b34nz.com BEE THREE FO IN ZEE

25Nov/10Off

Jury convicts Tom DeLay in money laundering trial

AUSTIN, Texas -The heavy-handed style that made Tom DeLay one of the nation's most powerful and feared members of Congress also proved to be his downfall Wednesday when a jury determined he went too far in trying to influence elections, convicting the former House majority leader on two felonies that could send him to prison for decades.
Jurors deliberated for 19 hours before returning guilty verdicts on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. He faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge, although prosecutors haven't yet recommended a sentence.
After the verdicts were read, DeLay hugged his daughter, Danielle, and his wife, Christine. DeLay whispered into his daughter's ear that he couldn't get a fair trial in Austin. DeLay had unsuccessfully tried to get the trial moved out of Austin, the most liberal city in one of the most Republican states
DeLay's lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said they planned to appeal the verdict.
"This is an abuse of power. It's a miscarriage of justice, and I still maintain that I am innocent. The criminalization of politics undermines our very system and I'm very disappointed in the outcome," DeLay told reporters outside the courtroom.
He remains free on bond, and several witnesses were expected to be called during the punishment phase of his trial, tentatively scheduled to begin on Dec. 20.
Prosecutors said DeLay, who once held the No. 2 job in the House of Representatives and whose tough tactics earned him the nickname "the Hammer," used his political action committee to illegally channel $190,000 in corporate donations into 2002 Texas legislative races through a money swap.
DeLay and his attorneys maintained the former Houston-area congressman did nothing wrong as no corporate funds went to Texas candidates and the money swap was legal.
The verdict came after a three-week trial in which prosecutors presented more than 30 witnesses and volumes of e-mails and other documents. DeLay's attorneys presented five witnesses.
"This case is a message from the citizens of the state of Texas that the public officials they elect to represent them must do so honestly and ethically, and if not, they'll be held accountable," Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said after the verdict.
Lehmberg said prosecutors will decide in the next few weeks what sentence they will recommend in the case to Senior Judge Pat Priest.
DeLay chose Priest to sentence him rather than the jury. He faces five years to life in prison on the money laundering charge and two to 20 years on the conspiracy charge. He also would be eligible for probation.
Jurors, who left the courthouse right after the verdict was read, declined to comment to reporters, only saying that it had been a tough decision for them to make.
The jury had sent numerous notes to Priest during its deliberations, which began on Monday. Many of the notes asked various legal questions that at one point had prompted the judge to say the panel wasn't on the right track. But at the end of Tuesday, jurors had indicated they were making progress.
Prosecutors said DeLay conspired with two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, to use his Texas-based PAC to send $190,000 in corporate money to an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee, or RNC. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas House candidates. Under Texas law, corporate money can't go directly to political campaigns.
Prosecutors claim the money helped Republicans take control of the Texas House. That enabled the GOP majority to push through a Delay-engineered congressional redistricting plan that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004 — and strengthened DeLay's political power.
DeLay's attorneys argued the money swap resulted in the seven candidates getting donations from individuals, which they could legally use in Texas.
They also said DeLay only lent his name to the PAC and had little involvement in how it was run. Prosecutors, who presented mostly circumstantial evidence, didn't prove he committed a crime, they said.
DeLay contended the charges against him were a political vendetta by Ronnie Earle, the former Democratic Travis County district attorney who originally brought the case and is now retired.
Lehmberg, who replaced Earle, said the trial was not about criminalizing politics.
"This was about holding public officials accountable, that no one is above the law and all persons have to abide by the law, no matter how powerful or lofty the position he or she might hold," she said.
Craig McDonald, the director of Texans for Public Justice, a liberal watchdog group whose complaints with the Travis County District Attorney's Office helped lead to the investigation of DeLay's PAC, said he was pleased by the verdict.
"We can't undo the 2002 election, but a jury wisely acted to hold DeLay accountable for conspiring to steal it."
The 2005 criminal charges in Texas, as well as a separate federal investigation of DeLay's ties to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, ended his 22-year political career representing suburban Houston. The Justice Department probe into DeLay's ties to Abramoff ended without any charges filed against DeLay.
Ellis and Colyandro, who face lesser charges, will be tried later.
Except for a 2009 appearance on ABC's hit television show "Dancing With the Stars," DeLay has been out of the spotlight since resigning from Congress in 2006. He now runs a consulting firm based in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land.

Jury convicts Tom DeLay in money laundering trial

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , No Comments
18Nov/10Off

Uneasy House Democrats keep Pelosi as their leader

WASHINGTON -House Democrats gambled Wednesday they can return to power under the same leaders who just oversaw a 61-seat election loss, choosing Nancy Pelosi to remain their party chief when they become the minority in January.
Moderate Democrats pleaded for a change to show voters they understand the anger and unrest registered two weeks earlier on Election Day. And Pelosi didn't retain her leadership without a fight, defeating Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, 150-43, in secret balloting in a lengthy closed-door gathering on Capitol Hill.
In a contrast befitting the Nov. 2 election results, House Republicans kept Rep. John Boehner of Ohio as their leader without opposition, and he will become speaker in the new Congress. Eric Cantor of Virginia will retain the second-ranking party position, which will be majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy of California will be the party whip.
Boehner, who turned 61 on Wednesday, told his colleagues they will usher in "the dawn of a new majority," which he said will be "humbler, wiser, and more focused than its predecessors on the priorities of the people."
Pelosi, the nation's first female House speaker, will become minority leader when the 112th Congress convenes.
"She is the face that defeated us in this last election," declared Florida Rep. Allen Boyd, who was among those who lost re-election fights. However, Pelosi, who presided over big Democratic gains in the 2006 and 2008 elections, remains popular among the liberals who dominate her caucus more than ever. Dissident moderates could not find enough votes to force her aside.
In fact, the Democrats kept their entire leadership team intact despite election losses that President Barack Obama called "a shellacking." They elected Steny Hoyer of Maryland to keep the No. 2 post and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina to hold the third-ranking position, which will be renamed "assistant leader."
Pelosi and Clyburn are 70. Hoyer is 71. Cantor is 47, McCarthy 45.
Pelosi, a Californian, is a prodigious campaign fundraiser and tireless legislator known for listening to her colleagues but pressing them to stick with party leaders on key votes. Her supporters credit her for passing difficult, major legislation such as this year's health care overhaul.
Pelosi praised her lineup Wednesday. "It's a team that took us to victory in '05, in '06, and will take us to victory again," she said. "We extend the hand of friendship to the Republicans, we look forward to hearing their ideas on job creation and deficit reduction."
Some rank-and-file House Democrats said Pelosi pushed them too often to vote on controversial matters fated to die in the Senate. They contended she didn't appreciate the level of anti-Washington hostility in America.
Their anger grew this fall when dozens of GOP candidates assailed Pelosi in campaign ads that linked her to other Democrats.
Yet plenty of Democrats defended her on Wednesday.
"She did a good job of getting legislation through," said Barney Frank of Massachusetts. He downplayed the hubbub over Shuler's challenge, saying, "The focus on who is or who isn't the minority leader is a Washington insider issue."
But Shuler's level of support — plus an earlier 129-68 vote against postponing the election that Pelosi wanted to wrap up quickly — underscored the degree of discontent in a caucus that Pelosi had largely bent to her will in the past four years.
The next two years could be more challenging and less enjoyable for Pelosi and her allies. Republicans will control the House and will be able to filibuster almost any bill in the Senate. Obama has signaled he may seek compromises that could infuriate Pelosi's liberal supporters.
Shuler said his loss to Pelosi was expected but served as a warning that Democrats can't reject all Republican ideas all of the time. He and his allies said Shuler's 43 votes proved that the dissatisfaction with keeping Pelosi as leader extended well beyond the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, whose ranks were reduced to 24 in the Nov. 2 election.
"There was a lot of unrest in the room," Shuler said.
House Democrats were scheduled Thursday to hold a third straight day of closed-door meetings, which many members have used to vent their frustration and anger over their heavy losses. These rifts, if unresolved, could complicate the party's efforts to re-elect Obama and to win back the House majority in 2012.
Pelosi faces a potentially embarrassing public rebuke from at least some of her detractors on the first day of the new Congress in January. Shuler and the three centrist Democrats who nominated him to be leader — Reps. Larry Kissel of North Carolina, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Jim Matheson of Utah — said they would not vote for her when their turns come to rise and cast a ceremonial vote for speaker.
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., said Wednesday's unsuccessful effort to postpone the party leadership elections reflected substantial angst among Democrats about how to rebuild.
"There's a lot of concern in the caucus about the direction that we want to go from here, and I think 68 votes shows significant concern," Cardoza said. "The caucus will continue to do a great deal of soul-searching."
Some lawmakers who voted for Pelosi did so with little apparent joy. "We got shellacked" in the midterm elections, said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. "We are not happy."
—
Associated Press writers Jim Abrams, Laurie Kellman, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Donna Cassata contributed to this report.
(This version corrects the location of the meeting to Capitol Hill, not the Capitol itself.)

