Approval of Netherlands application for statehood not likely

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Approval of Netherlands application for statehood not likely

By The Time Natural Gas Has A Net Climate Benefit You’ll Likely Be Dead And The Climate Ruined

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By The Time Natural Gas Has A Net Climate Benefit You’ll Likely Be Dead And The Climate Ruined

Public Advocate Likely to Join Secret Spy Court

(Newser) – President Obama will lay out changes to the nation’s surveillance practices later this month, and the Los Angeles Times reports that it’s likely he will accept a key recommendation from a presidential panel on the topic: He will appoint what amounts to a public advocate to argue against the government’s requests before the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. As it stands now, the court hears only from government lawyers seeking additional surveillance power, and those requests get approved nearly 100% of the time. The public advocate will theoretically act as a check on that. Unclear is whether Obama will change how the court’s judges are picked; all are currently appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the panel recommended opening that up to other justices.

The LAT story also thinks that the president will “probably” shift control of the NSA’s massive database of telephone data from the government into private hands, perhaps the telephone companies themselves. The government could get access to it only with a judge’s permission. One change that looks unlikely: a proposal to make it more difficult for the FBI to issue so-called “national security letters,” which force telecom and financial companies to hand over customer data without a warrant. “There is concern that this proposal makes it more cumbersome to investigate a terrorist than it does a criminal,” says a White House official. Expect to hear Obama’s final decision on these and other recommendations in the days before the Jan. 28 State of the Union.

Politics from Newser

Public Advocate Likely to Join Secret Spy Court

10 Crazy Things More Likely Than Winning The Lottery

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10 Crazy Things More Likely Than Winning The Lottery

Health Site Is Improving But Likely to Miss Saturday Deadline

Louise Radnofsky and Spencer E. Ante
Wall Street Journal
November 30, 2013

Despite recent progress at HealthCare.gov, a raft of problems will remain beyond the Obama administration’s Saturday deadline to make the troubled federal insurance website work.

The news isn’t all bad: Users say the site looks better, pages load faster, and more people are getting through to sign up for health plans.

But technical problems still affect HealthCare.gov’s ability to verify users’ identities and transmit accurate enrollment data to insurers, officials say. The data center that supports the site faces continuing challenges, and tools for processing payments to insurers haven’t been built.

Read more

This article was posted: Saturday, November 30, 2013 at 11:21 am

Tags: healthcare

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Health Site Is Improving But Likely to Miss Saturday Deadline

Wild winter this year? Not likely, NOAA forecasts

WASHINGTON (AP) — The weather forecast for this winter is mostly a shrug of the shoulders.
Science Headlines

Wild winter this year? Not likely, NOAA forecasts

"A Market Likely To Suck Everyone In To Its Last Updraft "

"A Market Likely To Suck Everyone In To Its Last Updraft "
http://currenteconomictrendsandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/3ad7a__Corrigan_0.jpg

From Sean Corrigan Of Diapason Commodities Management

Material Evidence

At present the whole world is happy to treat the post?Shutdown US as a Goldilocks fable. Herein, such good macro numbers as do occur are eitherdeemed an aberration soon to reversed as the supposed disruption of the budget dispute filters its way into the reckoning, or else they serve to underpin the assumptions of higher earnings to come. Weaker ones – like the just?released NFP – are also welcome for their prophylactic effect since they can only continue to disarm an already bedraggled flock of Fed hawks, leaving the rest of us hoarsely Yellen for more.

So, in the run?up to book closing, we may see everyone scramble out to their waiting Sopwith, silk scarf flapping jauntily in the slipstream of the ‘crate’s’ spinning propellers, to the exultant cryof, “Chocks away, Ginger!? Off will go our heroes, soaring not so much to a tumult in the clouds as to the wide, blue yonder of ever higher equity prices and ever fatter bonus cheques.

Ye Gods! Even that discredited old hack, Alan Greenspan ? the man who bears as much responsibility as anyone for the hypertrophy of state- supported finance and thus for the havoc it continues to wreak ? is at it, trying to tell us that because of a low ‘equity premium’ (read: ludicrously intervention?depressed bond yields), the ‘momentum’ of stocks ‘is still relatively up’.

