b34nz.com BEE THREE FO IN ZEE

4Nov/10Off

GOP plans to cut spending, repeal health care law

WASHINGTON -Victorious at the polls, congressional Republicans asserted their newfound political strength on Thursday, vowing to seek a quick $100 billion in federal spending cuts and force repeated votes on the repeal of President Barack Obama's prized health care overhaul.
At the White Houses, Obama said his administration was ready to work across party lines in a fresh attempt to "focus on the economy and jobs" as well as attack waste in government. In a show of bipartisanship, he invited top lawmakers to the White House at mid-month, and the nation's newly elected governors two weeks later.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, in line to become the new speaker of the House, brushed aside talk that the No. 1 GOP goal was to make sure Obama is defeated at the polls in 2012. "That's Senator McConnell's statement and his opinion," he told ABC, referring to the party's leader in the Senate and adding that his own goals included cutting spending and creating jobs.
But tentative talk of compromise competed with rhetoric reminiscent of the just-completed campaign.
In a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell said the only way to achieve key party legislative goals such as ending government bailouts, cutting spending and repealing the health care law "is to put someone in the White House who won't veto" them.
"There's just no getting around it," he added.
Obama has ruled out accepting repeal of the health care measure, and Senate Democrats responded quickly to McConnell.
"What Sen. McConnell is really saying is, `Republicans want to let insurance companies go back to denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, let them go back to charging women twice as much for the same coverage as men, and let them push millions of seniors back into the Medicare doughnut hole," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The maneuvering unfolded two days after elections that swept Democrats out of power in the House and cut deeply into their Senate majority, scripting an uncertain new era of divided government for the final two years of Obama's term.
In the House, Boehner asked members of the Republican rank and file to support him for speaker when the new Congress convenes in early January. His victory is a formality, given the huge 60-member gain he engineered as party leader.
Nor did there appear to be any competition to Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia as majority leader, the second-most powerful position in the House.
Among Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to disclose her plans. The most recent speaker whose party lost its majority, Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, resigned from Congress a few months later.
Even before the new Congress comes into office, the old one is scheduled to meet the week after next for a post-election session.
In remarks to reporters after meeting with his Cabinet at the White House, Obama urged lawmakers to avert an income tax increase that could take effect Jan 1, ratify a new arms-reduction treaty with Russia, provide unemployment aid to victims of the recession and extend expiring tax breaks for business.
Congress also must enact a spending bill that permits government to remain in operation, and the issue already has emerged as a likely flash point in the post-election meeting of Congress.
Many House Republicans campaigned on a platform of cutting government spending to levels in effect in 2008, before enactment of an economic stimulus bill and other increases that Democrats passed. Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, notified Democrats during the day that GOP lawmakers will try and implement the cuts when Congress considers the spending bill needed to keep most agencies running for the next eight months. The estimated savings total $100 billion.
"The unmistakable message sent by the American people on Tuesday is that they are justifiably angry at Washington. They want Congress to cut spending," wrote Lewis, who faces an internal challenge in his attempt to become chairman of the panel next year.
At a news conference on Wednesday, the president signaled he was ready to jettison his campaign-long insistence that tax cuts be extended for earners at incomes up to $250,000 but be allowed to expire for higher-income people.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs made the hint explicit on Thursday. He said extending tax cuts permanently for upper-income earners "is something the president does not believe is a good idea," but that Obama would be open to the possibility of extending the cuts for one or two years.
Republicans responded coolly to the overture. "I take any signal that the president may be backing off his pledge to raise taxes on small businesses as a good sign, but we have to see where this discussion goes," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, in line to become the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. He and other Republicans say that the expiration of some income tax cuts would be felt on numerous small business owners.
McConnell's speech reflected his status as leader of a minority unable to originate legislation, a position different from the one Boehner will soon hold.
"We have to be realistic about what we can and cannot achieve, while at the same time recognizing that realism should never be confused with capitulation," the Kentucky senator said.
"On health care, that means we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly. But we can't expect the president to sign it."
Boehner, in his ABC interview, said he's not sure the president and other Democrats fully understand the message delivered by the voters on Tuesday. "When you have the most historic election in over 60, 70 years, you would think the other party would understand that the American people have clearly repudiated the policies they've put forward in the last few years."