Uneasy House Democrats keep Pelosi as their leader

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
8Nov/10Off

Elizabeth Smart says she awoke to knife on neck

SALT LAKE CITY -Elizabeth Smart remembers not being able to make out the threat, only the feel of cold knife at her neck.
As the then-14-year-old lay in bed alongside her baby sister, the man repeated: "Don't make a sound. Get out of bed and come with me, or I will kill you and your family." She was his hostage, he told her.
"I was shocked. I thought I was having a nightmare. It was just indescribable fear," Smart, now 23, told jurors Monday on the first day of testimony in the trial of Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping her in June 2002.
That night, they fled up the hills above her home, with Smart in her red pajamas and tennis shoes, and the knife to her back.
Her younger sister — a baby blanket wrapped around her head and neck — rushed to their mother, telling of the kidnapping.
"It was utter terror," their mother, Lois Smart, testified earlier Monday. "It was the worst feeling, knowing that I didn't know where my child was. I was helpless."
Nine months later, motorists spotted Elizabeth Smart walking in a Salt Lake City suburb with Mitchell.
His attorneys did not dispute the facts of the abduction. But during opening statements, they said the prosecution's allegation that he was a calculating person who planned the kidnapping was wrong.
Known as a homeless street preacher named "Immanuel," Mitchell was influenced by a worsening mental illness and religious beliefs that made him think he was doing what God wanted, his attorneys said.
Mitchell, who has a long graying beard to the middle of his chest and hair to the middle of his back, was again removed from the courtroom Monday for singing hymns, so he's watching and listening from a holding cell.
Smart's mother testified that she and her children ran into Mitchell downtown and that she offered him a job doing handyman work at the family's home. One of her sons encouraged her to give him money, she said.
"He looked like a clean-cut, well-kept man that was down on his luck," she said. "I gave him $5."
Later, the family hired Mitchell to help fix a leaky roof, Lois Smart said. It was the only job he did for the family.
"I do remember having a conversation with him, hoping that he would do more work. He seemed fine," she said.
Elizabeth Smart described how Mitchell came into her bedroom. She had left a kitchen window open because her mother had burned potatoes for dinner.
"I remember him saying that I have a knife to your neck, don't make a sound, get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and your family," she said.
Smart said she got up and he grabbed her arm, and took her into a closet. He stopped her when she reached for slippers and told her to wear tennis shoes.
After leaving the house, Smart said, they hiked three to five hours up a hill to a campsite where Mitchell's now-estranged wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, took her in a tent, sat her down on a bucket and washed her feet.
Barzee also told her to take off her pajamas and underwear and put on a robe or "she would have the defendant come in and rip them off," she said.
Smart said Mitchell entered the tent wearing a similar robe and married them by pulling a sentence from the traditional Mormon marriage ceremony, called a sealing.
"He said, 'What I seal on this earth will be sealed to me in the hereafter and I take you to be my wife,'" she said, adding that she screamed and he threatened to put duct tape across her mouth.
"He proceeded to fight me to the ground and force the robes up," Smart said quietly, pausing, "where he raped me."
"I begged him not to. I did everything I could to stop him. I pleaded with him not to touch me, but it didn't work."
Mitchell chained her to a table, making it impossible for her to flee, she said.
Lois Smart said she was awakened by daughter Mary Katherine, who was 9 at the time and slept with Elizabeth. With the baby blanket wrapped around her head, she looked like "a scared rabbit," her mother said.
"She said a man has taken Elizabeth with a gun and that we won't find her. He took her either for ransom or hostage," Lois Smart recalled Mary Katherine, now 18, saying.
Lois Smart said she went to the kitchen and immediately noticed the window was open and the screen was cut in a U-shape.
"My heart sank," she said. Then, she yelled to her husband, Ed: "Call 911. She's gone.'"
Elizabeth Smart is serving on a French mission trip for the Mormon church but plans to resume her music studies at Brigham Young University next year.
Mitchell, 57, faces life in prison if he is convicted of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.

