Obama's 5 biggest mistakes (The Week)

New York ? The president's Republican opponents will surely spend 2012 hammering away at his failures. So what exactly are they?

As I wrote last week, President Obama can point to several successes as he runs for re-election. But like all presidents, he has made his share of mistakes as well. I promised to list what I think are his five biggest errors. Here they are:?

5. Jamming through health-care reform
In last week's article, this made the list of the president's biggest successes. But it also makes his list of mistakes. The president spent most of his political capital in his first year in office on health care, which he saw as a defining issue of his presidency. Aside from lingering questions over the constitutionality of the law's central provision ? the Supreme Court will likely rule this summer whether the government can mandate that all Americans have health insurance ? and questions about how much the program may cost, Obama did himself and the Democratic Party immense damage in terms of how the bill was passed. The president and congressional Democrats used divisive, bare-knuckled tactics, shoving the law down the throats of anyone in their way. "Hell no!"cried then-House Minority Leader John Boehner moments before the bill was passed. Anger over the Democrats' tactics helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party and the "wave election"of 2010, in which the GOP stormed back into the House majority. Obama has since complained of steady GOP obstructionism and a "do-nothing"Congress ? but in a sense, he created this problem by passing major social legislation without first achieving any kind of bipartisan consensus. That's not how a president makes good policy.

SEE MORE: Obama's 'confrontational' State of the Union: 8 talking points

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The president used divisive, bare-knuckled tactics, shoving the health-care law down the throats of anyone in their way.

4. Failing to stop Iran
Over the weekend we learned that the Pentagon wants $82 million to make what is already its biggest bunker-buster bomb even bigger. The bombs are needed, officials say, to dig deep underground and hit Iranian nuclear facilities. This is a tacit reminder that the president has thus far failed to achieve his principle goal with respect to Iran: Bringing its nuclear weapons program to a halt.?Obama has hurt the regime with tightened sanctions, but not enough to change its behavior. The president also passed on an opportunity to weaken the regime internally by supporting Iran's Green movement ? the massive protests that erupted in June 2009 after an election was rigged to ensure another term for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At the time, Obama paid lip service to the Iranian protesters, but said "the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering with Iran's affairs."The protest movement ? the true beginning of the Arab Spring ? was brutally crushed (remember the video of the young woman "Neda" being gunned down?) and the regime marched on. Now the president appears closer than ever to "interfering with Iran's affairs"in a far more consequential way ? with military force.?

SEE MORE: Obama's State of the Union: A viewer's guide

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3. Ballooning the deficit
In April 2010, the president launched a much-hyped deficit reduction commission, to be headed by Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles. Obama claimed to take Simpson-Bowles seriously. "Once the bipartisan fiscal commission finishes its work," he told an Ohio crowd, "I will spend the next year making the tough choices necessary to further reduce our deficit and lower our debt." The commission produced a plan to slash the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade. No sacred cows were spared: Three-quarters of it would come from cutting government services and entitlement programs, and the rest from military cuts and the elimination of tax loopholes. But the president failed to endorse the plan. This opened the door to a series of 2011 fights: The debt ceiling clash between Obama and congressional Republicans, two missed opportunities for a "Grand Bargain" on deficits, the subsequent credit downgrade by S&P, and last fall's badly-misnamed "super committee." One of the president's economic allies, mega-billionaire Warren Buffett, said "What happened with Simpson-Bowles was an absolute tragedy." The Republicans share the blame for the circus that was 2011, of course, but by tabling the recommendations of his very own blue-ribbon panel, Obama gave some voters ? and GOP rivals ? an early and perhaps lasting impression that he wasn't serious about making those tough choices.

SEE MORE: Jan Brewer vs. Obama: Is the president 'thin-skinned'?

