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<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Jacob Laksin</title>
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	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Dirty Campaigning Takes Unprecedented Turn</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/obamas-dirty-campaigning-takes-unprecedented-turn/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-dirty-campaigning-takes-unprecedented-turn</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/obamas-dirty-campaigning-takes-unprecedented-turn/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Aug 2012 04:28:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hope and change]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Convention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tampa Florida]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=141390</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The candidate of "hope and change" is the president of "slash and burn." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Obama-Angry.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-141391" title="Obama-Angry" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Obama-Angry-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>Presidential nomination conventions traditionally have been governed by a ceasefire: Out of courtesy and tradition, the rival party yields the national stage to the nominating party. That tradition is now being cast aside by President Obama, who, along with his Democratic Party surrogates, is poised to launch what <em>The Hill</em> calls a &#8220;<a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/244861-team-obama-tries-to-spoil-romneys-convention">full-scale assault on Republicans</a>&#8221; as they gather in Tampa, Florida, next week. Hope and change, meet slash and burn.</p>
<p>While Republicans will be officially nominating Mitt Romney, Democrats, led by Vice President Joe Biden, will converge on Tampa to condemn the GOP as the enemy of women and minorities. According to the Democratic National Committee, Democrats will focus on &#8220;how the Republican Party Mitt Romney is being nominated to lead is outside the mainstream on issues of importance to Americans — particularly as it relates to women, Hispanics and African-Americans.&#8221; President Obama meanwhile is set to stage high-profile rallies in key swing states. Even the First Lady will take part in the counter-convention campaign, with a scheduled appearance on the “David Letterman Show&#8221; timed to coincide with the nomination.</p>
<p>If such crude tactics seem a world away from the transcendent, post-partisan pitch of Obama&#8217;s 2008 campaign, they are by no means exceptional. As the country has soured on his leadership, Obama has beat a hasty retreat from his onetime promise to elevate the political debate. Not content to demonize Mitt Romney as a sinister corporate raider during his time at Bain Capital, the president and his campaign allies have tried to cast him as a criminal and worse. In July, for instance, Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter mused that Romney might be a &#8220;<a href="http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/07/obama-team-romney-committed-a-felony-or-lied-to-voters-128757.html">felon</a>&#8221; who had lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission over his role at Bain Capital, despite having no evidence whatsoever that the charge might be true. Called to account for the smear at a recent press briefing, Obama insisted that &#8220;nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon,&#8221; a strained bit of linguistic parsing premised on the notion that groundless innuendo did not rise to the level of an accusation.</p>
<p>While the president has dodged responsibility for his campaign’s negative bent, Vice President Biden has embraced it. At a campaign rally in Virginia last week, Biden <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/14/biden-tells-va-supporters-romney-would-put-blacks-/">informed</a> a mostly black audience that a Romney presidency would &#8220;unchain Wall Street&#8221; but that “They’re gonna put ya’ll back in chains.” Crass though it was, Biden’s comment was perfectly revealing of the Obama campaign’s willingness to sacrifice civility for political gain.</p>
<p>On the rare occasions when the president and his team have declined to stoop to smear tactics, Democratic political action committees have been happy to shoulder the burden. Thus Priorities USA Action recently ran a shockingly dishonest ad that tried to link Mitt Romney to the death of a laid-off steelworker&#8217;s wife. Obama did <a href="http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/aug/23/us-obama/">not condemn the ad</a>, though he generously conceded he personally didn’t “think” that Romney was “somehow responsible for the death.&#8221; Others, presumably, were free to think so. This is what now passes for post-partisanship in the Obama campaign.</p>
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		<title>The Ryan &#8216;Bounce&#8217; Is Real</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-ryan-bounce-is-real/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-ryan-bounce-is-real</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-ryan-bounce-is-real/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:30:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mediscare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paul Ryan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[swing states]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=141147</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Contrary to the Democrats' spin, Paul Ryan is proving an asset to the Romney campaign. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/romney_ryan_5_rect-460x307.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-141150" title="romney_ryan_5_rect-460x307" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/romney_ryan_5_rect-460x307-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>Paul Ryan’s selection to the GOP presidential ticket has sent the Democratic spin machine into overdrive. Democratic pollsters and partisans alike have been at pains to claim that the Ryan pick has brought no political &#8220;bounce&#8221; to the Romney campaign, that his addition does not put a single new swing state in play. Obama pollster Joel Benenson went so far as to <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/no-ryan-poll-bounce-romney-obama-202326710.html">claim</a> that Ryan has &#8220;had virtually no impact on Romney&#8217;s position in the polls.&#8221; It&#8217;s a flattering reading of the political map, one that has already influenced <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=news+liberal+media+bias&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8#hl=en&amp;client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;q=%22no+ryan+bounce%22&amp;oq=%22no+ryan+bounce%22&amp;gs_l=serp.3...6537.12879.3.13102.29.24.5.0.0.0.172.1931.17j7.24.0.les%3B..0.0...1c._h3-hJylZMk&amp;pbx=1&amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&amp;fp=55ab4df3ea5a6e31&amp;biw=1211&amp;bih=610">media coverage</a> of the presidential campaign.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the Obama camp, it&#8217;s also false. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that Ryan has done nothing to boost Romney&#8217;s standing, the latest evidence suggests that he is already helping the campaign seize the advantage in key swing states while increasing its appeal to the Republican base and boosting its fundraising fortunes.</p>
<p>Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin is a case in point. In its first poll since the Ryan announcement, Democratic polling form Public Policy Polling (PPP) <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_WI_082112.pdf">finds</a> that Romney now has a small lead over Barack Obama in the Badger State. After being down 50 percent to 44 percent to Obama as recently as last month, Romney now has a small but significant one-point lead over the president. That represents a remarkable 7-point swing for Romney. While the race remains close, it&#8217;s now clearly competitive. Wisconsin is no exception. Since Ryan joined the campaign, Romney has seen his poll numbers rise in battlegrounds like <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/15/swing-state-poll-after-picking-ryan-romney-now-leads-in-ohio-virginia-and-florida/">Ohio, Virginia, Florida</a> and <a href="http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/19329562/new-michigan-poll-has-romney-ahead-of-obama">Michigan</a>.</p>
<p>Credit for the turnaround is due to Ryan. With Ryan&#8217;s addition, the Romney campaign is beginning to unite Republicans in a way that previously it had failed to do. PPP&#8217;s poll finds that Romney now wins support from 88 percent of Republicans, as compared to the 78 percent he was winning before Ryan joined the ticket. If part of the logic of the Ryan pick was to shore up the GOP base, it seems to be working.</p>
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		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
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		<title>Pussy Riot and the Farce of Russian Justice</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/pussy-riot-and-the-farce-of-russian-justice/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pussy-riot-and-the-farce-of-russian-justice</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/pussy-riot-and-the-farce-of-russian-justice/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Aug 2012 04:53:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[punk band]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pussy riot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Putin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140865</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Putin wins. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/photo_1342799568611-1-0.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-140870" title="photo_1342799568611-1-0" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/photo_1342799568611-1-0-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>It wasn’t a trial but a <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/105846/how-punk-rock-show-trial-became-russias-greatest-gonzo-artwork?page=0,0">farce</a>. Following a courtroom saga that made a mockery of Russia’s judicial system and aroused global condemnation, the three female members of the Russian <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-vs-the-punks/">feminist punk band Pussy Riot</a> have been sentenced to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/europe/russia-pussy-riot-trial/index.html">two years in jail</a> for the crime of protesting the government of President Vladimir Putin.</p>
<p>To be sure, their official transgression is &#8220;hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.&#8221; But there can be no doubt that this charge is little more than political cover for what is essentially an act of political retribution by the Putin government. In February, the band staged an anti-government guerrilla protest in Moscow&#8217;s main cathedral when they donned colorful balaclava masks and proceeded to belt out a &#8220;punk prayer,&#8221; which they titled &#8220;Holy Mother, Chase Putin Away!&#8221; Government prosecutors later called the song blasphemous, but it&#8217;s clear from the lyrics that the target is not religion or even the Russian Orthodox Church per se, but rather its subservience to Putin. (&#8220;The head of the KBG is their patron saint.&#8221;) The entire performance lasted less than a minute.</p>
<p>The band members&#8217; ordeal is set to last far longer. In March, they were <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-vs-the-punks/">detained and jailed</a> without so much as a hearing. For the past few weeks, they have been forced to watch on as the government staged what might be generously called a kangaroo court. While the band members&#8217; defense attorneys were prohibited from calling witnesses to testify on their behalf, the prosecution was allowed to parade dozens of &#8220;victims&#8221; of the band&#8217;s performance, each more ludicrous than the last.</p>