Elizabeth Smart says she awoke to knife on neck

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

Obama preps for reshaped postelection presidency

WASHINGTON -Preparing for political life after a bruising election, President Barack Obama will put greater emphasis on fiscal discipline, a nod to a nation sick of spending and to a Congress poised to become more Republican, conservative and determined to stop him.
He is already giving clues about how he will govern in the last two years of his term.
Obama will try to make gains on deficit reduction, education and energy. He will enforce his health care and financial overhauls and try to protect them from repeal should Republicans win control of Capitol Hill. He will use executive authority when blocked by Congress, and steel for scrutiny and investigations if the GOP is in charge.
While trying to save money, Obama will have to decide whether to bend to Republican and growing Democratic pressure to extend Bush-era tax cuts, even for the wealthy, that expire at year's end. Obama wants to extend them for people making less than $200,000 and married couples making less than $250,000, but a broader extension is gaining favor with an increasing number of Democrats.
Moving to the fore will be a more serious focus on how to balance the federal budget and pay for the programs that keep sinking the country into debt.
In other times, that discussion might seem like dry, Washington talk. Not now. People are fed up with federal spending, particularly as many remain jobless.
The White House refuses to talk about how the president will have to adjust his style or goals if power in Congress tilts right, for fear of undermining what Obama is still campaigning hard to do: keeping Democrats in power. There is no conceding as Obama recruits voters and rallies supporters all the way to Nov. 2.
Yet if polls and analysts are on target, Republicans are poised to win big, possibly taking control of the House and gaining seats in the Senate, where Obama's party already lacks the votes to overcome bill-killing delay tactics. Obama probably will operate in an environment with even fewer moderate Republicans.
The president has signaled that at the start of the new year, he will speak more directly to the country about the financial choices ahead. "If we're going to get serious about the deficit, then we're going to have to look at everything: entitlements, defense spending, revenues. ... And that's going to be a tough conversation," he said.
It's one that will be framed by a bipartisan debt commission, whose ideas this December will give Obama political cover on where to suggest unpopular cuts.
Obama says the most frustrating part of his presidency is that he had to keep spending money and adding to the deficit in his first six months in office "to save the economy." He has from the start called deficit reduction a goal, but one that had to get bumped in favor of sparking the economy.
Almost 60 percent of likely voters now say cutting the yearly budget shortfall is the priority, even if that means the government can't spend on new education programs, develop alternative energy sources or enact his health care overhaul or alternative energy policies, an Associated Press-GfK poll found.
Obama defends the huge economic stimulus plan and the bailout of U.S. automakers, and doesn't blame people for getting tired of all the spending. But he does accuse Republicans of showing a lack of genuineness about fixing the systemic problems that have driven up the debt long before he won the White House.
And there rests the true trouble.
Even though Obama and the Republicans ostensibly share the goals of reducing debt and creating jobs, they disagree fundamentally on their approaches. That problem appears to be worsened by the lack of a serious working relationship among the leaders. If divided government simply leads to more division over the budget and economy, newly empowered Republicans and a Democratic president seeking re-election may both pay the price.
"It's going to be very hard to find common ground," said James Thurber, a professor of government at American University. "To a certain extent, (Obama's) strategy depends on the strategy of majority of the House, and what can be found in the Senate, where's he's basically going to be deadlocked."
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said if Obama and his team are going to work with the new Congress, then they must accept the end of government stimulus efforts as a means for creating jobs. Boehner and fellow Republicans have outlined a plan for governing that includes deep spending cuts and a repeal of Obama's health care law, among other changes. Boehner is likely to ascend to House speaker if his party wins a majority.
"They're going to have to signal some kind of willingness to work with Republicans to cut spending," Boehner told The Associated Press. "Cutting government spending is what the American people want, and it's an approach neither party has tried yet."
The yearly budget deficit stands at $1.3 billion.
Obama may succeed in getting Republican support for trade pacts on a new education law that insists on school reforms. He will go for an immigration overhaul and energy legislation, but have to accept smaller, piece-by-piece results. Capping of greenhouse gas emissions, for one, seems to be going nowhere.
"It's a very different reality for the president for the next two years, which is not to say that nothing gets done," said Norman Ornstein, a political scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Even in a rancorous and nasty environment, it seems to me there may some areas of opportunity."
Either real compromise or political pressures may pull Obama and enough Republicans together to get some priorities done. President Bill Clinton managed to rebound and work with Republicans after they swept into office in 1994, teaming up on welfare and balanced-budget legislation.
Never to be ignored are the core Democrats who helped get Obama elected and who, in some cases, are disgruntled about the pace of progress. "He's got to be careful to manage his base," said Ann Crigler, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California. "His election is going to start Nov. 3."

Obama preps for reshaped postelection presidency

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
15Oct/10Off

Arraignments Today in Bingo Case

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Four state senators, three lobbyists, two casino owners and two others face arraignment on charges accusing them of conspiring to buy and sell votes on pro-gambling
legislation.

The arraignment is scheduled Friday morning in federal court in Montgomery. An attorney for casino owner Milton McGregor, Joe Espy, says McGregor will plead innocent and he expects the same plea from the other 10.

The 11 people were indicted by a federal grand jury that investigated legislation that would have expanded and taxed electronic bingo casinos. The bill passed the Senate in March but died in the House.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
30Sep/10Off