GOP plans to cut spending, repeal health care law

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
22Oct/10Off

Fearing rout, Obama, Dems reach to female voters

SEATTLE -In a last-ditch effort to prevent electoral disaster, President Barack Obama and Democratic allies are vigorously wooing women voters, whose usually reliable support appears to have softened.
From blunt TV ads to friendlier backyard chats, they're straining to persuade women that it's the Democrats who are on their side and it's in women's vital interest to turn out and vote in the Nov. 2 elections that could give Republicans control of one or both houses of Congress.
In Seattle on Thursday, Obama told local women and others that "how well women do will help determine how well our families are doing as a whole." Accompanied by women who own businesses, he spoke in a family's backyard about the economy's effects on women and outlined ways he said his policies have helped them.
Later, trying to rekindle the enthusiasm of his presidential race, he all but ordered thousands of cheering supporters at a packed University of Washington arena to get out and vote, even though he's not on the ballot. Hoarsely shouting over the applause, he said, "If everybody that voted in 2008 shows up in 2010, we will win this election. We will win this election. But you've got to come out and vote."
Campaigning for one of the Democrats' female senators, Patty Murray, who is in a tight re-election fight, Obama attracted a bigger crowd than the 10,000 who could fit into the arena. The others moved to an overflow area set up in the university's football stadium, and the president ran through the stadium tunnel onto the field to greet them.
With the elections less than two weeks away and Democrats fearing big losses, candidates, party allies and others are joining Obama in seeking women's votes by hitting Republican opponents — in ads, mailings and speeches — on issues such as abortion rights. In every corner of the country, they are arguing that the GOP would erase progress American women have made under Democratic control of the White House and Congress.
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll underscores the Democrats' concern: Women long have leaned toward Democrats but, at a time of great economic unrest, those who are likely to vote now split fairly evenly between the two parties, 49 percent favoring Democrats, 45 percent Republicans. That's a significant drop from 2006 when Democrats had a double-digit edge. The current margin mirrors 1994, the year of a Republican wave that swept Congress.
Men usually break for Republicans, and they broadly favor the GOP this year, too.
Women could hold the key for Obama and his party as Democrats look to minimize expected widespread losses at all levels of government in a year when, particularly on the Republican side, female candidates top ballots in statewide races in Connecticut, South Carolina, California, New Hampshire, New Mexico and elsewhere.
Hope for the Democrats: A lot of women are undecided, and more than a third who are likely to vote say they could still change their minds before the election.
With that in mind, the White House, Democratic candidates and outside groups are reaching out to female voters.
Making it personal, Obama told the backyard group on Thursday he's determined to make sure that girls get as good an education as boys, particularly in math and science.
"As a father of two daughters, this is something that I spend a lot of time thinking about," he said.
He presented two women — Christina Lomasney, a physicist and president of a local metals company, and Jody Hall, who has five cupcake shops in the Seattle area — who praised the government for business help.
Besides the president, first lady Michelle Obama has campaigned on Democrats' behalf with a particular focus on women. She recently pleaded for their votes during a New York fundraiser that partly benefited the Women's Leadership Forum. She was flanked by Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill, and actress Sarah Jessica Parker of "Sex and the City."
Mrs. Obama reminded the crowd that her husband had named two women to the Supreme Court and that the first piece of legislation he signed as president was the Lilly Ledbetter Act to help women achieve equal pay.
Across the country, Democratic candidates and their allies are reaching out to women, mostly by casting their Republican opponents — some of them women as well — as out-of-step with their concerns.
The head of EMILY's List, Stephanie Schriock, recently warned voters in a speech that a Republican takeover of Congress — and Republican John Boehner as House speaker — would mean "a dangerous world." The organization, dedicated to electing women who favor abortion rights, had hundreds of female volunteers calling women in California urging them to vote for Sen. Barbara Boxer.
In Nevada, a new ad by the Service Employees International Union assails Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's GOP challenger, saying Sharron Angle would force a rape victim who was impregnated to have the baby, and her ideas would hurt women's ability to get college loans, find jobs and have Social Security.
Elsewhere, Democrats have hammered Republican Ken Buck in Colorado's Senate race over claims of a woman who says Buck once refused to prosecute a case in which she said she had been raped. In Kentucky's Senate race, Democrat Jack Conway, trailing his GOP opponent in the polls, has an ad running that asks: "Why did Rand Paul once tie a woman up?" — a reference to an allegation of a college prank. And Washington Sen. Murray is assailing Republican Dino Rossi with an ad that accuses him of wanting to "turn back the clock" on abortion rights.
On Election Day a week from Tuesday, women could make the difference in a couple of dozen extraordinarily close congressional races scattered across the nation, and in a half dozen neck-and-neck Senate contests that could determine whether Republicans rise to power, among them Washington state, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Women also could affect governors' races from coast to coast, including the biggest prizes of the year in Ohio, California and Florida.
Top Democrats publicly shrug off the notion that women are fleeing the party, but the intense focus by the White House and candidates on this generally reliable constituency shows a concern.
"One of the issues that separates us from the Republican Party is our advocacy on these issues," said White House senior adviser David Axelrod. "There is a very strong case to be made for the advocacy that we've shown and for our belief that getting fair treatment for women, whether it's in the workplace, in the health care system, in obtaining capital in order to start or expand businesses."
To promote that position, Obama's National Economic Council released a report on "Jobs and Economic Security for America's Women" — detailing small-business loans, child care tax credits and other programs aimed at women — and top aide Valerie Jarrett made the rounds on morning talk shows to promote his policies.
"Strengthening opportunities for women in our economy is a key focus of the presidents economic agenda," Jarrett wrote the White House blog.
For Democrats, the challenge over the next days is great.
Women are less tuned into the election than men, with just 54 percent of women who are likely to vote saying they have a great deal of interest compared with 67 percent of men, according to the AP-GfK poll.
Still, nearly half of women say they want to see Democrats retain control of Congress, compared with 41 percent who would prefer the GOP. Men are the reverse.
Women likely to vote also are more apt than men to say they trust Democrats more than Republicans — or they trust the two parties the same — on most issues tested, including creating jobs.
And 54 percent of women likely to vote say they'd like to see their own House member re-elected. It's a good sign for Democrats in a Congress where they outnumber Republicans.
—
AP National Political Writer Liz Sidoti reported from Washington. AP Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