<p>One witness testified that the women of Pussy Riot hated Russian Orthodoxy, as evidence for which she <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/105846/how-punk-rock-show-trial-became-russias-greatest-gonzo-artwork?page=0,0">cited</a> their use of curse words. Among the curse words she found offensive was &#8220;feminist.&#8221; Yet another alleged victim insisted that the band members were guilty of &#8220;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pussy-riot-verdict-2012-8">imitating Satanic movement with their hands</a>.&#8221; In a spectacle marked by absurdity, arguably the most surreal moment came when the prosecution called an expert witness whose sole qualification was having seen a YouTube video of Pussy Riot&#8217;s performance and read an interview with the band. It was a crude satire of justice, laughable if not for the fact of its outrageous outcome.</p>
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		<title>Assad&#8217;s Russian Lifeline</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/assads-russian-lifeline/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=assads-russian-lifeline</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/assads-russian-lifeline/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2012 04:50:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bashar assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vladimir Putin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140505</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Moscow is helping the Syrian dictatorship stave off collapse. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SyriaRussiaRFD-custom1.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-140509" title="SyriaRussiaRFD-custom1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SyriaRussiaRFD-custom1-300x233.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="233" /></a>As the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad struggles to maintain its <a href="http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/14/13275665-assad-regime-near-collapse-syria-pm-says-after-defecting">fleeting grip on power</a>, it has been handed a lifeline by an obstructionist Russia that, along with China, has done all it can to save the dictatorship from collapse.</p>
<p>The <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444130304577560810962055348.html">reports</a> in an investigative scoop this week that Syrian officials have been scheming with Russian banks to bypass the crippling sanctions on oil and financial transactions imposed on the country by Europe and the United States. Correspondence uncovered by the <em>Journal</em> shows, among other evasive tactics, that Syrian officials have been working to set up offshore companies and banking accounts in Russia. The goal is to help the regime pay for imports and to receive payments for oil exports while covering its steps from the EU and the U.S. and dodging sanctions.</p>
<p>Based on the <em>Journal</em>’s account, Russian companies have been all too eager to participate in this deception. For instance, some of the documents reviewed by the paper show that Russian buyers of Syrian oil made plans to sell the oil by loading it onto Russian-owned tankers in the Black Sea. It’s not clear who the ultimate buyers might be, but the intention seems to be to help Syria sell its oil in defiance of international sanctions. Since the sanctions aren’t binding on Russia, Russian companies have been free to further these oil deals with impunity.</p>
<p>It hardly exaggerates the value of these deals to Syria&#8217;s government to suggest that the Russian-abetted oil sales are now the lifeblood of the Syrian regime. While Syria’s daily oil production represents less than 1 percent of total global output, revenue from oil sales has become essential for the Assad government as sanctions have choked off other sources of foreign currency. Thus the roughly $380 million that Syria’s oil sales generate monthly may be the only thing that allows the regime to sustain itself and to support the military that, for the time being, keeps it in power.</p>
<p>It’s not clear from the <em>Journal</em>’s reporting whether all of the deals between Syria and Russia were actually completed. But the very fact that Russia has been willing to help the Syrian regime evade sanctions underlines the challenges of maintaining an effective sanctions regime so long as Russia is determined to keep its Syrian client state afloat. Backed by China, Russia has been the greatest roadblock to meaningful action against the Assad regime. Since the current uprising in Syria began 17 months ago, Russia has used its vote on the U.N. Security Council three times to block resolutions to pressure the regime and to end the bloodshed that has killed 23,000 people, and counting, since last May.</p>
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		<title>The Promise of Paul Ryan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-promise-of-paul-ryan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-promise-of-paul-ryan</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-promise-of-paul-ryan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2012 04:50:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[entitlement programs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicaid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paul Ryan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140210</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No candidate is better positioned to educate the country about its looming entitlement crisis. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/paul.ryan_.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-140213" title="paul.ryan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/paul.ryan_-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>There can be little doubt that the addition of Paul Ryan to Mitt Romney&#8217;s presidential ticket has galvanized Republicans in a way that Romney himself has mostly failed to do. The $3.5 million <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/12/Romney-Campaign-3M-24-Hours">fundraising haul</a> that the Romney campaign reported within 24 hours of the vice presidential announcement is testimony to the enthusiastic approval of the GOP base. But whether Ryan will be an asset in the general election will depend on his ability to rally Americans to the cause of entitlement reform and economic growth just as he has his Republican admirers.</p>
<p>One problem with the Ryan pick is that, improbable as it may seem to political junkies, he is an unknown quantity for much of the country. Polls show that a majority of Americans <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/09/cnn-running-mate-poll-who-are-these-guys/">know little about the Wisconsin Congressman</a>. Polls also show that most people are <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/CBSNewsPoll_Medicare_061311.pdf?tag=contentMain;contentBodyry">unfamiliar</a> with the budget reform proposals that have made him a hero on the right and a hate figure on the left. Of those who have heard about Ryan&#8217;s reforms, a majority is confused about how they would work. The hopeful notion that Ryan can transmit some of his intra-conservative star power to the Romney campaign thus runs afoul of the hard truth that much of the country is clueless about who he is.</p>
<p>A related problem is that the public does not really understand the importance of the issues – government spending generally and the runway government spending on entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security specifically – on which Ryan has made his reputation in the Republican Party. While Americans routinely overestimate how much the federal government spends on foreign aid, they just as often underestimate how much it spends domestically. For instance, a CBS poll in 2011 <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2011/01/17/political-ignorance-and-federal-spending/">found</a> that less than a quarter of the public knew that Medicare and Medicaid take up nearly 20 to 30 percent of federal spending. Similarly, nearly half the country underestimates the size of Social Security spending. Given that Ryan&#8217;s signature policy agenda calls for restructuring these programs, for instance by reducing the government&#8217;s role in their provision through competition and consumer choice, the fact that much of the country does not recognize the threat to their long-term solvency makes that agenda a more difficult sell nationally.</p>
<p>The good news for the Romney campaign is that few are better positioned than Paul Ryan to explain the gravity of these issues and to make the case for reform over the status quo. A lifelong policy wonk who <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/paul-ryan-gets-free-markets/">started reading federal budgets in high school</a>, Ryan has not only a broad understanding of federal spending policies and their budget impact but also a unique ability to communicate the need for reforming government spending in a way that is coherent, accessible, and rich in supporting evidence. His 2010 &#8220;<a href="http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/">Roadmap for America&#8217;s Future</a>,&#8221; an ambitious budget proposal for reforming entitlement programs and reigning in the national debt, has been the most influential factor in forcing Republicans to make these issues a top legislative priority over the past several years. Among them was Mitt Romney, who <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/analysis-ryan-pick-sets-clear-november-choice/2012/08/11/0ab2ad3a-e3ee-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_story.html">hailed</a> Ryan&#8217;s plan as &#8220;marvelous.&#8221; Adding Ryan to the ticket makes that policy connection explicit.</p>
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		<title>Carter Casts Shadow over Democratic Convention</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/jimmy-carter-and-the-democratic-convention/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jimmy-carter-and-the-democratic-convention</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/jimmy-carter-and-the-democratic-convention/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Aug 2012 04:49:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jimmy Carter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140033</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Democrats sabotage their own nominee with toxic symbolism. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/carter_2008_rect-460x307.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-140037" title="carter_2008_rect-460x307" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/carter_2008_rect-460x307-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>Presidential conventions are supposed to be an extended advertisement for the party’s standard-bearer, a finely scripted effort to cast the candidate in the best possible light. So it’s hard to see the rationale behind the Obama administration’s decision this week to showcase President Jimmy Carter – by <a href="http://www.google.com/#hl=en&amp;gs_nf=1&amp;gs_mss=carter%20wors&amp;qe=amNhcnRlciB3b3JzdCBwcmVzaWRlbnQ&amp;qesig=mY7RLhwJBLfmhIPESZ1v7w&amp;pkc=AFgZ2tm3pi5og5vtmD0E6I3ps2PlB_eu6LhY9oe4hlmIASMkqBYJ3KcGoUezK9vcHGjlC_YFLmaf8izOHzVkFz5jz88bNrfNbw&amp;pq=carter%20worst%20president&amp;cp=1&amp;gs_id=3s&amp;xhr=t&amp;q=jimmy+carter+worst+president&amp;pf=p&amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;oq=jcarter+worst+president&amp;gs_l=&amp;pbx=1&amp;bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&amp;fp=42fb278275950100&amp;biw=757&amp;bih=610" target="_blank">common consent</a> one of the worst if not the worst president in American history – in a prime-time video <a href="http://forward.com/articles/160845/jimmy-carter-will-speak-at-democratic-convention/" target="_blank">speaking spot</a> at next month&#8217;s convention.</p>