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

RALEIGH, N.C. -The North Carolina Highway Patrol says three people were killed when the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in skidded off a rain-slicked road and tumbled into a ditch filled with water.
State Highway Patrol Trooper Gary Edwards said troopers initially reported five people were killed because two children, 2-year-old twins, did not have a pulse when emergency workers arrived on scene. But the children survived and were being treated late Thursday afternoon.
Edwards said the family of five from Atlanta was traveling westbound on U.S. 64 east of Creswell around 12:20 p.m. Thursday when their Jeep hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded off the highway into the ditch.
Creswell is approximately 145 miles east of Raleigh.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Five people were killed Thursday when a vehicle skidded off a road that had been slicked by a massive rainstorm that drenched the East Coast, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.
The storm flooded parts of coastal North Carolina, driving some people from their homes, and snarled train, air and car traffic in the Northeast. Tornado watches extended from the Outer Banks to New Jersey. State Highway Patrol Sgt. J.E. Brewer said five people were in the car that wrecked in Creswell, about 145 miles east of Raleigh. The car hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded into a ditch, Brewer said.
The hardest rain fell in North Carolina, where Jacksonville picked up 12 inches of rain — nearly a quarter of its typical annual rainfall — in the six hours between 3:30 and 9:30 a.m.
The rain was part of a system moving ahead of the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, which dissipated over the Straits of Florida on Wednesday.
"This more like what you'd expect from a tropical system. But this is not a tropical system. It's just a storm with a deep feed coming straight off the Atlantic," said Hal Austin, a meteorologist with the weather service's Newport, N.C., office.
Much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast were starting to move into a drought after the dry summer. But the early fall storm spread several inches of rain across the region.
Farmers in northern New England rejoiced. Erin Bickford of Walpole, N.H., said the deluge was a welcome sight for her eight acres of vegetables. She said she hoped the moisture would recharge wells that went dry in the town.
"We had almost no rain at all. Often, we could see it raining across the river, but it didn't come here. It was just dust. Even if it did rain, it would be a tiny bit, maybe half an inch," she said.
Crews throughout the northeast worked to pull fallen leaves from storm drains. Schools in North Carolina were closed and some farther north planned to cancel classes Friday so students wouldn't have to travel on flooded roads.
Josh Barnello, 12, took advantage of his day off to take a look at a pond that overflowed its banks in Carolina Beach.
"Someone was paddling a canoe down the street earlier," said Barnello, a budding meteorologist who used a wind speed gauge he got for Christmas to record gusts of 53 mph near his house.
Forecasters expected those heavy winds to spread up the coast, possibly toppling trees and power lines made unstable by the saturated ground.
The winds were also churning up big waves that were eating away at a "living shoreline" of rocks, sand and grasses built this year on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, said Bob Gilbert from his waterfront home in Churchton, about 10 miles south of Annapolis.
"There's not a boat in sight," Gilbert said. "The waves are really choppy and nasty-looking."
The rain caused numerous accidents Thursday. In Maryland, authorities said 26 people, including high school students, were hurt after a Metro bus rear-ended another bus from the Washington-area transit system in pouring rain.
Standing waters and fallen limbs on tracks slowed several Amtrak trains, while some Northeast airports reported flight delays of up to three hours.
Wilmington, N.C., got a brief break from the rain Thursday morning, but the downpours quickly moved back in. Back-to-back storms have dropped a third of the rain the city usually gets all year in just five days. The 21 inches collected since Sunday was the highest five day total in nearly 140 years of records, topping Hurricane Floyd's mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.
The rain caused some scatted evacuations across the state, but no major damage.
"I have to walk through an inch of water to get from the living room to the bathroom," said Sheila Mezroud. Sandbags only kept the floodwaters out of her Carolina Beach home for a short time.
In New York City, the rain didn't cause too many problems beyond wet shoes for the morning commute.
"I think we're expecting pretty bad weather later on," said Allen Saunders, a financial adviser who travels to Manhattan from Melville. I'll probably leave work a little early."
—
Associated Press writers Skip Foreman in Raleigh, N.C.; Jim Fitzgerald, Deepti Hajela and Frank Eltman in New York; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C.; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
29Sep/10Off

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

MADISON, Wis. -Buck up. Stop whining. And get to work.
Clearly frustrated by Republicans' energy — and his own party's lack of enthusiasm — President Barack Obama scolded fellow Democrats even as he rallied them Tuesday in an effort to save the party from big GOP gains in the crucial midterm elections. In the final month of campaigning, he's trying to re-energize young voters, despondent liberals and other Democrats whose excitement over his election has dissipated.
"It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines," the president declared in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. He said that supposed supporters who are "sitting on their hands complaining" are irresponsible because the consequences of Republican congressional victories could be dashed Democratic plans.
He gave an example during a backyard conversation with New Mexico voters, arguing that Republicans would reverse the progress he's made on education reform and student aid. "That's the choice that we've got in this election," Obama said, underscoring the stakes of Nov. 2.
Later, at an outdoor rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the president urged thousands of students to stay as inspired and involved in this election as they were two years ago.
"We can't let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight," he said to loud applause.
It was the first of four large rallies planned for the campaign homestretch as the president tries to rekindle some of his 2008 campaign magic and fire up young supporters and others who helped elect Obama but who Democrats fear may stay home this fall. Top lieutenants Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine and Cabinet members also fanned out on other college campuses to call party foot soldiers to action.
At Penn State University in State College, Pa., Biden noted he was criticized a day earlier in New Hampshire for urging Democrats to "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives."
"All I heard when I got here in Happy Valley was the roar of lions. Folks, it's time for us to roar," Biden said, pressing his audience to knock on doors, make phone calls and commit to vote.
With the elections looming, the White House and Democratic Party are focused primarily on trying to compel their core voters — liberals and minority groups — as well as the ideologically broad coalition that helped elect Obama in 2008 to participate in the first congressional elections of his presidency.
They have little choice.
Midterm contests largely turn on which party can get out more of its backers. And polls show that Republicans are far more enthusiastic this year partly because of tea party anger. Also, polls show Democrats can't count on independent voters who carried them to victory in consecutive national elections.
Mindful of that and armed with polling, the White House has started arguing that voters who backed Obama in 2008 must turn out for Democrats this year because the GOP wants to undo what the president has accomplished.
"We are focused on motivation, not laying blame or pointing fingers, because the consequences for sitting this election out could be disastrous," said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.
White House aides said House Republicans "Pledge to America" last week made it easier for Obama to do something he's been trying for weeks: to frame the election as a choice between Democrats' ideas and Republicans' proposals. By signaling plans for deep spending cuts in popular areas such as education, officials said, the GOP pledge presented an opportunity for the White House to remind voters, and particularly the base, what's at stake in November.
Aides say Obama was trying to underscore those stakes in his interview with Rolling Stone, and the final-stretch strategy — in everything from rhetoric to events — is to underscore that midterm elections have consequences.
"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama said in the interview. "Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign."
"But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place," Obama said.
He was speaking to all Democrats, including first-time voters in 2008 and liberals who have complained that Obama sacrificed his campaign promises on health care and national security for legislative compromise.
Democratic-leaning groups have largely been missing from the TV airwaves this fall as GOP-aligned organizations pummel Democratic House and Senate candidates with attack ads. Seeing allies outspent 6-1, White House aides recently decided to use that disparity to compel their base to vote.
Several Democratic strategists privately fear that the strategy to motivate Democrats with sternness could backfire partly because it runs counter to Obama's carefully cultivated hopeful, uplifting image. There's also some concern that it could further alienate liberals and other Democratic critics who don't think Obama has done enough to pursue issues important to them.
"It's not helpful," said John Aravosis, the editor of the progressive AMERICAblog.com. "The base is depressed and they're depressing it even more, and it's not clear why."
Said DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas: "They wouldn't be in this predicament if they delivered on their campaign promises, rather than waste the last two years putting bipartisanship above action."
Obama's tough-love comments came just days before more than 300 liberal groups planned to participate in a rally on the National Mall on Saturday.
During the three-day trip, Obama also was trying to counter the notion that he's out of touch as well as sway undecided voters with a series of backyard visits — in Albuquerque, Des Moines, Iowa; and Richmond, Va. — that give him time to explain his policies in everyday settings. He's recently embraced this form of intimate-but-televised event to defend and explain his record on the economy, health care and other topics.
—
Sidoti reported from Washington.

