Slump in export orders hits Asian factories

BEIJING (Reuters) - A factory slump in Asia's two biggest exporters China and Japan deepened in June as crumbling orders from abroad dragged activity to seven-month lows, heightening worries that the health of the global economy is deteriorating.

PMI reports on major exporters South Korea and Taiwan also indicated new orders from overseas were falling. The manufacturing sectors in these countries contracted in June for the first time in five months, the reports showed.

In India, where the economy is more reliant on domestic activity, the factory sector picked up in June. But its new export orders growth was the weakest in seven months.

The data increases the risk that the economies of major demand centers Europe and the United States may be weaker than previously thought. Purchasing managers' reports on the two regions are due to be published later on Monday.

The latest sign that China's economy is struggling came on Monday with a private purchasing managers' index (PMI) showing factory activity shrank at its fastest pace in seven months in June. The index slipped to 48.2 from May's 48.4.

The drop was driven by new export orders skidding to depths last seen in March 2009 as demand at home and abroad wilted. The slump dragged prices of finished products from Chinese factories to 42-month lows.

The gloomy outcome mirrored a Chinese government PMI issued on Sunday that also fell to seven-month lows of 50.2 in June from May's 50.4. Though the data was stronger than expected, it still showed growth in the factory sector was close to stalling.

The run of weak data suggested no immediate pick-up for the world's second-biggest economy, a story that is similar in Japan, home to big-brand exporters, such as camera and printer maker Canon Inc , which earns about 80 percent of its revenues abroad.

Japan's June PMI, released on Friday, slipped to 49.9, below the 50-point mark that separates expansion from contraction. Japan's index for new export orders dropped to 47.5, the sharpest pace of contraction since February.

PMIs are closely watched as a leading indicator of economic activity. Export orders, especially for major trading nations such as China, Japan and South Korea, point to activity even further into the future and give a sense of the economic health of North America and Europe.

The euro zone's PMI is forecast to show activity still shrinking as the region deals with the debt crisis that has forced five member states to seek international financial support and threatened the future of the bloc.

Europe's manufacturing sector is already languishing at three-year lows as the region's debt crisis batters confidence and saps new orders. The outlook for U.S. manufacturers is brighter, with factories still expanding, albeit more slowly.

POLICY SUPPORT

To shield itself from a possible recession in Europe, and a patchy U.S. economic recovery, analysts believe China needs to further relax monetary policy as early as this month.

Beijing could lower the reserve requirement ratio (RRR), or the level of cash commercial banks must hold as reserves, by another 100 basis points from a lofty 20 percent, analysts say.

The central bank has already cut the ratio three times since November, and surprised financial markets in June by cutting interest rates for the first time since the global financial crisis.

"The further decline in the output, new orders, new export orders components suggests that the China economy still faces downside risks in the near term," said Haibin Zhu, a JPMorgan economist in Hong Kong.

"We expect one more interest rate cut and two more RRR cuts in the third quarter. The next policy move is likely a 50-basis-point RRR cut in July."

The contraction in Japan's factory sector was the first in seven months as a rebuilding boom after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami lost steam.

"This bodes ill for growth heading into the second-half of the year, especially given the fragility of demand in external markets," said Alex Hamilton, an economist at Markit, which gathers the data.

The Bank of Japan has loosened monetary policy this year and the central bank has repeatedly said it is willing to do so again if needed.

The BOJ's tankan survey released on Monday showed big manufacturers were less pessimistic about business conditions in the three months to June compared with the previous quarter.

Many central banks in Asia, and elsewhere, have loosened policy this year as Europe's debt crisis weighed on the global economy.

Most economists polled by Reuters expect the European Central Bank to cut borrowing costs on Thursday in the latest bid to revive the regional economy. But internal resistance to the central bank re-starting its bond-buying program is high.

India's PMI has remained above the 50 level for more than three years, although the country reported its weakest economic growth in nine years in the March quarter at 5.3 percent.