<p>Most obviously, the inclusion of the outspokenly anti-Israel ex-president, whose <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/jimmy-carter-and-the-politics-of-apology-%E2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/" target="_blank">contributions</a> to Middle East peace include denouncing Israel as an “apartheid state” and making repeated overtures to anti-Israel terror groups like Hamas, highlights Obama’s frayed relationship with the Jewish state. From his famously frigid relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to his misguided call for Israel to return to pre-1967 borders, to his public rebuffs of Israeli appeals for a more robust response to Iran’s steadily progressing nuclear program, to his refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s rightful capital, Obama has consistently found himself on the wrong side of issues important to Israel and her supporters in the Jewish community. Indeed, pro-Israel advocates and activists have long suggested that Obama might be the president most hostile to Israel since Carter.</p>
<p>Carter&#8217;s appearance at the Democratic Convention can only further cement that dubious connection. There aren’t many issues that can bring the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Jewish Democratic Council together, but this seems to be one of them. Both groups <a href="http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2012/08/08/3103261/carter-convention-controversy" target="_blank">assailed</a> Carter’s speaking role, with NJDC president David Harris writing:</p>
<blockquote><p>“When it comes to Israel and the Middle East, President Carter has unfortunately embarrassed himself — as his analysis and commentary has been stubbornly wrong, harmful to the peace process, and getting worse all the time.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The anti-Carter backlash could spell trouble for Obama, whose support is down among Jewish voters. After winning between 74 and 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, the president is now backed by a still-dominant but notably diminished <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/231937-poll-support-for-obama-has-dipped-among-jewish-voters" target="_blank">64 percent</a> of registered Jewish voters. Apparently recognizing that this could be an electoral liability, particularly in swing states with high-concentrations of Jewish voters like Florida, the Obama administration has recently embarked on a <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/israel_reversal_5HsTnhortaNsMRlkwhWMsJ" target="_blank">charm offensive</a> aimed at Jewish voters, stressing its defensive ties with Israel and talking tough on Iran. But if offering coveted convention airtime to one of Israel&#8217;s most prominent public foes doesn’t entirely discredit that campaign, at a minimum it does not aid it. His political toxicity is surely one reason why Carter was a <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=32316">notable absentee</a> from the 2008 Democratic Convention.</p>
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		<title>Banning &#8216;Hate Speech&#8217; at UC?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/banning-hate-speech-at-uc/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=banning-hate-speech-at-uc</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/banning-hate-speech-at-uc/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Aug 2012 04:46:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[and Inclusion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[First Amendment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Irvine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[president mark yudof]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UC Advisory Council on Campus Climate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[university of california]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=139769</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The wrong approach to battling anti-Israel bias on California campuses.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/4404209839_0b3bf24f78_o-635x357.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-139772" title="4404209839_0b3bf24f78_o-635x357" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/4404209839_0b3bf24f78_o-635x357.gif" alt="" width="375" height="243" /></a>A Jewish student at the University of California at Davis was told that the Star of David was a hate symbol. A student at UC Santa Cruz, a veteran of the Israeli military, was frequently called a “baby killer” on campus. Protests at various UC campuses regularly analogize Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi genocide against Jews. Among these protests is an annual “Israel Apartheid Week” which features stunts like mock “die-ins,” in which students pretending to be Palestinians collapse as if they had been killed en masse by Israelis.</p>
<p>Together, these events illuminate a pattern of pervasive anti-Israel sentiment on UC campuses, at least some of which rises to the level of actual anti-Semitism. That disturbing pattern is set forth in detail in a July 9 <a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/documents/campus_climate_jewish.pdf">report</a> compiled by the UC Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion created in 2010 by UC President Mark Yudof. The report concludes that UC campuses play host to a</p>
<blockquote><p>“movement which targets Israel and Zionism through an ongoing campaign of protests, anti-Israel/anti-Zionism ‘weeks,’ and, on some campuses, the use of the academic platforms to denounce the Jewish state and Jewish nationalist aspiration.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Those findings are deeply troubling, and if they have not received the media coverage they deserve it is mostly because they have been overshadowed by another part of the advisory council’s report – namely, it’s no less troubling recommendation that “UC should adopt a hate speech-free campus policy” as a way to silence the speech that dismays so many Jewish students supportive of Israel.</p>
<p>Thus, the report’s authors lament that “UC does not have a hate-free policy that allows the campus to prevent well-known bigoted and hate organizations from speaking on campus” and insists that “UC should push its current harassment and nondiscrimination provisions further, clearly define hate speech in its guidelines, and seek opportunities to prohibit hate speech on campus.” To that end, the council calls on President Yudof to task his general counsel with finding “opportunities to develop policies that give campus administrators authority to prohibit such activities on campus.” Most brazenly, the council notes that while banning speech on campus would likely provoke a legal challenge, it suggests “that UC accept the challenge” and adopt such policies anyway.</p>
<p>The council is right to worry about the legal implications of outlawing hate speech. Banning speech &#8212; even extremely offensive speech &#8212; is clearly illegal and has long been recognized as such by the courts. That is especially true in the context of academia, which has been seen as a preserve of free expression. The council’s call for bans on anti-Israel hate speech is thus an invitation to violate the constitutional right to free speech in the name of campus sensitivity. “The First Amendment guarantees that Americans have the right to engage in speech and this includes speech that others might deem hateful,” notes Robert Shibley of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). “There is abundant legal precedent for this proposition and what this report seems to recommend flies right in its face.”</p>
<p>If there were compelling reasons for running roughshod over the First Amendment, the council fails to cite them. It asserts that students should be protected from “harassment and intimidation” but never explains why this cannot be accomplished by the university&#8217;s current policies on student conduct and discipline or why free speech should be sacrificed in the process.</p>
<p>The issue might be more complicated were the anti-Israel speech that students find offensive accompanied by physical threats but the council concedes that this is not at all the case, and in fact notes that “not one Jewish student indicated that they perceive the Jewish student community as physically unsafe at UC.”  On the rare occasions when attacks on Israel have gone beyond permissible free speech, universities have punished the conduct. In 2010, for instance, 11 students <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w96UR79TBw">shouted down a speech</a> by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine. That was a <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/censorship-at-uc-irvine-3/">shameful incident</a> and the school brought appropriate punishment against the offending students: Ten of the students were convicted on misdemeanor charges for civil disturbance and sentenced to three years of informal probation. In light of this precedent, it is perhaps not surprising that the best the council can do to justify a ban on speech is to allude to some unspecified “complex dynamics” of the student &#8220;experience&#8221; that ostensibly justify such a ban. More should be required to trump free speech, however objectionable the ideas it expresses.</p>
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		<title>Green Profiteers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/green-profiteers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=green-profiteers</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/green-profiteers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:35:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmental defense fund]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmental lawsuits]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equal access to justice act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[natural resources defense council]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the new leviathan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[winter vs. nrdc]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=139657</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Left-wing environmental groups are raking in millions in taxpayer dollars from the government agencies they sue. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/lawsuit6.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-139661" title="lawsuit[6]" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/lawsuit6-300x239.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="239" /></a>This article originally <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/03/biting-the-hand-that-feeds-them/">appeared</a> in the <em><a href="http://dailycaller.com/">Daily Caller</a>.</em> </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>While the economy limps along, one industry is thriving: Environmental lawsuits against the federal government are moving ahead at a steady pace — and taxpayers are picking up the tab for the expensive litigation.</p>
<p>Fox News <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/08/environmental-groups-paid-millions-by-federal-agencies-sue-studies-show/#ixzz227bKrvwr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reported </a>last week that left-wing environmental groups are using a little-known 1980 law called the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) to sue the federal government on a wide range of fronts and then collect millions of dollars in legal fees from the very federal agencies they are suing. Not only that but, according to a <a href="http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-417R" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recent study</a> by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the government is not even tracking in any organized fashion how much it’s paying out to these groups. For example, only 10 of 75 agencies with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior could provide the GAO with data on attorney fee reimbursements. The government agencies that do keep track of their attorney fee reimbursements signed some $44.4 million worth of checks between 2001 and 2010.</p>
<p>Still, we have some clues about the amounts at stake. In an August 2011 study, the GAO reported that between 2003 and 2010, the Treasury Department paid <a href="http://www.perc.org/articles/article1436.php?view=print" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">$14.2 million in attorneys’ fees</a> just to those plaintiffs suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That means that the total for all federal agencies is in the tens of millions of dollars every year. EAJA thus serves as a hugely expensive vehicle of collusion between the government and environmental groups to advance the environmental movement’s political agenda on the taxpayer’s dime.</p>
