Dead Letter Office →

But now, Republicans have all of Congress. If they want to replace Obamacare, they can. And on Wednesday, they took a step in that direction. With little fanfare, Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan unveiled their blueprint for Republican health reform. Called the “Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility and Empowerment Act,” it is mostly identical to an outline released last year by Hatch, Burr, and now-retired Sen. Tom Coburn.
...
The consequences of the proposal are straightforward: By ending Obamacare in its entirety and placing limits on Medicaid, it would eliminate insurance for millions of Americans and make it harder for middle- and working-class people to purchase coverage. And while it’s described as a plan to save money, the truth is that it accomplishes this by reducing care for the poor and raising costs on everyone else.
In other words, this isn’t a plan to achieve universal coverage. That’s simply not a Republican goal, and it’s part of the reason it has proven politically difficult to craft an alternative. We don’t think everyone should have health insurance just isn’t an appealing message. Which gets to something important about this whole enterprise: The CARE Act is a blueprint. There is no legislation to score or any bill to debate. It’s just a package of ideas—one approach for when, or if, the party decides to pass a genuine alternative to Obamacare.
Put differently, it’s probably a dead letter.

UN chief: More peacekeepers for Central African Republic →

The U.N. secretary-general is asking for more than 1,000 additional peacekeepers for the Central African Republic to help bring violence between Christians and Muslims under control outside the capital of the Texas-sized country.
...

The sectarian violence that erupted in 2012 in Central African Republic has killed at least 5,000 and forced tens of thousands, mostly Muslims, to flee.

Representatives of the country’s two warring factions signed an unconditional cease-fire in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, their mediator said Thursday, but there was no representative of President Catherine Samba-Panza’s government.

Previous cease-fires agreed to by various alleged representatives of the two sides have quickly fallen apart.

Defence Ministers agree to strengthen NATO’s defences, establish Spearhead Force →

As the situation in Ukraine gets worse:

Ministers approved plans in the light of the changing security environment to the east and south of the Alliance’s borders. The NATO Response Force will be enhanced. The Defence Ministers agreed on the size and scope of a new very high readiness force or Spearhead Force.  “We decided that this very high readiness force will consist of a land brigade of around 5,000 troops. These will be supported by air, sea and special forces,” said Mr Stoltenberg. He said the Spearhead Force would be backed up by two more brigades “as a rapid reinforcement capability in case of a major crisis. Altogether, the enhanced NATO Response Force will count up to around 30,000 troops.”

Defence Ministers also decided to immediately establish six command and control units in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

GNC, Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreens accused of selling adulterated ‘herbals’ →

A big moneymaker, and no regulation, either public or private. No surprise.

That’s according to an investigation by the New York State attorney general’s office into store-brand supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart. All four have received cease-and-desist letters demanding that they stop selling a number of their dietary supplements, few of which were found to contain the herbs shown on their labels and many of which included potential allergens not identified in the ingredients list.

“Contamination, substitution and falsely labeling herbal products constitute deceptive business practices and, more importantly, present considerable health risks for consumers,” said the letters, first reported today by the New York Times.

The tests were conducted using a process called DNA barcoding, which identifies individual ingredients through a kind of “genetic fingerprinting.” The investigators tested 24 products claiming to be seven different types of herb — echinacea, garlic, gingko biloba, ginseng, saw palmetto, St. John’s wort and valerian root. All but five of the products contained DNA that was either unrecognizable or from a plant other than what the product claimed to be.

Draft of Arrest Request for Argentine President Found at Dead Prosecutor’s Home →

An increasingly bizarre situation:

Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose mysterious death has gripped Argentina, had drafted a request for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here, the lead investigator into his death said Tuesday.
The 26-page document, which was found in the garbage at Mr. Nisman’s apartment, also sought the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s foreign minister. Both Mrs. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman have repeatedly denied Mr. Nisman’s accusation that they tried to reach a secret deal with Iran to lift international arrest warrants for Iranian officials wanted in connection with the bombing.
The new revelation that Mr. Nisman had drafted documents seeking the arrest of the president and the foreign minister illustrates the heightened tensions between the prosecutor and the government before he was found dead on Jan. 18 at his apartment with a gunshot wound to his head. He had been scheduled the next day to provide details before Congress about his accusations against Mrs. Kirchner.

Why Arming the Ukrainians is a Bad Idea →

The Ukrainian calculus is one of immediate desperation. But the United States needs to think for the longer-term. And if U.S.-provided weapons fail to induce a Russian retreat in Ukraine and instead cause an escalation of the war, the net result will not be peace and compromise. There has recently been much escalation in Ukraine, but it could go much further. As horrible as it is, the Ukrainian civil war still looks rather tame by the standards of Bosnia, Chechnya or Syria. Further escalation will mean much more violence, suffering and death in Ukraine.
...
In the meantime, to meet a Russian counter-escalation in Ukraine, the United States would have to either escalate the conflict beyond where it was originally willing to go or be forced into a humiliating retreat. Neither is a very attractive or credibility-enhancing option. U.S. policy should work very hard to avoid confronting that unpalatable choice. Otherwise, this dynamic might well draw the United States deeper into what could become a direct confrontation with a seriously pissed-off and still heavily nuclear-armed Russia.

Militants’ Killing of Jordanian Pilot Unites the Arab World in Anger →

There was one sentiment that many of the Middle East’s competing clerics, fractious ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State’s latest atrocity, burning alive a Jordanian pilot inside a cage.
...

In a way that recent beheadings of hostages had not, the immolation of Lieutenant Kasasbeh set off a regionwide explosion of anger and disgust at the extremists, also known as ISIS or ISIL, or to most Arabs by the word “Daesh.” Even more significant, in a chronically embattled region that bequeathed to the world the expression, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the Islamic State suddenly found itself friendless in the extreme.

Name almost any outrage in the Mideast in decades of them — the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the Achille Lauro hijacking, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the gassing of the Halabja Kurds, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole — and the protagonists would readily find both apologists and detractors. But with one breathtakingly vicious murder, the Islamic State changed that dynamic, uniting most of the region against it.

US-Thailand Relations and Cobra Gold 2015: What’s Really Going On? →

As Cobra Gold – the Asia-Pacific’s largest annual multinational military exercise – is set to commence on February 9 in Thailand, uncertainty continues to cloud specifics amid strained relations between Bangkok and its ally the United States.
In over 30 years, Cobra Gold, which began as a bilateral drill between the United States and Thailand – Washington’s oldest ally in Asia – has now grown into one of the world’s largest multinational exercises involving some 30 countries. Last year, more than 13,000 servicemembers from the United States, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea participated, with China taking part in humanitarian projects and other nations including Myanmar sending observers.
This year’s Cobra Gold, however, has been mired in controversy. A May 22 coup in Thailand led by General Prayuth Chan-o-cha forced the United States to suspend aid and cancel some exercises and exchanges. After much deliberation, Washington also decided in October to scale down Cobra Gold in 2015 but still keep it going. In doing so, the Obama administration sought to both signal its disapproval with the coup while also preserving a critical engagement that is not only a crucial part of its relationship with the Thai government and the Thai people, but builds trust between the regions militaries and demonstrates Washington’s commitment to the Asia-Pacific.