vendredi 30 mai 2014
Jay Carney, porte-parole de la Maison Blanche, quitte ses fonctions
"Carney, 49, said he plans to continue to brief until mid-June, but will not join Obama on his scheduled trip to Europe next week.
Carney worked as a reporter at Time Magazine for two decades before joining the administration as communications director for Vice President Joe Biden. He took the press secretary job in 2011 after longtime Obama adviser Robert Gibbs stepped down from the post.
“It has been an amazing experience, just so fulfilling,” Carney told reporters Friday. “I’m not saying it’s easy every day, but I love it. It’s an important interaction that takes place here…To be a part of it is an honor and a joy for me.”
Carney said he has not yet confirmed another job. “I haven’t made any decisions yet…I’m excited by some of the possibilities,” he said.
During his journalistic career, Carney worked in Moscow for a time. However, on Friday he dismissed talk that he might be named U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Carney, who is married to ABC News contributor Claire Shipman, said the timing of his departure was driven in part by a desire to spend the summer with his children.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/jay-carney-resigns-josh-earnest-replacement-107265.html?hp=t1_s
Obama exerce un leadership adapté au monde d'aujourd'hui (Fareed Zakaria)
"But the world today looks very different — far more peaceful and stable than at any point in decades and, by some measures, centuries. The United States faces no enemy anywhere on the scale of Soviet Russia. Its military spending is about that of the next 14 countries combined, most of which are treaty allies of Washington. The number of democracies around the world has grown by more than 50 percent in the past quarter-century. The countries that recently have been aggressive or acted as Washington’s adversaries are getting significant pushback. Russia has alienated Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Western Europe with its recent aggression, for which the short-term costs have grown and the long-term costs — energy diversification in Europe — have only begun to build. China has scared and angered almost all of its maritime neighbors, with each clamoring for greater U.S. involvement in Asia. Even a regional foe such as Iran has found that the costs of its aggressive foreign policy have mounted. In 2006, Iran’s favorability rating in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia was in the 75 percent to 85 percent range, according to Zogby Research. By 2012, it had fallen to about 30 percent.
In this context, what is needed from Washington is not a heroic exertion of American military power but rather a sustained effort to engage with allies, isolate enemies, support free markets and democratic values and push these positive trends forward. The Obama administration is, in fact, deeply internationalist — building on alliances in Europe and Asia, working with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, isolating adversaries and strengthening the global order that has proved so beneficial to the United States and the world since 1945.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obamas-disciplined-leadership-is-right-for-today/2014/05/29/7b4eb460-e76d-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html?hpid=z2
Scandale des vétérans, le secrétaire Eric Shinseki démissionne
Le scandale aura finalement provoqué le départ de Shinseki. Il était impératif de réagir pour les vétérans, mais également pour limiter les retombées politiques alors que les élections de novembre approchent. Les républicains mordaient vigoureusement dans cet os.
"Shinseki becomes the highest-profile member of the Obama administration to be forced out — a major departure for Obama, who has consistently stuck by aides in crisis. But from the beginning, this one was different: a CNN report revealed efforts to conceal the extent of the backlog processing veteran’s health claims at a facility in Phoenix, casting doubt on the success often touted over the past year by Shinseki and the White House about VA efforts cutting the backlog in half. CNN’s report cited up to 40 veterans’ deaths as attributable to not being seen in time at health facilities, with thousands more left waiting for care while VA officials racked up bonuses by appearing to move cut the backlog.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/barack-obama-to-talk-eric-shinseki-veterans-affairs-va-scandal-live-kelly-ripa-michael-strahan-107245.html?hp=t1
"Shinseki becomes the highest-profile member of the Obama administration to be forced out — a major departure for Obama, who has consistently stuck by aides in crisis. But from the beginning, this one was different: a CNN report revealed efforts to conceal the extent of the backlog processing veteran’s health claims at a facility in Phoenix, casting doubt on the success often touted over the past year by Shinseki and the White House about VA efforts cutting the backlog in half. CNN’s report cited up to 40 veterans’ deaths as attributable to not being seen in time at health facilities, with thousands more left waiting for care while VA officials racked up bonuses by appearing to move cut the backlog.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/barack-obama-to-talk-eric-shinseki-veterans-affairs-va-scandal-live-kelly-ripa-michael-strahan-107245.html?hp=t1
"One nation under drones": la sécurité aérienne à l'ère du drone
"Imagine: you’re on an uneventful final descent into your local metropolitan airport when suddenly the pilot makes a violent lurch to the left. The captain’s voice comes over the loudspeaker with an apology for the turbulence. “Sorry folks,” she says, “all OK up here, but we had to swerve to avoid an 'agricultural drone' that drifted off course from its assigned soy bean fields. We should be clear from here on out.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/longform/one-nation-under-drones
Caricature réseaux sociaux
Puck Yeah! Couverture du New York Post après la victoire des Rangers contres les Canadiens de Montréal.
