Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Thursday, June 3
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH
June 3, 2010
President Obama to Visit With Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer - HERE.
US chief takes over British troops in Afghanistan - SEE HERE.
Climate adviser: 'No guarantees' oil spill will be stopped by August
Jordan Fabian, The Hill.com
President Barack Obama's top environmental adviser on Tuesday would not guarantee that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill would be contained by August.
The government and BP are going forth with a plan to dig "relief wells" to cap the spill, which has been described as the worst in U.S. history, which officials hope can end the leak by August. But White House energy and climate change czar Carol Browner said there are no guarantees.
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US pushes Iran sanctions over Brazilian-Turkish uranium swap
Howard LaFranchi, CS Monitor.com
Obama administration officials insisted Friday that a US-sponsored United Nations resolution with new sanctions on Iran is moving forward – even as they scrambled to remove the speed bumps placed in the resolution’s path by a recent Brazilian-Turkish uranium fuel-swap deal with Tehran.
The Brazilian-Turkish deal, also known as the tripartite agreement, does nothing to address US and international concerns about Iran’s continuing enrichment of uranium, senior administration officials said Friday. Because of that, they added, the agreement cannot be seen as a substitute for “pressure” on Iran to reassure the international community that its nuclear program is, as it says, solely for peaceful purposes.
The tripartite deal is “separate from the basic facts that have brought this issue to the Security Council,” a senior US official says, citing Iran’s continued uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity. For that reason among others, “it’s important we proceed to New York to adopt the sanctions resolution.”
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What the four-stars are reading -- the foregone conclusion in Kandahar.
Robert Haddick, Foreign Policy.com
The "battle" for Kandahar is now underway. But don't call it a battle, says Gen. Stanley McChrystal, think of it as a "process." According to a recent gloomy assessment by the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, administration officials view the Kandahar operation as the "go for broke" culminating effort of the war. McChrystal will commit 10,000 U.S. soldiers and 80 percent of USAID's budget for Afghanistan to the Kandahar offensive. In DeYoung's words, "The bet is that the Kandahar operation, backed by thousands of U.S. troops and billions of dollars, will break the mystique and morale of the insurgents, turn the tide of the war and validate the administration's Afghanistan strategy. There is no Plan B."
Are Barack Obama and McChrystal really gambling on achieving a clear and convincing victory in Kandahar? The battle against the Taliban insurgents is a battle for perceptions. And there are numerous audiences whose perceptions the administration and McChrystal must alter. These audiences include Kandahar's leaders and population, the U.S. public, and the rest of the world, which will render its judgment about U.S. strength and effectiveness.
U.S. must stop effort to force Israel into nuclear talks
Editorial, NY Daily News.com
The governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency next month are to discuss nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, the target perversely being the one country in the region whose atomic threat is zero.
That is, of course, not Iran, which has been defiantly enriching weapons-grade uranium. It's Israel, which may or may not possess the bomb as a last-ditch deterrent against being overrun by a ring of enemies.
For almost half a century, the U.S. has backed Israel in cloaking its nuclear capabilities in doubt. This strategic ambiguity has enhanced regional stability in that would-be invaders need worry about risking a strike by launching all-out war.
Now, though, in one more break with the principles that have under girded American-Israeli relations, the Obama administration has fed momentum at the IAEA and at the United Nations for pressuring Israel to reveal its nuclear secrets on the way to forced disarmament, assuming that Israel is, in fact, a nuclear state.
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Read The Fine Print Investors.com
Various parts of the Democrats' health care reform law have been held up as pieces that might not stand up to a constitutional rigor.
The individual mandate that requires those who aren't previously covered by insurance to buy a plan is the most likely place for the legal objections to begin. Another provision that is being disputed at the constitutional level is the expansion of Medicaid that forces states to increase their spending on that program.
But those are only two pieces of a legislative leviathan. Even if one or both were stricken, the bulk of the law's burden would remain.
However, Greg Scandlen, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, says due to a little-known legal concept the entire law would unravel if a single part were found to be outside the Constitution.
"Apparently there was no 'severability' clause written into this law, which shows how amateurish the process was," he wrote. "Virtually every bill I've ever read includes a provision that if any part of the law is ruled unconstitutional the rest of the law will remain intact. Not this one. That will likely mean that the entire law will be thrown out if a part of it is found to violate the Constitution."
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As Harvard Law Dean, Kagan Did Not Require Study of U.S. Constitutional Law.
Pete Winn, CNS News.com
Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, is best known for moving Harvard Law School away from the 100-year old “case-law method” of legal study.
But in the process, critics say, she moved the nation’s premier law school away from requiring the study of U.S. constitutional law towards the study of the laws of foreign nations and international law.
As dean, Kagan won approval from the faculty in 2006 to make major changes to the Harvard Law's curriculum.
“My understanding is that she instituted three new courses to the required curriculum and, in so doing, got rid of a requirement to take constitutional law,” Robert Alt, senior legal fellow and deputy director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com.
“Currently, at Harvard, constitutional law is not required for first-year law students, or even for graduation,” Alt added.
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