Bill Clinton aims to help Democrats retain Congress

June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Bill “The Comeback Kid” Clinton is trying to help fellow Democrats rebound from poor public opinion ratings and retain control of the U.S. Congress in November 2 elections.

Politics | Natural Disasters

The former president helped Senator Blanche Lincoln overcome anti-incumbent fervor and win a bruising Democratic primary in their home state of Arkansas on June 8.

Last month, Clinton provided a hand in snuffing out Republican hopes of picking up a seat in the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania by stumping for Mark Critz, the Democrat who went on to win the race.

“A lot of people still like Bill Clinton, particularly Democrats,” said Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown. “They remember the Clinton years as prosperous and relatively peaceful.”

A Democratic Party aide said scores of House and Senate candidates have requested help from Clinton, who left office in 2001 with the U.S. enjoying record budget surpluses that have since become record deficits.

Clinton campaigned this month for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as he fights for political survival in Nevada, and has helped Senate Democratic candidates in Florida and New York.

“We’re going to take as much of Bill Clinton as we can get,” said Senator Robert Menendez, the Senate Democratic campaign chairman. “No one can deliver a message better.”

While Clinton may give Democrats a boost, analysts say they do not expect him to end voter ire about the ailing economy and immunize his party against anticipated Election Day loses.

‘HE’S STILL TOXIC’

And they note that, particularly in Republican-dominated areas, Clinton could do Democrats more harm than good.

“Bill Clinton can’t be used everywhere. In some places, he’s still toxic,” said Paul Light, a political scientist at New York University.

Clinton earned the moniker “Comeback Kid” in his 1992 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. A sex scandal nearly knocked him out, but he rallied to capture the White House.

He presided over relative peace and prosperity, yet his presidency was hit by another sex scandal that threatened to drive him from office. He survived and ended his second term in 2001 with a public approval rating of more than 60 percent.

But the sex scandals, the investigation of the Clintons’ investment in a failed real estate deal and the first lady’s ill-fated foray into healthcare reform helped make Clinton some inveterate enemies among conservative Republicans.

Democrats currently control the U.S. Senate and the House. The entire House and 36 Senate seats are up for grabs in the November elections. With opinion polls showing Congress with an approval rating of only about 25 percent, Republicans are expected to gain seats, but it is unclear if they will take control of either chamber.

Clinton’s own stock dipped during the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination that saw Barack Obama defeat Hillary Clinton.

Relations between the former and current president had become strained. But they improved after the former first lady became Obama’s secretary of state.

Last year, Bill Clinton went to Capitol Hill to help win passage of Obama’s plan to revamp the U.S. healthcare system.

‘BACK FROM THE BRINK’

“We’ve made real progress already — from bringing our economy back from the brink to delivering dramatic health insurance reform,” Clinton wrote in a recent letter to raise funds for House Democrats.

Clinton, 63, has remained on the world stage, largely with humanitarian efforts, including visits to Haiti early this year to help victims of the poor country’s devastating earthquake.

He has been slowed, but not stopped, since 2004 by a pair of heart surgeries, the most recent in February to open a blocked artery.

While Democrats embrace Clinton, Republicans avoid former Republican President George W. Bush. He left office in January 2009 with an approval rating about half that of Clinton’s.

Senator John Cornyn, the Senate Republican campaign committee chairman, said Democrats’ election-year problems are bigger than Clinton.

“What’s going to be an albatross around the neck of Democrats in November is the unpopular policies, spending and debt that people are responding to in dramatic fashion,” Cornyn said.

But Cornyn conceded Clinton can be a good fund-raiser. “The amount of money that a former president can help raise is something that I’m worried about,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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BP accused of repeated shortcuts

June 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Ala./HOUSTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers accused BP Plc on Monday of repeatedly taking risky shortcuts on its blown-out Gulf of Mexico oil well, while President Barack Obama pushed the energy giant to compensate spill victims.

Politics | Green Business | Gulf Oil Spill

Setting the stage for a showdown with BP executives at congressional hearings starting on Tuesday, two Democratic lawmakers said the British company chose faster and cheaper drilling options in the Gulf of Mexico that “increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure.”