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
29Sep/10Off

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

MADISON, Wis. -Buck up. Stop whining. And get to work.
Clearly frustrated by Republicans' energy — and his own party's lack of enthusiasm — President Barack Obama scolded fellow Democrats even as he rallied them Tuesday in an effort to save the party from big GOP gains in the crucial midterm elections. In the final month of campaigning, he's trying to re-energize young voters, despondent liberals and other Democrats whose excitement over his election has dissipated.
"It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines," the president declared in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. He said that supposed supporters who are "sitting on their hands complaining" are irresponsible because the consequences of Republican congressional victories could be dashed Democratic plans.
He gave an example during a backyard conversation with New Mexico voters, arguing that Republicans would reverse the progress he's made on education reform and student aid. "That's the choice that we've got in this election," Obama said, underscoring the stakes of Nov. 2.
Later, at an outdoor rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the president urged thousands of students to stay as inspired and involved in this election as they were two years ago.
"We can't let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight," he said to loud applause.
It was the first of four large rallies planned for the campaign homestretch as the president tries to rekindle some of his 2008 campaign magic and fire up young supporters and others who helped elect Obama but who Democrats fear may stay home this fall. Top lieutenants Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine and Cabinet members also fanned out on other college campuses to call party foot soldiers to action.
At Penn State University in State College, Pa., Biden noted he was criticized a day earlier in New Hampshire for urging Democrats to "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives."
"All I heard when I got here in Happy Valley was the roar of lions. Folks, it's time for us to roar," Biden said, pressing his audience to knock on doors, make phone calls and commit to vote.
With the elections looming, the White House and Democratic Party are focused primarily on trying to compel their core voters — liberals and minority groups — as well as the ideologically broad coalition that helped elect Obama in 2008 to participate in the first congressional elections of his presidency.
They have little choice.
Midterm contests largely turn on which party can get out more of its backers. And polls show that Republicans are far more enthusiastic this year partly because of tea party anger. Also, polls show Democrats can't count on independent voters who carried them to victory in consecutive national elections.
Mindful of that and armed with polling, the White House has started arguing that voters who backed Obama in 2008 must turn out for Democrats this year because the GOP wants to undo what the president has accomplished.
"We are focused on motivation, not laying blame or pointing fingers, because the consequences for sitting this election out could be disastrous," said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.
White House aides said House Republicans "Pledge to America" last week made it easier for Obama to do something he's been trying for weeks: to frame the election as a choice between Democrats' ideas and Republicans' proposals. By signaling plans for deep spending cuts in popular areas such as education, officials said, the GOP pledge presented an opportunity for the White House to remind voters, and particularly the base, what's at stake in November.
Aides say Obama was trying to underscore those stakes in his interview with Rolling Stone, and the final-stretch strategy — in everything from rhetoric to events — is to underscore that midterm elections have consequences.
"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama said in the interview. "Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign."
"But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place," Obama said.
He was speaking to all Democrats, including first-time voters in 2008 and liberals who have complained that Obama sacrificed his campaign promises on health care and national security for legislative compromise.
Democratic-leaning groups have largely been missing from the TV airwaves this fall as GOP-aligned organizations pummel Democratic House and Senate candidates with attack ads. Seeing allies outspent 6-1, White House aides recently decided to use that disparity to compel their base to vote.
Several Democratic strategists privately fear that the strategy to motivate Democrats with sternness could backfire partly because it runs counter to Obama's carefully cultivated hopeful, uplifting image. There's also some concern that it could further alienate liberals and other Democratic critics who don't think Obama has done enough to pursue issues important to them.
"It's not helpful," said John Aravosis, the editor of the progressive AMERICAblog.com. "The base is depressed and they're depressing it even more, and it's not clear why."
Said DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas: "They wouldn't be in this predicament if they delivered on their campaign promises, rather than waste the last two years putting bipartisanship above action."
Obama's tough-love comments came just days before more than 300 liberal groups planned to participate in a rally on the National Mall on Saturday.
During the three-day trip, Obama also was trying to counter the notion that he's out of touch as well as sway undecided voters with a series of backyard visits — in Albuquerque, Des Moines, Iowa; and Richmond, Va. — that give him time to explain his policies in everyday settings. He's recently embraced this form of intimate-but-televised event to defend and explain his record on the economy, health care and other topics.
—
Sidoti reported from Washington.

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

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
8Sep/10Off

Obama firm, won’t yield on tax hike for wealthiest

CLEVELAND -Politically weakened but refusing to bend, President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that Bush-era tax cuts be cut off for the wealthiest Americans, joining battle with Republicans — and some fellow Democrats — just two months before bruising midterm elections.
Singling out House GOP leader John Boehner in his home state, Obama delivered a searing attack on Republicans for advocating "the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place: cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations."
Obama rolled out a trio of new plans to help spur job growth and invigorate the sluggish national economic recovery. They would expand and permanently extend a research and development tax credit that lapsed in 2009, allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their investments in equipment and plants through 2011 and pump $50 billion into highway, rail, airport and other infrastructure projects.
The package was assembled by the president's economic team after it became clear that the recovery was running out of steam. There was a political component, too: With Democrats in danger of losing control of the House in November, Obama is under heavy pressure to show voters that he and his party are ready to do more to get the economy moving and get millions of jobless Americans back to work.
However, none of Wednesday's proposals, nor Obama's call for allowing tax rates to rise for the wealthiest Americans, seems likely to be acted on by Congress before the elections, reflecting the battering Obama and congressional Democrats have taken in public opinion polls.
Obama made one of his strongest appeals yet to allow the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush — in 2001 and 2003 — to expire at the end of the year on schedule, but just for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually or joint filers earning over $250,000. The changes would affect dividend and capital gains rates and various other tax benefits as well as income from wages and salaries.
The president's strategy — pushing for legislation to save some tax cuts but not all — carries its own risks. Since all the tax breaks would expire automatically at the end of the year if Congress failed to act, that could result in sweeping increases for taxpayers at every income level — a major blow to recovery hopes and a colossal dose of blame for voters to parcel out to lawmakers and the White House.
Some influential Democrats, and Obama's own former budget director, Peter Orszag, have suggested a compromise might be necessary — one to temporarily extend all the tax cuts, perhaps for a year or two — given the current election-year animosity between the two parties.
But in his remarks in Cleveland, Obama strongly signaled he wasn't about to sign off on any such deal.
"Let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everyone else. We should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer," the president said. The administration "is ready this week to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less," he said. It was a slight misstatement of his own position, since the $250,000 would apply to household income. The threshold for individuals would be $200,000
White House officials said Cleveland was picked as the speech site expressly because Boehner, who probably would become House speaker if Republicans take back control of the chamber in November, laid out his party's economic agenda here in a fiery Aug. 24 speech.
At that time, the Ohio Republican called for Obama to fire key economic advisers and to support an extension of all the Bush tax cuts.
Boehner kept up the attack on Wednesday. "If the president is really serious about focusing on jobs, a good start would be taking the advice of his recently departed budget director and freezing all tax rates, coupled with cutting of federal spending to where it was before all the bailouts, government takeovers and `stimulus' spending sprees," he said after Obama spoke.
Earlier, Boehner was even more specific on ABC's "Good Morning America," saying Congress should freeze all tax rates for two years and pare back federal spending to 2008 levels. The deep recession began in December 2007.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs noted that keeping the Bush tax cuts in effect just for two more years would represent a change from past calls by Boehner to keep them in place permanently.
"My question for him is: Are they abandoning the permanent or are they going with the two-year plan? I've seen him saying permanent so many times that I tend to believe that," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One. "That's his plan and I think that continues to be his plan."
Republicans, and some Democrats, argue that the fragile state of the economy makes this a poor time to raise taxes on anyone — and that increases could stifle wealthier people's appetite for spending.
Obama argued that the rich are more likely to save additional money than spend it. And he said the struggling U.S. economy can't afford to spend $700 billion to keep lower tax rates in place for the nation's highest earners.
That $700 billion is what the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it would cost the Treasury to continue tax cuts for top earners over 10 years. What Obama wants to do would cost just over $3 trillion over the same period, the panel estimates.
The debate over the Bush tax cuts is an unwelcome one for dozens of vulnerable Democratic incumbents just weeks before Election Day. Already, a handful of Democrats in conservative or swing districts, such as Reps. Gerry Connolly in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Bobby Bright in southeastern Alabama, have come out publicly for extending all the cuts — at least temporarily.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., engaged in a tight re-election battle, said he "would not support additional spending in a second stimulus package" and that any new initiatives such as Obama's infrastructure package should be paid for with leftover funds in the $814 billion stimulus package passed last year.
Still other embattled Democrats, wary of alienating middle-class voters, are siding with Obama. In central Ohio, for example, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy has said the tax cuts for higher earners should be repealed but middle-income people should see no tax increases.
Obama acknowledged recovery had slowed noticeably, with unemployment hovering just under 10 percent.
"The middle class is still treading water, while those aspiring to reach the middle class are doing everything they can to keep from drowning," he said.
Polls have shown a steady slippage in Obama's approval ratings and an accompanying rise in Republican prospects for winning House and Senate seats in November. That has chipped away at Obama's leverage to get things done in Congress.
—
Tom Raum reported from Washington. AP Writers Stephen Ohlemacher and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.

