Iran and the West have been at odds over its nuclear program for years. But the dispute has picked up steam since November 2011, with new findings by international inspectors, tougher sanctions by the United States and Europe against Iran’s oil exports, threats by Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz and threats from Israel signaling increasing readiness to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In late August 2012, international nuclear inspectors reported that Iran had already installed three-quarters of the nuclear centrifuges it needs to complete a deep-underground site for the production of nuclear fuel.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency detailed how Iran used the summer to double the number of centrifuges installed deep under a mountain near the holy city of Qum, while cleansing another site where the agency has said it suspects that the country has conducted explosive experiments that could be “relevant” to the production of a nuclear weapon.

The report was followed by new efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to step up pressure on the Obama administration to establish “red lines” of intolerance for Iran’s nuclear activities. Mr. Netanyahu said in September that Iran was only six or seven months away from having the fuel to make a quick dash for a nuclear weapon, a clear reference to the activity at Fordow, the underground site near the holy city of Qum.

Israel has been pushing the United States to take military action to damage Iran’s program before it reaches the point at which it has the capability to make an atomic bomb, or to give Israel a green light to launch its own airstrike.

President Obama has rejected the Israeli call for a red line at that point. But in a speech to the United Nations on Sept. 25, he repeated his position that the United States would work to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. “Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, has been sharply critical of the president for not taking a tough enough line on Iran, and for not supporting Israel strongly enough.

Mr. Netanyahu spoke at the U.N. after Mr. Obama, and warned that Iran’s ability to make an atomic weapon will be irreversible by spring or summer 2013. The speech suggested that Israel would not take military action on its own before then, and the next week Israeli officials said they were preparing a diplomatic push to convince European leaders to support a new round of sanctions in the meantime.

The growing Israeli focus on a new round of sanctions came amid reports of the deep impact that current sanctions are having on the Iranian economy, as Iran’s currency sunk sharply.

As the country’s economic woes deepened, Iranian officials worked to drum up interest in what they called a “nine-step plan” to defuse the nuclear crisis by gradually suspending the production of the uranium that would be easiest for them to convert into a nuclear weapon. But the plan requires so many concessions by the West, starting with the dismantling of all the sanctions that are blocking oil sales and setting off the collapse of the Iranian currency, that American officials have dismissed it as unworkable.

Source: New York Times

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/nuclear_program/index.html

New York – June 20^th 2012 - iShapePolicy, an industry leading political technology provider, today releases significant enhancements and developments to www.ishapepolicy.com and their political voting tool, iElect^TM.

Earlier this year, iShapePolicy launched its business with the sole purpose of providing greater transparency to citizens interested in political elections.  With their iElect^TM voting application now firmly established and a fast growing membership, iShapePolicy has taken the opportunity to develop its service to provide a richer user experience and to encourage thought and discussion on key political issues through several of its new features.

Brendan Watson, iShapePolicy Co-Founder, believes that to align with the changing political landscape, iShapePolicy, as well as other political applications, needs to continue to evolve in order to capture the interest of people, “Although we have enjoyed a very successful 6 months, we wanted to enrich our site and application to continue to assist citizens with better understanding the options available to them when reviewing an election.  We wanted to think about iShapePolicy as more than just a voting tool and have taken the opportunity to develop it with our member’s interests at heart.  We’re also very excited about our multi-election capability and our US members should see the benefits of this new functionality in the coming weeks when we’ll be opening-up iElect^TM  for the gubernatorial elections”.

Key new Features:

Multi-Election Capability:  iElect^TM has been developed to handle federal, state, local and international elections.

iShapePolicy Virtual Vote: A New feature has been added to the My Matches page allowing members to participate in a real-time voting poll called ‘Click to Vote’.  Whether members agree or disagree with their suggested matches, they now have the ability to express who really has their vote.

Voter Trends & Statistics:  iShapePolicy now boasts a plethora of real-time statistics on how citizens are voting across varying demographic profiles.

Polls & Opinions:  Complimenting the latest news and iShapePolicy Tweets is iShapePolicy’s thought provoking ‘Polls & Opinions’ page.  Capturing the current political hot topics, iShapePolicy challenges its members to think about where they stand regarding key political and social issues.

iElect^TM is a non-partisan, comprehensive and easy-to-use application which helps voters determine their “best matched” candidate – regardless of political party.  Pre-conceived notions of candidates, promoted by the media, are put aside and citizens are given the opportunity to arrive at a conclusion based on their own definition of the key issues and their views. The result provides voters with an ability to search across vetted candidates from different political parties who are running for a specific elected position and then returning matches based on a weighted score.