The usually clubby oil industry may fragment in front of Congress as top executives from BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell argue that deepwater drilling is safe if proper procedure is followed.

“This incident represents a dramatic departure from the industry norm in deepwater drilling,” Exxon Mobil Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said in prepared testimony obtained by Reuters.

Millions of gallons (liters) of oil have gushed into the Gulf since an April 20 explosion on an offshore rig killed 11 workers and ruptured BP’s well.

The spill, the biggest in U.S. history, has soiled 120 miles of U.S. coastline, imperiled multibillion-dollar fishing and tourism industries, and killed birds, sea turtles and dolphins.

The massive spill has overshadowed Obama’s political agenda, eclipsing job creation and Wall Street reform. Both are key issues in November congressional elections in which Obama’s fellow Democrats are expected to face a tough fight to hold onto their majorities in both houses.

Obama, on his fourth visit to the Gulf Coast since the crisis began, said he would press BP executives at a White House meeting on Wednesday to deal “justly, fairly and promptly” with spill damage claims.

In New York, BP’s U.S.-listed shares tumbled 9.71 percent on investor concern the company may give in to calls by U.S. politicians to suspend its quarterly dividend. In London, BP shares closed down 9.3 percent.

Under intense pressure from the Obama administration, BP unveiled a new plan on Monday to vastly boost the amount of oil it is siphoning off from its ruptured well.

BP said it planned to send more vessels to the spill site to increase its capacity to capture oil from 15,000 barrels a day now to 40,000-53,000 barrels by the end of this month and 60,000-80,000 by mid-July.

“RISKY PROCEDURES”

In a pivotal week in the 56-day-old crisis, Obama began a two-day visit to the Gulf coast. He will address the nation on Tuesday, before he meets BP executives for what a White House spokesman said would be a “very frank” encounter on Wednesday.

Ahead of the congressional hearings on Tuesday and Thursday, lawmakers Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak released a letter to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward laying out a potentially damning account of the events leading up to the rig explosion.

“It appears that BP repeatedly chose risky procedures in order to reduce costs and save time and made minimal efforts to contain the added risk,” their letter said.

A BP spokesman declined to comment before the hearings.

Sweat beading his face in the hot weather, Obama on Monday toured fouled beaches and visited businesses laid low by the collapse of tourism. He promised the Gulf would bounce back, urged Americans not to cancel travel plans to the region and said the seafood was safe.

In the evening, he sampled crawfish tails and crab claws at a waterside restaurant in Orange Beach, Alabama.

The president faces intense criticism that he has not shown enough leadership in the spill and will seek to use his meeting with BP executives and his first nationally televised Oval Office speech to show he is on top of the crisis.

But Anthony Bourgeois, 62, a seventh-generation commercial fisherman, said the situation was past the point where Obama’s words could quickly bring a quick solution.

“There ain’t much he can say. We’re all commercial fishermen and we can’t go out and make a living,” Bourgeois said in blazing heat in Venice, Louisiana.

Many on the Gulf Coast are torn between support for the oil industry, an economic mainstay, and anger. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the coast was in a “war to stop this oil” but also asked Obama to put a quick end to a drilling moratorium.

BP HIRES BANKS

BP has faced a barrage of criticism over its handling of the cleanup and last week was confronted with a White House threat to widen its liabilities for the disaster.

The company has lost more than 40 percent of its market value since the crisis began.

“The concern is that BP is going to cut its dividend and that’s weighing on the stock,” said Andy Fitzpatrick, director of investments at Hinsdale Associates, in Hinsdale, Illinois.

BP has hired investment banks Blackstone Group LP, Goldman Sachs Group and Credit Suisse Group as advisers, a source familiar with the matter said, without disclosing the purpose of the move.

The spill has created an unprecedented financial, legal, regulatory and environmental crisis for companies that operate in the Gulf, Moody’s Investors Service warned in a report on Monday, saying it could be up to two years before oil production reaches pre-spill levels and that a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling posed many uncertainties.

Obama announced the final five people he wants to join a commission to make recommendations for the future of offshore drilling — all environmentalists and academics with no clear representative of the oil industry.