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2. Failing to fix the housing market
The bursting of the housing bubble six years ago cost Americans more than $7 trillion in home equity, sparked the recession and the near collapse of the U.S. economy. Home prices have continued to fall since Obama was inaugurated, and now stand at 2002 levels. The president can rightly say that it began on George W. Bush's watch (Bush's 2008 bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have so far cost taxpayers $141 billion), but after three years, it's fair to ask what the president has done to fix housing. Answer: Not much. Efforts to stem foreclosures and help folks refinance were poorly designed and have fallen well short of expectations. A short-lived tax credit to encourage first-time buyers wasn't extended by Congress, and ongoing waves of foreclosures continue to depress prices. Today, 22 percent of all homeowners are underwater on their mortgages. The problem for the president is that housing is not an isolated issue. It's tied to jobs, and until the labor market heals, housing will continue to grind along. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Index for November warned bluntly that "the troubled housing market remains weak and won't recover any time soon." Housing, jobs and long-term consumer confidence can be a virtuous ? or vicious circle. It has been the latter for the better part of a decade already. This leads to what I think has been President Obama's greatest mistake of all.?

1. Overpromising on the economic recovery
How many times have we heard the president say the downturn of 2007-09 was the "worst since the Great Depression?" Here's the rub: Given that it took Franklin Roosevelt 10 years and a world war to fix the Depression, why on earth would Obama compare our downturn to FDR's ? but promise to fix it in a fraction of the time? Consider this February 2009 statement to NBC's Matt Lauer: "If I don't have this done in three years, then there's gonna be a one-term proposition." And why, given the "worst downturn since the Depression," would the administration estimate that unemployment would only hit around 8 percent? The projection, made in a January 9, 2009, report called "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" (written by former economic advisors Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein) also forecast that the president's stimulus plan would create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010. Fast forward just nine months, to October 2009, and the jobless rate hit 10 percent. (It has since fallen to 8.5 percent.) As for job creation, the administration was off as well. It has created three million jobs, but it took until the end of 2011 to get there. Because the president overpromised and under-delivered on the economic recovery, he may be right about that one-term proposition.

SEE MORE: Obama's '8th grade reading level' SOTU address: By the numbers

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Read about Obama's top 5 successes here.

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    Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politicsopinion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20120130/cm_theweek/223858

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    Therapy pets popular at Ark. health-care center | The Associated ...

    Face grinning, tail wagging and a taut leash behind her, Misty, a mixed-breed dog, led her owner, Vi Herring, down the hallway at a local retirement home amid calls seeking her attention.

    "Dragged her owner" probably would be more accurate.

    She's just so excited to see everyone," Herring, 68, said from over her shoulder.

    Herring and Misty, who serves as a therapy dog, frequent Crawford Healthcare & Rehabilitation, 2010 Main St. in Van Buren, and visit with the elderly residents to break the monotony of their day. Even though Misty pulled Herring most of the time ? Herring was out of breath after a few laps around the retirement home ? the animal was only a command away from stopping and waiting for the Rudy resident.

    The most striking thing about Misty is how polite she was. If a resident didn't want her near, then she would just move to the next person. The majority of the residents couldn't wait to pet her, and she would oblige by patiently sitting, looking at them with ice-blue eyes and putting her head within reach.

    Opal Groman, a 76-year-old resident who has lived at the home for four years, said she grew up in the country, so dogs were a necessary part of her life.

    "Dogs bring back all kinds of memories," she said while waiting for a game of bingo to begin.

    Herring, who has also been a missionary in China, said she never planned to use Misty as a therapy dog. Her husband, Tim, is in charge of maintenance at the home, and he told everyone about Misty "and her beautiful blue eyes," Herring said. Then Toni Holderfield, the home's executive director, invited Herring to show Misty at one of the home's dog shows.

    That's when Misty, who weighs about 85 pounds, approached a man with Parkinson's disease and showed how gentle she could be.

    "He was in a wheelchair bed that was real high, and Misty jumped up on his bed and just loved that little guy so much," Herring said. ". I want you to know she was so incredibly gentle; it was unbelievable."

    Holderfield said Misty is just one of many animals that frequent the home. Dogs of all sizes, cats and even Holderfield's Quaker parrot visit with the residents. There is also a bird aviary in one section of the home.

    "I'm all for pet therapy, any pet therapy," Holderfield said from her office.