Hillary Clinton et Benghazi: extrait exclusif de "Hard choices"
"“Those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country,” Clinton writes in the gripping chapter, “Benghazi: Under Attack.”
Casting doubt on the motivations of congressional Republicans who have continued to investigate the attacks, including with an upcoming House select committee, Clinton continues: “I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans. It’s just plain wrong, and it’s unworthy of our great country. Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me.”
The 34-page chapter is Clinton’s most complete account to date of the attack and its aftermath. Her tone is less defensive than defiant: Clinton takes responsibility for the “horror” of the loss of life in Benghazi, but puts it in the context of “the heartbreaking human stakes of every decision we make” — and she accuses adversaries of manipulating a tragedy for partisan gain.
There has been, she writes, a “regrettable amount of misinformation, speculation, and flat-out deceit by some in politics and the media,” but new information from “a number of reputable sources continues to expand our understanding of these events.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/hillary-clintons-benghazi-chapter-107240.html?hp=t1
Caricature hommage aux vétérans et... scandale des listes d'attente secrètes
Caricature évolution du patriote américain: identifiez les différences
Caricature tuerie en Californie: bannir les armes ou les hommes?
Caricature l'école est finie! On fait quoi maintenant?
Caricature NFL et poursuites: des partisans emboîteraient le pas...
jeudi 29 mai 2014
Le mariage gai détruira le parti républicain (POLITICO)
"Although some of the attendees do not share the Conservative Action Project’s anti-gay agenda, most of them do. At the mid-May meeting, they reaffirmed their explicit opposition to same-sex marriage along with opposition to abortion and illegal immigration reform. Tony Perkins, head of the anti-gay Family Research Council, led a panel about restoring the “traditional family” as a Republican Party priority, as if almost universal opposition to gay rights has not been the party’s priority for several decades.
Polling consistently shows that independents, younger voters and women—all of whom used to routinely vote Republican in presidential contests—are now more often than not reliable Democrat voters. They are also pro-gay rights and same-sex marriage, especially younger voters. Unless Republicans begin to win some of them back with policies of social tolerance, they will simply no longer be in contention in presidential elections. Slavish devotion to right-wing social policies is the road to oblivion on the national stage.
So it’s time to stop letting the anti-gay tail wag the Republican dog. The Christian Right spokesmen’s pious pleas for tolerance for their anti-gay religious convictions will fall on deaf ears (and should) as long as they continue their own intolerance for those who practice different faiths or have different sexual orientations than they do. Ending their tight grip on the party’s social agenda, and its 2016 platform, must be the top priority of those who wish to bring the Republican Party into the 21st century and make it appeal to more than just old white men.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/gay-marriage-will-destroy-the-gop-107118.html?hp=pm_2#.U4enPPl5PAw
Caricature Obama et Theodore Roosevelt: big stick ou big drone policy?
Caricature Edward Snowden et le retour aux États-Unis
Entrevue à "Première heure" de Radio-Canada: Edward Snowden avec Brian Williams
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/premiere_Heure/2012-2013/index.asp
Obama à West Point: une occasion ratée
"In his speech, Mr. Obama tried to push back against critics who say he has ceded America’s post-World War II dominance. The question, as he correctly put it, is “not whether America will lead but how we will lead” and he reasserted that “isolationism is not an option.” Mr. Obama was right when he suggested there would be no serious negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program without his approach to American leadership.
But he provided little new insight into how he plans to lead in the next two years, and many still doubt that he fully appreciates the leverage the United States has even in a changing world. Falling back on hackneyed phrases like America is the “indispensable nation” told us little.