<p>Ironically, the legislation that is now being exploited by powerful environmental groups seeking government payouts was initially intended to help small businesses fend off the burden of big government. In 1980, facing a chorus of complaints from the business community that government regulations were squeezing their profits, as well as an opponent in Ronald Reagan who promised to dramatically cut the government’s role in the economy, Jimmy Carter launched a panicked effort to reduce the regulatory imposition on small firms. Parallel to that effort, Congress passed several pieces of legislation designed to make it easier for small businesses to challenge the government. One was the EAJA, which ordered federal agencies to pay the legal costs of firms that successfully challenged their rulings.</p>
<p>The act’s original purpose was sound and indeed admirable. Small businesses and private citizens that might be deterred from bringing suit by the prospect of facing off against a phalanx of government lawyers would now have a legal incentive to forge ahead with their challenges. But the EAJA’s provisions were also extended to cover 501(c)(3) nonprofits, including environmental groups. Before long, some of the country’s most powerful environmental law firms were availing themselves of the EAJA to force the government to bend to their political agenda and pay their legal fees — sometimes as much as $750 an hour — in the process. The result was a gross perversion of the political process, paid for by the unknowing American public.</p>
<p>Consider one group that has sued the government under the aegis of the EAJA, the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/nrdcactivitiesand.html">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> (NRDC). With $88 million in annual revenue and $181 million in net assets, the NRDC can hardly be seen as a stand-in for the little guy. In fact, the group is so politically powerful that it styles itself as the “shadow EPA.” But that hasn’t stopped the NRDC from collecting government reimbursement for its litigious activities. In 2008, for instance, the NRDC filed suit to get the U.S. Navy to suspend use of mid-frequency active sonar during its training exercises, which the group claimed had a possible, if unproven, deafening effect on whales. The suit reached as high as the Supreme Court, which rejected the NRDC’s arguments in the case of <em><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/13/nation/na-scotus13" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Winter vs. NRDC</a></em>, ruling that the evidence of environmental damage was dubious at best and that the nation’s security outweighs the need to protect whales from high-powered sonar.</p>
<p>That wasn’t the end of the matter, however. Notwithstanding that it is not at all the kind of small plaintiff that the act was originally intended to protect, the NRDC appealed to a district court under the EAJA for fees and costs for the work done by its outside attorneys. Claiming that its lawyers had specialized knowledge and had worked under time pressure to file their suit, the group also demanded a higher rate of compensation than the standard hourly fees provided by the EAJA. In other words, the NRDC contended that the government was not paying its lawyers enough to file suit against it. The NRDC was eventually <a href="http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2008/09/15/0755294.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">awarded</a> most of the reimbursement it sought.</p>
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		<title>Remembering a Cuban Dissident</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/remembering-a-cuban-dissident/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=remembering-a-cuban-dissident</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/remembering-a-cuban-dissident/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:24:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cuba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dissident]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fidel Castro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oswaldo Payá]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[varela project]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=138813</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Oswaldo Payá gave his life for the cause of a free Cuba. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Oswaldo-Paya-382px.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-138815" title="Oswaldo-Paya-382px" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Oswaldo-Paya-382px-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>As Cuba’s leading political dissident, Oswaldo Payá knew what it meant to live dangerously. He had spent time in Castro’s jails, where so many charged with “counterrevolutionary activities” had perished. Death threats were not unusual. There was the time that one of his relatives had received a menacing phone call. The voice on the end of the line said: “We are with a revolutionary group and we are going to kill Oswaldo Payá.” Always there was the terrible awareness that if the government wanted to kill you, it could.</p>
<p>Whether it finally succeeded in Payá&#8217;s case is not completely clear. The official line of the Cuban government is that Payá was killed last weekend in an accidental car crash near the Cuban city of Bayamo. In the government&#8217;s account, Payá’s car hit a tree, killing him and another passenger. This version of events has been directly challenged by Payá’s daughter, Rosa Maria Payá. She says she received information from witnesses that her father’s car was repeatedly rammed by another car. “There was a car trying to take them off the road, crashing into them at every moment. So we think it’s not an accident,’’ she <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/22/2907342/oswaldo-paya-well-known-cuban.html">told</a> CNN en Español. “They wanted to do harm and they ended up killing my father.”</p>
<p>Payá’s death remains under investigation, but, Cuba being Cuba, it’s hard to imagine that the resulting findings will cast doubt on the government’s story. Already, the police officer who was at the crash site has dismissed speculation that Payá was murdered because, as he put it, “<a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/26/2912647/cuban-police-told-paya-widow.html">the revolution does not assassinate anyone</a>.” It’s a surreal claim to make about a government that has killed tens of thousands, not including nearly 80,000 who have died while trying to flee Castro’s tyranny. But then, in Cuba, the truth is what the government says it is.</p>
<p>Oswaldo Payá, a devout Catholic, was not a believer in that truth. Like many political dissidents, he had a lifelong rebellious streak. The story goes that when Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Payá, then all of seven years old, was the only child in his Havana primary school who refused to become a member of the Communist Youth.  As a teenager, he protested the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. At a time when Fidel Castro had given his blessing for the Soviet effort to “save” socialism at gunpoint, this was no small act of defiance. Payá paid the price with his freedom, and in 1968 he was sent for three years to the Isle of Pines, a forced labor camp that claimed the lives of countless Cubans. Perhaps Payá’s greatest act of protest was his refusal to leave Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, when as many as 125,000 Cubans took advantage of a brief opening in immigration policy to escape Cuba for freedom in Florida. His reasoning was simple and brave: Cuba needed people who would stay behind and fight for it.</p>
<p>Payá did just that, most notably through the Christian Liberation Movement he founded. As the name suggested, the movement’s goal was ambitious: the liberation of Cuba and the restoration of human rights for the Cuban people. But having seen what the Cuban revolution achieved Payá did not believe in the violent overthrow of the government. His movement would be non-violent and organized at the grassroots. It wasn&#8217;t long before it became one of the largest opposition movements in Cuba, earning comparisons to the anti-communist Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa in Poland. For Payá, it represented something bigger still: the ultimate “duel between power and spirit in Cuba.”</p>
<p>Though Payá did not believe in revolution, in 2002 he managed to bring about a major political coup. It began in 1996, when he launched a petition drive he called the Varela Project. The goal was to gather 11,000 signatures in support of a petition calling for democracy, free elections and basic rights like freedom of speech and association, as well as the release of political prisoners. Democratic initiatives were not recognized by the government, but a small loophole was presented by a 1976 article added to the Cuban constitution. It stipulated that any petition that garnered more than 10,000 signatures would have to be discussed in the Cuban National Assembly. Payá made his life’s work to achieve the 10,000-signature mark.</p>
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		<title>America’s New Gun Control Consensus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/america%e2%80%99s-new-gun-control-consensus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=america%25e2%2580%2599s-new-gun-control-consensus</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/america%e2%80%99s-new-gun-control-consensus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jul 2012 04:55:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aurora]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crime rates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[firearms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gun Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[James Holmes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Second Amendment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=138514</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why leading Democrats aren't pushing for new gun restrictions in the aftermath of Aurora. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/gun.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-138515" title="gun" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/gun-300x245.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="245" /></a>Much to the chagrin of gun-control proponents, the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shootings have not triggered a new political push for stricter regulation of the right to bear arms.</p>
<p>Both President Obama and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, reaffirmed their support for gun rights in the aftermath of the shootings and declined to back new gun control measures. On the contrary, Obama spokesman Jay Carney stressed that the president would “protect Second Amendment rights.” While the call for stricter gun control did go up from predictable sources like <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/07/20/ebert-our-gun-laws-are-insane.html">liberal columnists</a> and New York Mayor <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/hizzoner_striking_idea_for_police_OqzoiT1wjZqr4eTSN7zpzI">Michael Bloomberg</a>, the media mostly restrained the impulse to endorse new restrictions on firearms.</p>
<p>Democrats and anti-gun activists wasted little time assigning blame for the dearth of enthusiasm for gun control to that familiar boogeyman, the <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-25/nra-muscle-chills-gun-control-talk-after-shootings">National Rifle Association</a>. Thus, New York’s Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer <a href="http://www.kvia.com/news/elections/Hill-Democrats-look-to-silent-majority-on-gun-control/-/390782/15676100/-/abmfi1/-/index.html">lamented</a> what he called the “power of the NRA” in stifling political support for gun control, while in neighboring New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez complained that the NRA was using its “money” and “resources” to “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57479010-503544/democrats-we-cant-let-the-nra-stop-us/">oppose all reasonable gun legislation</a>” and to drive the national debate in its favor.</p>