    She has witnessed how a dog can help a resident in a retirement home. Near the end of 2010, Holderfield said, a family friend had just rescued a litter of Labrador puppies, and she and her husband adopted the litter's runt. The puppy had to be bottle fed, and she knew she couldn't care for the puppy and do her job effectively, so she allowed a resident, whom she described as "very sad," to care for it.

    "It got to the point where that was her dog, and she just let me take it home," Holderfield said.

    As it grew, the dog took to a habit of laying across the woman's legs; a fact that made a state surveyor nervous. The surveyor tried to explain to the woman that it wasn't in her best interest to have the now-large Labrador laying on her.

    "She said, 'That dog is my best interest, and you can leave,'" Holderfield said. "So the surveyor came out and said, 'She just threw me out!'"

    For residents like Groman, visits from the animals are priceless.

    "It lifts them up," she said. "If a person's down and they come in, then they are a different person when the dogs leave. You can see it. . It'll lift them up."

    Dogs have a way of connecting with people on an emotional level, Groman said.

    "It's a love that they have for people that they'll bring out in people," Groman said. "When you're around a person that likes you and loves you, you see it. Same way with a dog."

    Herring agreed.

    "You take a good loyal dog, and they'll die for you. And I know Misty would die for me if I were ever attacked or hurt," Herring said.

    Herring acquired Misty about two years ago when a friend fell on hard times. Herring said her friend told her Misty is a half-and-half mix between a wolf and a malamute. However, Misty is most likely several generations removed from her wolf ancestors, if she has any wolf in her at all, said Nancy Brown, who has worked with wolfdogs for more than 20 years and is the founder of Full Moon Farm, a nonprofit rescue and sanctuary for wolfdogs and other animals in North Carolina.

    Brown made that comment after seeing photos of Misty.

    No matter the breed, Misty's effect on the residents can be judged by the smiling faces she invoked.

    "If Misty and I can come up here and bring these people good memories and a little joy and a smile, that's the best thing we can do," Herring said.

    ___

    Information from: Southwest Times Record, http://www.swtimes.com/

    Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/health/2012/01/therapy-pets-popular-ark-health-care-center

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    State Dept: Americans take refuge at Cairo embassy

    FILE - In this Aug. 14, 1998 file photo, the U.S. embassy in downtown Cairo, Egypt. Three U.S. citizens whom Egyptian authorities have barred from leaving the country have sought refuge in the American Embassy in Cairo, U.S. officials said Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Leila Gorchev, File)

    FILE - In this Aug. 14, 1998 file photo, the U.S. embassy in downtown Cairo, Egypt. Three U.S. citizens whom Egyptian authorities have barred from leaving the country have sought refuge in the American Embassy in Cairo, U.S. officials said Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Leila Gorchev, File)

    FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2009 handout file photo proved by the Transportation Department, Sam Lahood, left, watches as his father Ray is sworn in as Transportation Secretary, at the Transportation Department in Washington. Three U.S. citizens whom Egyptian authorities have barred from leaving the country have sought refuge in the American Embassy in Cairo, U.S. officials said Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. Those banned include Sam LaHood, son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, but officials would not say whether he is at the embassy. (AP Photo/ Transportation Department, File)

    CAIRO (AP) ? Three American democracy advocates barred by Egyptian authorities from leaving the country have sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, officials said Monday, as tensions between the two allied nations sharply escalated over a probe into foreign-funded organizations.

    The unusual step comes amid a row over an Egyptian crackdown on U.S.-funded groups promoting democracy and human rights that has jeopardized more than $1 billion of crucial U.S. aid to Egypt, one of its biggest recipients.

    The investigation is closely intertwined with Egypt's political turmoil since Hosni Mubarak's fall nearly a year ago. The generals who took power have accused "foreign hands" of being behind protests against their rule and frequently depict the protesters as receiving foreign funds in a plot to destabilize the country.

    Egyptian authorities are preventing at least six Americans and four Europeans from leaving the country, citing a probe opened last month when heavily armed security forces raided the offices of 10 international organizations. Egyptian officials have defended the raid as part of legitimate investigation into the groups' work and funding.

    Those banned include Sam LaHood, son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, but officials would not say whether he is at the embassy. The younger LaHood, who heads the Egypt office of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, referred queries to a spokeswoman in Washington who did not return calls seeking comment.