Such a market is therefore likely to suck everyone in to its last, Plinian updraft no matter how stretched everything becomes and no matter how great the risk of being cast into perdition in the pyroclastic collapse to come. That said, one cannot fail to be tempted by the fact that margin debt is in the stratosphere (a new dollar high and a fraction of market cap only outdone in QI’00); sentiment is heavily bullish (the AAII Bull?Bear index is at levels only once beaten to any significant degree in the past since the start of 2006; while that same index multiplied by stock prices is in the 97th percentile of a quarter?century sample), put?call skews are high and vols are low.

In turn, this means that our favourite ‘Blue Sky’ indices (index levels divided by volatility measures, such as OEX/VXO) are off the charts. Indeed, that particular example is now 2.7 sigmas over a 28?year mean, in a 99th percentile which has only once been surpassed, at the start of 2007, before the first rumblings of the CDO cyclone and sub?prime tsunami were audible to any but the most perceptive listener. In Germany, the DAX/VDAX equivalent sits at a major, new 21?year high, a whopping 3.7 sigmas over its period mean.

There are one or two other technical signals, too. The S&P500 ex?financials has all but completed a handsome?looking long?term profile during the DDIE. The financials, meanwhile, have retraced 50% of their LEH?AIG meltdown. Nasdaq has been on one of Didier Sornette’s exponential accelerations, climbing more ever more rapidly on ever shorter timeframes up into the top few percent of another clean, projected top mapped out off the 2009 lows. Looking further back in time, since that same 2009 nadir, the DJIA has ascended by an amount only exceeded in the run up to 1920, 1929, 1937, 1987, and 2000 – all of them major tops. Juicy!

What we must caution here, however, is that anyone tempted to lean into this particular wind must have the patience to wait for signs of even a temporary exhaustion before setting shorts. Critical, too, will be the discipline to stop out if and when those initial selling ‘tails’ start to fill back in, for fear that this is a signal that the mania has not yet ended and that the buyers of dips are still all too dominant.

Zero Hedge

Read more about "A Market Likely To Suck Everyone In To Its Last Updraft " and other interesting subjects concerning Commentary at TheDailyNewsReport.com

Teens Now More Likely To Get Genital Herpes Because They Didn"t Get Cold Sores As Kids

Kids these days! Strangely enough, they are less likely to have been exposed to herpes simplex virus type 1 in early childhood, according to a new study. That means they don’t get cold sores as elementary schoolers, but it also means when they become sexually active, they don’t have immunity to help protect them against the virus in… other regions of their bodies.

I remember learning in elementary school that there’s oral herpes and genital herpes and never the twain shall meet. It seems these distinctions are blurring with younger Americans, however. An increasing proportion of genital herpes infections in industrialized countries now stem from herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), or the “cold sore” virus, instead of HSV-2, which people usually get from sexual contact.

The increasing popularity of oral sex may contribute to the shift in infection types, the study’s researchers, a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in their study. Meanwhile, HSV-2 infections aren’t decreasing, so teens may be more likely to get genital herpes in general, the study reports. Both HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections last people’s entire lives and have no known cure.

Back in these teens’ parents’ time—or really, just a decade ago—most genital herpes infections came from HSV-2. On the other hand, people contracted HSV-1 as children, from skin-to-skin contact with infected adults. Kisses, sharing drinks, and other normal interactions passed to children the virus that might, in some kids, give them occasional cold sores; in others, the virus stayed dormant. Either way, the virus could trigger the body to develop immunity against contracting HSV-1 later in life, in other parts of the body. 

The new study didn’t analyze why kids now get HSV-1 less often. But Marcelo Laufer, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who was not involved in the new research, told HealthDay it might be because parents now have better hygienic practices. 

The CDC researchers studied herpes viruses in blood samples from Americans aged 14 to 49 in different time periods. When the researchers compared their numbers from 1999 to 2004 and 2005 to 2010, they found the frequency of HSV-1 in Americans declined by about 7 percent. HSV-2 infection rates remained the same.