“iShapePolicy provides a much needed resource to all who care about the condition of our democracy.  By providing current, clear and non-partisan information concerning candidates to the nation’s voters, iShapePolicy delivers a valuable service that ultimately and undoubtedly will result in a more perfect union,”                Dr. Michael C. Illuzzi, Research Development Specialist at Rutgers University.

Let’s hope so. This ought to mark the beginning of a real revolution to get our city, state and federal books in order. That doesn’t require eviscerating public sector pension, pay packages and job protections — simply bringing them a little closer in line with what stressed private sector workers expect in the 21st century.

The failed recall of Walker effectively seals in place reforms passed in March 2011, which included significant increases in employee contributions toward pensions and health insurance.

But even following these reforms, Wisconsin workers are far from underpaid. In a recent research paper published by the American Enterprise Institute, we showed that Wisconsin state employees today receive total wages and benefits around 20% higher than private sector workers with similar levels of education and experience. Many local government employees in Wisconsin do even better.

As in other states, the Wisconsin pay premium is driven by generous fringe benefits. Perhaps this is because salaries are easy for taxpayers to measure and compare, while fringe benefits are opaque and difficult to place a value on.
But even after the Walker reforms, the health package for state employees is twice as generous as the private sector average, while public workers’ traditional defined benefit pension plans are still over four times more generous than what the typical private sector 401(k) plan provides.

Wisconsin is hardly the worst offender in this regard. Many states pay an even larger bonus to government workers. In New York State, for instance, public workers who retired in 2011 after full careers working for the state received average pensions topping $50,000, equal to 73% of final salary.

In addition, these retirees will typically receive around $22,000 per year each in Social Security benefits, providing a total income in retirement exceeding what they received while working. Few private sector workers do nearly as well.

The same patterns hold at the federal level. Federal employee salaries are at least equal to those paid in the private sector — but they receive much more generous benefits.

A March 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the average federal worker receives almost 50% more paid time off than similar private sector workers. Moreover, federal workers’ retirement package combines a traditional defined benefit pension with a defined contribution pension that provides an employer match, along with retiree health care that in total is 2.7 times more generous than benefits paid by large private sector firms.

Beyond that, nearly all public employees — federal, state and local — have significantly greater job security than private workers, even after controlling for skill differences between workers in each sector.

While state and local governments have faced some layoffs — in part due to unions’ unwillingness to negotiate on labor costs — these job cuts have been smaller than in the private sector. And federal workers have seen practically no net layoffs at all.

Moreover, all public employees receive far greater protections against dismissals, making firing for cause so arduous that many governments rarely even bother. The so-called “rubber rooms” in New York City, which kept poorly-performing or misbehaving teachers on the payroll but away from kids, were only the starkest evidence of the job protections public employees enjoy.

Clearly, much remains to be done, both in Wisconsin and in cities and states around the country. Passing more laws like Wisconsin’s is one route, but hardly a sure one. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for instance, passed similar reforms only to see them repealed via a 2011 voter referendum.

Here are several other ways in which reformers might bring the public and private sector closer.

One approach is to bypass union power in city councils and state legislatures using ballot initiatives sponsored by reformers. On the same day as Wisconsin’s recall election, San Jose voters passed a referendum that reduces pension benefits and increases employee contributions for newly-hired workers. San Diego’s Proposition B went further, limiting pension benefits for current employees and shifting new hires to a defined contribution 401(k)-style plan.

Both initiatives passed by two-to-one margins. Ballot initiatives, where available, may be the best path to immediate reform.

An alternate approach is to weaken unions’ ability to obstruct reforms. A number of states, including Wisconsin, have made union membership — and, more importantly, the payment of union dues — voluntary for public employees. Prior to these reforms, deduction of union dues from worker paychecks was automatic. Using these funds, unions become the largest campaign contributors in many states.

Without automatic dues collection, membership in the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees fell from almost 63,000 in March 2011 to less than 29,000 in February 2012.