Fearing rout, Obama, Dems reach to female voters

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
17Oct/10Off

As Democrats’ message lags, GOP awaits huge wins

WASHINGTON -Two weeks before Election Day, Democrats fear their grip on the House may be gone, and Republicans are poised to celebrate big gains in the Senate and governors' mansions as well.
Analysts in both parties say all major indicators tilt toward the Republicans. President Barack Obama's policies are widely unpopular. Congress, run by the Democrats, rates even lower. Fear and anger over unemployment and deep deficits are energizing conservative voters; liberals are demoralized.
Private groups are pouring huge sums of money into GOP campaigns. An almost dizzying series of Democratic messages has failed to gain traction, forcing Obama to zigzag in search of a winning formula.
At a Democratic rally in Boston on Saturday, Obama acknowledged that the enthusiasm of his presidential run two years ago may have faded in the face the country's economic problems. And he said Republicans believe they can "ride people's anger and frustration all the way to the ballot box."
"There is no doubt that this is a difficult election, Obama told the crowd of 10,000. "That's because we've been through an incredibly difficult time as a nation."
With early voting under way in many states, Democrats are trying to minimize the damage by concentrating their resources on a dwindling number of races.
"The poll numbers and the enthusiasm on the right versus the lack of the enthusiasm on the left suggest a pretty big Republican night," said former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who once headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
With Democrats in power while the unemployment rate stands at 9.6 percent, "it's difficult to say, 'Well it could have been worse,'" Kerrey said.
Polls, campaign finance reports and advisers in both parties indicate that Republicans are in line to seize on a level of voter discontent that rivals 1994, when the GOP gained the House majority for the first time in 40 years. Democrats are embattled at every level.
HOUSE:
Republicans need to win 40 seats to regain the House majority they lost four years ago. Even some Democratic officials acknowledge that their losses could well exceed that.
A GOP takeover would depose Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as the first female House speaker and force Obama to negotiate with Republicans on every significant legislative issue.
Every day brings fresh evidence of Democratic officials virtually abandoning House members whose re-election bids seem hopeless. Republicans are expanding the field to pursue races that once appeared unattainable. In the coming week, Republicans or GOP-leaning outside groups plan to spend money in a 82 House races that they see as competitive or within reach of a last-minute upset.
Democrats, desperate to hold their losses to three dozen seats, plan to run TV ads in 59 races in the remaining days. But their chief House campaign committee has recently canceled millions of dollars worth of advertising for struggling Reps. Steve Driehaus and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Steve Kagen of Wisconsin.
They are shifting some of that money to incumbents once considered safe, such as Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva. But in a sign of the election's volatility, they also are helping viable incumbents they had expected to be trailing significantly — South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, for example.
The Democrats' House campaign committee raised almost $16 million in September and has $41.6 million in the bank.
That's a big fundraising advantage over the GOP's House campaign committee. But the figures are misleading because heavy spending by outside groups, which often hide their donors' identities, clearly favors Republican candidates.
—
SENATE:
To gain the Senate majority, Republicans must hold all 18 of their seats on this year's ballots while picking up 10 of the 19 Democratic seats. It's a tough task, but not inconceivable.
Democrats trail badly in states where they once held some hope of supplanting Republicans: Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio and Florida. Kentucky is the only one that's still close. But Democrats have reduced their spending there, a sign that Republican and tea party favorite Rand Paul is clearly ahead.
Among seats now held by Democrats, Republicans are favored to win open races in North Dakota and Indiana, and to oust Sen. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas.
In Pennsylvania, where Republican Pat Toomey had comfortably led Democrat Joe Sestak in polls, the race has tightened in recent weeks, forcing the GOP to spend more than it had planned. The Republican Party also is pouring am additional $2 million into Illinois, where Republican Mark Kirk has slipped somewhat in polls in his race against Democrat Alexi Giannoulias for Obama's old seat.