The decline was most dramatic in teens aged 14 through 19. In 1999-2004, about 39 percent of teens had HSV-1. In 2005-2010, about 30 percent had the virus. Compared to teens in 1976-1980, teens in 2005-2010 were 29 percent less likely to have HSV-1. 

There’s a small silver lining. Genital HSV-1 infections break out in sores less often and undergo viral shedding—the process through which the virus travels to the surface of the skin and could infect others—less often than genital HSV-2 infections.

The CDC researchers published their work yesterday in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

[Infectious Diseases Society of America via EurekAlert, HealthDay]

Bonus: HPV Vaccine Doesn’t Make Kids More Sexually Active

In other news about the same body parts, recent studies have found kids who get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine do not become sexually active at earlier ages than unvaccinated kids, according to a review in the journal Preventive Medicine. The HPV vaccine immunizes kids against many of the viruses that cause genital warts and cervical cancer. U.S. health agencies recommend girls and boys get the vaccination at age 11 or 12, but some parents have cited concerns that giving their children a vaccine against sexually transmitted infections may encourage them to have sex earlier. The review also examines evidence about the side effects and safety of the vaccine, which the authors conclude is “quite safe.”

Popular Science

Teens Now More Likely To Get Genital Herpes Because They Didn"t Get Cold Sores As Kids

Latos Gives Reds Edge in Likely Wildcard Battle of Aces

The Reds and Pirates have their rotations set up to have each ace throw against each other Tuesday in the NL Wildcard game, so they will not need to make any adjustments in their rotations as they face this weekend to determine who gets home field advantage. Mat Latos has pitched better as the 4th most valuable pitcher at www.valueaddbaseball.com, but the Pirates have been more successful with Francisco Liriano on the mound with 17 victories in 25 starts. The rankings of each pitcher in the rotation in the database: 

Rnk	Reds Rotation	Wins in GS	Ave. Score	Rot	Rnk	Pirates Rotation	Wins in GS	Ave. Score
4	Latos, Mat	20 of 31	4.6-3.5	1	45	Liriano, Francisco	17 of 25	4.5-3.1
31	Bailey, Homer	16 of 31	4.0-3.3	2	57	Burnett, A.J.	13 of 29	3.7-3.5
44	Arroyo, Bronson	16 of 30	4.2-3.8	3	93	Morton, Charlie	9 of 18	3.6-4.4
154	Cueto, Johnny	5 of 10	3.8-3.4	4	81	Cole, Gerrit	11 of 18	4.1-2.6

Latos had received 4.6 runs of support before losing a 1-0 game Wednesday that eliminated the Reds for the NL Central race. Liriano had received 4.5 runs of support – though that is a higher level of support since he pitches half his games in Pittsburgh rather than the hitter friendly ballpark in Cincinnati that Latos calls home. Latos was much stronger Wednesday and on the season overall, as Liriano ranks 41 spots behind him as the 45th most valuable pitcher in baseball this year.

Whichever team wins two of three games this weekend gets the home field advantage for Tuesday’s NL Wildcard game. If the Reds win two of three the two teams finish tied, but the Reds would then have a 10-9 head-to-head season edge for the tie-breaker.

The problem for the Pirates is that will Jeff Locke wearing down last in the season, the Pirates are only 35-32 with their No. 2, 3 and 4 pitchers on the hill (they are 33-32 on www.valueaddbaseball.com, which is reflected in the table above, but Morton and Cole received Victories since then. This also presents problems if they win the Wildcard game because those would be their three pitchers for their opening three games of a series most likely against the Cardinals – meaning Liriano may not start until a Game 4.

The Reds are in much better shape for the next series if Latos can win the Wildcard game, because they still have three other Top 50 pitchers in addition to Johnny Cueto’s return. The former ace is scheduled to make his second start since returning from injury, and even if he struggles the Reds have the option of using Mike Leake – who is actually ranked as the 25th most valuable pitcher this season and had given up only two runs in three starts before being shelled this week by the Mets.