<p>However one measures the political clout of the NRA, the organization simply is not powerful enough to transform American public opinion in the manner that Democrats suggest. Indeed, their argument has it backward: To the extent that the NRA’s skepticism about gun control is influential in American politics it is because it mostly reflects a gradual decline in support for gun control among the American public. Polls <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/07/23/gun-control-polls.html">bear this out</a>. A 1991 Gallup poll found that 78 percent of Americans supported stricter laws on the sale of firearms. By 2011, public support for gun control had eroded, with just 43 percent favoring stricter gun control. Americans still have their political hobbyhorses, but by and large <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/07/23/gun-control-polls.html">gun control is not one of them</a>.</p>
<p>Several factors explain gun control’s plummeting popularity. For one thing, much of current gun control legislation was enacted into law on the dubious premise that a reduced availability of legal firearms would curtail violent crime. Yet, as the economist John Lott has long <a href="http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/0226493636">argued</a>, the correlation between guns and crime is statistically shaky. Crime rates have fallen in the United States for several decades even as rates of gun ownership have increased. Washington D.C., which until recently had one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, also has some of the highest rates of crime in the nation. In fact, crime rates shot up after the city’s ban on handguns went into effect in 1976. The United States is not the only country to illustrate the paradox of more guns and less crime. Countries like Israel and Switzerland have comparatively lax gun control regimes, yet their homicide rates are roughly comparable to those of the UK and Japan, which have strict gun control policies.</p>
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		<title>Putin vs. the Punks</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-vs-the-punks/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=putin-vs-the-punks</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-vs-the-punks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jul 2012 04:23:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[punk rock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pussy riot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Putin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=138259</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An all-female punk band languishes in Russia's prison system for criticizing the thugocrat in charge. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/pussyriot.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-138261" title="pussyriot" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/pussyriot-300x252.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="252" /></a>The past year has seen an inspired stirring of political opposition in Russia, as thousands of young and middle-class Russians have poured out onto the streets to protest the country&#8217;s regressive slide into authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin. For sheer novelty and provocation, however, no protest action quite matched the spectacle that took place this past February, when the members of all-female punk rock band Pussy Riot commandeered the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral and, clad in multicolored balaclava masks, proceeded to belt out a protest song titled “Virgin Mary, Redeem Us of Putin.” (A YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY">video</a> of the impromptu performance shows security guards vainly trying to corral the air-kicking punk rockers while puzzled parishioners look on.)</p>
<p>An increasingly rare piece of political blasphemy, the song assailed the Russian Orthodox Church for its uncomfortably close ties to the Russian president. That subservience was exemplified by the Church patriarch’s devout assessment prior to the presidential election this spring that Putin’s democracy-trampling 12-year rule represented nothing less than a &#8220;<a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/uk-russia-putin-religion-idUKTRE81722Y20120208">miracle of God</a>.” In mocking the Church, Pussy Riot’s lyrics proclaimed that the “<a href="http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/30/punk-continues-to-be-punker-outside-the">head of the KGB is their chief saint</a>.”</p>
<p>The church was not amused, the Russian <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/russian-riot-grrrls-jailed-for-punk-prayer/">government even less so</a>. After their performance, the three members of Pussy Riot were arrested and charged with “hooliganism.” That was in March. Since then, they have been held without trial in extended custody. Last Friday, their detention was extended by another six months until next January. If the band members are found guilty, they could be imprisoned for seven years.</p>
<p>While the government response is undoubtedly excessive, it also seems calculated. The message seems to be that such limited license as the government was prepared to extend to opposition and protest views has now been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/world/europe/russias-prosecution-of-punk-band-signals-a-shift.html">totally revoked</a>. Plainly discomfited by this winter’s mass anti-government protests, the powers that be have decided that enough is enough. Thus, Putin marked his swearing-in ceremony in Moscow this May with a citywide <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-is-back-with-a-vengeance/">crackdown on demonstrators</a> in which some 400 were arrested. Some reports suggested that young demonstrators were issued military draft notices in reprisal. The trumped-up prosecution of Pussy Riot is only the latest sign that the government is taking a zero-tolerance approach to political dissent.</p>
<p>On the legal front, too, there is a burgeoning government effort to outlaw opposition. Last month, the Russian legislature, dominated by Putin’s United Russia party, passed a law that would impose <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/world/europe/putin-signs-law-with-harsh-fines-for-protesters-in-russia.html">ruinous fines</a> of up to $9,300 for those who participate in unsanctioned demonstrations and double that for protest organizers. Since few Russians could afford to pay such penalties, and since the government is not eager to sanction opposition protests, the law amounted to a de facto ban on opposition protests and demonstrations.</p>
<p>And the government was just getting started. Last week it passed a raft of new and <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21559362?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/if_you_can_t_suppress_them_squeeze_them">vaguely worded laws</a> whose overall effect would be to undermine criticism of the government officials. Among the laws was one criminalizing libel that included a <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/16/russia-criminal-libel-law-blow-free-expression">special provision</a> for libel &#8220;against judges, jurors, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials,&#8221; &#8212; in short, those responsible for upholding the country&#8217;s corrupt security state. Another law would create a <a href="http://www.cpj.org/internet/2012/07/internet-bill-highlights-russias-divergence-on-hum.php">blacklist of websites</a> that all Russian Internet search engines would have to block. The government claimed that such a blacklist was intended to protect children from harmful content, but given the virtually limitless discretion to decide which websites qualify as harmful it is easy to see how the notoriously censorship-prone Russian authorities could use the law to quash disfavored speech. Each of the laws, in short, is ripe for abuse, and that seems to be the point: Having concluded that it can&#8217;t suppress all opposition openly, the government wants to force critics into silence.</p>
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		<title>In Defense of Outsourcing</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/in-defense-of-outsourcing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=in-defense-of-outsourcing</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:35:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comparative advantage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[manufacturing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[outsourcing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=137941</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What neither presidential candidate has the political courage to say.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/china-factory-workers.gi_.top_.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-137947" title="china-factory-workers.gi.top" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/china-factory-workers.gi_.top_-300x193.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="193" /></a>One of the less edifying features of the presidential campaign season has been the contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to define the other as the true “<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0711/Who-s-the-real-outsourcer-in-chief-Why-Obama-Romney-both-shoulder-blame">outsourcer-in-chief</a>.” Party surrogates have also gotten in on the action, with the result that outsourcing has become a political hot potato. That’s unfortunate because obscured by the thicket of bipartisan demagoguery is the fact that outsourcing, while not without its drawbacks, is a net positive for the U.S. economy that deserves to be defended on its merits.</p>
<p>At the most basic level, outsourcing is form of trade. It produces economic gains by maximizing what the economist David Ricardo termed “<a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/ComparativeAdvantage.html">comparative advantage</a>.” The idea is simple: By outsourcing low-skilled jobs abroad – for instance customer service, data entry, or labor-intensive manufacturing – companies can obtain products and services at a lower cost than if they had tried to create or perform them. That allows companies to increase efficiency and productivity, creating an overall benefit to the economy. Meanwhile, the lower costs of less expensively produced services and goods are passed on to consumers. In short, all parties benefit.</p>
<p>The biggest economic benefit may be efficiency. Outsourcing allows companies to perform functions that that they either can’t do or can’t do in a cost-effective way. Few firms waste precious time and resources doing their own taxes when they can outsource the task to professional accountants. That’s good for the company, which doesn’t have to waste resources on the service, for the accounting firm that gets the business, and for the firms’ clients, who won’t have to pay the added cost of the service.</p>
<p>Domestically, this idea is not controversial. Companies outsource within the country all the time. Politics enters into only when outsourcing is directed overseas. It’s not obviously clear why that should be. By allocating resources more efficiently, outsourcing makes social and economic progress possible.</p>
<p>Consider computers. During the 1990s, computer hardware was outsourced abroad. In the short term, that caused pain for U.S. manufacturers. Between 1985 and 2005, 125,000 jobs were lost in the computer hardware industry. But outsourcing caused prices on computers to drop by 10 to 20 percent, making computers more affordable. As computers became more common, productivity and economic activity surged. Economists estimate that outsourced computer hardware boosted productivity by 2.5-2.8 percent between 1995 and 2002, driving an Internet and technology boom and adding $230 billion to total U.S. output. On balance, outsourcing computer hardware proved a huge boon to the U.S.</p>