    U.S. State Department spokeswoman Kate Starr told reporters in Washington Monday that the citizens were in the embassy.

    "A handful of U.S. citizens have opted to stay in the embassy compound in Cairo while waiting for permission to depart Egypt," she said.

    Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said three Americans are at the embassy, adding that the move was not because the U.S. feared their imminent arrest.

    A former IRI official quoted in The Washington Post Sunday, however, said his colleagues had indicated that they would only move to the embassy if they feared they'd be arrested soon.

    U.S. officials have warned that restrictions on civil society groups could hinder aid to Egypt, which would be a major blow to the country as it struggles with economic woes and continued turmoil in the wake of the 18-day popular uprising that led to Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster. Egypt's military has been locked in a confrontation for months with protesters who demand it immediately hand over power to civilians.

    The Egyptian army itself receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington. The December raids brought sharp U.S. criticism, and last week President Barack Obama spoke by telephone with Egyptian military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi about the issue.

    Recent U.S. legislation could block annual aid to Egypt unless it takes certain steps. These include abiding by its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, holding free and fair elections and "implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion and due process of law."

    The U.S. is due to give $1.3 billion in military assistance and $250 million in economic aid to Egypt in 2012. Washington has given Egypt an average of $2 billion in economic and military aid a year since 1979, according to the Congressional Research Service.

    Sam LaHood of IRI said last week that three other employees of his organization were on the no-fly list, two American and one European.

    From the National Democratic Institute, which was also raided in December, three Americans and three Serb employees are on the list, the group's Egypt director, Lisa Hughes, said last week.

    Hughes said in a text message Monday that none of NDI's employees are residing at the U.S. Embassy.

    A U.S. embassy spokeswoman did not respond Monday to requests for comment.

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-30-Egypt-US/id-999ec2e4125d41f59bc3b80c6bdd43b8

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    One million children in Sahel at risk, UNICEF warns (Reuters)

    GENEVA (Reuters) ? More than 1 million children in the Sahel are at risk of severe malnutrition and urgent action is needed to avert starvation akin to that in Somalia, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday.

    The agency appealed for $67 million for 8 countries in the region where it said instability fueled by increasing activities of al-Qaeda and Boko Haram was compounding humanitarian needs. They are Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and the northern regions of Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal.

    "In the Sahel we are facing a nutrition crisis of a larger magnitude than usual with over 1 million children at risk of severe, acute malnutrition," Rima Salah, acting UNICEF deputy executive director, told a news briefing.

    "The countries in the Sahel, for example, if we do not now attend to their needs, it will become like Somalia and other countries," she said. "We have to prevent it before it becomes a disaster."

    She was referring to the anarchic Horn of Africa country where the U.N. says 250,000 still live in famine conditions due to drought and conflict and a total of 4 million need aid.

    More than nine million people in five countries in Africa's Sahel region face food crisis next year, following low rainfall, poor harvests, high food prices and a drop in remittances from migrants, aid agency Oxfam said last month.

    The funds for the Sahel, for an initial six-month phase, will provide therapeutic feeding to malnourished children and campaigns to prevent the spread of epidemics including cholera. Some families will receive cash to cover higher food prices.

    It is part of UNICEF's overall appeal of $1.28 billion for 98 million women and children in 25 countries. Somalia and other Horn of Africa countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya) account for nearly one-third of the total amount sought.

    "There is growing instability in the Sahel region, fuelled by the Arab Spring and increasing activities of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram, all compounding the humanitarian needs of children and women in the region," UNICEF's report, "2012 Humanitarian Action for Children," said on Friday.

    The Libyan civil war might have given militant groups in Africa's Sahel region like Boko Haram and al Qaeda access to large weapons caches, according to a U.N. report released in New York on Thursday.

    The U.N. report on the impact of the Libyan civil war on countries of the Sahel region that straddle the Sahara - including Nigeria, Niger and Chad - also said some national authorities believe the Islamist sect Boko Haram, which killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 this year in Nigeria, has increasing links to al Qaeda's North African wing.

    (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay Editing by Maria Golovnina.)

    Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/hl_nm/us_africa_sahel_un

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    More than 50 killed in 2 days of turmoil in Syria (AP)

    BEIRUT ? Two days of bloody turmoil in Syria killed more than 50 people as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad shelled residential buildings, fired on crowds and left bleeding corpses in the streets in a dramatic escalation of violence, activists said Friday.

    Much of the violence was focused in Homs, where heavy gunfire hammered the city Friday in a second day of chaos. A day earlier, the city saw a flare-up of sectarian kidnappings and killings between its Sunni and Alawite communities, and pro-regime forces blasted residential buildings with mortars and gunfire, according to activists who said an entire family was killed.

    Video posted online by activists showed the bodies of five small children, five women of varying ages and a man, all bloodied and piled on beds in what appeared to be an apartment after a building was hit in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of the city. A narrator said an entire family had been "slaughtered."

    The video could not be independently verified.

    Activists said at least 30 people were killed in Homs on Thursday and another 21 people were killed across the country Friday.

    In an attempt to stop the bloodshed in Syria, the U.N. Security Council was to hold a closed-door meeting Friday to discuss the crisis, a step toward a possible resolution against the Damascus regime, diplomats said.

    The Syrian uprising, which began nearly 11 months ago with mostly peaceful protests, has become increasingly violent in recent months as army defectors clash with government forces and some protesters take up arms to protect themselves. The violence has enflamed the potentially explosive sectarian divide in the country, where the Alawite minority dominates the regime despite a Sunni Muslim majority. The U.N. estimates that more than 5,400 people have been killed since March.

    The head of Arab League observers in Syria said in a statement that violence in the country has spiked over the past few days. Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi said the cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib have all witnessed a "very high escalation" in violence since Tuesday.

    A "fierce military campaign" was also under way in the Hamadiyeh district of Hama since the early hours of Friday, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other activists. They said the sound of heavy machine-gun fire and loud explosions reverberated across the area.

    Some activists reported seeing uncollected bodies in the streets of Hama.

    Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded Friday at a checkpoint outside the northern city of Idlib, the Observatory said, citing witnesses on the ground. The number of casualties was not immediately clear.

    Details of Thursday's wave of killings in Homs were emerging from an array of residents and activists on Friday, though they said they were having difficulty because of continuing gunfire.

    "There has been a terrifying massacre," Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the AP on Friday, calling for an independent investigation.

    Thursday started with a spate of sectarian kidnappings and killings between the city's population of Sunnis and Alawites, a Shiite sect to which Assad belongs as well as most of his security and military leadership, said Mohammad Saleh, a centrist opposition figure and resident of Homs.

    There was also a string of attacks by gunmen on army checkpoints, Saleh said. Checkpoints are a frequent target of dissident troops who have joined the opposition.

    The violence culminated with the evening killing of the family, Saleh said, adding that the full details of what happened were not yet clear.

    The Observatory said at least 11 people, including eight children, died when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire. Some residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha ? armed regime loyalists ? stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

    "It's racial cleansing," said one Sunni resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.

    Some residents said kidnappers were holding Alawites in the building hit by mortars and gunfire, but the reports could not be confirmed.

    Thursday's death toll in Homs was at least 35, said the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists. Both groups cite a network of activists on the ground in Syria for their death tolls. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

    Syria tightly controls access to trouble spots and generally allows journalists to report only on escorted trips, which slows the flow of information.

    The Syrian uprising began last March with largely peaceful anti-government protests, but it has grown increasingly violent in recent months.

    Also Friday, Iran's official IRNA news agency said gunmen in Syria have kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims traveling by road from Turkey to Damascus.

    Iranian pilgrims routinely visit Syria ? Iran's closest ally in the Arab world ? to pay homage to Shiite holy shrines. Last month, 7 Iranian engineers building a power plant in central Syria were kidnapped. They have not yet been released.

    The Free Syrian Army ? a group of army defectors ? released a video on its Facebook page claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and saying the Iranians were taking part in the suppression of the Syrian people. The leader of the group could not be reached for comment.