Please follow our team on Twitter for breaking news and thoughts. I can be followed @jpudner, Tony Lee @TheTonyLee, Cole Muzio @ColeMuzio, Cameron Scales @CamScales, and Benjamin Chance @CBenjaminChance. Also, remember to follow our site @BreitbartSports

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Latos Gives Reds Edge in Likely Wildcard Battle of Aces

Door-To-Door Identity Theft Likely Under Obamacare

Navigators may knock on your door to enroll you in Obamacare and potentially steal your identity.

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
September 24, 2013

Similar to how the Transportation Security Administration attracts pedophiles with jobs providing easy access to children, Obamacare will attract identity thieves with jobs allowing them to go door-to-door to preach the “virtues” of Obamacare while extracting private information from Americans in their own homes.

What door-to-door Obamacare recruitment could look like.
Credit: aflcio via Flickr

Under Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is implementing a “Navigator” program, which provides millions of dollars to non-profit groups nationwide to hire “Navigators” who will advise Americans on their Obamacare health “options” based on the sensitive information provided.

This sensitive information includes social security numbers, income levels, employment history and home addresses, all of which are more than enough to steal Americans’ identities for complete access to their credit and financial resources.

In a Sept. 20 letter to HHS, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked the department to respond to its concerns over the “rushed implementation” of its Navigator program, including plans by non-profit groups to “engage in enrollment activities that increase the likelihood of fraud or abuse, including door-to-door contacts.”

“The recipient of one of the largest Navigator grants explained in their application that they expected a substantial portion of their program to involve door-to-door contacts,” the letter stated. “Another described their work plan as involving ‘door-to-door outreach to 10,000 households per week.’”

The letter further emphasized that government officials had “confidence” Navigators would not go door-to-door to enroll Americans in Obamacare.

This confidence appears unfounded considering that identity thieves will likely be lured to the Navigator jobs, which allow easy access to sensitive information, pay an estimated $ 20 to $ 48 an hour and do not even require a background check.

Although Section 1411 of Obamacare sets a fine of up to $ 25,000 for the improper use or disclosure of private information, identity thieves employed as Navigators will unlikely be caught considering that the identity theft conviction rate is only 1 in 1,000.

In August, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi expressed similar fears about the Navigator program.

“Because of time constraints, HHS [is] cutting back on the requirement to become a navigator, meaning they’re not going to be doing background checks,” she said in an interview with Fox. “Now these navigators will have our consumers throughout the country’s most personal and private information: tax return information, Social Security information.”

“And our biggest fear, of course, is identity theft.”

Bondi also indicated that even those with prior identity theft convictions can still become navigators.

In line with her fears, the Florida Dept. of Health has banned navigators from soliciting around county health departments.

Following that lead, Americans may need to hang up “No Obamacare Solicitation” signs on their front doors.

This article was posted: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 10:37 am

Tags: domestic news, government corruption, healthcare

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Door-To-Door Identity Theft Likely Under Obamacare

Registration Unknown, Martin Luther King Was Likely Republican

With President Barack Obama joined at the Lincoln Memorial last Wednesday by fellow former Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech 50 years ago, a few political observers pose the question, “Was King actually a Republican?”

It is impossible to know whether King was Democrat, Republican, or independent. His home state of Georgia did not have registration by party, so allegiance to a political party depended on which primaries a voter chose to cast a ballot in.

The Atlanta pastor kept this to himself. His choice of primaries to vote in is not known and, as the intellectual force the civil rights cause, King carefully avoided embracing political candidates.

But there is some evidence as to where his party leanings were, including the observations of the Republican who was Martin Luther King’s congressman.

“I believe Dr. King was a Republican,” Fletcher Thompson, who represented the Atlanta area in Congress from 1966-72, told Newsmax. “Most of the blacks in the late 1950s and at least up to 1960 were Republican. Our party was sympathetic to them and the Democrats were the ones enforcing ‘Jim Crow’ laws and segregation.”

Thompson, who never personally met King, recalled how C.A. Scott, publisher of the Atlanta World — the only newspaper in Georgia owned by blacks — and a close associate of King’s, “was a Republican and ‘The World’ always endorsed me when I ran for Congress.”