Obama firm, won't yield on tax hike for wealthiest

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
25Aug/10Off

McCain wins renomination, novice shines in Fla.

WASHINGTON -Veteran Sen. John McCain sailed to nomination for a fifth term Tuesday over an Arizona challenger with tea party support, but big-spending political novice Rick Scott beat an insider in Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary as voters split on the merits of establishment candidates vs. outsiders.
In other big-name races, Rep. Kendrick Meek prevailed for Florida's Senate Democratic nomination over upstart Jeff Greene, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska hoped voters would reward political experience as she faced a spirited Republican primary challenge 10 weeks before the general election. She was in a surprisingly close race with about a third of the vote counted.
Nominating contests in five states — Vermont also was voting, and Oklahoma held GOP runoffs — highlighted dominant themes of this unpredictable election year, including anti-establishment anger and tea party challenges from the right. But the early results indicated that if there was a single pattern to the night, it may have been the lack of one.
Just two years after reaching the pinnacle of the GOP establishment as the party's presidential nominee, McCain found himself facing a stiff Senate primary challenge by ex-radio host and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who tried to tap into anti-Washington sentiment coursing through the electorate. So, McCain spent more than $20 million and aggressively cast Hayworth in a negative light.
It worked, and McCain, who has never lost a statewide race, comfortably won the Republican nod in his home state. He now enters the general election as the heavy favorite to win a fifth term.
"This was a tough, hard-fought primary," McCain said at a victory party — and he quickly looked to the fall campaign. "I promise you, I take nothing for granted and will fight with every ounce of strength and conviction I possess to make the case for my continued service in the Senate."
In the extraordinarily bitter GOP race for Florida governor, Scott's financial might and criticism of his opponent as a typical tax-raising politician proved too much for Bill McCollum, the state's attorney general and a former congressman with the support of national party leaders in Washington.
Scott, who made a fortune in the health care industry and spent $39 million of it blanketing the state with TV ads, will face Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer who sailed to the Democratic nomination. The race is certain to be one of the most hotly contested gubernatorial contests this fall.
Equally nasty was the Democratic Senate nomination fight in Florida. Meek toppled Greene, a big-spending real estate tycoon whose links to boxer Mike Tyson and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss drew headlines. The four-term congressman will compete against Republican Marco Rubio, who easily secured the GOP nod, and Gov. Charlie Crist, a former Republican who is running as an independent, in November.
The general election campaign got under way immediately.
"Floridians want leaders who will fight for them all the time, not just when it helps their own political career or advances an extreme philosophy," Meek said after his victory, poking at both Crist and Rubio without naming them.
Crist, in turn, called for "independent leadership" and "not the same old partisan politicians who have brought the people's work to a halt." It was a not-so-subtle suggestion that his opponents were just that.
And the tea party-supported Rubio slapped at his rivals, saying: "If you like the direction that America is headed, if you think Washington is doing the right things, then there are two other people that are going to be on the ballot, and you should vote for one of them."
The tea party's clout was on the line in several states.
Like McCain, Murkowski of Alaska worked to overcome a challenge from a candidate backed by the fledgling coalition that questioned her conservative credentials. She faced Sarah Palin-endorsed Joe Miller, an attorney. And like McCain, Murkowski would virtually ensure her re-election with a primary victory; no Democrat is considered a serious challenger.
In Vermont, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, first elected in 1974, coasted to renomination for what is likely to be a new term in November. A five-way Democratic primary for Vermont governor was too close to call; the victor could win the seat currently held by a Republican.
Also Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, the Republican who signed the tough law designed to crack down on illegal immigration, cruised to nomination for a new term.
Tuesday's primaries played out before a backdrop of persistently high unemployment, voter disillusionment with Republicans and Democrats alike, and low job-performance standings for both Congress and President Barack Obama.
In previous contests earlier this year, voters have shown both a readiness to fire veteran lawmakers and a willingness to keep them.
The tea party has had mixed success. It won big in Nevada, Kentucky, Colorado and Utah GOP Senate contests but lost just about everywhere else.
But no matter Tuesday's outcomes, there was no question that the tea party has provided an enormous dose of enthusiasm to the GOP heading into the fall campaign. And that's dangerous for a dispirited Democratic base.
Arizona Republicans also held contested primaries to challenge incumbent Democratic Reps. Gabrielle Giffords, Ann Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell. And the House seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. John Shadegg attracted 10 Republican hopefuls, including Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle.
In an indication of voter dissatisfaction in both parties, Florida Democratic Reps. Allen Boyd, Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Ron Klein and Suzanne Kosmas, and GOP Reps. Cliff Stearns and Vern Buchanan all faced primary challengers. But all the incumbents either secured their nominations or were on the verge of winning.