That said, Democrats say Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold is struggling mightily, and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet is in a tough fight.
Races are extremely close in West Virginia and Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is battling tea party-backed Republican Sharron Angle in a bitter and costly campaign.
Democrats are anxiously watching Sens. Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington. Private polls show Republicans pulling closer but still trailing.
Should Republicans win all the close races and knock off either Boxer or Murray, they may rue the nomination of tea partier Christine O'Donnell, who badly trails Chris Coons in Delaware. That once-promising state could have provided the 10th GOP win needed to take the Senate majority.
—
GOVERNORS:
Democrats risk losing a dozen governors' chairs they now hold, including those in pivotal presidential states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine and New Mexico. Also possibly falling into GOP hands are Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Tennessee, Illinois and perhaps Oregon.
Democrats have good chances to pick up GOP-held governorships in four or five states, including California and possibly Florida.
The Republican Governors Association's $31 million haul over the past three months enables the GOP to jump into more races. The Democratic Governors Association raised $10 million in that period.
—
MESSAGING:
Perhaps nothing has frustrated Democrats more than their yearlong failure to find a message that could puncture the anger of millions of voters who seem bent on punishing the party in power. It wasn't for a lack of trying.
Obama may have charmed stadiums full of voters in 2008, but he and congressional Democrats never recovered from barrages of criticism in 2009 about unemployment, bank bailouts and strong-arm legislative tactics used on issues such as health care.
Eight months ago, Democrats boldly predicted that voters would embrace the new health care law once portions took effect, such as the right to keep children on their parents' insurance plans until age 26. Obama practically dared GOP lawmakers to urge the law's repeal.
"Go for it," he said in Iowa in March. "If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest."
It didn't work out that way. By the time the health bill's first elements became law on Sept. 23, most Democratic candidates were ducking it, and many had to defend their votes amid harsh attacks from Republican opponents.
Democrats turned their energies to framing the election as a series of one-on-one contests about local issues, while Republicans kept portraying it as a national referendum on Obama and the economy.
The national theme persisted, so Democrats tried to turn it to their advantage. Obama repeatedly reminded voters that former President George W. Bush had left him with a major recession, failing banks and a rapidly growing deficit. Don't give the car keys back to those who drove the economy into the ditch, Obama would say dozens of times.
In the early autumn, the president and his allies tried another tack: portraying House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, as the well-tanned face of a party that would let Wall Street run amok while the richest Americans kept enjoying deep tax cuts. In an Ohio speech, Obama cited Boehner's name eight times.
Voters seemed to shrug. Obama and his top aides then tried a new approach: accusing Republican supporters, particularly the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of funding campaigns with millions of undisclosed dollars, some of them possibly from foreign sources.
The group and others angrily denied the allegations, and Democratic strategists said they saw little evidence that the debate was moving voters.
As Election Day draws nearer, top Democrats seem almost desperate and hyperbolic. The chairman of the Democratic Party, Tim Kaine, compared conservative groups' campaign spending with the Watergate scandal, even though no one has provided evidence of wrongdoing, let alone criminality.
Kerrey, the Nebraska Democrat, said the White House has careened from message to message all year without finding an economic pitch to reassure Americans deeply worried about finding or holding jobs.
"They said, 'It could have been worse, we did pass health care reform, we did pass financial services industry reform,'" Kerrey said. "Those arguments don't do much to much to confront what is a building momentum in the opposite direction."
Many Republicans say there's almost nothing that Obama and other Democrats can do at this stage.
"It's as if the concrete has already been poured around the Democrats' feet," said GOP consultant Kevin Madden.
—
Associated Press writers Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Jim Kuhnhenn and Julie Pace contributed to this report.