    Bassma Kodmani, a spokeswoman for the opposition Syrian National Council, said the group is working to help the army defectors to link them up and supply them with everything from communications equipment to clothes. Speaking in Paris, she said defectors are increasingly swelling the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and it is becoming a critical force in the uprising.

    In Cairo, around 200 opposition Syrians protested outside the Syrian Embassy, trying to break into the building. They threw stones and bricks at the building, but were kept back by a line of police and soldiers.

    Assad's regime claims terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy are behind the uprising, not protesters seeking change, and that thousands of security forces have been killed.

    International pressure on Damascus to end the bloodshed so far has produced few results.

    The Arab League has sent observers to the country, but the mission has been widely criticized for failing to stop the violence. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the Security Council to intervene because the Syrian government has not halted its crackdown.

    The U.N. Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution since violence began in March because of strong opposition from Russia and China.

    Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday that Moscow will oppose a new draft U.N. resolution on Syria worked out by the West and some Arab states because it does not exclude the possibility of outside military interference.

    Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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    Parent of Obama-backed battery maker goes bankrupt (AP)

    WASHINGTON ? The parent company of an electric car battery maker that received a $118 million grant from the Obama administration has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

    Ener1 said it has been affected by competition from China and other countries.

    Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel received a $118 million stimulus grant from the Energy Department in 2009, and Vice President Biden visited the company's new battery plant in Indiana last year.

    An Energy Department spokeswoman said EnerDel had received $55 million so far. Ener1 said the restructuring would not affect EnerDel's operations.

    Ener1 is the third company to seek bankruptcy protection after receiving assistance from the Energy Department under the economic stimulus law. California solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. and Beacon Power, a Massachusetts energy-storage firm, declared bankruptcy last year.

    Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_battery_maker

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    Jeff Biggers: Arizona Unbound: National Actions on Mexican American Studies Banishment

    What happens in Arizona doesn't stay in Arizona.

    As Tea Party state education chief John Huppenthal retreats into his office after an embarrassing national media tour on Arizona's extremist Ethnic Studies crackdown, and Tucson Unified School District administrators continue their slide into a public relations disaster over banishing Mexican American Studies curricula and books, a remarkably diverse array of librarians, educators, writers, civil rights activists and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is mounting a series of national actions to call attention to educational and civil rights violations and to support local Tucson efforts.

    On January 24th, the American Library Association issued a condemnation of Arizona's "suppression of open inquiry and free expression caused by closure of ethnic and cultural studies programs on the basis of partisan or doctrinal disapproval," and the Tucson school district's "restriction of access to educational materials associated with ethnic and cultural studies programs." The national library association, with active chapters across the country, also called on the state to support a new bill to repeal the Ethnic Studies ban.

    As a follow up to their extraordinary request to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the Department of Education this week for a federal investigation of civil rights violations by the state of Arizona, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is urging constituents to change their profile picture on Facebook and Twitter to a special logo -- "You Can't Ban Books, You Can't Ban History" -- on Thursday, January 26, 2012.

    On February 1st, teachers and schools around the country have been encouraged by Rethinking Schools, whose nationally acclaimed textbook Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years was confiscated and banished from Tucson schools, to follow the suggestion of former Tucson Mexican American Studies literature teacher Curtis Acosta for a "national day of solidarity where teachers would teach our curriculum all over the nation."

    Along with special forums planned across the country, from California to New York, a network of educators in Georgia is sponsoring a "Teach-in" in Atlanta on Saturday, Feb. 4th.

    The event is framed as a "Teach-in," where we can inform the community about what's happening, work together to fight censorship and racism in schools, and make plans for future social justice activism. Groups will include:

    (1) curricular action, in which participants create lesson plans and activities for PK-12 students on issues of censorship, critical pedagogy, and/or Mexican American history;

    (2) censored books dialogue, in which participants learn about the books that were banned and the theories contained within them; and

    (3) legislative overview, in which participants discuss legal implications of the ban in Arizona and around the country.

    Finally, the group will come back together to plan action steps that can be taken in higher education, PK-12 schools, and communities in Georgia and around the country.