(Additional reporting by Deepti Govind in BANGALORE, Jonathan Standing in TAIPEI, Se Young Lee in SEOUL and Leika Kihara and Rie Ishiguro on TOKYO; Editing by Neil Fullick)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/slump-export-orders-hits-asian-factories-054125547--business.html

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APNewsBreak: Evidence of 'God particle' found

FILE - In this May 20, 2011 file photo, a physicist explains the ATLAS experiment on a board at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland. The illustration shows how the long-presumed Higgs boson particle is thought to look like. Scientists at CERN plan to make an announcement on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 about their hunt for the elusive sub-atomic particle. Physicists have said previously they are increasingly confident that they are closing in on it based on hints at its existence hidden away in reams of data. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

FILE - In this May 20, 2011 file photo, a physicist explains the ATLAS experiment on a board at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland. The illustration shows how the long-presumed Higgs boson particle is thought to look like. Scientists at CERN plan to make an announcement on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 about their hunt for the elusive sub-atomic particle. Physicists have said previously they are increasingly confident that they are closing in on it based on hints at its existence hidden away in reams of data. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

FILE - In this May 20, 2011 file photo, a wall painting by artist Josef Kristofoletti is seen at the Atlas experiment site at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland. The painting shows how a Higgs boson may look. On Wednesday, July 4, 2012, CERN plans to announce the status of their long-running hunt for the elusive subatomic particle, whose existence has only been presumed until now. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

GENEVA (AP) ? Scientists working at the world's biggest atom smasher plan to announce Wednesday that they have gathered enough evidence to show that the long-sought "God particle" answering fundamental questions about the universe almost certainly does exist.

But after decades of work and billions of dollars spent, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, aren't quite ready to say they've "discovered" the particle.

Instead, experts familiar with the research at CERN's vast complex on the Swiss-French border say that the massive data they have obtained will essentially show the footprint of the key particle known as the Higgs boson ? all but proving it exists ? but doesn't allow them to say it has actually been glimpsed.

It appears to be a fine distinction.

Senior CERN scientists say the two independent teams of physicists who plan to present their work at CERN's vast complex on the Swiss-French border on July 4 are about as close as you can get to a discovery without actually calling it one.

"I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, 'It looks like a discovery,'" British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King's College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s, told The Associated Press. "We've discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs."

CERN's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to help them understand suspected phenomena such as dark matter, antimatter and ultimately the creation of the universe billions of years ago, which many theorize occurred as a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.

The discovery of the Higgs boson won't change people's lives, but will help explain the underpinnings of the universe. It would confirm the standard model of physics that explains why fundamental particles have mass. Those particles are the building blocks of the universe. Mass is a trait that combines with gravity to give an object weight.

The phrase "God particle," coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, is used by laymen, not physicists, more as an explanation for how the wonders of the subatomic universe work than how it all started.

Rob Roser, who leads the search for the Higgs boson at the Fermilab in Chicago, said: "Particle physicists have a very high standard for what it takes to be a discovery," and he thinks it is a hair's breadth away.

Rosen compared the results that scientists are preparing to announce Wednesday to finding the fossilized imprint of a dinosaur: "You see the footprints and the shadow of the object, but you don't actually see it."

Though an impenetrable concept to many, the Higgs boson has until now been just that ? a concept intended to explain a riddle: How were the subatomic particles, such as electrons, protons and neutrons, themselves formed? What gives them their mass?

The answer came in a theory first proposed by physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s. It envisioned an energy field where particles interact with a key particle, the Higgs boson.

The idea is that other particles attract Higgs bosons and the more they attract, the bigger their mass will be. Some liken the effect to a ubiquitous Higgs snowfield that affects other particles traveling through it depending on whether they are wearing, metaphorically speaking, skis, snowshoes or just shoes.

Officially, CERN is presenting its evidence at a physics conference in Australia this week, but plans to accompany the announcement with meetings in Geneva. The two teams, ATLAS and CMS, then plan to publicly unveil more data on the Higgs boson at physics meetings in October and December. Each of the teams involves thousands of people working independently from one another, to ensure accuracy.

Scientists with access to the new CERN data say it shows with a high degree of certainty that the Higgs boson may already have been glimpsed, and that by unofficially combining the separate results from ATLAS and CMS it can be argued that a discovery is near at hand. Ellis says at least one physicist-blogger has done just that in a credible way.

CERN spokesman James Gillies said Monday, however, that he would be "very cautious" about unofficial combinations of ATLAS and CMS data. "Combining the data from two experiments is a complex task, which is why it takes time, and why no combination will be presented on Wednesday," he told AP.

But if the calculations are indeed correct, said John Guinon, a longtime physics professor at the University of California at Davis and author of the book "The Higgs Hunter's Guide," then it is fair to say that "in some sense we have reached the mountaintop."

Sean M. Carroll, a California Institute of Technology physicist flying to Geneva for the July 4th announcement, said that if both ATLAS and CMS have independently reached these high thresholds on the Higgs boson, then "only the most curmudgeonly will not believe that they have found it."