As Democrats' message lags, GOP awaits huge wins

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
14Oct/10Off

As Chile celebrates, mine’s future in question

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile -Chileans reveled Thursday in the stunning glory and jubilation of a record-setting mine rescue. As the celebration fades, however, several key questions await resolution.
Officials at the copper and gold mine whose collapse trapped the 33 men for more than two months still have to answer why it was allowed to operate at all.
Attention will also focus in coming days on the rescued miners themselves, their emotional scars must be tended — and, eventually, it remains to be seen how many will want to return the underground profession that nearly killed them.
President Sebastian Pinera seemed unequivocal after Wednesday's rescue about the fate of the San Jose mine.
"This mine will definitely never open again," he said after a dizzying day in which the miners were pulled up through a narrow escape chute from nearly a half-mile down in under 23 hours — far less than originally forecast.
Pinera also said the conditions that allowed the accident "will not go unpunished. Those who are responsible will have to assume their responsibility."
Pinera said the rescue would end up costing "somewhere between $10 (million) and $20 million," a third covered by private donations with the rest coming from state-owned Codelco — the country's largest company— and the government itself.
Mining accounts for 40 percent of the Chilean state's earnings and the rescue's details were run by its operations manager, Andre Sougarett.
The Aug. 5 collapse brought the 125-year-old San Jose mine's checkered safety record into focus and put Chile's top industry under close scrutiny. Many believe the collapse occurred because the mine was overworked and violated safety codes.
The families of 27 of the 33 rescued miners have sued its owners for negligence and compensatory damages.
Also suing the San Esteban company is Gino Cortez, a 40-year-old miner who lost his left leg from the knee down a month before the accident as he was leaving the mine after his shift and a rock fell on him. He contends he was hurt because the mine was short on the metallic screens that protect miners from such collapses.
Pinera said he would in the coming days be offering a new proposal for better protecting Chilean workers.
After the collapse, he fired top regulators and created a commission to investigate both the accident and the industry's Sernageomin regulatory agency. Some action was swift: the agency shut down at least 18 small mines for safety violations.
"The mine has been proven dangerous, but what's worse are the mine owners who don't offer any protection to men who work in mining," said Patricio Aguilar, 60, of nearby Copiapo, during celebrations of the meticulously executed rescue.
Advances in technology notwithstanding, mining remains a dangerous profession in the smaller mines here in northern Chile, which employ about 10,000 people.
Since 2000, about 34 people have died every year on average in mining accidents in Chile — with a high of 43 in 2008, according to Sernageomin data.
Most of the rescued miners live in Copiapo, a gritty, blue-collar city surrounded by the Acatama desert. Copiapo's central plaza was jammed with thousands of revelers watching the operation on a giant screen as street vendors hawked Chilean flags bearing the faces of "Los 33."
The last miner, shift foreman Luis Urzua, emerged from the Phoenix rescue capsule after the 2,041-foot ascent to a joyous celebration. Pinera, eyes moist with emotion, told him: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration."
No one is known to have survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether the men were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
With hardhats held to their hearts, the pair led the rescue team in singing the national anthem. Broadcast by state TV, it seemed ubiquitous in small country of 16 million roiling with pride.
"Chile today is more united and stronger than ever and I think that Chile is today a country more respected and more esteemed by the world," Pinera said after chatting with Urzua on live TV about how the men endured.
The rescue exceeded expectations every step of the way. Initially, officials said it might December before the men could get out. Once the drill that opened the escape shaft pierced the men's subterranean prison, they estimated it would take 36 to 48 hours to get everyone out.
The actual time: 22 hours, 39 minutes.
The only real glitch was indeed minor — it became bit difficult as the day wore on to open and close the escape capsule's door as the day wore on, said Laurence Golborne, the mining minister who Pinera put in charge of the rescue. Early Thursday morning, the last rescuer who helped the miners into the escape capsule came up safely to end the operation.
Golborne has won high marks for his deft management of the closely scrutinized rescue, and Chilean media have been abuzz with discussion of him as Pinera's most likely successor. Elected in December 2009 to a four-year term, Pinera is constitutionally barred from running again.
Once rescued, the miners were taken to a hospital in Copiapo for observation. Initially, officials said all would be there a full 48 hours after emerging from the mine.
But Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some would probably be able to leave Thursday. First lady Cecilia Morel confirmed that to The Associated Press.
"They are being kept more as a preventative measure than to treat anything," she said. Better to be in the hospital "than at home where they could be given meat and fried pork rinds," she said.
All but a few of the men emerged in very good health, officials said.
Manalich said many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
But it became clear that they also faced emotional challenges from their ordeal.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said miner Jimmy Sanchez, at 19, the youngest of the group and the father of a 4-month-old baby, appeared to be having a hard time adjusting and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," Swett said.
Chile has promised to care for the miners for six months at least — until they can be sure each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts predict their lives will be anything but normal.
Pinera said he would visit all of them in the hospital Thursday and then host them at the government palace in Santiago, the capital.
Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable mine for about $1,600 a month.
At some point, the men will need to decide whether they will return to the mines.
Many of their relatives are dead-set against it, but they also acknowledged that they probably couldn't stop the miners from going down again.
Mario Medina Mejia, a local geologist. said plenty of Chilean miners have returned underground after close calls, and he compared it to sailors who survive shipwrecks only to ply the waves again.
"If they need the work they will return to the mine," he said. "It's their life, their culture, the way they make their living."
—
Associated Press Writers Michael Warren, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.

