NATIONAL & WORLD NEWS - March 19, 2009

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-It's the Regulations, Not the Regulator
It has become a truism of the financial crisis that the system was prone to collapse because there was no single regulator who had the legal tools and authority to prevent a systemwide meltdown. That belief has led to calls from some lawmakers and major banks, among others, for a new "systemic risk regulator" - one regulator to monitor the entire financial landscape for problems that could lead to cascading failures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19thu1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

-Religious Belief Linked to Desire for Aggressive Treatment in Terminal Patients
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Terminally ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were far more likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging care in the week before they died than were less religious patients and far more likely to want doctors to do everything possible to keep them alive, a study has found.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/health/research/18faith.html


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Obama Drops Plan to Bill Veterans' Private Insurers
By Philip Rucker
President Obama yesterday abandoned a proposal to bill veterans' private insurance companies for the treatment at VA hospitals of combat-related injuries amid an outcry over the measure from veterans' service organizations and members of Congress.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031803394.html?hpid=sec-health

-Our Must-Win War
The 'Minimalist' Path Is Wrong for Afghanistan
By John McCain and Joseph Lieberman
Later this month, the Obama administration will unveil a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. This comes as most important indicators in Afghanistan are pointing in the wrong direction. President Obama's decision last month to deploy an additional 17,000 U.S. troops was an important step in the right direction, but a comprehensive overhaul of our war plan is needed, and quickly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802932.html

-Road Map for Afghanistan
By David Ignatius
Last October, the Bush administration arranged a briefing for aides to Barack Obama and John McCain on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Among the expert advisers was David Kilcullen, an Australian counterinsurgency guru who had been one of the architects of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802931.html

-Populism's Virtues
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Conservatives have argued for decades that the sins most dangerous to our society were rooted in lust when in fact they were rooted in greed. We are at the beginning of a great popular rebellion against those who showed no self-restraint when it came to lining their own pockets. Their entitlement mentality arose from an inflated sense of their own value and of how much smarter they were than everyone else.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031803190.html

-Saving Pakistan
The U.S. will need to foster political stability if it wants success against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
PAKISTAN'S LATEST crisis has eased, after President Asif Ali Zardari capitulated to protesters who threatened to march on the capital, Islamabad. But for the Obama administration, the challenge of political dysfunction in this nuclear-armed state has hardly diminished. As they showed during the past week, Pakistan's civilian and secular political leaders are more concerned with destroying each other than with fighting the Islamic extremists who are rapidly gaining strength in the country. The Pakistani army, for its part, remains more focused on the perceived threat from India than on the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These problems are deeply rooted -- but the new U.S. administration will have to take them on if it is to successfully combat the terrorist threat to the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031803384.html

-Pope to meet with Muslims, hold Mass in Cameroon
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON
YAOUNDE, Cameroon -- Pope Benedict XVI meets Thursday with representatives of Cameroon's sizable Muslim minority before celebrating Mass for thousands of African Catholics in the capital's soccer stadium.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031800831.html?hpid=sec-religion


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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/public/us

-Dodd's Amendment at Crux of Bonus Issue
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
A provision in President Barack Obama's stimulus law might have forestalled payment of $165 million in bonuses to employees of American International Group Inc., but was altered before final passage at the request of the Obama administration, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said Wednesday night. Mr. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, introduced a provision into the stimulus that capped executive pay, among other things. But the final language specifically excluded bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill's passage -- a broad category that included the AIG bonuses. At the time, few objected to that move, which was designed to ensure the measure was constitutional.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123741741674677723.html?mod=article-outset-box

-New Mexico Governor Signs Death Penalty Repeal
Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation Wednesday repealing New Mexico's death penalty, making it the second state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Gov. Richardson, a Democrat who formerly supported capital punishment, said signing the bill was the "most difficult decision" of his political life.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742198012278789.html

-Obama's AIG Panic
The AIG Beltway bonfire continued yesterday with the spectacle of Ed Liddy, AIG's government-appointed CEO, enduring the wrath of Congress for embarrassing the Members with post-bailout bonuses. What we now have is a full-blown political panic ignited by no less than President Obama himself that is threatening to engulf his attempts to revive the financial system, and is undermining confidence in his leadership. This is no way to promote an economic recovery.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742023932678335.html


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Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Don't expect sympathy cards from crooks, corrupt politicians
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
On the day the last newspaper is published, I expect no sympathy card from Kwame Kilpatrick. Were it not for a newspaper -- The Detroit Free Press -- his use of public funds to cover up his affair with one of his aides would be unrevealed and, he might still be mayor of Detroit. Nor will I expect flowers from Larry Craig. Were it not for a newspaper -- The Idaho Statesman -- we would not know of his propensity for taking a ''wide stance'' in airport men's rooms and he might still be serving in the U.S. Senate. And I doubt there will be a toast of commiseration from Reynaldo Diaz and Oscar Rivero. Were it not for a newspaper -- The Miami Herald -- they would still be living large on money scammed from an agency that builds housing for the poor.
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/955386.html


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