With the 1960 presidential campaign approaching, New York Times political reporter Tom Wicker noted that “the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had volunteered to lead a voter registration drive among blacks, which King though would produce many new Republican voters.”

As to King’s favorite candidate, “It is open secret among many Negroes that the Rev. Martin Luther King, if he were to speak out on the subject, would probably indicate a preference for [Republican Richard] Nixon over [Democratic nominee John] Kennedy,” The Reporter magazine noted in October 1960.

But Republican hopes of major gains among black voters in 1960 were dashed on October 19, when King was sentenced to four months in Reidsville (Ga.) Penitentiary for violating probation after he was sentenced for driving with an expired license and tags a month before.

Fearing for the minister’s life once imprisoned, family and friends pleaded with both major party candidates for help.

Nixon felt King was getting “a bum rap,” but he said no to King supporters — including baseball great Jackie Robinson — because he felt “it would be completely improper for me or another other lawyer to call the judge.”

In contrast, Kennedy called King’s wife Coretta and offered to do anything he could for her. Working quietly with Georgia Democratic Gov. Ernest Vandiver, the candidate and campaign manager arranged for the minister to be released from jail.

Dr. King’s pastor-father “Daddy” King told reporters, “I had expected to vote against Sen. Kennedy because of his religion. But now he can be my president, Catholic or whatever he is. It took courage to call my daughter-in-law at a time like this. I’ve got all my votes and I’ve got a suitcase and I’m going up there and dump them in [Kennedy"s] lap.”

So he did. Some 63 percent of black voters went for Kennedy and his actions on behalf of King are considered one of the factors in winning one of the closest presidential elections in history.

As Presidents Kennedy and later Lyndon Johnson embraced the civil rights cause, King was identified increasingly with the Democratic Party, although he maintained his policy of not endorsing candidates.

Republican orators increasingly denounced him, noting the clergyman’s later embrace of the anti-Vietnam War movement and his friendship with the far left, notably King’s close friend and advisor Stanley Levison, a former member of the Communist Party of the U.S.

One who would not denounce him was Fletcher Thompson. He recalled to Newsmax how, when serving on the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a colleague asked if he wanted to see the FBI file delineating King’s ties to Levison and other controversial figures.

“I told him no,” said Thompson. “I looked at Dr. King fighting for civil rights as I would someone swimming alone in the ocean. When someone comes along in a lifeboat and reaches out, he’s not going to ask if he is, or was, a Communist.”

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Newsmax – America

Registration Unknown, Martin Luther King Was Likely Republican

How an Insular Beltway Elite Makes Wars of Choice More Likely

Reuters

Intervention in Syria is extremely, undeniably unpopular.

“Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed,” Lesley Wroughton of Reuters reported on August 24. “About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria’s civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.” And if there were proof that Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemical weapons? Even then, just one in four Americans favors intervention.

The citizenry wants us to stay out of this conflict. And there is no legislative majority pushing for intervention. A declaration of war against Syria would almost certainly fail in Congress. Yet the consensus in the press is that President Obama faces tremendous pressure to intervene. In fact, the same Reuters reporter, Lesley Wroughton, co-bylined another piece last week that began:

With his international credibility seen increasingly on the line, President Barack Obama on Thursday faced growing calls at home and abroad for forceful action against the Syrian government over accusations it carried out a massive new deadly chemical weapons attack…  

If allegations of a large-scale chemical attack are verified – Syria’s government has denied them – Obama will surely face calls to move more aggressively, possibly even with military force, in retaliation for repeated violations of U.S. “red lines.” Obama’s failure to confront Assad with the serious consequences he has long threatened would likely reinforce a global perception of a president preoccupied with domestic matters and unwilling to act decisively in the volatile Middle East, a picture already set by his mixed response to the crisis in Egypt.

Where is this pressure coming from? Strangely, that question doesn’t even occur to a lot of news organizations. Take this CBS story. The very first sentence says, “The Obama administration faced new pressure Thursday to take action on Syria.” New pressure from whom? The story proceeds as if it doesn’t matter. How can readers judge how much weight the pressure should carry? Pressure from hundreds of thousands of citizens in the streets confers a certain degree of legitimacy. So does pressure from a just passed House bill urging a certain course of action, or even unanimous pressure from all of the experts on a given subject. 