As Chile celebrates, mine's future in question

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
23Sep/10Off

Tax, spending cuts top GOP campaign-year ‘Pledge’

WASHINGTON -Six weeks before midterm elections, House Republicans vowed to cut taxes and federal spending, repeal President Barack Obama's health care law and ban federal funding of abortion as part of a campaign manifesto designed to propel them to victory in November and a majority in the next Congress.
The "Pledge to America," circulated to GOP lawmakers Wednesday, emphasizes job creation and spending control, as well as changing the way Congress does business. It steered clear of controversial issues such as Social Security and Medicare, big drivers of deficit spending.
It pairs some familiar Republican ideas — such as deep spending cuts, medical liability reform and stricter border enforcement — with an anti-government call to action that draws on tea party themes and echoes voters' disgruntlement with the economy and Obama's leadership.
"Regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent," reads a preamble to the agenda. "An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many."
Republicans are favored to add substantially to their ranks, perhaps enough to seize control of the House. Details of their plan emerged as President Barack Obama tried to reintroduce voters to his health care overhaul law, a signature issue of his first two years that Americans don't much like or understand. Democrats, who pursued overhaul for decades, have been surprised by its unpopularity.
GOP leaders are set to go public with their plan Thursday at a hardware store in suburban Virginia, choosing a location outside the nation's capital that's in keeping with the plan's grassroots emphasis.
It calls for every bill to cite its specific constitutional authority, a vote on any government regulation that costs more than $100 million annually and a freeze on hiring federal workers except security personnel. It also has a "read the bill" provision mandating that legislation be publicly available for three days before a vote.
Officials have described the agenda as the culmination of an Internet- and social networking-powered project they launched earlier this year to give voters the chance to say what Congress should do. The "America Speaking Out" project collected 160,000 ideas and received 1 million votes and comments on the proposals, they said.
Much internal debate ensued among party leaders, rank-and-file lawmakers and GOP activists about the contents of the agenda, including whether it should include a reference to "family values" — which some strategists argued could alienate the independent voters Republicans are courting.
They agreed to include the abortion provision and a vaguely worded statement on social issues: "We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values."
The plan recalled Republicans' 1994 "Contract With America," a list of heavily poll-tested proposals they unveiled about six weeks before the GOP gained 54 House seats and seized control of the House for the first time in 40 years.
But the rollout reflects a national mood far different from the one 16 years ago, and an electorate that national surveys show is fed up with its representatives and disillusioned about government.
"The Contract was done at a time when it was acceptable for a relatively small number of elected officials and trusted aides to go behind closed doors, come up with some ideas, test them in polls and then announce them on the steps of the Capitol," said Michael Franc of the conservative Heritage Foundation, who was a House aide during those days.
"If you did that now, you'd see yourself being hung in effigy most places. ... (Republicans) can't afford to come across as another case of 'government knows best,'" Franc said.
Republican strategists advising House leaders have told them that presenting their own ideas for governing — laser-focused on jobs and recharging the economy — is crucial to their electoral chances.
"It is not enough for the Republican Party just simply to point out that President Obama and the Democrats have failed," said pollster David Winston. "What Americans are looking for is a plan that they have confidence in that will work."
Democrats dismissed the GOP plan as recycled ideas that would further exacerbate the nation's problems.
"Republicans want to return to the same failed economic policies that hurt millions of Americans and threatened our economy," said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The plan proposes creating jobs through tax cuts, including permanently extending George W. Bush's reductions for people at every income level, now slated to expire in January, and a 20 percent deduction for small businesses. It also calls for repeal of an unpopular new provision enacted to help pay for the health care law that requires nearly 40 million businesses to file tax forms for every vendor that sells them more than $600 in goods.
It offers an array of proposals to limit spending, including cutting back to 2008 levels and placing a hard cap on future government expenditures.
Republicans are calling for replacing the health care law by letting people buy health care coverage outside their states, expanding state programs that cover high-risk patients who can't otherwise get insurance and expanding the use of tax-advantaged savings accounts to cover medical costs.
And the plan also focuses on security, including calling for denying terrorists so-called "Miranda rights," opposing the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees into the United States and full funding for missile defense programs.

Tax, spending cuts top GOP campaign-year 'Pledge'