And this is hardly an extreme case. The Colorado Association of Public Employees saw a 70% membership decline after the state made membership voluntary in 2001. Indiana stopped automatic dues collection in 2005 and public-sector unions lost 90% of their members. Utah saw a similar decline in teacher union membership in 2001, and a 1992 reform in Washington state saw the share of dues-payers fall from 82% to just 11%.

Automatically collected dues are used for political organizing against reform-minded candidates. And it is clear that many public workers simply do not want to be part of a union when given the choice. Voluntary union dues are not merely the right thing for public employees, but the right thing for taxpayers as well.

A third path to reform is demanding more accurate and transparent accounting practices. Accounting rules for state and local government pensions understate their true liabilities and encourage these plans to take greater investment risks, putting government budget and the economy at risk.

Under current rules, pensions may value — or “discount” — their benefit obligations using the interest rate they expect to return on their investments. The problem is that public pension benefits are guaranteed by law, while the plans’ investments — which often include stocks, private equity, and hedge funds — are risky.

Economists everywhere, from academia to the Congressional Budget Office to the Federal Reserve, agree that risk-adjusted measures of pension obligations better capture their full cost, which includes taxpayer bailouts if pension investments don’t meet expected returns. Using these measures, public pensions around the country are not underfunded by “only” $700 billion as fund managers claim, but by somewhere north of $4 trillion.

Proper accounting would also make the generosity of public pensions more transparent. For example, the new benefits accruing each year under the Wisconsin Retirement System cost more than two-and-a-half times what the system estimates. And the benefit to a typical worker in the Wisconsin system is roughly equivalent to having a 401(k) with an employer contribution of 24% of salary each year.

Understanding the true costs of public pensions through proper financial accounting could spur elected officials to take the need for reform seriously.

Across the country, federal, state and local governments pay out almost $1.5 trillion in salaries and benefits each year. If government employees are reaping the same average 20% premium we found in Wisconsin, taxpayers could save roughly $300 billion annually simply by returning government salaries and benefits to private sector levels.

Public employee unions will fight further reforms, but recent events suggest they will lose when taxpayers are given a chance to weigh in responsible reforms.

By Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/walking-scott-walker-footsteps-article-1.1092426

Thanks to vouchers, St. Stanislaus, which was $140,000 in debt to the Catholic Diocese of Gary at the end of 2010, picked up 72 new students, boosting enrollment by 38%.

“God has been good to us,” says Ms. Lowry. “Growth is a good problem to have.”

For the first time in decades, Catholic education is showing signs of life. Driven by expanding voucher programs, outreach to Hispanic Catholics and donations by business leaders, Catholic schools in several major cities are swinging back from closures and declining enrollment.

Chicago Catholic elementary schools saw enrollment increase 3% this year and 1% last year—the first two-year growth spurt since 1965. Greater Boston elementary schools had a 2% bump—the first in 20 years. And Los Angeles, Indianapolis and Bridgeport, Conn., also added desks for the first time in years.

Nationally since 2000, U.S. Catholic school enrollment has plummeted by 23%, and 1,900 schools have closed, driven by demographic changes and fallout from priest sexual-abuse scandals. Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia have announced plans to close even more Catholic schools.

But lately, Catholic schools have slowed their overall rate of decline. This year, two million children attended Catholic schools, down 1.7% from last, but less than the average yearly decline of 2.5% over the past decade.

The improving prospects for Catholic schools in some cities come at a time of great ferment in U.S. education. Years of overhauls in public schools have yielded only modest progress. And attendance at independent private schools fell during the recession.

Students at Catholic schools generally boast better test scores and graduation rates than public schools. But families, including those who aren’t Catholic, must be willing to accept weekly Mass and religion classes in many schools.

Catholic schools are showing signs of growth even in cities without vouchers. But they are benefiting disproportionately from the rise of vouchers, available in 10 states and Washington, D.C., and tax credit programs that provide tax relief to individuals or businesses that donate to scholarships for low-income students.

Private schools usually are more expensive and often don’t participate in voucher programs. Catholic schools are frequently located in urban areas, where vouchers are popular, have space and have an established history with communities.

As more states embrace them—Virginia, Florida and Louisiana created or expanded voucher or tax credit programs in the last 18 months—many Catholic schools expect enrollment gains.