La suite:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/opinion/president-obama-misses-a-chance-on-foreign-affairs.html?ref=todayspaper
Caricature scandale des vétérans, un dossier explosif!
Parions que le Président et son secrétaire auront droit à un médecin plus rapidement que les vétérans dont le nom figure sur les listes secrètes!
Edward Snowden se considère toujours comme un patriote
Retour du New York Times sur l'entrevue accordée par Edward Snowden au journaliste Brian Williams de la chaîne NBC. L'entrevue était diffusée hier soir.
"In trying to justify his actions to Mr. Williams, Mr. Snowden said he still considered himself to be working on behalf of the American people and government, even if the Obama administration does not see it that way.
“How can it be said that I did not serve my government when all three branches have made reforms as a result of it?” he asked. “Being a patriot doesn’t mean prioritizing service to government above all.”
He continued, “It means knowing when to protect your country, when to protect your Constitution, when to protect your countrymen from the violations and encroachments of adversaries.” Such adversaries “do not have to be foreign countries,” he added. “They can be bad policies.”
Mr. Williams pressed Mr. Snowden about any regrets he might have almost a year after fleeing the United States. “What don’t I miss?” he said. “I miss my family. I miss my home. I miss my colleagues. I miss the work.”
But he said none of that made him regret his actions, although he would like to come home, as unlikely as that seems to be. He said he did not want his case to discourage whistle-blowers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/us/politics/snowden-says-he-was-a-spy-not-just-an-analyst.html?ref=todayspaper
Caricature pape François: un survoltage pour la paix?
Marine Le Pen, changer l'Europe de l'intérieur (New York Times)
"Ms. Le Pen, whose party trounced France’s established political forces in European Parliament elections that ended on Sunday, said at a news conference that she had a mission to form a bloc of like-minded groups in the Brussels legislature that would “prevent any progress” toward European unity and would restore the power of individual nation states.
For now, however, she is falling short, betraying the fractious nature of Europe’s right-wing groups, which find even each other too toxic, even if they share a desire to push Brussels bureaucrats into a corner and farther from politics on the national stage.
“The model of a totalitarian, technocratic Europe is now out of date,” Ms. Le Pen said Wednesday, speaking in the European Parliament alongside the leaders of populist, anti-Brussels groups from Austria, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.
Ms. Le Pen visited Brussels just a few hours after a late-night gathering of European leaders, including the French president, François Hollande, who bemoaned the National Front’s strong electoral showing as “a trauma for France, and for Europe” that had “tarnished the image of France.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/world/europe/leader-marine-le-pen-of-french-far-right-hopes-to-fix-europe.html?ref=world
Apple: Jimmy Iovine et "Beats electronics" pour relancer le volet musique
Iovine avec Lennon
“We looked at the combination with Beats, and what we saw is a company that has incredible, rare talent,” said Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, in a joint interview with Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre at the company’s headquarters here.
One of the most powerful figures in the music industry, Mr. Iovine, 61, brings to Apple deep celebrity connections and a devil-may-care attitude that stands in stark contrast to the businesslike manner of Mr. Cook.
Mr. Iovine’s relationship with Apple dates to the beginnings of iTunes, when he became a friend and crucial advocate for Mr. Jobs as he tried to persuade nervous record executives to sell their songs à la carte.
“Jimmy was one of the first people we showed iTunes to,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s content chief.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/business/media/jimmy-iovine-a-master-of-beats-lends-apple-a-skilled-ear.html?hp
"Obama est le Président le plus faible" (Dick Cheney)
"“He’s prepared to pull out, at this point, all of our capability in Afghanistan and not negotiate a stay behind agreement,” Cheney said. “That’s stupid, unwise and will in fact just reinforce the notion that we’re weak and that we have a president that doesn’t understand his obligations.”
Cheney said that his opinions come from his own experience in the White House, but also from conversations he has had with world leaders, who are concerned about the Obama administration.
“They all are absolutely convinced that the American capacity to lead and influence events in that part of the world has been dramatically reduced by this president,” said Cheney. “If we have a problem with weakness it's stemming from the White House.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/dick-cheney-barack-obama-weak-fox-sean-hannity-afghanistan-107205.html?hp=f3
mercredi 28 mai 2014
Retrait d'Afghanistan et liste d'attente des vétérans
Caricature de JIMMY MARGULIES, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM
If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed! Discours de remise des diplômes à Austin, Texas
Un discours si simple, mais très concret et des objectifs à la portée de tous et toutes.
