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Top Stories
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White Births in U.S. Drop below 50% of Total
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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In another sign of the coming end of the United States’ Caucasian orientation, the majority of babies born last year were minorities—a first in American history.
Just over half (50.4%) of the U.S. population younger than age 1 were minorities as of July 1, 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6% of all births during the 12-month period in question.
Demographers say the dominance of minority births has been expected for some time, as the U.S. grows increasingly multiethnic.
“This is an important tipping point,” William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, told The New York Times.
For the time being, whites will remain a majority of the population, currently 63.4%. But this percentage is expected to decline over the next three decades, with whites ceasing to be in the majority by 2042.
The District of Columbia and four states—California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Texas—have minority population majorities.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Census: Minority Babies Are Now Majority In United States (by Carol Morello and Ted Mellnik, Washington Post)
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Federal Judge Blocks Obama’s Right to Impose Indefinite Detention without Trial
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Friday, May 18, 2012
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A New York federal judge has temporarily blocked provisions of the controversial National Defense Authorization Act approved by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011, which allows the military to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects, including American citizens.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest agreed with the so-called Freedom Seven, a group of journalists, academics, and foreign politicians who challenged the new law, saying that section 1021 was unconstitutional. In her ruling, Forrest wrote that the statute failed to “pass constitutional muster” due to its broad language that could stifle political dissent.
“There is a strong public interest in protecting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Forrest wrote. “There is also a strong public interest in ensuring that due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment are protected by ensuring that ordinary citizens are able to understand the scope of conduct that could subject them to indefinite military detention.”
Obama apologists say that the act does not codify indefinite detention. But section 1021 (c-1) allows “Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities.” A U.S. president can take the position that he is engaged in a war without end. In fact, that is exactly what Presidents George W. Bush and Obama have done. In addition, section (b-2) states that the law applies not just to members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but to any person who has “substantially supported” “associated forces.” Because these terms are not defined, Obama would appear to be free to interpret them as he chooses…as would be any future president.
The Freedom Seven includes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Christopher Hedges, Pentagon Papers whistl-blower Daniel Ellsberg, scholar Noam Chomsky, and parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir of Iceland.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
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Why Are There So Many More Negative Campaign Ads? Because They Work
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
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The 2012 election is shaping up to be ugly, with considerably more negative advertisements than the election four years ago. It’s no surprise that campaigns are relying more on attack ads, for the simple reason that research shows going negative is effective with voters, if it’s done correctly, especially by incumbents.
So far, about 70% of advertising in this year’s presidential contest has been negative, compared to just 9% at this stage in 2008, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.
Meanwhile, professors Kim L. Fridkin and Patrick J. Kenney at Arizona State University found after conducting a survey of voters that negative ads can hurt a candidate—if the mud being slung is “relevant.”
Relevancy is the key. When commercials were deemed both uncivil and irrelevant, voters were more likely to tune out, according to the survey.
The university poll also revealed that certain types of voters are more tolerant of nasty campaign ads, specifically people who are highly partisan, politically dialed in, conservative, male, young, or lacking in political sophistication.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Campaigns Shift Negative Ads from Candidate Funding to “Independent” Groups to Avoid Backlash (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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Unusual News
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North Carolina House Committee Votes to Ban TV for Death Row Prisoners
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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Lawmakers in North Carolina want to prohibit inmates on death row from watching television.
The legislation, which cleared the state’s House Rules committee this week, was introduced after a convicted murderer described his “life of leisure” while awaiting execution.
Danny Robbie Hembree Jr., convicted of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009, wrote a letter to the Gaston Gazette challenging the government to put him to death.
“Is the public aware that I am a gentleman of leisure, watching color TV in the (air conditioning), reading, taking naps at will, eating three well balanced hot meals a day ... Kill me if you can, suckers,” Hembree wrote.