What I’d like is if news accounts on pressure to intervene in Syria made it clear that the “growing calls… for forceful action” aren’t coming from the people, or Congressional majorities, or an expert consensus. The pressure is being applied by a tiny, insular elite that mostly lives in Washington, D.C., and isn’t bothered by the idea of committing America to military action that most Americans oppose. Nor are they bothered by the president launching a war of choice without Congressional approval, even though Obama declared as a candidate that such a step would be illegal. Some of them haven’t even thought through the implications of the pressure they’re applying.

Why is their pro-war pressure legitimized as the prevailing story line, despite the fact that they hold a minority position, even as pressure against intervention — that is to say, the majority position –  is all but ignored? Consider a variation on the “pressure” story that isn’t written, though it would be accurate:

President Obama Faces Mounting Pressure to Stay Out of Syria

With his credibility seen increasingly on the line, President Barack Obama today faced growing calls at home and abroad to stay out of the conflict in Syria, despite the presence of chemical weapons and his former declarations that their use would be a red line. Various Syria experts warned that intervention could touch off a regional conflict, do more to harm than help Syrian civilians, and draw the United States into a more costly, protracted war than anyone wants. Anti-war group Code Pink used their Facebook page to organize a rally against missile strikes. A subset of conservatives warned that intervening on the side of rebels could empower Islamist extremists. Deficit hawks argued that America can’t afford costly military strikes at this time in a conflict with little relation to our national interests, and Obama’s 2007 statements about the illegality of a president going to war without Congress absent an immediate threat to American security risks making him look like a hypocrite if he unilaterally intervenes. An inability to get UN approval would also arguably make the conflict illegal under international law. And Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize would seem to hem him in further.

A story like that would never be written. The political press unconsciously treats hawkish positions as if they’re more serious and legitimate, in part because they’ve thoughtlessly bought into the frame that experts can control geopolitics. This is a consequence of so many political journalists live inside a Washington, D.C. subculture, which attracts foreign policy thinkers with an inflated sense of their own ability to understand and shape global events. The American people are well aware of that, having witnessed the performance of their elites in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Beirut, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, among other places. It’s no accident that so few Americans favor intervention in Syria. They don’t know much in particular about the country or its people. They’ve just learned to be skeptical of wars of choice because the assumptions of the people who launch them are so often wrong. That skepticism ought to be given more weight, especially given how many so-called foreign policy experts are nothing of the kind. 

I’d never claim to be a foreign policy expert. But I know enough to scoff when The Weekly Standard grants “expert” status to Karl Rove, and to discount the prognostication skills of everyone that urged American intervention in Iraq without the faintest idea of what would follow. But in D.C., expert status is never taken away for being repeatedly, catastrophically wrong.

Legitimacy is a matter of social standing and institutional affiliations, not knowledge or track record.

Then there are all the stories about how Obama’s credibility depends on him striking Syria. Isn’t that something? A president’s credibility hinging on him doing something just 9 percent of Americans want him to do! It only makes sense if the unwritten thought is, “His credibility among people that matter.” D.C. people, who inflate the importance of rhetoric and looking tough. If Obama doesn’t intervene in Syria, his credibility among the American people won’t suffer at all.

Why does the American press treat credibility among an insular elite as if it matters most?

Washington, D.C. elites are doing all they can to diminish the people’s ability to exert pressure in foreign affairs. The Constitution vested the war power in the legislature so that decisions about war and peace would be debated by elected officials from every community in the country — people easily reached by their constituents and not personally empowered by war. The legislature isn’t nearly as enamored of executive branch wisdom as executive branch staffers. 

But popular and legislative skepticism is a non-factor when the president is empowered to go to war on his own say so, and the people’s perspective is further diluted by a press that excessively emphasizes pressure from D.C. elites, writing as if that’s what Obama ought to respond to. The president is on the cusp of launching a war of choice that the people don’t want, and that isn’t treated as problematic, or even framed as a countervailing pressure against intervention! The press doesn’t suggest that Obama would lose credibility by acting against the people’s will, because he won’t lose any credibility in “This Town”, and opinions within it are unconsciously treated as if they are the ones that really matter, even when the subject is war.