The most impressive gains for Catholic education have happened in Indiana, where the nation’s largest voucher system rolled out last year. More than 2,400 children used state-issued vouchers to transfer from public to Catholic schools. Another 1,500 used vouchers to move to other religious or private schools.

St. Stanislaus Catholic School, known as St. Stans, is a microcosm of Catholic education’s comeback. East Chicago, located 25 miles outside of Chicago, was once a bustling industrial center that drew thousands of Irish, German and Polish immigrants and supported eight Catholic schools.

By the 1990s, the steel plants and factories had begun to close, and white residents fled. Today, half of the city’s residents are Hispanic, and 37% live below the federal poverty line.

Enrollment at St. Stans had been stagnant for a decade, and its diocese closed three other schools at the end of this school year because of declining enrollment. But after Indiana’s voucher law passed last year, Ms. Lowry spent $90 for airtime on a local radio station to tout the benefits of her school and placed a notice in the weekly church bulletin.

After the marketing efforts, Ms. Lowry says she’d arrive at work in the mornings to find two or three parents waiting to sign up.

Critics, including teacher unions, say vouchers drain resources from public schools, siphon off the brightest students with the most engaged parents, and, in the case of Catholic schools, violate the separation of church and state by sending tax dollars to religious institutions. In 2002, the Supreme Court upheld a voucher program in Ohio.

Krista Stockman, spokeswoman for the nearby public school district Fort Wayne Community Schools, which lost nearly 400 students and $4.2 million in state funding to vouchers—more than any district in the state—says it is tough for her schools to compete. “There’s this unfair perception out there that all private schools are better than public schools,” she says.

In Indiana, private and parochial schools must apply to be part of the voucher program and they are allowed to retain their regular admission standards, such as requiring students to post high test scores. But if they participate, they must administer the state achievement exams and be part of the state school rating system. Teachers in these schools aren’t required to have state certification.

Federal law doesn’t require religious schools that accept vouchers to offer special education services.

Parents like cafeteria server Agustina Cuadra from East Chicago say vouchers for Catholic school give them needed educational choices.

Ms. Cuadra, 35, says one of her two daughters, Daniella, now 12 years old, was bullied in fifth grade at the local public school. She says students pulled her hair, dumped milk on her head in the lunchroom and pushed her in the hallway.

“My daughter was scared to go to school,” she says.

Michael Harding, the superintendent of the East Chicago school district declined to comment on a specific student’s case. He says there have been problems in his schools but that things are improving. “We recognized the system was broken and needed to be fixed,” he says.

Ms. Cuadra, whose husband lost his job last year, says she could not afford private school or to move out of town. “We were stuck,” she says.

She learned about St. Stans when her sister-in-law heard about the vouchers in Sunday Mass at the end of July.
“I finally saw a light for my girls, I finally saw that there might be some hope for them to get a good education,” says Ms. Cuadra.

Two weeks after applying to St. Stans, her daughters were in.

Across the country, Catholic schools are targeting Hispanic parents like Ms. Cuadra.

In 1990, 20% of Catholics were Latino. Today, they make up 32% of the Catholic population and the majority of those under 30.

Kevin Baxter, superintendent of elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, says the church has done a poor job of reaching Latino families.

“We’ve relied on the old way of doing things and now we’re slowly learning it is relationship-driven,” says Mr. Baxter, who organized an outreach campaign that assigned a Latino mother already in the school to organize social events for others in the community.

Growing parochial schools could also help the U.S. Catholic Church boost the percentage of Catholics who attend church, which is well off levels from decades ago.

Getting more students enrolled in Catholic schools is “clearly one of the top priorities” for the church as it tries to get more faithful back into the pews, says Mark Gray, the director of Catholic polls and a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

“There is an important long-term effect on the Catholic population by having them in schools,” he says.
Beyond shifting demographics, Catholic schools have also had to counter the priest sexual-abuse scandals that broke onto the national stage in the 1980s.

The diocese that is home to St. Stans removed three priests from the ministry in the last 10 years after officials deemed allegations of sex abuse were credible.

Gary Diocese Bishop Dale Melczek says he has referred the cases to the central governing body of the Roman Catholic Church at the Vatican. He says he doesn’t think the scandals played any role in dwindling church attendance.

Ms. Cuadra says she wasn’t concerned about her children’s safety at Catholic school, in part because they have limited contact with priests.