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
24Aug/10Off

Supplies reach Chilean miners; now, the long wait

COPIAPO, Chile -Trapped nearly half a mile inside the earth and facing perhaps four months before rescue, 33 Chilean miners began getting food, water and oxygen from above ground Monday as rescue teams worked to gauge their state of mind and brace them for the long wait ahead.
Through a newly installed communications system, each of the men spoke and reported feeling hungry but well, except for one with a stomach problem, a Chilean official said. They requested toothbrushes.
It was a positive sign, and Chile's president said the nation was "crying with excitement and joy" after engineers broke through Sunday to the men's refuge. It had been 17 days since a landslide at the gold and copper mine caused a tunnel to collapse and entombed them more than 2,200 feet below ground.
Still, doctors and psychological experts were trying to safeguard the very sanity of the miners in the months to come, and said they were implementing a plan that included keeping them informed and busy. The miners reported that a shift foreman named Luis Urzua had assumed leadership of the trapped men.
"They need to understand what we know up here at the surface, that it will take many weeks for them to reach the light," Health Minister Jaime Manalich explained.
Engineers worked to reinforce the 6-inch-wide bore hole that broke through to the refuge, using a long hose to coat its walls with a metallic gel to decrease the risk of rock falling and blocking the hard-won passage through the unstable mine.
The lubricant makes it easier to pass supplies through in capsules nicknamed "palomas," Spanish for dove. The first of the packages, which are about 5 feet long and take about an hour to descend from the surface, held rehydration tablets and a high-energy glucose gel to help the miners begin to recover their digestive systems.
Rescue teams also sent oxygen down after the miners suggested there was not enough air in the stretches of the mine that run below where the main shaft collapsed.
The shelter, a living-room-sized chamber off one of the mine's lower passages that is easily big enough for all 33 men, is far enough from the landslide to remain intact, and the men can also walk around below where the rocks fell. The temperature there is around 90 to 93 degrees (32-34 degrees Celsius).
Actual food will be sent down in several days, after the men's stomachs have had time to adjust, said Paola Neuman of the medical rescue service.
Rescuers also sent down questionnaires to determine each man's condition, along with medicine and small microphones to enable them to speak with their families during their long wait. Rescue leader Andre Sougarret said they were organizing the families into small groups to make their talks as orderly as possible.
Meanwhile, an enormous machine with diamond-tipped drills capable of carving a 26-inch-wide tunnel through solid rock and boring at about 65 feet a day was on its way from central Chile to the San Jose gold and copper mine, outside Copiapo in north-central Chile.
The machine was donated by the state-owned Codelco copper company and carried on a truck festooned with Chilean flags. Just setting it up will take at least three more days.
Engineers were also boring two more narrow shafts to the trapped men, but stopped Monday just above their refuge while they made sure that the lifeline was fully secure. Only when these three shafts are complete will they begin carving out the tunnel large enough to fit a man, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.
"We cannot be 100 percent precise, but the idea is to establish three or four points of contact so that we can guarantee better life conditions to our comrades down there," he said.
Besides their immediate physical needs such as medicine to restore their raw stomachs and sleep cycles, the rescuers were preparing psychiatric counseling. A first step was the questionnaires, which were also intended to help identify their natural leader — someone who can make sure the men are keeping busy and mentally focused.
Above ground, rescuers and family members thought that might be Mario Gomez, who at 63 is perhaps the oldest of the veteran miners down below. Gomez's letter to his wife, Liliana, which the miners tied to the drill bit, was full of expressions of faith and determination, revealing to the world that the miners were holding strong.
"Even if we have to wait months to communicate ... I want to tell everyone that I'm good and we'll surely come out OK," Gomez wrote, scrawling the words on a sheet of notebook paper. "Patience and faith. God is great and the help of my God is going to make it possible to leave this mine alive."
But Urzua, 54, was the shift foreman at the time of the collapse, and Golborne said Monday that "it seems the miners respect hierarchies."
For the miners' families, euphoria and anxiety made for a sleepless night. They shivered through the cold and fog in Chile's Atacama desert.
"We stayed up all night long hoping for more news. They said that new images would appear, so we were up hoping to see them," said one, Carolina Godoy.
The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners rescued in recent history. Last year, three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, and two miners in northeastern China were rescued after 23 days in 1983. Few other rescues have taken more than two weeks.
The miners' survival after 17 days is very unusual, but since they've made it this far, they should emerge physically fine, said Davitt McAteer, who was assistant secretary for mine safety and health at the U.S. Labor Department under President Bill Clinton.
"The health risks in a copper and gold mine are pretty small if you have air, food and water," McAteer said.
Mine officials and relatives of the workers were determined not to give up hope that the men were safe below where the tunnel collapsed Aug. 5 at the mine, about 530 miles north of Santiago, the capital.
Rescuers had drilled repeatedly in an effort to reach the shelter, but failed seven times. They blamed the errors on the mining company's maps. According to Gomez's note, at least some of those earlier probes were close enough that the trapped miners heard them. The eighth attempt finally worked.
Gomez wrote that the miners used vehicles for light and a backhoe to dig a channel to retrieve underground water. And while his message focused on faith and love for his family, his frustration also showed through. He wrote that "this company has got to modernize."
Chile is the world's top copper producer and a leading gold producer, and has some of the world's most advanced mining operations. But both the company that owns the mine, San Esteban, and the National Mining and Geology Service have been criticized for allegedly failing to comply with regulations. In 2007, an explosion at the San Jose mine killed three workers.
President Sebastian Pinera said Monday that "there is not going to be any impunity" and said investigations were under way.
Shortly after the accident, Pinera fired two top executives of Sernageomin, Chile's mine safety regulator, after reports that the mine had reopened too soon, and without real security improvements, after a fatal accident three years before. Pinera has also asked a commission for proposals to increase worker safety in Chile.
The miners' relatives are suing and claim their loved ones were put at risk working in a mine known for unstable shafts and rock falls. Company executives have denied the accusations and say the lawsuits could force them into bankruptcy.
—
Associated Press writers Federico Quilodran in Santiago, Chile, Peter Orsi in Mexico City and Michael Warren in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.