___

Borenstein reported from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2012-07-02-EU-Switzerland-God-Particle/id-11da5b13a9c441549f2406b1be07fb6d

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Things You Should Know About Using Free ... - CallWave Mobile

Do you have family around the world and want to communicate more quickly and easily with them? Is there only form of communication available at this time a cell phone? Well why not use an online service that allows you to send free international SMS to them?

Certainly one of the most important inventions of the 20th Century happens to be the cell phone. It has made being able to communicate with others a lot easier and also a lot quicker. Of all the functions available with such devices the most effective one seems to be SMS as it allows us to remain in contact with each other no matter where in the world we may be.

The technology now used in cell phones has dramatically changed since the first ones appeared. The same also goes for the way in which we communicate through this device. It is now very easy to send free international SMS messages without having to rely on your cell phone service provider. This is because there are numerous websites that allow you to send such.

The great thing about using such sites is that you don?t actually need to have a cell phone yourself. All you need to use such a service is a computer and an Internet connection.

To use these online services only need you to provide some basic information. The kind of information that they want from you in order to send free international SMS messages is the country where the message needs to go and of course the cell phone number. Once they have this then sending the message is very easy.

Below the box where you would have entered the recipients cell phone number is another where you type your message. Most sites only allow you to send a message that is 140 characters long. However there are a few that allow you to use up to 160 characters in your message. But if you understand text speak then sending such is very easy indeed.

Of course sending such messages doesn?t only save you money but also saves you time. Writing a text message on your cell phone even if it has a keyboard such as Blackberry models do can take several minutes. However when you use a free international SMS service such as that mentioned above you will find it only takes a minute at the most. The reason you are able to type out your messages so quickly is that you are using a full-scale keyboard.

Be aware however that not all of the sites offering free international SMS messages are what they seem. Some of them without you knowing it will include an advert after your message when sent as a way of making some money. Although your friends and family may not like getting these they won?t actually be much of a problem for you, as they won?t reduce the number of characters your message includes. But we advise you check through sites terms and conditions before you use it.

Resource Box: Today we have the opportunity to stay in contact with friends and family around the globe whenever we want through using a free international SMS message service. If you want to stay in contact with loved ones more often then why not give smssheep.com a try.

Source: http://www.callwavemobile.com/things-you-should-know-about-using-free-international-sms-message-sites

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Fatigue, injuries finally slow Italy in Euro final

By ANDREW DAMPF

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 11:36 p.m. ET July 1, 2012

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -Fatigue finally caught up with Italy. Forced by injuries to end the match with 10 men, the Azzurri had no answer for Spain's passing wizardry in the European Championship final.

Even "Super" Mario Balotelli couldn't break free to rescue the Azzurri this time, and the result, a 4-0 loss, was the most lopsided final in tournament history, eclipsing West Germany's 3-0 win over the Soviet Union in 1972.

Still, for a squad that entered this tournament without any big expectations and was hobbled by a match-fixing scandal, Italy can hardly be disappointed with a runner-up finish.

"This was a great European Championship for us," Italy coach Cesare Prandelli said. "Really, the only regret is that we didn't have a few extra days to recuperate. You could tell right away that they were fresher physically."

But Prandelli couldn't have been pleased with the way his squad sat back with eight men behind the ball in the opening quarter hour, which led to David Silva's opening goal in the 14th minute.

Seven minutes later, Italy's dependable right back Giorgio Chiellini limped off with an apparent left hamstring injury, the same problem that kept him out of the quarterfinal victory over England.

Midfielder Daniele De Rossi, who had to exit the England match with a sciatic nerve problem, also appeared far from 100 percent, and Spain defender Jordi Alba made it 2-0 in the 41st, racing past Leonardo Bonucci and shooting around helpless Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.

De Rossi and defender Andrea Barzagli were so exhausted before the match that they didn't even take part in Saturday's final training session. Also, for the second consecutive game Prandelli presented his match strategy to the squad on video, simply because the team did not have enough energy to do it on the pitch.

Prandelli has preached an attack-at-all-costs mentality much like Spain, but after requiring 120 minutes and a shootout to beat England in the quarterfinals, then another physical victory over Germany in the semifinals, the strategy appeared to take its toll.

While Antonio Cassano threatened occasionally in the first half, he was then replaced by Antonio Di Natale to start the second half. Having had minor heart surgery in November, Cassano was out for more than five months. He returned in April and still does not have more than an hour in his legs.