CLAIMS PAYMENTS

In his meeting with BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg on Wednesday, Obama will press for the company to set up an independently managed fund to pay oil spill damage claims.

Speaking in Theodore, Alabama, Obama said the White House was already talking to BP about the fund and hoped agreement on a framework for claims payments would be reached by Wednesday.

Gulf Coast residents have been complaining for weeks the BP claims process is too slow and that the money the company is paying out is too little to make ends meet.

U.S. politicians have been calling on BP to scrap its quarterly dividend to ensure it has enough money on hand to pay the compensation claims and clean up the spill.

BP’s Hayward will make his first appearance at a congressional hearing on Thursday and is expected to face harsh questioning from lawmakers.

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ANALYSIS-Obama, Democrats, walk tightrope on oil spill

June 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) – The BP oil spill crisis has put U.S. President Barack Obama on the defensive, upsetting his agenda and threatening to derail his fellow Democrats as they position themselves for November’s congressional elections.

Obama had been expected to spend the summer focused on rebuilding the U.S. economy and pushing through major items on his domestic policy agenda such as an overhaul of energy legislation and sweeping financial regulatory reform.

He had also set a busy international schedule, with a trip to Indonesia and Australia and a G20 summit both set for this month.

But the administration’s resources are being drained by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even as it grapples with issues like last Friday’s worrisome jobs report and looks toward elections in which the Democrats will struggle to keep their majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Things could get far worse — for the country and Obama — if BP fails to stop the flow, causing not just an ecological disaster but an economic one, with millions of jobs lost in tourism, fishing, oil drilling and other coastal industries.

BP (BP.L) said it made progress over the weekend capturing an increasing amount of oil spewing from the ruptured well.

“If there are long-term consequences, if the oil hits the beaches of the Gulf, if it goes around Florida and up the East Coast, that will be a terrible situation for the president because he would get the blame,” said Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University in Atlanta.

“He’s not in charge of the situation, but it happens on his watch. It always works out this way,” he said.

Obama has been the subject of scathing criticism, including from fellow Democrats, that he took too long to pressure British-based BP to stop the gushing oil and failed to engage emotionally with coastal residents whose lives could be ruined by the disaster.

But analysts noted that Obama’s job approval ratings had held steady through the spill, at about 47 percent, a sign the public has not drawn a final conclusion about his handling of the crisis.

That could be good news for the Democrats, especially given Republicans’ traditional close ties to Big Oil, with the most intense anger over the spill focused on BP.

On Nov. 2, U.S. voters will elect 435 members of the House of Representatives and 36 of the 100 seats in the Senate. The Democrats are expected to lose seats due to discontent over unemployment, and the oil disaster could further dent their support if Obama does not handle it well.

“It depends on whether the spill is contained or whether it gets bigger and bigger,” said Black, who said public opinion around the early September Labor Day holiday was typically the best indication of how the election would go.

UNDERSCORING DOUBTS ABOUT GOVERNMENT

If the spill is not controlled, it could underscore a growing sentiment among many Americans that major institutions, including the federal government, just do not work, said William Galston, a former Clinton administration aide now at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“Unless this is turned around very quickly, it will feed into an overall narrative that will create an environment of frustration going into the fall,” he said. “And I find it difficult to believe that it will be good for incumbents. And there are more Democratic incumbents than Republican incumbents.”

The Gulf crisis has dominated Obama’s recent remarks and public appearances — he shortened his holiday weekend in Chicago to visit the Gulf, and discussed the spill during a speech on the economy last week in Pittsburgh.

Despite aides’ insistence the president can handle several issues at once, the administration announced on Friday that Obama had canceled his trip to Indonesia and Australia to stay home and deal with the spill.

“When you get right down to it, the White House isn’t that big a place. There are not that many people there in senior policy-making positions, and at some point as problems accumulate, it becomes harder and harder to give each one of them the attention it deserves,” Galston said.

Obama made his second trip to the Gulf in seven days on Friday, and his third since the crisis began.

A CBS News poll released on Friday found that 63 percent of Americans felt the Obama administration should be doing more in response to the spill, and only 28 percent believed the government was doing all it could.

