Greece.) Protests have not stopped US complicity in the creeping Israeli colonization of the West Bank, including the area around Jerusalem. They have not stopped the 2006 or 2009 wars of their client on weak and virtually defenseless opponents such as the south Beirut tenement buildings or Gaza hospitals.
Street protests have their uses as a means of creating a political movement, but they are helpless in this case because the important decisions are taken on Capitol Hill. I wrote on Saturday:

'Europe has ceded dealing with the Israelis to the United States. The people of the United States have ceded dealing with the Israelis to the US Congress. The US Congress generally abdicates its responsibilities when faced with large powerful single-issue lobbies such as . . . the Israel lobbies. So Congress has ceded Israel, and indeed, most Middle East, policy to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its myriad organizational supporters, from the Southern Baptist churches to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The Israel lobbies take their cue on what is good policy from the Israeli government and the Likud Party. So, US Israel policy is driven by . . . the Israeli rightwing. That is why Congress voted 309 to five to support Israel's war on the people of Gaza, with 22 abstaining. '

The US Senate and the US House of Representatives are not afraid of street protests in San Francisco. And why should they be? What sort of threat is it to them, that we say if they don't change their legislation we will . . . walk in the street? Their response would be, "Make sure you have comfortable shoes; now, I have to see this nice lobbyist in my office in a thousand dollar suit and alligator shoes who has an enormous check for my current political campaign."
The representative would say to us, "I want to be reelected. You cannot stop that by walking in the street, nor can you help me win by doing so. This televangelist from an Israel lobby, in contrast, is going to help me buy loads of television commercials dissing my opponents in the next election. And, if I don't help the gentleman out, he's threatening to give the money instead to my rival and unseat me. So you'll forgive me if I turn my back on you and wish you well with your, uh, walking. But I've got an election to win, rather than to lose, and you are irrelevant to that task."
nd the big oak door in the Dirksen building slams in our faces.
The US Congress is the best proof of evolution. Its members are constantly subjected to unnatural selection by single-issue lobbies.. Run for office demanding gun control, and you will likely lose, because the National Rifle Association will arrange for its members to fund your opponent's campaign. If you do win, the NRA will redouble its efforts for the next time, which if you are a representative, is only 2 years later. After a while, there just aren't a lot of strong gun control proponents in Congress.
It is the same with the Israel lobbies, which are just as single-minded. We have had people in Congress who dared criticize Israel. They were Paul Findley, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Roger Jepson, Pete McCloskey, Earl Hilliard, and Cynthia McKinney. They were all successfully ousted by AIPAC-coordinated campaigns. US political races are close and candidates have flaws, so AIPAC often denies in public that it made the difference and implies with high dudgeon that there is something wrong with alleging that it did. In private, AIPAC officials boast endlessly on the HIll about how no one messes with them and survives.
The reason AIPAC and its constituencies among the Evangelicals and American Likudniks has been so successful is that there is virtually no countervailing political force. Madison and other Founding Fathers set up the US, as Ian Lustick has argued, on the assumption that on most important issues there would be opposing factions who would check each other in the legislature. The drawback of their system is that when there is only one effective faction on an issue, it completely dominates politically. Madison's system worked to prolong the heyday of Big Tobacco far beyond what was reasonable. Anti-smoking campaigners who knew that smoking kills you dead could not make headway with Congress because the tobacco-growing and cigarette industries would counter-lobby.
But on some issues there is no one on the other side of it to lobby and threaten Congressmen. Thus, there was not much precentage until recently in pushing for an end to the boycott on Communist Cuba, since the Florida Cuba lobby would punish you politically and virtually no one would reward you.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Blindly In Support Of Israel
• James Zogby: American Jewish Reponses to Gaza: Old & New
• Obama is silent -- Marcos, McKinney and Sheehan are not
• Israel 'rammed' medical aid boat headed to Gaza
• US abstains as UN security council backs Israel-Gaza ceasefire resolution

Obama team vows to change goals of bailout as Bush agrees to ask for remaining funds

Image via Wikipedia

Looking back at the months of anxiety in Washington and across the country over America's financial straits, Mr. Bush said, "I readily concede I chucked aside some of my free-market principles when I was told by chief economic advisers that the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression."