As an alternative to revoking TV privileges, House Republican leader Skip Stam suggested that inmates be forced to watch Sesame Street, while House Democratic leader Joe Hackney countered that the punishment should be watching Fox News.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Killer Says NC Death Row Not So Bad (by Diane Turbyfill, Gaston Gazette)
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Why Did Some News Sources Fall for Egyptian Necrophilia Hoax?
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Wednesday, May 16, 2012
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Taking news sources at their word resulted in a highly controversial, but false, story being spread all over the Internet three weeks ago about Egyptian lawmakers legalizing necrophilia.
The rumor apparently began with columnist Amr Abdel Sami at Al-Ahram, Egypt’s state-owned newspaper. In late April, he wrote that the Islamization of Egyptian society might get so extreme that parliament could consider legislation allowing a man to have intercourse with his wife after death (an idea reportedly proposed by Moroccan Sheikh Zamzami Abdul Bari).
Soon after that, Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya news channel re-reported the necrophilia story on its English Web site. This allowed news outlets in the West, including The Huffington Post and the Daily Mail, to pick up the article, but without fact-checking it. In no time, social media sites and blogs were abuzz with outrage over the idea that Egyptians were entertaining the idea of sex with the dead.
Not all Western newspapers ran blindly with the story. On April 26, Dan Murphy at the Christian Science Monitor wrote skeptically about the existence of the controversial legislation, and a few days after that, he reported there was no validity to the rumor.
Helena Hägglund, a freelance journalist based between Cairo and Stockholm, and Sam Carlshamre, an Arabic PhD candidate at Lund University, wrote last week in the Egypt Independent that “the whole story has turned out to be based on a bizarre chain of rumors, with journalists seeing what they want to see and hearing what they want to hear, without any fact checking.”
According to Hägglund and Carlshamre, some newspapers, such as Sweden’s largest morning daily, Dagens Nyheter, admitted they were at fault for reprinting the story without verifying its details. Others, like the Daily Mail, Huffington Post, and Jezebel, have not apologized for contributing to the hysteria or their exploitation of Islamophobia. -Noel Brinkerhoff
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Billion-Dollar City without Residents to be Built to Test New Technology
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
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A bricks-and-mortar version of Sim City is going up in New Mexico, where a technology development firm will spend $1 billion to build a full-scale city just for scientists and engineers to tinker with.
Construction of The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation (CITE) will begin next month, says Pegasus Global Holdings LLC, the company behind the idea. Located on 15 square miles near the town of Hobbs, CITE will include a downtown, suburban neighborhoods and outlying rural areas.
No residents will live at CITE, which will include both new and aging structures. The only people seen moving around it will be experts and staff testing out new technologies for advances in energy, telecommunications and transportation “without the complication and safety issues arising from having residents.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Pegasus Chooses Hobbs For $1 Billion Mock City (by Steve Ramirez, Las Cruces Sun-News)
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Where is the Money Going?
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States Diverting Monies Meant for Homeowners to Cover Budget Deficits
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
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When the Obama administration ran interference and helped to get a huge legal case settled against the nation’s largest banks over mortgage fraud and improper foreclosures, more than $2 billion in cash was sent to the states to help struggling homeowners. But many of these states’ residents won’t be getting any relief because the money is being diverted to cover budget shortfalls.
As part of the $25 billion national settlement with five banks (a settlement second only to the $206 billion that 46 states reached with big tobacco in 1998), about $2.5 billion in cash was allocated to assist homeowners and mitigate the effects of foreclosures.
But only 27 states have decided to devote all their funds from the banks to housing programs. Another 15 states plan to use all or most of the money for other purposes.
In California, Governor Jerry Brown intends to spend his state’s share ($400 million) on closing a $16 billion budget deficit. Texas put its $125 million into the state’s general fund, while Missouri allocated its $40 million on higher education. Indiana is spending more than half its money to pay energy bills for low-income families, and Virginia intends to help local governments with its $67 million from the foreclosure settlement.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
The Obama Mortgage Settlement is Just Another Bank Bailout in Disguise (by David Wallechinsky, AllGov)
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It’s Legal to Regulate the $300 Trillion Swap Market, but Regulators Don’t Have Budget to Do It Right
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been told by Congress to do more with less, taking on the responsibility of regulating the multi-trillion-dollar swaps market while having its funding frozen at an inadequate level, according to the agency.