<p>That’s not to deny that outsourcing has downsides. As with computer hardware, shipping jobs overseas leads to job losses in some industries. It can be a painful and disruptive process for workers who lose their jobs, and that should not be glossed over. But neither should it be ignored that many of these outsourced jobs or industries would not be sustainable for the long term. Think of the horse shoers, or milk delivery men, or typewriter repair shops that were replaced as new and improved technology came into use. Similarly, outsourcing enables companies to re-invest their profits in new products and services, as well as new and more sustainable jobs. At the same time, outsourcing fuels affluence abroad, opening new markets for American-made goods. In this context, it’s not surprising that economists believe outsourcing strengthens rather than weakens the U.S. economy.</p>
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		<title>The Business That Government Built</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-business-that-government-built/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-business-that-government-built</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-business-that-government-built/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 04:45:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[regulations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Small Business]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=137801</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Obama thinks that government deserves the credit for small businesses' success. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/100927_obama_small_business_owner_ap_392_regular.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-137802" title="100927_obama_small_business_owner_ap_392_regular" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/100927_obama_small_business_owner_ap_392_regular-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>Like most office seekers, President Obama has been relentless in professing his support for small businesses, which he calls the “<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/13/small-businesses-backbone-americas-economy">backbone of America’s economy</a>.” So it was revealing when the president went off-script in Roanoke, Va., recently and announced that to the extent that businesses succeeded in the marketplace, the credit belonged elsewhere.</p>
<p>“If you’ve got a business &#8212; you didn’t build that,&#8221; Obama explained. &#8220;Somebody else made that happen.&#8221; He went on to lecture entrepreneurs that “you didn’t get there on your own &#8230; somebody along the line gave you some help.” As to who that &#8220;somebody&#8221; was, the president&#8217;s emphasis on government funding for roads, bridges and the Internet spoke volumes. Even as he confined himself to praising the “unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive,” it was patently clear that Obama’s conception of entrepreneurial success was predicated at least in part on the benevolent hand of government.</p>
<p>On one level, the president’s comment is unobjectionable. It is doubtless true that government funding for transportation infrastructure has made it easier to do business in America, though that ignores the obvious corollary that taxpayers, including business owners, financed it. But on another level, the president’s insight is remarkably tone-deaf, ignoring both the tremendous personal sacrifices of time and money that small business owners and entrepreneurs make to start and sustain their ventures, and the considerable hurdles that the government erects to their success.</p>
<p>Though it might surprise the president, many successful small business owners did &#8220;make that happen.&#8221; To do so, they made an investment of time, financial resources and intellectual capital that was both tremendous and unaided by government assistance. They incurred massive amounts of debt. They took out second mortgages or borrowed money from their retirement accounts. They worked punishing hours to make their businesses profitable. They gave up paychecks in order to pay their employees. “We hear that narrative a lot from our members,” says Cynthia Magnuson, a spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which represents small businesses.</p>
<p>Their risk has not always brought reward. From January to June of this year, over 30,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy &#8212; a stark reminder of what those who start businesses have to lose, especially when one bears in mind that the numbers represented a significant improvement on recent trends. At a time when capital is scarce – more than two of five small business owners have been <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2833-small-business-capital-access.html">unable to find funding </a>in the last four years when they have needed it – starting a business amounts to a great gamble. One might suppose that the president would want to applaud those who brave the odds and the harsh economic climate to start a business. Instead the president wants to tout the government&#8217;s alleged role in their success.</p>
<p>That role is in any case vastly overstated. Small businesses often succeed despite government, not because of it. A December 2011 survey by the by the NFIB found that 19 percent of respondents cited government “<a href="http://www.nfib.com/research-foundation/surveys/small-business-economic-trends?utm_campaign=SBET&amp;utm_source=Releases&amp;utm_medium=Releases">regulations and red tape</a>” as their biggest business problem – trailing only “poor sales&#8221; and &#8220;high taxes.&#8221; It&#8217;s not hard to see why. If there is one task at which government is unrivaled, it’s creating cumbersome new regulations. Every year some 80,000 pages of new rules and regulations are added to the <em>Federal Register. </em>The Obama administration has been no slouch in this regard, imposing 106 new major regulations, at a cost of $<a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/red-tape-rising-obama-era-regulation-at-the-three-year-mark">46 billion annually</a>.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Latest Soak-the-Rich Scheme</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/obamas-latest-soak-the-rich-scheme/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-latest-soak-the-rich-scheme</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2012 04:40:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=137234</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the president's call for tax hikes will shrink the economy and harm the middle class. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/taxes.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-137237" title="Barack Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/taxes-300x224.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="224" /></a>Bereft of first-term achievements, President Obama has reverted to the one campaign tactic that reliably energizes his partisan Democrat base: assailing the rich. The president’s latest proposal is to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/10/romney-obama-tax-plan-adding-insult-to-injury/">raise taxes</a> on those earning over $250,000 by allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire. This is not exactly new. By some <a href="http://www.speaker.gov/general/broken-record-president-obama-has-called-small-business-tax-hike-more-25-times-year">estimates</a>, this is the 25<sup>th</sup> time that Obama has proposed raising taxes on the “wealthy” – whose ranks include the 750,000 independent and small businesses that are taxed at individual income rates.</p>
<p>Pledging to soak the rich may gratify left-wing partisans, but it’s bad economic policy. Rich people may get rich by generating wealth for themselves, but in the process they generate prosperity for others. For instance, it is mainly the rich who start new businesses and invest in new enterprises. That in turn creates opportunities for others who are not rich. While it&#8217;s fashionable on the left to <a href="http://money.msn.com/politics/post.aspx?post=7985420b-3f64-4c67-ba0f-5c712c64f665">disparage</a> the idea that the wealthy are job creators, that is precisely what they are. In their book<em> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Capitalism-Will-Save-Us/dp/0307463095">How Capitalism Can Save Us</a></em>, authors Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames report: “Entrepreneurship and capital investments by rich people are responsible for businesses that created 1.4 million jobs annually over the last decade.” As it happens, that’s a far better record of job creation than the government spending programs favored by Obama.</p>
<p>One prime example of the rich creating jobs is private equity, which the Obama campaign is now busy demonizing due to Mitt Romney’s past involvement with equity firm Bain Capital. In the Democratic caricature, firms like Bain generate massive returns for their wealthy investors while harming average workers. In reality, these firms generate wealth across income levels. The <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118532670875877067.html">reports</a> that between 1991 and 2006, private equity firms world-wide created more than $430 billion in net value for investors. Those investors included not just rich people but universities, charitable organizations and pension plans that cover tens of millions of Americans. True, profits are the main goal of these firms. But it is indisputable that they also create jobs. One need only look at office-supply empire Staples, which benefited from an <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/jlaksin/blaming-bain/">investment by Bain Capital</a> to grow to 2,000 stores that employ some 90,000 people and generate nearly $25 billion in annual sales. Not bad for an alleged job-killing &#8220;<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/0514/Obama-ad-depicts-Mitt-Romney-as-job-killing-vampire.-Over-the-top-video">vampire</a>.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Transparency Ends at the White House Door</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-power-of-silence/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-power-of-silence</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leaks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mother jones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transparency]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Whistleblowers beware in the Obama era. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/obama-shush.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-136776" title="" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/obama-shush-300x177.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="177" /></a>On his first day in office, President Obama vowed to create “a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America’s citizens.” But the president has not lived up to his transparency rhetoric – and now even the left is taking note.</p>