Supplies reach Chilean miners; now, the long wait

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
1Jul/10Off

AP IMPACT: Millions of vaccine doses to be burned

ATLANTA -About a quarter of the swine flu vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired — meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million is being written off as trash.
"It's a lot, by historical standards," said Jerry Weir, who oversees vaccine research and review for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The outdated vaccine, some of which expired Wednesday, will be incinerated. The amount, more than twice the usual leftovers, likely sets a record. And that's not even all of it.
About 30 million more doses will expire later and may go unused, according to one government estimate. If all that vaccine expires, more than 43 percent of the supply for the U.S. public will have gone to waste.
Federal officials defended the huge purchase as a necessary risk in the face of a never-before-seen virus. Many health experts had feared the new flu could be the deadly global epidemic they had long warned about, but it ended up killing fewer people than seasonal flu.
"Although there were many doses of vaccine that went unused, it was much more appropriate to have been prepared for the worst case scenario than to have had too few doses," said Bill Hall, spokesman for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Most leading health experts generally agree with that.
Millions of doses of flu vaccine generally go unused every year and are marked for burning, but in recent years the leftovers amounted to closer to 10 percent of the supply, rather than the 25 percent expiring now. Government flu experts couldn't recall throwing away anything close to 40 million doses before.
The new H1N1 swine flu emerged in April last year, hitting children and young adults particularly hard. It was difficult to predict how deadly it might be or how easily it might spread. Federal health officials pushed five vaccine manufacturers to produce a vaccine as quickly as possible. What's more, they wanted a lot of it — many experts thought most people would need two doses for it to work.
The government placed three orders last year for a combined total of nearly 200 million doses — an unprecedented amount and almost double the amount of vaccine produced in recent years for seasonal flu.
About 162 million doses were meant for the general public. Another 36 million included doses for the military and other countries.
But demand never took off, for several reasons:
_Tests of the vaccine soon showed only one dose was enough to protect most people.
_Much of the vaccine was not ready until late 2009, after the largest wave of swine flu illnesses passed.
_Swine flu turned out not to be as deadly as was first feared. About 12,000 deaths have been attributed to it — or roughly a third of the estimated annual deaths from seasonal flu.
So while people were waiting hours for swine flu vaccinations in some cities in October and November, by January local health departments were trying gimmicks to get anyone at all to come in for a shot.
Government officials have known for months that they were looking at a huge surplus. According to an Associated Press calculation based on federal purchasing information, the dollar value of the 40 million expired doses is about $261 million. The government didn't release an official figure, but Hall said the AP estimate was approximately correct.
In Europe, where nations also found themselves with millions of unused doses, some commentators have attacked the World Health Organization, which declared swine flu a global epidemic, or pandemic. The critics have questioned the motivation of some WHO advisers who had links to the pharmaceutical industry.
Some critics have simply lamented that a lot of anxiety was raised and money wasted, not just during the swine flu scare but also in government responses to bird flu and SARS, a respiratory virus that swept parts of Asia in 2003.
"Each time the so-called experts told us that millions of people would be killed worldwide by the respective viruses. We have learned that the experts were utterly wrong," said Dr. Ulrich Keil, a professor at Germany's prestigious University of Muenster and a WHO adviser.
"This behavior is irresponsible because the angst campaigns ... confuse the priority setting in public health," he said. The death toll from influenza epidemics is much smaller than the number killed annually by chronic illnesses like heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, he added, in an e-mail.
Unused flu vaccine is a common problem. The June 30 expiration date is set by the FDA and has less to do with the vaccine's shelf life than the desire to tweak the recipe each year to protect against the three flu strains expected to cause the most illness.
"It's not necessarily because it's degraded or not potent," said Dr. Mark Mulligan, an Emory University vaccine researcher.
In the past year, about 114 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine were distributed. The government thinks most of that was used — demand was unusually high because of fears about swine flu.
In the flu vaccination campaign for this coming fall, swine flu vaccine is being combined with two seasonal strains in single doses. Manufacturers have told the government they expect to make about 170 million doses.
An influential government advisory panel this year recommended that virtually all Americans get flu shots each year. Still, that doesn't mean it will all get used.
"No doubt there will be unused doses. This happens every time," said Dr. John Treanor, an immunology specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

AP IMPACT: Millions of vaccine doses to be burned

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
   

Categories

Archives

Tags

afghanistan alabama ass city columbus columbus-police congress country democratic democrats FAIL family government hot house huntsville investigation lindsey-connell local news madison-county MMA News nice ass north obama office party people pics police politics president press school sexy sheriff shooting street tech time united-states victim video white wife