During a speech on Climate Change, secretary of state john kerry was critical of elected officials who he said it ignored scientific facts. At the end of the year the United Nations will hold a Climate Conference in paris. From the Atlantic Council this is 45 minutes. Good morning everybody and thank you very much for a generous introduction. Im delighted to be here with everybody, distinguished ambassadors who are here this morning thank you for taking time to represent your country is and share your concern about this critical issue and i am delighted to be accompanied helping to shape president obama and the state department policy. Thank you for your leadership here at the Atlantic Council. Fred has demonstrated that he seems to have the ability to have his finger on the most Critical Issues of today not just today but tomorrow to count on the Atlantic Council to be ahead of the curve to be challenging all of us to think. So we appreciate very much what you do and thank you all of
Going back to earth day as the first thing i would organize with citizens started to make a solid statement in this country and this was the for we had the clean water act or Safe Drinking Water or Marine Mammal protection act. In all came out of the citizen movement. With the reason now is simple. For decades the science has been screaming morning as trying to compel us to act. Digest 12 underscore thats it may seem obvious to you but not to some. Sciences is and has long been Crystal Clear with Climate Change. For group of us first organized hearings in the senate in 1988 were they said it is happening now. So were not talking about news reports or applaud post or speech that a cabinet secretary may give with a think tank. But if fact based evidence supported peer review science. If you listen to some people in washington you think there is a question whether Climate Change really is a problem if we really need to respond. To stop and think about the basics. When apple falls from the
Blue, declaring that the victim has want a lottery. In order to declare the winnings, they must first pay the tax to the irs. The lottery scam often, but not always, originates from outside of the United States. In the end, the victims pay the money, but they never received any lottery winnings. Just as serious as these scams the risk of taxpayer refund Identity Theft. The irs has made improvements in identification of Identity Theft returns before fraudulent tax refunds are released. Continued attention is needed to effectively combat this crime. For example, the irs still does not have timely access to thirdparty income and withholding information. Most of the thirdparty information is not received by the irs until well after the taxpayers begin filing returns. The deadline for most information returns with irs is march 31. Yet, taxpayers begin filing returns, this year, on january 20. This gap in time prevents the irs from conducting validity checks. Legislation would be needed to a
98 of americans are relieved no tax hike, but back on capitol hill right now everything is not okay. Reporter more division and anger. Some republicans along with democrats upset at Speaker John Boehner for delays a vote on aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy because of the cost. Boehner signaling hes back to a hard line in the budget fights ahead. So are senate republicans. So were going to focus on spending and the tidal waves coming at us you are medicare and the social security. Reporter wave number one is the fight over defense cuts and social service spending, postponed two months by yesterdays fiscal cliff deal. The motion is president doed. Reporter wave number two is worse, another debt ceiling fight like the one last year that damaged the u. S. Credit rating. President obama vows no repeat. I will not have another debate with this congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they have already racked up. Reporter but house rupp pushed back. If the president th
Think is very interesting study, john f. Kennedy and the missile gap also in 2004. And finally we have Michael Cohen who is a fellow at the century foundation. He has been a columnist at the guardian. A blogger for the new york daily news. Hes the author of life on the campaign trail which is about notable 20th Century Campaign speeches of consequence and he is also published widely in wall street journal, new york times, l. A. Times, politico, et cetera. So john, over to you, sir. Good. Im supposed to speak here. You can all hear me. I thought the subject of this panel and of this conference had something to do with realism so im going to playoff that theme and ill get around to pl ticks at the very end. Theres a narrow version of realism. Im not talking about the academic theory of realism or the diplomatic theory that resinate with Public Opinion. Thats the idea that america should only deal with threats that directly concern us but in places like syria, the middle east and ukraine