McCain wins renomination, novice shines in Fla.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
21Aug/10Off

Home Destroyed by Fire

A home in the Five Points district of Huntsville was destroyed by an early evening fire on Friday.

Emergency crews got the 9-1-1 call around 6:45 p.m. and were on the scene on the 1900 block of Stevens Drive within minutes. The fire took on an added sense of urgency when fire fighters were told a 3 year old girl was unaccounted for. One neighbor who arrived on the scene before fire fighters risked his own life to search the house before flames and smoke turned him back. "I tried to run in the house the first time and I couldn't see anything" said Michael Green. "I tried putting my shirt over my head... and running in and it just felt like my face was melting. I couldn't see anything and she was yelling 'my baby! My baby!'"

After battling the intense flames for about a half hour, the fire was brought under control and fire fighters were able to enter the home and search for possible victims. Fortunately, the house was empty. We later found out that the missing girl was with another family member the entire time, and is safe.

The woman who lived in the home was sent to the hospital as a precaution.

Reporter : Ross Sather, rsather@waaytv.com

Home Destroyed by Fire

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , No Comments
12Aug/10Off

White House: US on track to end Iraq combat role

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama is satisfied that the United States can safely end its combat role in Iraq at the end of this month and meet the deadline for removing all U.S. troops from the country by the end of 2011, White House officials said Wednesday.
Obama was briefed on the status of the withdrawal from Iraq by his national security team and the top U.S. commander in Iraq. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president was also brought up to date on so far unsuccessful efforts by Iraq to form a new government five months after national elections.
Obama met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, national security adviser James Jones and, by videoconference, the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno.
"The president heard directly from General Odierno, who said that we were on target to complete our drawdown by the end of August. Already we have removed over 80,000 troops from Iraq since President Obama took office," Gibbs said.
Gibbs and other U.S. officials said an uptick in violence as August 31 draws nearer was expected. They blamed it on the start of the monthlong Islamic observance of Ramadan, and on attempts by factions to further complicate efforts to form a coalition government and by some militants to create the appearance that they were running the U.S. out of the country.
Ongoing attacks against Iraq's security forces come as the U.S. is moving to reduce its troop levels to 50,000 by the end of August.
"There continue to be terrorists in Iraq. There continue to be acts of violence," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told a group of reporters. "They have not affected the positive trends" happening in Iraq and the overall level of violence is lower than it has been in the past, Rhodes said.
Gibbs said Odierno told Obama the security situation has continued to improve and that Iraqi forces are fully prepared to take over.
Obama has vowed both to end the official U.S. combat mission on schedule and to move all remaining U.S. troops off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011, a timetable set in an agreement with the Iraqi government.
The president also received an update from Vice President Joe Biden and Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, on Iraq's troubled efforts to form a new government.
Biden's national security adviser, Tony Blinken, said frustration is building among the Iraqis over failure to form a coalition government. "There is a sense of urgency to move forward and get a government formed," he said. "We really believe there is forward movement. But it's not up to us."
In a National Public Radio interview from Baghdad earlier in the day, Hill said the pace of political progress has quickened in recent weeks and that "things may be heading in the right direction" even though "more needs to be done."
White House officials sought to blunt suggestions that the end of 2011 deadline for removing all remaining troops might be impossible to meet.
"All systems in the U.S. government are getting down to...there will be no troops (in Iraq) after 2011," said Rhodes. He said an exception would be security forces to protect the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
In the meantime, he said, "50,000 troops are capable of accomplishing a great deal," even though the U.S. mission will change on Sept. 1 to one of support.

White House: US on track to end Iraq combat role

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
27Jul/10Off

US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures

WASHINGTON -Operatives inside Afghanistan and Pakistan who have worked for the U.S. against the Taliban or al-Qaida may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of once-secret U.S. military documents, former and current officials said.
As the Obama administration scrambles to repair any political damage to the war effort in Congress and among the American public by the WikiLeaks revelations, there are also growing concerns that some U.S. allies abroad may ask whether they can trust America to keep secrets, officials said.
Speaking in the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he was concerned about the massive leak of sensitive documents about the Afghanistan war, but that the papers did not reveal any concerns that were not already part of the debate.
In his first public comments on the matter, Obama said the disclosure of classified information from the battlefield "could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations."
The president spoke in the Rose Garden following a meeting with House and Senate leaders of both parties.
In Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters he was "appalled" by the leak. He said "there is a real potential threat there to put American lives at risk."
The Army is leading the Pentagon's inquiry into the source of the leak. A federal law enforcement official said the Justice Department is assisting in the probe. The law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing probe says the Justice Department does not have its own separate investigation into the leak, but rather is acting in a support role to the Pentagon.
Col. Dave Lapan said the Army criminal probe launched Tuesday is aimed at finding the source of secret documents published Sunday by WikiLeaks, an online site. The Army's criminal investigative division led the investigation into Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence specialist charged with leaking other material to WikiLeaks. Lapan said it's not clear whether the latest material came from Manning or someone else.
The WikiLeaks material, which ranges from files documenting Afghan civilian deaths to evidence of U.S.-Pakistani distrust, could reinforce war opponents in Congress who aim to rein in the war effort. But the leaks are not expected to dim the passage of a looming $60 billion war funding bill.
Congress has backed the war so far, and an early test of that continued support came when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., opened a hearing on the Afghan war.
At the hearing, few members mentioned the leak of documents but several expressed frustration at the lack of progress in improving Afghan governance and in drawing more ordinary Afghans away from the Taliban. In a tone of exasperation, Kerry questioned why the Taliban, with fewer resources, is able to field fighters who are more committed than Afghan soldiers.
"What's going on here?" Kerry asked.
In his only reference to the leak, Kerry called the new material "overhyped," said that it was released in violation of the law and that it largely involves raw intelligence reports from the field. He said he thought the document release could jeopardize the U.S. mission there.
Despite strong opposition among liberals who see Afghanistan as an unwinnable quagmire, House Democrats must either approve the funding bill before leaving at the end of this week for a six-week vacation, or commit political suicide by leaving troops in the lurch in war zones overseas.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday he worries that the leaks won't stop "until we see someone in an orange jump suit."
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the military doesn't know who was behind the leaks, although it has launched "a very robust investigation."
Morrell complained that too much was being made of the documents. Referring to files that detailed American suspicions that some Pakistani intelligence officials were aiding insurgents, Morrell insisted those concerns have abated in recent years and the relationship has improved.
The disclosures, he said, are "clearly out of step with where this relationship is now, and has been heading for some time."
Morrell was interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show" and Bond appeared on NBC's "Today" show.
Even as the administration dismissed the WikiLeaks material as outdated, U.S. military and intelligence analysts were caught up in a speed-reading battle to limit the damage contained in the once-secret files now scattered across the Internet.
The officials are concerned about the impact on the military's human intelligence network built up over the past eight years inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such figures range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with U.S. troops to militants working as double agents.
Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military may need weeks to review all the records to determine "the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners."
WikiLeaks said it has behaved responsibly, even withholding some 15,000 records that are believed to include names of specific Afghans or Pakistanis who helped U.S. troops on the ground.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden denounced the leak Monday as a gift to America's enemies.
"If I had gotten this trove on the Taliban or al-Qaida, I would have called it priceless," he said. "I would love to know what al-Qaida or the Taliban was thinking about a specific subject in 2007, for instance, because I could say they got that right and they got that wrong."
Hayden predicted the Taliban would take anything that described a U.S. strike and the intelligence behind it "and figure out who was in the room when that particular operation, say in 2008, was planned, and in whose home." Then the militants would probably punish the traitor who'd worked with the Americans, he said.
Another casualty of the disclosures may be American efforts to forge cooperation with Pakistan's secretive intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Multiple U.S. military cables posted by WikiLeaks complain about ISI complicity with the Taliban. And they also tell the Pakistanis "how much we know about them," said Robert Riegle, a former senior intelligence officer who now runs Mission Concepts Inc., a private intelligence firm.
"You're not going to see any cooperation," he said. "People are going to freeze."
The raw data released Sunday may also prove useful in a wider way to America's "frenemies" — the intelligence services of countries like China and Russia, who have the resources to process and make sense of such vast vaults of data, said Ellen McCarthy, former intelligence officer and president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Former CIA chief Hayden added: "If I'm head of the Russian intelligence, I'm getting my best English speakers and saying: 'Read every document, and I want you to tell me, how good are these guys? What are their approaches, their strengths, their weaknesses and their blind spots?'"
—
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