Nationally, the rise in Catholic schools doesn’t appear to have helped the church’s bottom line, especially as lay teachers replace the dwindling number of nuns and priests who provided an inexpensive labor force. Today about 3% of Catholic teachers have taken religious vows, compared with nearly 30% in 1980.

In places without voucher programs, such as Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, wealthy Catholic business leaders are helping the schools with recruitment, management and teacher training.

For example, in the Chicago Archdiocese, the nation’s largest Catholic school system, The Big Shoulders Fund, a charity led by local business and religious leaders, has led an aggressive campaign to recruit students to 93 of the system’s 256 schools. The group, which provides about $12 million a year in grants and scholarships, builds websites for schools, goes door-to-door talking to parents about Catholic education and hires professional marketing directors to recruit students.

Archdiocese officials say the nonprofit’s efforts played a critical role in the systems’ enrollment surge.

Catholic schools are also welcoming non-Catholic students. Nationally, about 17% of students in Catholic schools aren’t Catholic.

At St. Stans, classrooms marry faith and academics. A statue of the Virgin Mary gripping an American flag stands sentry in the corner of each classroom.

In Melinda Quasney’s second grade room, a poster about punctuation marks shares a wall with the Ten Commandments and a red heart-shaped “Jesus Loves Me” sign.

Squeezed in between math, reading and science instruction, students have a 45-minute daily religion class, where they learn about the sacraments, morals and the history of the Catholic Church.

School officials say 87% of voucher students are Catholic and no one is allowed to opt out of religion class or Mass.

Desiree Jones, a 41-year-old nondenominational Christian with three kids at St. Stans, says there are cultural challenges to sending her kids to a Catholic school, including confusion about rituals.

Her 15-year-old daughter Epiphany Johnican says she had to learn how to do the “sign of the cross,” a hand motion crossing oneself from forehead to chest, and shoulder to shoulder.

Still, Ms. Jones likes that her children are getting exposed to church traditions. “I just like the fact that they go to Mass once a week,” she says. She says she hasn’t felt any pressure from the school to convert.

Mary Grassa O’Neill, the superintendent of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Boston, says many parents like that Catholic schools are “trying to teach high moral values.”

When it comes to talking about sex, the Catholic schools have no problem saying “you’re too young; abstinence is the way to go,” she says.

With the influx of students, St. Stans has confronted growing pains. Most new students transferred from East Chicago public schools, one of the state’s lowest-performing districts, and some arrived behind academically. Others bristled at strict uniform and behavior policies.

Fifth-grade teacher Rose Klapkowski taught 18 students last year. This year, she has 34. She got a teacher’s aide, but worries she can’t give children individualized attention. “It’s great for the school because we can stay open, but it’s a lot more work,” she says.

St. Stans is rated “exemplary” by the state for its high test scores. Ms. Lowry, the principal, says that, despite the enrollment surge, she expects the rating to stick. The school tutored students who were behind and caught almost all of them up, she says.

Initially, the transition was rocky for Ms. Cuadra’s daughter Daniella. She got caught passing notes in class a few times and received detention, which involved shoveling snow off the school’s sidewalks.

“I got in line after that,” she says. Now, she likes the academics and the new friends she’s made, and her mom likes the strict discipline. She made the honor roll.

St. Stans is “the best school I have ever been in, in my whole life,” she says.

By STEPHANIE BANCHERO and JENNIFER LEVITZ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304821304577440763188839928.html

The Obama administration argues a 2010 Arizona measure aimed at fighting illegal immigration conflicts with federal law. The state law requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop if suspicious of their right be in the U.S. It also makes it a crime for immigrants without work permits to seek employment.

Both of these provisions, among others, have been blocked by federal courts for interfering with federal immigration laws. Even so, the Arizona statute has sparked copycat measures in Alabama and other states.

All parties agree immigration is an area of federal supremacy. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld a separate Arizona law putting out of business companies that repeatedly hire illegal immigrants. Over objections from the Obama administration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and labor groups, the court held 5-3 that Congress had given states authority to strip corporate charters and other essential permits to punish employers for immigration violations.
Architects of the Arizona law now under challenge say they sought to reduce the state’s illegal population, or achieve “attrition by enforcement.” They call the law a success because many immigrants without papers have voluntarily left.
Critics say the state’s image has suffered, and some groups have canceled conventions amid calls for a boycott of Arizona. The law’s author, Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, lost his seat in a recall vote last year.