In addition to overseeing the trading of futures, the CFTC must keep tabs of the $300 trillion market for swaps. Market swaps are complicated loan exchanges in which borrowers “swap” different types of loans, such as fixed rate loans and floating rate loans. Each party in the swap is hoping that the loan he has gotten has an advantage (i.e., creating capital losses to avoid taxes).
To watch over all this, the agency has to get by with a budget of a little more than $200 million.
CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said that at this level, his agency can employ 710 staffers, which is only slightly larger than its team during the 1990s.
Gensler has told lawmakers the CFTC needs another $102 million to properly do its job.
A group of consumer and public interest groups wrote to Congress recently urging it to increase funding for the CFTC.
“Failing to provide the additional $102 million requested in the President’s budget to enable proper supervision of hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives and commodity markets would not save money,” the letter reads. “It would instead protect a broken and dangerous status quo, undermine effective oversight of our financial markets, and leave our economy at risk.” -Noel Brinkerhoff
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RBS Citizens Bank Accused of Profiting from Customer Math Errors
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
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RBS Citizens bank is being sued for allegedly taking advantage of customers when they mistakenly low-ball the amounts of their deposits, resulting in the bank keeping the difference.
In a federal class action lawsuit, lead plaintiff Todd Bowers Inc., a chiropractic office, cited one example in which the customer inadvertently recorded a deposit totaling $1,448.57, when in fact the amount was $26.50 more ($1,475.07). But instead of crediting the difference to Bowers’ account, the bank put the money into another account not controlled by the plaintiff.
“Citizens Bank affirmatively masks or hides the actual amount deposited and retains and diverts customer funds into at least two accounts Citizens Banks [sic] maintains and control,” the complaint states.
Bowers’ suit added: “Citizens Bank developed a policy and employs a practice whereby customer funds are being diverted daily for the benefit and use by Citizens Bank without the knowledge, consent or approval of the customer.”
The civil case comes just days after the bank agreed to pay $137.5 million to resolve another class-action lawsuit that alleged Citizens and other banks increased the amount they could collect in overdraft fees by processing the most expensive charges first rather than processing them in the order in which they were received..
Citizens Bank is part of Citizens Financial Group, which is a unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is in turn owned (84%) by the government of the United Kingdom.
Citizens Republic bank received a $300 million bailout from the U.S. government in 2008 and RBS took £45.5 billion ($62.4 billion) in bailout money from British taxpayers.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
The Real Wall Street Bailout Totaled $29 Trillion (by David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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Controversies
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Federal Judge Rules General Mills Is Allowed to Mislead Consumers about “Fruit” Products that Contain No Fruit
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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Fruit Roll-Ups and other manufactured fruit snacks by General Mills do not contain real fruit, but that’s okay, said a federal judge ruling in a lawsuit seeking an end to the misleading advertising.
Bay Area mother Annie Lam filed a class action case last fall against General Mills, arguing that the company was deceiving consumers by claiming its fruity snacks included actual fruit ingredients.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti seemed to agree with the plaintiffs when he made his ruling last week. Conti wrote “a reasonable consumer might be surprised to learn that a substantial portion of each serving of the Fruit Snacks consists of partially hydrogenated oil and sugars.”
Conti also said General Mills had used deceptive language in claiming its products were “made with real fruit.”
But, he added, the company did not violate the law because the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act allows companies to say something contains specific fruit flavoring when in fact it does not contain fruit. “A product may be labeled as ‘fruit flavored’ or ‘naturally flavored,’ even if it does not contain fruit or natural ingredients. So long as that product ‘contains natural flavor’ which is ‘derived from’ the ‘characterizing food ingredient,’ it will not run afoul of the regulation,” Conti said in the decision.