US braces for blowback over Afghan war disclosures

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
15Jun/10Off

Obama walk in sand is prelude to primetime speech

PENSACOLA, Fla. -Laying the groundwork for an evening speech to the nation, President Barack Obama walked a pristine stretch of sand on Florida's shoreline Tuesday and pledged to "fight back with everything we've got" against the spreading oil lurking offshore.
In a speech at Pensacola's Naval Air Station, Obama took note of the painful contrasts around him: "The sand is white. The water's blue," he said. And yet, he added, "those plumes of oil are off the coast."
Obama's challenge was spelled out clearly in a sign held up by one of the passersby who watched the president's motorcade whisk through this beach town: "Lead now!" it commanded.
That same sentiment was reflected in a new Associated Press-Gfk poll released Tuesday that found a majority of Americans disapprove of how Obama has handled the spill.
Speaking to troops at the base, Obama said the country faced an unprecedented environmental disaster and "we're going to continue to meet it with an unprecedented response."
"We're going to fight back with everything that we've got," he said.
With that, the president wrapped up a two-day visit to the Gulf and headed back to Washington to outline his plans for the Gulf in a prime-time speech from the Oval Office. One measure of the enormity of the problem: The oil that has gushed into the gulf would fill the Oval Office nearly 600 times over, based on the government's best estimate of how much has been spilling daily.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier Tuesday that Obama was poised to seize the handling of oil spill damage claims from BP, if necessary, to ensure that people get the help they need to recover.
The president began his day by inspecting Gulf waters from the unsullied white sands of Pensacola Beach with Gov. Charlie Crist and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen. Not far away, people were swimming in the glistening, emerald green water, and seagulls walked along the sands at the president's feet. But oil is nearby even if it can't be seen, according to Allen.
Onlookers chanted "Save our beach, save our beach."
Addressing the troops at Pensacola, Obama spoke of other daunting challenges facing the nation, telling them that "obviously, the news has been dominately lately by the oil spill but our nation is at war."
And he said the nation has the "strength and resilience" to face down all the different challenges it faces, a message sure to be echoed in his address to the nation.
Gibbs said the reason for wresting the claims-handling process from the British petroleum giant would be to make economically distressed individuals and businesses "whole."
Voicing increasing confidence in his ability to confront the nation's worst environmental crisis, Obama was set to outline a comprehensive response and recovery program, while assuring not only the people from the afflicted region, but all across America, that his administration will guide the country to a recovery.
On the matter of the disputed damage payments, Gibbs said, "We have to get an independent claims process. I think everyone agrees that we have to get BP out of the claims processes and, as I said, make sure that fishermen, hotel owners have a fast, efficient and transparent claims process so that they're getting their livelihoods replaced."
"This disaster has taken their ability to make a living away from them," he said. "We need to do this quickly, and we have to make sure that whatever money goes into that — that in no way caps what BP is responsible for. Whatever money they owe to anybody in the Gulf, they're going to have to pay regardless of the amount."
Obama's address to the nation sets the stage for his showdown White House meeting Wednesday with top BP executives. BP leased the rig that exploded April 20 and led to the leak of millions of gallons of coast-devastating crude. It's part of an effort by Obama, who's been accused of appearing somewhat detached as the oil spill disaster has unfolded, to convince a frightened Gulf Coast and a skeptical nation that he is in command.
The trip gave him ammunition for the speech and for his meeting with BP executives where he intends to finalize the details of a victims compensation fund. He visited vacant beaches in Mississippi where the threat of oil had scared off tourists, heard the stories of local employers losing business, watched hazmat-suited workers scrub down boom in a staging facility in Theodore, Ala., and took a ferry ride through Mobile Bay and then to Orange Beach, Ala., where oil has lapped on the shore.
"I am confident that we're going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before," Obama said Monday.
That pledge was reminiscent of George W. Bush's promise to rebuild the region "even better and stronger" than before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Bush could not make good on that promise, and Obama did not spell out how he would fulfill his. Tuesday's speech will give him the chance.
Presidents reserve the Oval Office for rare televised addresses. When they take their place behind the desk, it's a time for solemnity and straight talk — often a moment of history. There is a sense of gravity. One man by himself before one television camera speaking to the nation.
Oval Office addresses typically aren't lengthy discourses like a State of the Union, but if a president has to go for broke, this is where he does it. Bush addressed the nation from the Oval on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001. Ronald Reagan spoke there after the space shuttle Challenger explosion. John F. Kennedy grimly explained the Cuban missile crisis. Richard Nixon announced his resignation.
Obama hasn't used it yet. Not even during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Not to explain painfully high unemployment rates. Or bank and auto company bailouts. Not to speak of terrorism threats. Even when his health insurance plan was in peril, he did not speak from the Oval Office to rally support or explain to Americans why he considered it vital.

Obama walk in sand is prelude to primetime speech

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
15Jun/10Off

Opelika councilman, doctor killed while cutting grass

   

Categories

Archives

Tags