Although the legal issues are unrelated, the politics surrounding the dispute track those of last month’s arguments over President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul. Both cases pit the administration and Democratic-led states against Republican-led states and tea-party sympathizers aiming to challenge the federal government. Even key personnel are the same: Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the administration’s top litigator, will again square off against Paul Clement, a Republican former solicitor general representing the state, in arguments beginning Wednesday.
Grant Woods, a Republican former Arizona state attorney general and former chief of staff to Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), said the state had an “enormous problem” with illegal immigrants, but “that does not mean that the solution is for Arizona or any other state to adopt its own immigration policy.” Mr. Woods, one of several former state attorneys general to file a brief siding with the Obama administration, says the dispute is rooted in Congress’s failure to overhaul immigration.

Mr. Clement’s brief says Arizona was forced to act against illegal immigrants because the federal government has failed to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. A “flood of unlawful cross-border traffic” has plagued the state with an “influx of illegal drugs, dangerous criminals and highly vulnerable persons,” Mr. Clement wrote. Illegal immigrants constitute 6% of the state’s population, or 400,000, disproportionately filling state prisons, running up public-school expenditures and driving down wages for citizens and legal residents, the brief says.

Because the state law uses federal definitions on immigration status, Arizona describes it as “cooperative enforcement” of federal law, and says it isn’t going against Congress’s intent.

While many Republicans have seen little political risk in opposing the health-care law, immigration is proving trickier. Laws targeting illegal immigrants have hampered GOP efforts to gain ground among Hispanics, a fast-growing population segment that favored Democrats by a 2-1 margin in the 2010 election.

Mr. Obama opposes the law, SB 1070, while Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, has said he would let such state laws take effect without federal objection.

In his brief, the administration’s Mr. Verrilli rejects the notion that the federal government is neglecting to secure Arizona’s border, saying it has stepped up enforcement. Regardless, the government says, Arizona’s immigration policy conflicts with the policy legislated by Congress, which it says aims to balance a host of competing concerns rather than focusing “solely on maximum enforcement.”

Lower courts have agreed with the administration and blocked enforcement of four SB 1070 provisions: requiring police to verify the immigration status of everyone they stop who they reasonably suspect may lack authorization to be in the U.S.; authorizing police to arrest any foreign citizen they believe has committed a deportable offense; making it a crime for foreigners to fail to carry registration documents; and making it a crime for illegal immigrants to seek or perform work.

Each of those provisions involves a separate legal analysis, meaning that the Supreme Court could end up upholding some but not others. The court will do so without Justice Elena Kagan, who was solicitor general when the Obama administration filed its challenge to SB 1070 and has recused herself.

The decision is likely to come in the final days of June, the same as the health-care ruling.

By By JESS BRAVIN and MIRIAM JORDAN of the Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303978104577359763191050888.html

TransCanada Corp. filed the proposal with state environmental officials in Nebraska on Wednesday, the company said. The Omaha World-Herald has more on the plan here.

The filing came on the same day that the House passed a GOP-led bill that mandates federal approval of the proposed pipeline, which would bring Canadian oil sands south to Gulf Coast refineries.

President Obama rejected a federal cross-border permit for the pipeline in January, citing the need for more review of routes through Nebraska and other matters. But the administration has invited TransCanada to reapply for the permit, which the company intends to do.

Republicans say construction of the overall project should commence quickly while state and federal officials review the Nebraska-specific portion.

They have used the White House failure to approve the project to attack administration energy policies, alleging Obama is passing up a chance to create jobs and increase energy security.

Back in Nebraska, TransCanada’s filing with state officials came a day after Gov. Dave Heineman (R) signed a bill into law that will enable an expedited state review of the project.

“Nebraska will move forward on the review process of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and any future pipelines that will create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil,” he said in a statement earlier this week, calling the review a “top priority.”

But Jane Kleeb of the anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska said the new route still cuts through environmentally sensitive areas. Opponents of the project fear that spills could contaminate a vital aquifer.

“If TransCanada cared about our state, landowners, water and Sandhills, they would have proposed a safer, more responsible route instead of trying to play games with landowners,” she said in a statement Wednesday evening.
Environmentalists bitterly oppose the pipeline due to greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands extraction and other concerns. Major business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute are lobbying for its approval.