“While the regulation’s logic is troubling, the court is bound to apply it,” Conti wrote.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
FDA Says Cheerios Health Claims Unsubstantiated (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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Small Business Administration Intervenes on Behalf of Formaldehyde Makers
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
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The Small Business Administration (SBA), which has nothing to do with regulating harmful chemicals, has sided with large manufacturers opposing the government’s listing of formaldehyde as a carcinogen.
It is unclear why the SBA stuck its nose into the debate over the chemical. But its reasoning for opposing the listing of formaldehyde mirrors that of corporations like DuPont, which is hardly a small business, that have fought the carcinogen label on grounds that it might weaken the chemical’s demand.
Health concerns over formaldehyde, which is used in products ranging from mascara to toothpaste to flooring, are nothing new. Laboratory tests in the 1970s revealed the agent caused cancer in rats.
In fighting the NTP over formaldehyde, the SBA reportedly “questioned the quality of the scientific analysis” regarding the chemical and noted that labeling it a carcinogen might adversely impact “small businesses’ workers’ compensation costs,” reported OMB Watch, a non-governmental watchdog organization. -Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Formaldehyde Added to List of Cancer-Causing Chemicals (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)
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More and More Americans Finding Health Care Unaffordable
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Friday, May 11, 2012
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Americans with and without health insurance are increasingly finding health care too expensive to see a doctor in a timely manner, according to a new study.
In 2000, one out of eight adults said they had “unmet medical” needs due to cost issues. As of 2010, the ratio had increased to one in five Americans.
Among the 41 million uninsured, about one third of them delayed getting care due to costs in 2010, compared to 25% in 2000.
The study, published in Health Affairs, also reported people were having a harder time accessing dental care.
The federal health care reform law, which faces a legal challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court next month, “won’t necessarily solve all those access problems,” wrote Kaiser Health News. This is due to the fact that the law “may not alter the trend toward private insurance policies with larger deductibles and higher co-payments or address some of the barriers within public coverage.” -Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
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U.S. and the World
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Obama Administration Quietly Weakens Emergency Planning at Nuclear Plants
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Friday, May 18, 2012
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The holidays are a time of celebration for Americans, and a perfect time for their government to bury controversial changes in policy.
For the first time since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, not to mention Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi crisis last year, the U.S. government revised policies governing local responses to power plant emergencies, including terrorist attacks and radiation leaks.
The changes now require fewer exercises for major accidents and recommend fewer people be evacuated following a plant disaster, according to the Associated Press. The NRC and FEMA also did away with a mandate that local police and firefighters always conduct practice exercises for radiation releases.
The agencies did add one new exercise, requiring state and community police to participate in exercises simulating an attack on a local plant.
The NRC and FEMA adopted the new rules in December, but issued no news releases about them. The changes were done so quietly that even some watchdog groups that closely monitor Washington failed to learn of the new rules until informed by the AP.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
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Richest 1% Battle the Richest One-Hundredth of a Percent
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Friday, May 18, 2012
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In what some are calling the “Shareholder Spring,” the owners of large corporations and banks are letting CEOs know that they’re getting paid too much compensation through so-called Say-on-Pay votes.
It’s a battle of shareholders, or the top 1% of earners, versus chief executives, or the top one-hundredth of one percent (.01%).
The most prominent example so far of shareholders voting against outrageous CEO pay packages involved Citigroup, where CEO Vikram Pandit’s $14.8 million comp plan was voted down, 55–45.
A similar shock hit CEO Thomas Joyce at Knight Capital this month.
Other CEO and executive packages have survived close tallies in Say-on-Pay votes, including those at Bank of New York Mellon (41% against), NYSE Euronext (43%), and Lazard an investment bank (49%),.
The top 1% reportedly controls nearly 40% of the nation’s stock market wealth, while the top .01% represents about 15,000 people who earn a minimum of $5.5 million a year.