Di Natale provided a brief spark at the start of the second half, but when midfielder Thiago Motta fell to the pitch untouched grasping his right hamstring on the hour mark, it spelled the end for Italy's comeback chances.

Motta, who had some physical problems in training last week, had to be carried off on a stretcher, and Italy had already used all three of its substitutions, leaving the Azzurri with 10 men.

"Once we were down to 10 men there wasn't much we could do," Prandelli said. "We attempted to get back in the match at the start of the second half, but then when we lost Thiago Motta the match was finished."

Motta had replaced Riccardo Montolivo just four minutes earlier.

"(Montolivo) was really, really tired," Prandelli said. "The entire midfield was exhausted."

Balotelli's best chance came midway through the first half, but Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas pushed Federico Balzaretti's cross away just as the 21-year-old striker was lining up a header from close range.

A goal would have given Balotelli sole possession of the tournament scoring lead. Still, his three goals left him level with five other players, and give Italy hope for the future.

"After a loss, you never accept it with serenity. But as time passes, we have to realize that what we did was extraordinary," Prandelli said. "We really showed courage and had a great tournament."

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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A 3-week show of prudent play

??PST: Spain's run to the Euro title might not have been as sexy as we would have liked, but the manner in which this club just made history really deserves proper recognition.

Franck Fife / AFP - Getty Images

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/48035428/ns/sports-soccer/

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Winning! Sheen's 'Anger' sets cable record

Frank Ockenfels / FX

By Anna Chan

Charlie Sheen's much-hyped return to television is officially a success. The premiere of his new sitcom on FX, "Anger Management," set a new cable record, according to early numbers from Nielsen.?

The debut episode attracted 2.65 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic and 5.47 total viewers to become the most-watched scripted comedy primetime?series on cable.?The numbers were even more impressive for the second episode, which aired right after the premiere. Episode No. 2 drew 5.74 total viewers and 2.89 million pairs of eyeballs in the 18-49 demo. These numbers made "Anger Management" the most-watched scripted primetime comedy series premiere in cable history.

Assuming the show continues to do well, FX will order another 90 episodes beyond the original 10.?

Early reaction from viewers has been mixed on our Facebook page.

"Big Charlie Sheen fan and I thought it sucked," wrote reader Connie Carmichael. "I quit watching it during the 2nd episode."

"It was great! really looking forward to the next one. i loved the intro to the 1st one. haha. nice way to stick it to em charlie! #winning," wrote Alex D. Martinez.

"Was ok...Charlie was great but the writing could be better," wrote Kelli Rae Kampff.

What did you think of the two premiere episodes? And will you tune in again? Tell us on our Facebook page!

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Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12484004-winning-sheens-anger-management-sets-cable-comedy-record?lite

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KGB vs. KGB: Putin's crackdown extends to old comrades

Gennady Gudkov is the last person you'd think of as a radical dissident. Yet he's been driven into a dangerous corner, and it looks like the Kremlin has set its sights on destroying him.

A former career KGB officer, Mr. Gudkov and his son, Dmitry, are both Duma deputies with the "loyal opposition" party Just Russia. The Gudkovs both became involved with the street protest movement that erupted last December in order to steer the protesters toward peaceful and constructive engagement with the authorities, the elder Gudkov insists.

But today, amid a wave of government actions that some protest leaders are calling "the shadow of 1937" ? the year mass Stalin-era repressions began ? the Gudkovs find themselves in serious trouble, with their family business all but ruined by a blizzard of state "inspections" and the pro-Kremlin United Russia party moving to expel them and another Just Russia deputy, Ilya Ponomaryov, from the Duma.

RELATED ? Defying Putin: 7 Russians to watch

"I was warned several times, by people who shall remain nameless from high up, who gave me 'friendly advice' to stop all this involvement with the protest movement, and they assured me that if I did my problems would go away," Gudkov says. "The last time was in early June."

Since then, the family business, one of Russia's leading security firms with about 7,000 employees, has been hit with a wave of inspections from the police, fire department, and even the Moscow architectural control committee, which resulted in the suspension of its license to allow its security guards to carry weapons in Moscow.

Inspections are currently going on in most of the other 20 Russian regions where the company, Oskord International, operates. Without the 200 or so guns ? only small pistols and smooth bore rifles, Gudkov says ? in the company's arsenal, its security guards have had to stop working.

Gudkov insists the company, which has worked for the United Nations and Russian law enforcement agencies in the past, has sailed through regular inspections every three months for the past decade and has never experienced a problem with its registered firearms or their method of storage before.