By Ben Geman
Publication Date 4/19/12
The Hill (http://thehill.com)

Not sure who to vote for in the upcoming 2012 presidential election? There’s now an app to help the undecided.

As President Barack Obama begins campaigning for a second term against presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, the new Web application may help uncertain voters determine which most strongly aligns with their own political views. The free online application, called iElect, was developed by iShapePolicy through the use of a match algorithm – it generates user-candidate compatibility based on a series of questions the user answers.

“We’re trying to create an engaging way for people to – in a nonpartisan way – look at vetted candidates, discover and explore different issues that are most important to them and then plug that into a match algorithm that provides those match results,” said Brendan Watson, co-founder of iShapePolicy.

Similar to the technology and structure of online dating, iElect has users set up private profiles and answer questions related to personal beliefs on government issues. They are then directed to a page displaying 15 government topics including immigration, debt, health care, tax reform and gay rights. For each topic, the user can answer questions to determine the range of his or her opinion on the issue, but users are not required to answer every question. Many of the topics may ask if you agree, disagree or have no position on the issue.

Once a user has answered as many questions as he or she wishes, the results are displayed on the “My Matches” page, which ranks – from highest to lowest – the candidate with which the user has the most compatibility. For the most accurate results, users are urged to answer as many of the questions as possible, Watson said.

In creating the app, he said, iShapePolicy used multiples areas of research to gather information on the candidates: their official campaign websites that include their personal stances on numerous government issues, data on legislation that candidates have voted on in the past and opinions candidates revealed during debates.

To ensure a nonpartisan effort, iShapePolicy has an advisory board consisting of members from private sector, higher education and government.

What is now solely a Web app dedicated to the presidential election may soon expand to include the 11 upcoming gubernatorial races, as well as some federal elections dealing with the Senate and the House of Representatives. Further down the road, the organization hopes to incorporate elections down to the municipal level to help users vote for the candidates in their backyard. iShapePolicy also is researching efforts to develop the app so it can be supported on mobile devices.

By Sarah Rich

http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Web-App-Plays-Matchmaker-Pairs-Users-with-Presidential-Candidates.html

Nearly half of the 500 doctors surveyed think the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, will have a negative effect on their practices, compared with 23% who think it will be positive.

Of the 57% of young doctors who are pessimistic, 34% cite the new healthcare law or regulations as the reason for pessimism. Other reasons include declining reimbursement for doctors and a decrease in incomes.

Twenty-one percent of the doctors, who were all under the age of 40, said they were neutral about the future of U.S. healthcare, while 22% were optimistic. The reasons for optimism included better patient care and that the United States was moving in the right direction with its healthcare system.

The survey was commissioned by The Physicians Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes the work of practicing doctors through grants, research and policy impact studies.

It was founded in 2003 as part of a settlement in an anti-racketeering lawsuit brought by physicians and medical societies against health insurers. The insurers agreed to provide seed money to start the organization.

The survey may add fuel to opponents of the healthcare law, who denounce it as an unwarranted government intrusion.
Republican presidential candidates have promised to repeal the law if one of them wins the White House in the November
election.

The Supreme Court is also weighing whether Congress overstepped its authority to regulate commerce in approving the law, which mandates that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine.

Lou Goodman, president of the Foundation, said the medical profession is still attractive and people are applying in record numbers to medical schools.

“But what we’re seeing is that once they get out, it’s not what they expected,” he said. “Young doctors are finding upheaval and transition in the way the healthcare system is structured right now … And when our doctors are dissatisfied, we’ve got a problem with the system.”

Goodman said some doctors are worried about the Affordable Care Act and other healthcare changes because they will bring economic considerations into the decisions that doctors make.

One physician quoted in the survey said: “The changes that are being made are not made with the patient in mind, but with the ‘bottom line’ economically in mind. Not once is the patient mentioned in all these changes.”

The doctors were randomly selected in December 2011 from an online database by Medical Marketing Research, which
conducted the survey online. Half of physicians were in primary care, 175 were specialists in offices and 75 were specialists in hospitals.
By Anna Yukhananov

Using political debate questions researched from past elections, iElect tests a user’s views on 15 political hot topics from immigration and same-sex marriage to gun control and national debt.

The answers to the questions are compared to the candidates’ views and a compatibility percentage is generated based on one’s stance on the issues. The more questions a user chooses to answer, the more accurate the results.