In 2010, the last year for which figures are available, the richest .01% took in 3.3% of the nation’s personal income. As recently as 1985, that share was less than 1%. Their dominance peaked in 2007 at 3.53%, the largest share since 1916. Meanwhile, the richest 1% haven’t done that badly, hauling in 17.42% in 2010 compared to only 9.13% in 1986.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
To Learn More:
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Obama Justice Dept. Supports Citizens’ Right to Record Police
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Friday, May 18, 2012
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The U.S. Department of Justice under President Barack Obama has made it clear to police departments that citizens have the constitutional right to record law enforcement activities, including arrests.
In a letter to the Baltimore Police Department, the Justice Department stated that officers cannot seize and destroy video recordings made by individuals without a warrant or due process of law. To otherwise do so might constitute a violation of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
The letter comes at a time when Baltimore police are trying to resolve a lawsuit brought by Christopher Sharp, who had his cell phone seized when he used it to record officers arresting his friend.
Jonathan Smith, head of the Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section, cited in his letter the famous 1991 Rodney King incident in which Los Angeles police officers brutally beat King after pulling him over during a traffic stop. Smith said the recording of the assault exemplified the importance of public oversight of police activities.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Justice Dept. Defends Public’s Constitutional ‘Right to Record’ Cops (by Kim Zetter, Wired)
Letter to Baltimore Police (U.S. Department of Justice) (pdf)
Why are Americans Arrested for Videotaping Police in Public Places? (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Police Arrest Bystanders Who Use Phones to Video Arrests of Others (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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Appointments and Resignations
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Ambassador to Azerbaijan: Who Is Richard Morningstar?
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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Energy-rich Azerbaijan, strategically located south of Russia and north of Iran, has become accustomed to being wooed by both Russia and the United States, especially when it comes to energy development. With relations hampered by the lack of a full-time U.S. ambassador in Baku since December, President Barack Obama on April 26 announced his intent to nominate Richard L. Morningstar, who has specialized in Caspian basin energy issues for about 15 years, to be the next ambassador. Obama’s first nominee to the post of ambassador to Azerbaijan, Matthew Bryza, was never confirmed by the Senate because of opposition from Armenian-Americans and he served only as a recess appointment.
Born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1945, Morningstar earned a BA at Harvard in 1967 and a JD from Stanford Law School in 1970. He began his career in 1970 as an attorney with Nixon and Peabody in Boston, where he became a partner in 1977. He left the firm in 1981 to become President and CEO of Costar Corporation, adding the title of chairman of the Board from 1990 to 1993. Morningstar also served as a commissioner of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws from 1989 to 1993.
Leaving the private sector after the election of President Bill Clinton, Morningstar served as senior vice president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation from 1993 to 1995. From 1995 to 1998, he served as special advisor to the president and secretary of state on Assistance to the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. From 1998 to 1999, he was special advisor to the President and the secretary of state for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy.
From 1999 to September 2001, Morningstar served as U.S. ambassador to the European Union. During his service from 1995 to 2001, his major achievement was to push through the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, which became operational in July 2006. The stated commercial purpose of this 1,100-mile-long pipeline is to carry Caspian Sea (Azerbaijani) oil to world markets via a sea terminal on Turkey’s Mediterranean Coast. Geopolitically, the purpose of the pipeline was to cut Russia and Iran out of the loop on Caspian Sea oil.
Back in the private sector after the election of George W. Bush in 2000, Morningstar was a senior director for Stonebridge International LLC starting in October 2001, and taught courses at Stanford Law School from 2004 to 2009 and at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 2003 to 2009. In April 2009, he returned to government as the secretary of state’s special envoy for Eurasian Energy. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A longtime Democrat, since 1990 Morningstar has contributed more than $320,000 to Democratic candidates and causes, including $172,000 to the Democratic National Committee, $12,900 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaigns, and $4,600 to President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Morningstar is married to Faith Pierce Morningstar; they have two sons and two daughters. -Matt Bewig
The Great Game: An Opportunity for Transatlantic Cooperation (by Richard Morningstar, Bertelsmann Stiftung) (pdf)
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Ambassador from Haiti: Who Is Paul Altidor?