"Now our business in Moscow is all but ruined, and we're being hit in the regions," he says. "I have no doubt that this is punishment directed at me for my civic position and my support of the protest movement. What's happening to me is being repeated all over the country in various ways to hundreds of other people right now, most of them not so well known as me. There is one organizing force behind all this, and that is the Kremlin administration."

Yesterday, Gudkov announced that he will be selling the company at a huge loss, wrecking his retirement plans. "I took the path of Khodorkovsky, and now I am really afraid," he told the Moscow daily Izvestia, referring to the fate of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who defied Putin and subsequently was arrested, his business empire destroyed by selective legal actions. Mr. Khodorkovsky, prosecuted in two trials that most independent experts believe were politically motivated, has spent the past nine years in a Siberian penal colony.

'A DRESS REHEARSAL FOR WHAT MAY BE COMING'

Activists say the crackdown began early this month with passage by the pro-Kremlin Duma majority of a new law that imposes tough penalties on anyone who takes part in a non-sanctioned political gathering and steep fines for organizers if any infractions occur during a permitted one.

Then on June 11, police raided the homes of eight protest leaders, seizing cash, computers and vast quantities of "political literature."

Since then, more than a dozen people have been arrested and charged with involvement in "disorders" that allegedly took place during a mass protest rally on May 6, the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration for an unprecedented third term as Russian president.

Other odd occurrences include the flight abroad of investigative journalist Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor of the opposition weekly Novaya Gazeta, after his life was allegedly threatened by the powerful head of the Kremlin's Investigative Committee and Putin protege Alexander Bastrykhin. Mr. Bastrykhin first denied making the threat, but later visited Novaya Gazeta's offices to apologize. "I didn't have the right to explode but I exploded," the pro-government daily Izvestia quoted Bastrykhin as saying.

This week anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, one of the best-known protest leaders, accused the security services of hacking into his cellphone, e-mail and Twitter accounts, using his own computer and iPad that were seized in the earlier raid on his home.

But most worrisome is the creation of a 200-person investigative task force, comprising security officers drawn from all over Russia, to look into the alleged disorders at the May 6 rally.

"We already see a Plan A in action, that involves harassing and putting psychological pressure on various opposition leaders, in the hopes that this will tamp down the protest movement," says Nikolai Petrov, an expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "It's a way of showing that nobody can consider themselves safe if they participate in public rallies...

"But much more serious are the signs that a Plan B is being prepared, which would begin with a large-scale political trial of the people involved in the May 6 rally," he adds. "The creation of a 200-strong investigating team is unprecedented; no criminal act has ever brought together this many resources. This is not being done for nothing, there is some purpose here, and that's what people are worried about. They fear that Putin is preparing to shift to a much more authoritarian state, and this is a dress rehearsal for what may be coming. It does remind a bit of the 1930s."

STRUGGLING TO HOLD BACK

Russian human rights activists say they are not literally comparing the fairly mild police actions they are experiencing with the Stalin-era mass repressions, but they insist that it carries the same whiff of state lawlessness about it.

"Nobody's saying it's 1937 all over again. After all, nobody's getting shot here," says Yury Kostanov, a lawyer with the Independent Judicial Expertise Council in Moscow. "What we're pointing to is the absence of proper legal procedure. Police search and seize first, then begin to formulate a case. Judges follow the scripts written by prosecutors. There is complete arbitrariness about what's happening and we know from our history where that leads. There are good reasons to be worried."

QUIZ ? How much do you know about Russia?

Gudkov says a bigger wave of protests is on the way, probably in the autumn, and it will be powered not only by the middle-class political demands that have brought people into the streets of Moscow so far, but also by growing economic pain across Russia's vast hinterland as inflation inches up and new utility reforms erode working class living standards.

"We need to take steps to prevent radicalization of the protest movement, but how can we do that when the authorities act in such a manner?" he says. "I do not understand the leaders of our country. I'm of the same generation and background as Putin, and I've always been respectful and ready for dialogue. But he's waging war on the younger generation, like my son, Yevgenia Chirikova, Alexei Navalny, Ilya Ponomaryov. All these raids, arrests and different forms of harassment are driving them in a radical direction, and there are no avenues for dialogue other than to take to the streets," he says.