<p>Liberal magazine <em>Mother Jones</em> <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/07/government-secrecy-costing-even-more-money-these-days">laments</a> this week that the Obama administration spent a record-high $12 billion in 2011 to keep government information classified. Since the process of classifying documents is itself classified, it’s impossible to determine the individual merits of those decisions. But it’s instructive to consider the government’s sweeping classification mandate with Obama’s initial pledge that transparency would be one of the &#8220;<a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-21/politics/obama.business_1_first-lady-michelle-obama-staff-rahm-emanuel-president-obama?_s=PM:POLITICS">touchstones</a>&#8221; of his administration. As he said back in January 2009:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, that it should not be disclosed. That era is now over.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Except, plainly, it’s not. And it’s not just the “American people” who are being denied access to government-related information. The president’s cheerleaders in the establishment media have been similarly rebuffed. In June, that frustration led Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the <em>New York Times </em>&#8211; hardly a right-wing tribune &#8212; to <a href="http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-17/nation/32269811_1_new-york-times-espionage-act-jill-abramson">blast</a> the administration for its hostility to media coverage and its tightfisted control over information, especially on national security. Abramson revealed that<em> Times</em> reporters who had covered national security issues for several decades had confided in her that “the environment has never been tougher or information harder to dislodge. One <em>Times </em>reporter told me, ‘The environment in Washington has never been more hostile to reporting.’” So much for a new era of accountability.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s broken promises on transparency are also evident in the administration’s aggressive pursuit of leakers, on whom journalists rely for scoops and inside information. That may seem unlikely, particularly in light of the recent spate of national security leaks from the administration. But those leaks, highlighting the administration&#8217;s national security successes &#8212; such as the drone program and the foiling of a terror plot through an audacious undercover operation &#8212; have largely served to bolster the administration&#8217;s public image. By contrast, the administration has come down hard on leakers it sees as damaging to its cause. In its first term, the administration has launched six prosecutions involving such whistleblowers &#8211; double the number under all previous administrations combined. Although most of these whistleblowers have leaked information to the media rather than to a foreign government, it speaks to the severity of the administration’s position on leaks that it has gone after them under the 1917 Espionage Act. The message is clear: Transparency ends at the White House door.</p>
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		<title>Smearing Michael McFaul</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/smearing-michael-mcfaul/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=smearing-michael-mcfaul</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/smearing-michael-mcfaul/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:35:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-American propaganda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kremlin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael McFaul]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Putin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vladimir]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=133634</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Russian government launches a crude propaganda campaign against the American ambassador and architect of Obama's "reset" policy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Mike-McFaul_full_600.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-133637" title="Mike-McFaul_full_600" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Mike-McFaul_full_600-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>You might not guess it from its ruthless suppression of dissent and its crushing of Russian democracy, but the Russian government is a delicate creature. As a case in point, two top Russian officials this week <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303395604577434510079534588.html">denounced</a> the American ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, for supposedly violating diplomatic etiquette in some recent remarks he delivered.</p>
<p>Professing offense on the government’s behalf, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov claimed that McFaul was sowing “discord” in the U.S.-Russian relationship. Ushakov cautioned that McFaul “should not try to be undiplomatic.” Next it was the turn of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which took to Twitter to pronounce itself “utterly shocked” at McFaul’s remarks, insisting that they were “far beyond the boundaries of diplomatic etiquette.&#8221;</p>
<p>So, what awful slander against the Russian state did McFaul utter? As it turns out, not much of one. In a lecture last Friday to the Higher School of Economics, McFaul said that in 2009 Russia had &#8220;put a big bribe on the table&#8221; to get the government of Kyrgyzstan to evict the U.S. from an airbase that it had leased to support military operations in Afghanistan. For a corruption-steeped government that routinely rigs elections, the suggestion that Russia may have paid a bribe was apparently beyond the pale.</p>
<p>Blunt phrasing aside, it&#8217;s not clear why the statement should have elicited a government uproar. McFaul’s statement was patently true and well known to be so. The “bribe” in question was a reference to the $2 billion Russian loan that served as a not-so-subtle payoff to Kyrgyzstan’s former dictator, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who in return promised to shutter the U.S. base. But then the United States offered to triple its rent for the base – also technically a “bribe,” as McFaul acknowledged in his remarks, though on a smaller scale – and Bakiyev agreed.</p>
<p>It might be taken as a diplomatic gesture that McFaul did not go on to tell the remainder of the story, which arguably reflects even worse on Russia. After the U.S. upped its rent, Bakiyev reneged on his promise to Moscow. Deciding that it had been cheated, Russia proceeded to retaliate by fomenting a revolution inside Kyrgyzstan. To that end, Russian state media launched a full-on propaganda assault against Bakiyev, likening the client-state autocrat to a brutal dictator in the Genghis Khan mode (something that had not prevented Russia from cosseting him when it was convenient). As further punishment for Bakiyev’s perfidy, the Russian government threatened to expel the one million Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia. Most decisively, Moscow cancelled subsidies for energy exports to Kyrgyzstan. The resulting surge in energy prices <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103827.html">sparked street protests</a> that ultimately forced Bakiyev to flee the country in 2010.</p>
<p>While it&#8217;s hard to despair for the deposed regime, the episode was a prime example of what passes for diplomacy in Russia; the idea that the Russian government is in a position to be lecturing anyone about proper diplomatic conduct is hard to credit. But what makes the government’s faux-outrage at McFaul this week particularly preposterous is that for months the Kremlin has been waging a vicious and deliberately orchestrated smear campaign against the ambassador and the U.S. generally that makes a farce of its appeals to diplomatic politesse.</p>
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		<title>The Trials of Cory Booker</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-trials-of-cory-booker/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-trials-of-cory-booker</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/the-trials-of-cory-booker/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 May 2012 04:46:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bain Capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cory Booker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negative campaigning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[private equity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=132811</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Newark's Democratic mayor comes under attack for telling the truth about Obama’s anti-capitalist reelection campaign. 
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/booker-.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-132813" title="booker" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/booker--300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>Poor Cory Booker. The Newark, New Jersey, mayor and rising Democratic Party star has run afoul of the law of gaffes, coined by the journalist Michael Kinsley. The law holds that a gaffe occurs when a politician accidentally tells the truth.</p>
<p>Booker did exactly that during an appearance this Sunday on “Meet the Press” in which he rebuked the Obama campaign for its ongoing efforts to attack Mitt Romney by targeting his experience working at private equity firm Bain Capital. Ads condemning Bain have become the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/16/obamas-bain-blame-game/">centerpiece of Obama’s campaign</a>, but Booker<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47494192/ns/meet_th%E2%80%A6"> would have none of it</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“I have to just say, from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Booker went on to add that the attacks on private equity were “nauseating.&#8221; If that wasn&#8217;t embarrassing enough for the White House, Booker likened the anti-Bain smear campaign to conservatives&#8217; attacks on Obama’s incendiary pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright – that is, a diversion that had no place in the presidential race.</p>
<p>For the Obama campaign and its left-wing surrogates, this was too much to stomach. Reprisal came fast and furious. First to lash out against Booker was Obama’s chief political strategist David Axelrod, who <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/david-axelrod-scolds-cory-booker-on-bain-capital/2012/05/21/gIQAQbJwfU_blog.html">scolded</a> that Booker had been “wrong” to make his remarks and added that the attacks on Bain were justified because “there are specific instances here that speak to an economic theory that isn’t the right economic theory for the country.” Axelrod didn’t specify which theory he had in mind, but presumably he was referring to the administration’s strained attempts to cast Romney as a corporate raider who left gutted companies and pink-slipped workers in his wake – even if it means distorting <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/16/obamas-bain-blame-game/">Romney&#8217;s actual record</a> at Bain, and the whole purpose of private equity investment, to the point of caricature. Obama-friendly media also piled on, with Chris Matthews <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/matthews-charges-booker-with-sabotage-betrayal-124145.html">condemning</a> Booker’s candor as a “an act of sabotage” and a “betrayal of Obama.” So intense was the blowback that MSNBC pundit Joe Scarborough <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/22/scarborough-cory-booker-fighting-for-his-political-life/">speculated</a> that Booker was now “fighting for his political life.”</p>
<p>While that may have been overstating it, Booker was clearly feeling the heat. After being raked over the coals by the Obama campaign all day Sunday, he released a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsdD3AvSgVQ&amp;feature=youtu.be">four-minute video clip</a> at the end of the day expiating for his crime think on Bain. Gone was his earlier rebuke against attacking capitalism and private equity. Now Booker insisted that he had been misunderstood and that, actually, it was “reasonable” for the campaign to target Romney’s business record. All he had meant to say, Booker explained, was that he was against negative campaigning in the presidential race. That explanation made little sense, inasmuch as the attacks on Romney’s record at Bain were part of a negative campaign by Obama, but it signaled that the upstart politician had been brought to heel by the administration.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Bain Blame Game</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/obamas-bain-blame-game/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-bain-blame-game</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/obamas-bain-blame-game/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2012 04:55:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bain Capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GST Steel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[private equity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=132098</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president resurrects a failed anti-capitalist trope. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Romney-Bain-Capital.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-132100" title="Romney-Bain-Capital" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Romney-Bain-Capital-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" /></a>Given his <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/09/video-perry-implodes/">underwhelming performance</a> in the Republican primary, Texas Gov. Rick Perry would seem an unlikely model for a presidential campaign. Yet the Obama administration is taking a page out of Perry’s hastily retired strategy book by going on the attack against presumptive challenger Mitt Romney for his record at Bain Capital, the venture capital firm Romney co-founded and once headed.</p>