“Our exercise was to get people thinking beyond that process of walking into a voter booth and voting down the line for a candidate whose views they don’t really understand,” said Brandon Watson, co-founder of iShapePolicy.

Watson, a self-professed political enthusiast, said his main goal was to get people interested in the political process again.
“When I was looking at the statistics for reasons people don’t vote, some of the top reasons were, ‘I didn’t have time, (and) I had a schedule conflict’,” Watson said.

Boasting about 500 users, Watson said iElect is still in its early stages. As updates are made to make the application more user-friendly, Watson eventually wants to get political figures involved in the data producing process.

“There will without a doubt be an opportunity for politicians to access data sets,” Watson said, adding that one of the application’s limitations is its limited access to political data.

However, when it comes to the politicians themselves, political columnist Jack Lessenberry says to be wary when attempting to pin down the stance of a candidate.

“Politicians attempt to use the media for their own purposes. Sometimes they will put out an idea that is a trial balloon that they don’t take seriously and they want you to write about it,” Lessenberry said. “They will tell you this in confidence. If people react favorably to it they will announce it publicly, and if they don’t they will say you made a mistake.”

The Michigan Secretary of State reported 16.6 percent of registered voters came out to the recent GOP election, a reported decline in numbers from the 2008 primary.

“Every election there are things like that. It is not uncommon,” Hayg Oshagan, director of media arts and studies at Wayne State, said of the iElect application. “The generation that is involved in app-based communication usually ends up reinforcing their point of views.”

Oshagan explained that the people a user follows on Twitter or befriends on Facebook usually hold beliefs that align with and reinforce the user’s beliefs.

“The effect of newspapers endorsing a political candidate is not very big because chances are you are reading a paper that aligns with your views,” Oshagan said.

WSU student Dustin Jackson believes voting is important.

“I believe that it is my duty to vote and participate in the election process,” said Jackson, an Urban Studies major. “My ancestors fought and died for me to have the right to vote.”

Jackson added that although he hadn’t heard of iElect until recently, he thinks it could be useful to those who are not informed about the candidates running for office, but not for someone like him, who knows his political stance.

“Reinforcement is not a minor effect,” Oshagan said. “People need reinforcement.”

A company called iShapePolicy is hoping to change that. According to co-founder, Brendan Watson, they wanted to create an “alternative to the status-quo” when it comes to how people decide which candidates to vote for. Watson described what is called political socialization, as a progression that begins with the family and continues through educational institutions and the media.

With their new online platform, iElect, the company seeks to match people with the candidate who shares the most similar opinions. This is done through a series of 15 questions that have between one-and-four different answer choices. The questions range from Roe v. Wade, to the budget, to government bailouts. These topics were chosen by a six-person advisory panel, according to Watson, that held people from academia, the private spectrum, and more. Of course, if participants feel that those 15 questions do not fully portray their views, then they have the option to answer more.

After the questionnaire is complete, participants are sent to a page that ranks candidates by the percentage of matching answers. At the moment, the platform only covers the Presidential election. However, according to Watson, they plan on having the 11 gubernatorial races available closer to November.

Kristina Petrie, a DePaul junior studying English literature, admitted that her candidate match was not whom she was expecting. She also said that the questions “raised my awareness and made me curious to research certain issues and candidates more closely.”

Not everyone is well-versed in politics, and some questions may ask opinions on specific issues that participants have not heard of before. For example, the budget question requests that participants state their opinion on a “Balanced Budget Amendment,” a theory that few outside the political science realm are familiar with. To help, there are direct links to find definitions or explanations.

Once the match is made, participants are able to see a side-by-side comparison of what each candidate’s answers are; as-well-as links for where iShapePolicy found that information.

Some, however, believe that a simple ‘yes or no’ answer, especially to issues as complex as the budget debate, does not fully capture one’s political values. “I found myself saying, wait! I want to explain!” said Sean Tyler, a sophomore anthropology student. To respond to these criticisms, Watson said that they will be modifying some of the available answers this month. This will include more information on the topic, and more key words, along with the option to skip a question, or respond ‘no answer.’

For those who may be on the fence about presidential candidates, or who aren’t sure if they really support the same person those around them do, then iElect is a great application to not only see who matches your ideals and values, but also to begin further research into current events.