"I'm ready for any possible consequences. Things are flying out of the framework of law. They can strip me of my deputy's mandate, accuse me, wreck me. I don't think this will last long. Putin does not understand how deep the crisis has already become? The main thing is we must prevent the first shot from being fired on any side. If we have bloodshed here, the process will go out of control very fast. It's crucial for the opposition to remain peaceful, and for the authorities to heed this lesson as well," he adds.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kgb-vs-kgb-putins-crackdown-extends-old-comrades-140231804.html

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Analysis: GOP sees tax opening in Obama court win

By CHARLES BABINGTON
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - For President Barack Obama to turn his Supreme Court victory into a clear-cut political win this fall, he must do something other candidates have failed to do: make voters care that GOP opponent Mitt Romney once embraced the health care policies he now fiercely criticizes.

If Obama can't do that, then Romney may find it easy to fire up conservative activists who despise what they label "Obamacare," while also attracting moderate voters who simply dislike it.

And the Republican will have a new anti-tax argument, thanks to the high court.

On the policy front, Thursday's Supreme Court decision was a huge victory for Obama. It's trickier politically, however, because the court upheld the health care law under Congress' power to tax people, a rationale that surprised many.

In essence, the five-justice majority said, the penalty that Americans will start paying in 2014 if they refuse to obtain health insurance amounts to a tax.

Obama has insisted the fee is not a tax. He also notes that poor people would receive subsidies to buy insurance, which amounts to a tax cut. But his lawyers cited the tax-powers argument in their Supreme Court appearance.

Romney and fellow Republicans immediately launched a line of criticism that often has been potent: Democrats - in this case, Obama and his allies in Congress - are too eager to hike taxes.

"Obamacare raises taxes on the American people by approximately $500 billion," Romney said in his brief remarks.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Democratic lawmakers to "stand by your tax increase or stand with us to repeal and replace Obamacare."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said: "The Supreme Court has spoken. This law is a tax."

There's a political problem with that argument, Democrats quickly noted. Romney, while governor of Massachusetts, also required almost every resident to obtain insurance or pay a fee. As former Obama aide Neera Tanden put it, "If you call the mandate a tax increase, then Mitt Romney increased taxes in Massachusetts."

That might inoculate Obama from Romney's tax-hike accusations, if Democrats can make it stick. But Romney's GOP primary opponents repeatedly failed when they tried to wrap "Romneycare" around his neck.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty reminded Republican voters that Obama "said that he designed Obamacare after Romneycare." Texas Gov. Rick Perry said, "I think Mitt is finally recognizing that the Massachusetts health care plan he passed is a huge problem for him."

Former Sen. Rick Santorum tried hardest of all. He said Romney's health care legacy made him "the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama."

Romney simply stuck to his criticisms of Obama's health law and avoided detailed discussions of its similarities to his Massachusetts initiative.

Some Democrats think Obama and his well-financed ally groups will do a much better job of painting Romney as a hypocrite or flip-flopper on health care.

Romney's GOP opponents "weren't exactly the most formidable of politicians, and they lacked the resources to really make it an issue on TV," Democratic strategist Doug Thornell said. Romney "is the godfather of the individual mandate and health reform," Thornell added, and thus ill-positioned to lead a fight on the issue.

Jim Kessler, co-founder of the Democratic-leaning group Third Way, said: "The individual mandate that Romney invented in Massachusetts is now a tax. That's a real pickle for Romney."

Republicans have options. They can have surrogates and lawmakers carry the health care battle against Obama, leaving Romney as far removed as possible.

Or it may turn out that voters don't care much about what Romney did as a one-term governor several years ago. That would free him to lead assaults on "Obamacare" with minimum damage.

If that happens, Thursday's court ruling could work against Obama's re-election hopes. Recent AP-GfK polls have found that more Americans oppose the 2010 health care law than support it. Opposition to the "individual mandate" - it would require most people to get insurance or pay a fee - was even deeper in a March poll.

Such findings delight Republican operatives. For Obama, Thursday's ruling was "probably the most damaging of all possible outcomes," GOP strategist Mike McKenna said.

"Identifying the mandate as a tax shears away all of the pretense," McKenna said. "It will energize everyone on the right, even those with deep reservations about Romney."

Another Republican campaign veteran, Terry Holt, said: "Obama might have his law, but the GOP has a cause."

Obama seemed eager to avoid the tax debate Thursday. He did not mention taxes in his 1,200-word speech before cameras.

The president's allies might be more willing to engage. If Republicans insist on calling the health insurance fee a tax, said Tanden, who now heads the Center for American Progress, "then the only person in America who has implemented that policy is Mitt Romney."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE - Charles Babington covers politics for The Associated Press.

An AP News Analysis

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.wistv.com/story/18912265/analysis-gop-sees-tax-opening-in-obama-court-win

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