<p>That now-famous mental block apart, Perry&#8217;s most notable contribution during his brief time in the running was to target Romney&#8217;s tenure at Bain. In a series of ill-fated snipes, Perry <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/perry-likens-romneys-bain-capital-to-vultures/">condemned</a> venture capital firms like Bain as “vultures” who wait for companies to “get sick and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass. They leave with that and they leave the skeleton.” The populist line earned Perry some deserved scorn from critics, who pointed out that venture capital takeovers of the kind Bain specialized in frequently offered <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/15/blaming-bain/">a lifeline to moribund companies</a> that would have gone out of business absent outside investment.</p>
<p>If Perry’s untimely political demise serves as an object lesson about the perils of crude populism and anti-capitalist demagoguery, the Obama administration seems determined to ignore it. This week, the Obama reelection campaign unrolled a television ad to run in five swing states that essentially recycles Perry&#8217;s attacks on Romney and Bain. The ad, called “<a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/05/15/campaign-ad-watch-obama-steel-commercial.html">Steel</a>,” features interviews with former employees at GST Steel, a Kansas City, Missouri, steel mill that was taken over by Bain in the 1990s and filed for bankruptcy in 2001. The employees in the ad unanimously condemn Romney and Bain for causing job losses at the mill. &#8220;It was like a vampire,&#8221; one worker laments, referring to Bain. &#8220;They came in and sucked the life out of us.&#8221; Rick Perry would have approved.</p>
<p>Whether voters will is far from certain. Among other flaws, the ad is in desperate need of fact checking. For instance, the ad suggests that Romney was in charge when GST Steel filed for bankruptcy, when in fact he had left Bain two years earlier, in 1999, to oversee the Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. That&#8217;s not to say that no one in Bain’s leadership from the time is relevant to the election. The current managing director and chief investment officer at Bain is one <a href="http://www.baincapital.com/Team/Default.aspx?viewType=ByAlpha">Jonathan Lavine</a>, who joined Bain in 1993. But Lavine has another distinction, as well: According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks federal campaign contributions, Lavine is a leading <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/bundlers.php">bundler</a> of campaign contributions for Obama’s campaign and has raised between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama’s reelection effort. Conveniently, the &#8220;Steel&#8221; ad omits that detail.</p>
<p>The bigger flaw in the ad is the false premise that Bain was primarily responsible for the job losses at GST Steel. Obama’s ad makes the charge directly, through a negotiator for the workers at GST Steel who says, &#8220;Bain Capital was the majority owner. They were responsible.” That might be a damning criticism if it were true, but it isn&#8217;t. The fact is that GST Steel was already going out of business, which is why it was taken over by Bain in the first place. At worst, Bain delayed the mill&#8217;s day of reckoning.</p>
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		<title>Wisconsin Recall Sputters</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/wisconsin-recall-sputters/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=wisconsin-recall-sputters</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/wisconsin-recall-sputters/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2012 04:50:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collective bargaining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Scott Walker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tom Barrett]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wisconsin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131475</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Democrats reject a union-friendly candidate as the left’s anti-Walker campaign runs out of gas.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/3f527f1b9c62192a153c958283581c66.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-131476" title="3f527f1b9c62192a153c958283581c66" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/3f527f1b9c62192a153c958283581c66.jpg" alt="" width="271" height="203" /></a>That sound you hear may be the sputtering of Wisconsin Democrats and public-sector unions’ campaign to oust Republican Gov. Scott Walker. On Tuesday, Democrats went to the polls to choose a candidate to square off against Walker in next month’s recall election. But the union-led opposition’s hopes that the standard bearer would be a Big Labor darling were dashed with the election of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, rather than the unions&#8217; preferred candidate, Democratic operative Kathleen Falk. Falk&#8217;s defeat marks only the latest setback for a recall campaign that is increasingly running out of steam.</p>
<p>The differences between Barrett and Falk are small but politically significant. Though they both pledged to eliminate Walker&#8217;s restrictions on collective bargaining for most state workers, they disagreed on the methods. Falk took the more union-friendly approach, assuring her supporters that she would veto any budget that didn’t restore collective bargaining. That promise earned her the endorsements of the state’s leading public-sector unions, including the <a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/wisconsin-afl-cio-endorses-kathleen-falk-for-governor">state chapter of the AFL-CIO</a> and the <a href="http://www.weac.org/news_and_publications/12-02-08/WEAC_recommends_Kathleen_Falk_for_governor.aspx">Wisconsin Education Association Council</a>, the state’s biggest teachers union.</p>
<p>Barrett refused to go as far as Falk. While he is also committed to restoring collective bargaining, he has said that he would do so by introducing the issue in a special legislative session. The latter is particularly unattractive to unions because it would require Republican support for the legislation. Barrett’s victory in the Tuesday primary means the unions’ dreams of restoring collective bargaining through gubernatorial fiat have been shattered.</p>
<p>Yet another setback for the unions is that their efforts to turn the recall into a referendum on collective bargaining appear to have failed. While union activists and organizers still see collective bargaining as the dominant recall issue, Wisconsin&#8217;s voters, among them many Democratic primary voters, disagree. Polling of primary voters conducted by Marquette University found that over half of those who voted in Tuesday’s primary favored Barrett’s compromise-seeking approach on collective bargaining over Falk’s and the unions’ demands that it be reinstated without debate. Collective bargaining has also faded as a galvanizing issue. Increasingly, the recall has come to resemble a general election, where the main focus is on standard issues like jobs and unemployment. Doom-saying from Democrats and their union allies notwithstanding, challenging the unions over collective bargaining has not fatally diminished Walker&#8217;s political prospects.</p>
<p>If all this weren&#8217;t bad enough, there are also growing divisions in the state left’s ranks. Those divisions came to the fore this week with news that the Wisconsin Democratic Party was <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/07/1089439/-WTF-Democratic-Party-of-Wisconsin-Cancels-post-primary-Unity-Rally">canceling</a> a “unity rally” this Wednesday in the state capitol to support the winner of the Democratic primary and to bring together Barrett and Falk’s respective supporters. It was not to be. Barrett declined to attend the rally, fueling <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/07/1089439/-WTF-Democratic-Party-of-Wisconsin-Cancels-post-primary-Unity-Rally">rumors</a> that he didn’t want images of him commingling with union organizers to be used against him by Walker. Still others <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/07/1089439/-WTF-Democratic-Party-of-Wisconsin-Cancels-post-primary-Unity-Rally">speculated</a> that the cancelation was a dirty trick by Falk intended to make embarrass Barrett. Whatever the explanation, this was not the kind of infighting that Democrats and unions had anticipated when they made Walker their target.</p>
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		<title>Putin Back with a Vengeance</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-is-back-with-a-vengeance/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=putin-is-back-with-a-vengeance</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/putin-is-back-with-a-vengeance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 May 2012 04:55:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[police crackdown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vladimir Putin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Russian autocrat begins his third term with a new crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/putin-.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-131289" title="putin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/putin--300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>There was something grimly fitting about Vladimir Putin’s swearing-in ceremony this Monday for a new six-year term. While Russia’s president-elect paid tribute to “democracy” and civil society, baton-wielding riot police <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304451104577389581884057806.html">pummeled protestors</a> and rounded up opposition activists on Moscow’s streets.</p>
<p>The rift between rhetoric and reality aptly sums up the legacy of Putin’s rule, which has seen a rapid erosion of democratic government and the rule of law in Russia. Putin’s third term promises more of the same. Even before Putin’s inauguration ceremony began on Monday, Russian police beat up and arrested over <a href="http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/07/11573329-400-protesters-arrested-hours-before-vladimir-putins-return-to-russian-presidency?lite">400 people</a> taking part in anti-government demonstrations. Some of the younger demonstrators were reportedly handed military draft notices upon their arrest.</p>
<p>Police continued the crackdown on Monday, arresting hundreds and clearing the main thoroughfares completely so that Putin’s motorcade could proceed. One Russian blogger posted images of totally <a href="http://makhk.livejournal.com/628857.html">deserted streets</a>, with the sarcastic caption: &#8220;Joyous crowds of Muscovites greet the new cleanly elected president!&#8221; Dissent is alive and well in Russia, as the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/05/06/russia-protest.html">20,000-strong weekend demonstrations</a> suggest, but Putin’s idea of democracy means that those who disagree with the government are neither heard nor seen.</p>
<p>Emptied streets cannot hide the fact that Putin’s new term has not been welcomed, particularly in major urban hubs like Moscow. The prospect of Putin resuming the office that he never really surrendered has proved a galvanizing force in Russia over the past year, awaking a previously dormant middle class, and sparking the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/05/russia%E2%80%99s-democratic-winter/">largest street protests</a> in Russia since the dying days of the Soviet Union. Not powerful enough to prevent Putin’s reelection – largely a formality in Russia’s fraud-plagued elections – the protests have revealed what the state-run media has long managed to suppress: widespread distrust of the political system and popular contempt for Putin.</p>
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