It’s true that Washington, D.C. elites, and a few foreign governments, have exerted increasing pressure on Obama to intervene in Syria. But the press shouldn’t report as if, overall, the pressure on Obama to act is overwhelming, and that he’ll lose credibility if he doesn’t, especially insofar as journalistic attitudes become self-fulfilling prophecies. Overall, were the will of the people given it’s due, there would be more pressure on Obama to refrain from intervening.

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How an Insular Beltway Elite Makes Wars of Choice More Likely

US official: chemical weapons likely used in Syria

This citizen journalism image provided by the Media Office Of Douma City which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man mourning over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013. Syrian regime forces fired intense artillery and rocket barrages Wednesday on the eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus, in what two pro-opposition groups claimed was a “poisonous gas” attack that killed dozens of people. (AP Photo/Media Office Of Douma City)

This citizen journalism image provided by the Media Office Of Douma City which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man mourning over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013. Syrian regime forces fired intense artillery and rocket barrages Wednesday on the eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus, in what two pro-opposition groups claimed was a “poisonous gas” attack that killed dozens of people. (AP Photo/Media Office Of Douma City)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior administration official said Sunday there is “very little doubt” that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in an incident that killed at least 100 people last week, but added that the president had not yet decided how to respond.

The official said the U.S. intelligence community based its assessment given to the White House on “the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured,” and witness accounts. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

The official said the White House believes the Syrian government is continuing to bar a U.N. investigative team immediate access to the site of a reported Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs, in order to give the evidence of the attack time to degrade.

The official said the regime’s continuing shelling of the site also further corrupts any available evidence of the attack.

Last Wednesday’s purported chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta has prompted U.S. naval forces to move closer to Syria. President Barack Obama met with his national security team Saturday to assess the intelligence and consider a U.S. military response, almost a year after warning the regime of Bashar Asad that chemical weapons use was a “red line” for the U.S.

The White House had concluded previously that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in limited incidents, but last week’s attack is suspected of being the deadliest single incident of a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people since March 2011.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday that a chemical attack “appears to be what happened.”

The White House has approved limited lethal aid to Syrian rebels, but has limited weapons to mostly small arms and training. Obama described the factors limiting greater U.S. involvement in a CNN interview.

“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it — do we have the coalition to make it work?” Obama said in the interview broadcast Friday. “Those are considerations that we have to take into account.”

Hagel offered no hints Sunday about likely U.S. response to Syria’s purported use of chemical weapons, telling reporters traveling with him in Malaysia that the Obama administration was still assessing intelligence information about the deadly attack.

“When we have more information, that answer will become clear,” he said when a reporter asked whether it was a matter of when, not if, the U.S. will take military action against Syria.

Asked about U.S. military options on Syria, Hagel spoke in broad terms about the factors Obama is weighing.

“There are risks and consequences for any option that would be used or not used — for action or inaction,” he told reporters. “You have to come to the central point of what would be the objective if you are to pursue an action or not pursue an action. So all those assessments are being made.”

If the U.S. wants to send a message to Assad, defense officials have previously indicated the most likely military action would be a Tomahawk missile strike, launched from a ship in the Mediterranean.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a letter to a congressman last week that the administration opposes even limited action in Syria because it believes rebels fighting the Assad government wouldn’t support American interests if they seized power. He said while the U.S. military could take out Assad’s air force and shift the balance of the war toward the armed opposition, but that it’s unclear where the strategy would go from there.

Dempsey is now in Amman, Jordan, set to meet with Arab and Western peers later Sunday to discuss ways to bolster the security of Syria’s neighbors against possible attacks, chemical or other, by Assad’s regime, a Jordanian security official said.

The meeting, closed to the press and held at an unspecified location, gathers chiefs of staff from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, the official said on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to brief reporters.

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Associated Press National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and AP writer Jamal Halaby contributed from Amman, Jordan.

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US official: chemical weapons likely used in Syria