1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. You’ll have accomplished the first task of the day. (4:40)
2. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle. You can’t do it alone. (6:13)
3. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers. What a person looks like or where they’re from doesn’t matter. (7:20)
4. If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward. Sometimes no matter how well you perform, you won’t succeed. Move forward. (8:39)
5. But if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses. These intense challenges make you stronger. (10:05)
6. If you want to change the world, sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first. Sometimes you have to take chances no one else has, or try something a new way. (11:30)
7. If you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks. (12:51)
8. If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment. This is when you have to bring all of your calm, composure, skills, power, and inner strength to bear. (14:01)
9. So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud. A little enthusiasm and hope have a lot of power. (15:39)
10. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell. In SEAL training, if you want to quit, just ring the bell. That’s it. (17:51) - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/change-world-start-making-bed-jvinc/#sthash.452h3kGR.dpuf
Caricature Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
En référence à son classique "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."
Caricature Maison Blanche et identité secrète des agents de la CIA
Caricature Première Guerre: the war to end all wars...
Maya Angelou meurt à 86 ans
Mary Angelou était une légende, en 2010 le Président Obama lui remettait la plus haute distinction pour une civile. Elle a osé parler et écrire à une époque dangereuse ou d'autres préféraient se taire plutôt que dénoncer.
"One of Angelou's most praised books was "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The memoir bore witness to the brutality of a Jim Crow South, portraying racism in stark language. Readers learned of the life of Marguerite Ann Johnson (Angelou's birth name) up to the age of 16: how she was abandoned by her parents and raped by her mother's boyfriend. She was homeless and became a teen mother.
Its publication was both daring and historic given the era of its debut in 1969. "All of the writers of my generation must honor the ground broken by Dr. Maya Angelou," author Tayari Jones posted on her Facebook page Wednesday.
"She told a story that wasn't allowed to be told," Jones said. "Now, people tell all sorts of things in memoir, but when she told the truth, she challenged a taboo -- not for shock value, but to heal us all."
Black American novelist Julian Mayfield is said to have described the autobiography as "a work of art which eludes description."
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" was an international bestseller and nominated for a National Book Award in 1970. In six other autobiographical books she subsequently penned, Angelou revealed myriad interests and occupations of her life."
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/us/maya-angelou-obit/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Détroit: 2 milliards pour une revitalisation?
"A task force convened by the Obama administration issued the most detailed study yet of blight in Detroit on Tuesday and recommended that the city spend at least $850 million to quickly tear down about 40,000 dilapidated buildings, demolish or restore tens of thousands more, and clear thousands of trash-packed lots.
It also said that the hulking remains of factories that dot Detroit, crumbling reminders of the city’s manufacturing prowess, must be salvaged or demolished, which could cost as much as $1 billion more.
If carried out, the recommendations by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force would drastically alter the face of the nation’s largest bankrupt city. They would also cost significantly more than the approximately $450 million that the city already plans to spend on blight, raising questions about the feasibility of the vast cleanup effort, which is part of its larger campaign to emerge from bankruptcy by fall and begin remaking itself."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/us/detroit-task-force-says-blight-cleanup-will-cost-850-million.html?hp
Tuerie en Californie: faut-il blâmer Hollywood?
Voici u extrait du texte de Hornaday:
"Indeed, as important as it is to understand Rodger’s actions within the context of the mental illness he clearly suffered, it’s just as clear that his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in. With his florid rhetoric of self-pity, aggression and awkwardly forced “evil laugh,” Rodger resembled a noxious cross between Christian Bale’s slick sociopath in “American Psycho,” the thwarted womanizer in James Toback’s “The Pick-Up Artist” and every Bond villain in the canon.
(...)
How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like “Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not fair”?" Un extrait de la réaction de Rogen: “How dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a lunatic to go on a rampage,” Rogen tweeted to Hornaday. He added: “I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed.”