    Several national petitions are also being circulating, including a change.org petition by former Mexican American Studies teacher Norma Gonzales, who has called on the Tucson school district to "immediately remove these books from their 'district storage facility' and make them available in each school's library. Knowledge cannot be boxed off and carried away from students who want to learn!"

    In a stunning revelation last week, a review of the TUSD library catalog found that there are less than 2 or 3 copies of some of the banished texts in libraries serving more than 60,000 students.

    Presente.org, the national Latino and human rights organization, is also circulating a petition to "tell Superintendent Pedicone and the school board to reverse the ban and reinstate the Mexican American Studies program."

    In one of the most creative actions to take on Arizona's removal of books and texts, Texas author and literary organizer extraordinaire Tony Diaz is assembling a caravan of renowned authors and librotraficantes to deliver banished books to Arizona students in March.

    Here's Diaz's kick-off video:

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    Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/arizona-unbound_b_1232285.html

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    Eyes on Samsung smartphone sales, spending plans (Reuters)

    SEOUL (Reuters) ? Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top technology firm by revenue, will report record quarterly profit on Friday, powered by strong sales of its smartphones, but most interest will be in its 2012 spending plans and mobile sales numbers as it vies with Apple Inc for smartphone supremacy.

    Samsung overtook Apple as the biggest smartphone maker in the third quarter, but is likely to have slipped back into second place in October-December as Apple sold a record 37.04 million iPhones. Samsung does not provide its own sales volume data and is likely only to give a growth rate from its third-quarter sales of 27.8 million smartphones. Analysts predict fourth-quarter shipments of 35-37 million.

    The South Korean firm said earlier this month its October-December operating profit was likely to be a record 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion), up 73 percent from a year ago and up 22 percent from the previous quarter.

    Investors will be looking for more detail on Samsung's investment plans for this year after parent Samsung Group announced a record $41.4 billion spending for 2012, with no detailed breakdown. Spending will be on everything from building factories to research and development activities to M&A and hiring.

    Best known for making massive investments in new technologies ahead of rivals, Samsung is now banking on logic chips and OLED displays to repeat its roaring success in flash chips, computer memory chips and LCD flat-screens, even as a gloomy global economic and IT spending outlook forces peers to be conservative in spending.

    "What's important is the 2012 capex budget, as the headline sales and operating profit ... were already announced," Macquarie analyst Daniel Kim said.

    The brokerage estimates Samsung Electronics will announce record investment of 29 trillion won ($25.76 billion), up by almost a third 32 percent from 2011.

    Investment in system chips such as mobile processors and sensors used in smartphones, tablets and cameras is likely to exceed spending on its bread-and-butter memory chips for the first time, reaching 7.5 trillion won, or some 1 trillion won more than investment in memory chips, according to analysts.

    Samsung trails Nokia in mobile phones, competes with Sony Corp and LG Electronics Inc in televisions, Toshiba and Hynix in chips and LG Display in displays.

    RIVALRY WITH APPLE

    Samsung only entered the smartphone market in earnest in 2010, some three years after Apple first introduced the iPhone with the touchscreen template.

    Samsung may not have come up with the concept, but it has adopted Apple's breakthrough idea perhaps better than any other handset maker - and now seeks to offer the Apple experience at a better price, with better functionality.

    Apple is Samsung's biggest client, buying mainly chips and displays, and the two firms are locked in a bruising patent battle in some 10 countries from the United States to Europe, Japan and Australia as they jostle for top spot in the booming smartphone and tablet market.

    Apple, though, is streets ahead in profitability. Apple, which generates half its revenue from the iPhone, boasts a 37.4 percent operating margin versus Samsung's 11 percent, and its $17.3 billion operating profit is almost four times what Samsung earned from selling phones, chips, flat screens, TVs and fridges combined.

    Shares in Samsung, also the world's top maker of memory chips and TVs, have climbed 20 percent in the past three months - and hit a life high of 1,113,000 won this week - outperforming a 3 percent gain in the KOSPI over the same period. On Nasdaq, Apple shares have risen 23 percent in that time, hitting a life high of more than $454 on Wednesday.

    ($1 = 1125.9500 Korean won)

    (Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Ian Geoghegan)

    Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/tc_nm/us_samsung

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