StarTribune.com

Seeking to reassure wary lawmakers, President-elect Barack Obama's top economic adviser told congressional leaders Monday that Obama intends to broaden the goals of the remaining $350 billion financial bailout and impose tougher restrictions and oversight on how the money is spent.
Larry Summers, Obama's choice for National Economic Council director, told House and Senate leaders in a letter from the transition team that the need to tap the second half of the $700 billion fun is "imminent and urgent."
The letter spells out how Obama intends to use the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help community banks, small businesses, consumers and homeowners as well as large financial institutions. He also specified that Obama intends to launch a "sweeping effort" to mitigate foreclosures.
Obama on Monday asked Bush to seek the remaining bailout money so that Obama can have it at his disposal promptly after taking office Jan. 20.
Summers' letter included tacit acknowledgment of bipartisan congressional dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Bush administration has administered the first half of the funds.
"The president-elect also shares the frustration of the American people that we have seen too little effect from this rescue plan on jobs, incomes, and the ability of responsible homeowners to stay in their homes," Summers wrote. "He believes the American people are right to be angry with the way this plan has been implemented."
The White House said that Bush agreed to notify Congress after Obama requested the money. Congress has 15 days to reject the request, but efforts were afoot to have the money available for Obama much sooner.
The request would give Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, not only the opportunity to get quick access to the money, but also to change the program's goals and conditions.
Obama's request comes as Democrats in the House of Representatives prepared to act on legislation that has some of the same aims laid out in summers letter.
Earlier Monday, Bush told reporters that he would not request the money form Congress unless Obama "specifically asked me to make it." Obama called Bush at 10:25 a.m., EST, after the news conference ended, Obama transition officials said.
Bush's assertion that the decision to tap the money rests with Obama was an acknowledgment of what has been an extraordinary ceding of power to the incoming administration. In fact, when it comes to the economy, Bush in recent weeks has let Obama be the driving force behind most recovery efforts.
A vote in Congress is likely soon, possibly this week, several senators predicted after a briefing from Summers Sunday on the Wall Street bailout, as well as on Obama's separate plan for roughly $800 billion in spending and tax breaks to spur the economy.
At his news conference, Bush said, "I readily concede I chucked aside some of my free market principles when I was told by chief economic advisers that the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression."
But he credited the program for improving the lending environment, saying that "lending is just beginning to pick up."
Congress approved the program in October, authorizing $700 billion to assist the financial industry.
The current administration has already committed the first $350 billion, using it to inject capital into banks and to bail out ailing major companies considered too big to fail without further damage to the economy. Money from the program has gone to insurance giant American International Group Inc. and automakers General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the administration's handling of the fund, in part because the financial institutions that have received the unconditional sums of money have done little to account for it.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson originally promised the money would be used to buy up toxic mortgage-related securities whose falling values have clogged credit markets and brought many financial institutions to the brink of failure.
A request to Congress would force a vote within days on whether to block the funding, but the deck is stacked in favor of Bush and Obama winning release of the remaining $350 billion. Congress can pass a resolution disapproving the request, but the White House could veto the resolution; then, just one-third of either chamber would be needed to uphold the veto and win release of the money.

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Obama team vows to change goals of bailout as Bush agrees to ask for remaining funds

Image via Wikipedia

Looking back at the months of anxiety in Washington and across the country over America's financial straits, Mr. Bush said, "I readily concede I chucked aside some of my free-market principles when I was told by chief economic advisers that the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression."

StarTribune.com

Seeking to reassure wary lawmakers, President-elect Barack Obama's top economic adviser told congressional leaders Monday that Obama intends to broaden the goals of the remaining $350 billion financial bailout and impose tougher restrictions and oversight on how the money is spent.
Larry Summers, Obama's choice for National Economic Council director, told House and Senate leaders in a letter from the transition team that the need to tap the second half of the $700 billion fun is "imminent and urgent."
The letter spells out how Obama intends to use the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help community banks, small businesses, consumers and homeowners as well as large financial institutions. He also specified that Obama intends to launch a "sweeping effort" to mitigate foreclosures.
Obama on Monday asked Bush to seek the remaining bailout money so that Obama can have it at his disposal promptly after taking office Jan. 20.
Summers' letter included tacit acknowledgment of bipartisan congressional dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Bush administration has administered the first half of the funds.
"The president-elect also shares the frustration of the American people that we have seen too little effect from this rescue plan on jobs, incomes, and the ability of responsible homeowners to stay in their homes," Summers wrote. "He believes the American people are right to be angry with the way this plan has been implemented."
The White House said that Bush agreed to notify Congress after Obama requested the money. Congress has 15 days to reject the request, but efforts were afoot to have the money available for Obama much sooner.
The request would give Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, not only the opportunity to get quick access to the money, but also to change the program's goals and conditions.
Obama's request comes as Democrats in the House of Representatives prepared to act on legislation that has some of the same aims laid out in summers letter.
Earlier Monday, Bush told reporters that he would not request the money form Congress unless Obama "specifically asked me to make it." Obama called Bush at 10:25 a.m., EST, after the news conference ended, Obama transition officials said.
Bush's assertion that the decision to tap the money rests with Obama was an acknowledgment of what has been an extraordinary ceding of power to the incoming administration. In fact, when it comes to the economy, Bush in recent weeks has let Obama be the driving force behind most recovery efforts.
A vote in Congress is likely soon, possibly this week, several senators predicted after a briefing from Summers Sunday on the Wall Street bailout, as well as on Obama's separate plan for roughly $800 billion in spending and tax breaks to spur the economy.
At his news conference, Bush said, "I readily concede I chucked aside some of my free market principles when I was told by chief economic advisers that the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression."
But he credited the program for improving the lending environment, saying that "lending is just beginning to pick up."
Congress approved the program in October, authorizing $700 billion to assist the financial industry.
The current administration has already committed the first $350 billion, using it to inject capital into banks and to bail out ailing major companies considered too big to fail without further damage to the economy. Money from the program has gone to insurance giant American International Group Inc. and automakers General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the administration's handling of the fund, in part because the financial institutions that have received the unconditional sums of money have done little to account for it.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson originally promised the money would be used to buy up toxic mortgage-related securities whose falling values have clogged credit markets and brought many financial institutions to the brink of failure.
A request to Congress would force a vote within days on whether to block the funding, but the deck is stacked in favor of Bush and Obama winning release of the remaining $350 billion. Congress can pass a resolution disapproving the request, but the White House could veto the resolution; then, just one-third of either chamber would be needed to uphold the veto and win release of the money.

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