Hornaday’s column and the responses from Rogen and Apatow touched off a debate about whether Hollywood can be assigned any blame for Rodger’s disturbing views on women and sex.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/05/27/seth-rogen-and-judd-apatow-dont-blame-us-for-misogynistic-massacre/?hpid=z2
mardi 27 mai 2014
Caricature YouTube et les tueurs
Le tireur en Californie avait enregistré un vidéo avant la tuerie...
Comment la NRA a reformulé le deuxième amendement
"A fraud on the American public.” That’s how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum.
Twenty-five years later, Burger’s view seems as quaint as a powdered wig. Not only is an individual right to a firearm widely accepted, but increasingly states are also passing laws to legalize carrying weapons on streets, in parks, in bars—even in churches.
Many are startled to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun until 2008, when District of Columbia v. Heller struck down the capital’s law effectively banning handguns in the home. In fact, every other time the court had ruled previously, it had ruled otherwise. Why such a head-snapping turnaround? Don’t look for answers in dusty law books or the arcane reaches of theory.
So how does legal change happen in America? We’ve seen some remarkably successful drives in recent years—think of the push for marriage equality, or to undo campaign finance laws. Law students might be taught that the court is moved by powerhouse legal arguments or subtle shifts in doctrine. The National Rifle Association’s long crusade to bring its interpretation of the Constitution into the mainstream teaches a different lesson: Constitutional change is the product of public argument and political maneuvering. The pro-gun movement may have started with scholarship, but then it targeted public opinion and shifted the organs of government. By the time the issue reached the Supreme Court, the desired new doctrine fell like a ripe apple from a tree.
L'article au complet:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856.html?ml=po_r#.U4S7GPl5PAx
Afghanistan: Obama maintiendra des troupes au-delà de 2014
"The plan tracks closely with what the White House has discussed before as it contemplated the way ahead in Afghanistan — a residual presence that would help the Afghan National Security Forces stay on their feet while denying terrorists from using the country’s ungoverned spaces to launch attacks, as they did in 2001.
The fewer than 10,000-troop presence is relatively small, compared to American garrisons elsewhere in the world, including Europe, South Korea and Japan.
American commanders have said Afghan troops have made great progress in operating on their own and preserving security across the country, but that they still need help to become self-sustaining and learn more sophisticated types of operations, including aircraft-related missions.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/obama-afghanistan-troops-after-2014-us-107105.html?hp=t1
Les États-Unis entraînent des commandos en Afrique pour lutter contre le terrorisme
"The secretive program, financed in part with millions of dollars in classified Pentagon spending and carried out by trainers, including members of the Army’s Green Berets and Delta Force, was begun last year to instruct and equip hundreds of handpicked commandos in Libya, Niger, Mauritania and Mali.
The goal over the next few years is to build homegrown African counterterrorism teams capable of combating fighters like those in Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group that abducted nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls last month. American military specialists are helping Nigerian officers in their efforts to rescue the girls.
“Training indigenous forces to go after threats in their own country is what we need to be doing,” said Michael A. Sheehan, who advocated the counterterrorism program last year when he was the senior Pentagon official in charge of Special Operations policy. Mr. Sheehan now holds the distinguished chair at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/world/africa/us-trains-african-commandos-to-fight-terrorism.html?hp&_r=0
Hillary Clinton est-elle sa pire ennemie? (Richard Cohen, Washington Post)
"Hillary Clinton has never enjoyed such a right. Maybe it’s her own fault, but whatever the case, I can fully understand why she is chary with the media. She has never had control over her own image. At the same time, some of her right-wing critics are rabid ideologues, and some women hate her for not drawing a “red line” with her husband: Get out! In their view, she sets a nice table but a bad example.
What gave Rove’s speculation legs was Clinton’s penchant to roll into a defensive ball and act as if she’s hiding something. Had she a reputation for openness and candor, no one could possibly think she has suffered a grievous head injury. It was this allergic reaction to the press that hurt her so much when she lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. If she runs in 2016, it will hurt her if she does not get over it.
I am not a knee-jerk defender of the press. Some of the coverage of Hillary Clinton has indeed been unfair. But Clinton has to deal with it. Until she does, the press will not be her worst enemy. She’ll be.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-encourages-people-to-think-shes-hiding-something/2014/05/26/ccfaed0c-e4f1-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html?hpid=z2
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