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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An economist and international development specialist, Paul G. Altidor was named as Haiti’s ambassador to the United States in January 2012 and presented his credentials to President Barack Obama on May 2.
Altidor, 39, was born in the port city of Jérémie, Haiti. He was educated in the U.S. after his family moved to Boston when he was a teenager. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Boston College and a master’s in international development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also did graduate work in economics and law in France at Paris X Nanterre (now known as Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense).
Early in his career, Altidor headed a non-profit organization, taught at the École Supérieure Catholique de Droit de Jérémie, a law school in his home town and started a small motorcycle business. Then he went to work at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. In this role he advised foreign governments on public-private partnerships, including a deal involving Vietnam’s government-run telecommunications company, Viettel, investing in Haiti’s state-owned telephone operation.
Prior to becoming ambassador to Washington, Altidor served as vice president of programs and investments for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Created in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit the Caribbean island nation in 2010, the fund was established with the support of President Barack Obama and co-chaired by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. -Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
De la ville de Jérémie à Washington : Paul Altidor nommé ambassadeur (referencefm.com)
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Ambassador to Pakistan Resigns: Who Is Cameron Munter?
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Sunday, May 13, 2012
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On May 7, U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter announced to his embassy staff in Pakistan that he’d be quitting in the summer after serving less than two years on the job. Tensions have been rising between the United States and Pakistan recently, but an embassy official denied that Munter is resigning because of poor relationships between the two governments.
However, during his tenure Munter, who was sworn in on October 6, 2010, has had to contend with a series of incidents that have upset the Pakistani population. On January 27, 2011, CIA contractor Raymond Davis was arrested after he shot to death two people on the streets of Lahore. After difficult negotiations, the Obama administration managed to secure Davis’ release on March 16 of last year. The very next day, a CIA drone strike killed 50 civilians in North Waziristan. Then, on May 2, 2011, U.S. Special Forces entered Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, allegedly without consulting the Pakistani government.
The son of Helen-Jeanne and Leonard Munter, Cameron Munter was born in Claremont, California, in 1954. Munter attended Claremont High School, where he distinguished himself as a distance runner on the cross-country and track teams. His college education took place at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and universities in Freiburg and Marburg in Germany. He received a doctoral degree in modern European history in 1983 from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Munter began his career as a college professor, teaching European history at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1982-1984. He directed European studies at the Twentieth Century Fund in New York (1984-1985) before joining the Foreign Service.
His first overseas assignment took him to Warsaw, Poland (1986-1988). He returned to Washington, DC, in 1988 to serve as a staff assistant in the State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs and then as country director for Czechoslovakia. In 1991, he was a Dean Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
The following year he was sent to Prague in the Czech Republic, serving there until 1995. It was then onto Bonn, Germany (1995-1997), before becoming chief of staff in the NATO Enlargement Ratification Office.
In 1998, Munter was director of the Northern European Initiative and then executive assistant to the counselor of the State Department (1998-1999). He served as director for Central Europe at the National Security Council until 2001.
Beginning in 2002, Munter began taking on larger roles in U.S. embassies, first as deputy chief of mission in Warsaw until 2005 and then in Prague from 2005 to 2007.
In 2006, he led the first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul, Iraq.
His first ambassador assignment was in Belgrade, Serbia, from 2007 to 2009. The posting was not without difficulties, as Serbian rioters upset over the American position on Kosovo, set fire to the embassy on February 21, 2008. The protests sparked a strong response from Munter, who warned the Serbian government not to allow any more attacks on the diplomatic mission.
He returned to Iraq in 2009, this time at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. He served as political-military minister-counselor, then as deputy chief of mission for the first half of 2010, directing strategic planning and American civil-military coordination during the military pullout.
Munter’s wife, Marilyn Wyatt, is the author of A Handbook of NGO Governance. She has served as Director of Communications at the Aspen Institute and Director of Global Programs as BoardSource. The couple has a son, Daniel, and a daughter, Anna. -Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
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