BP scored only slightly worse, with 70 percent believing it should be doing more and 24 percent saying it was doing everything it can.

The widespread public perception that Obama’s administration has failed to adequately address the ecological and economic crisis has damaged his reputation as a calm and capable leader, even though aides say the federal government cannot be expected to have the expertise to plug a broken well far under the sea.

If Obama had been able to convince Americans earlier on that he was in command, he might have been able to travel this month as he had planned, leaving the public confident he could deal with BP even from the other side of the globe.

“A creative writer … would be hard-pressed to come up with a plot in which a British oil company not only fouls the world-renowned Gulf oyster but also derails a significant element of U.S. foreign policy in Asia,” wrote Ernest Bower, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. (Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

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Oil spill forces Obama to postpone foreign travel

June 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – With the worst oil spill in U.S. history presenting a key test of his presidency, President Barack Obama postponed a trip scheduled for this month to Australia and Indonesia, the White House said early on Friday.

Politics | Indonesia | Barack Obama

It was the second time in a little more than two months that Obama canceled a trip to the two countries. He previously was due to have gone in March but postponed to stay at home to give a final push to his healthcare overhaul plan in Congress.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told Reuters in an email that Obama postponed the trip again in order to deal with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and other important issues.

The president is due to travel to the Louisiana Gulf coast to visit affected communities on Friday, his third trip there since an April 20 offshore oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered the huge spill.

After a series of failed attempts to plug the gushing mile-deep BP-owned oil well, the Obama administration has come under growing pressure to take a more direct role in the oil spill crisis. Opinion polls show many Americans are unhappy with Obama’s handling of the disaster so far.

In an already difficult congressional election year for Obama’s fellow Democrats, a foreign trip in the midst of what the president himself has called an unprecedented environmental catastrophe would have been hard to sell to Americans frustrated and angered by the six-week-old crisis.

The White House said in a statement that Obama had spoken on Thursday night to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to inform them of his decision. The trip had been scheduled for June 13-19.

“President Obama underscored his commitment to our close alliance with Australia and our deepening partnership with Indonesia. He plans to hold full bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Rudd and President Yudhoyono on the margins of the G-20 meeting in Canada,” the White House said in a statement.

RARE CANCELLATION

The rare double cancellation of a presidential trip abroad underscored how Obama’s challenges at home have begun complicating his activity overseas.

The trip would have been his first major foreign travel this year and was aimed at deepening U.S. ties in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of rising Chinese influence.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation and where he spent four years as a child. Australia is a stalwart U.S. friend in the Pacific and key military ally in Afghanistan.

There was no immediate response from the two countries to the White House announcement.

Cleaning up the biggest oil spill in U.S. history and capping the well has become Obama’s top priority, complicating his efforts to keep the focus on job creation in an economy in which unemployment is still close to 10 percent nationwide.

The White House announcement on the trip came shortly after BP managed to lower a containment cap onto its ruptured deep-sea wellhead to siphon off some of the billowing oil. U.S. authorities called it a positive development.

Obama said in an interview with CNN’s Larry King broadcast on Thursday night that he was furious at the situation in the Gulf of Mexico and again vowed to hold BP accountable.

“It’s imperiling not just a handful of people,” he said of the oil spill. “This is imperiling an entire way of life and an entire region for potentially years.”

From the beginning of the crisis, the Obama administration has sought to show that it is control, but it has struggled to shake off a public perception that it has been too reliant on BP for solutions and too slow to bring the full force of the federal government to bear on the crisis.

Obama said on Thursday that his administration had mobilized scientists, hundreds of ships and thousands of military personnel to deal with the disaster.

Analysts say Obama’s fellow Democrats risk being punished in November congressional elections that are already expected to erode their majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

(Reporting by Ross Colvin; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Senators near agreement on financial regulation

April 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Reuters) – Senators negotiating financial regulatory reform legislation said on Sunday they were close to a bipartisan agreement, as the White House said fraud charges against Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs highlighted the need for reform.

Barack Obama | Stocks | Regulatory News | Bonds | Funds News | ETFs News

Democratic Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and Senator Richard Shelby, the panel’s top Republican, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” they were talking through the weekend to try to reach agreement on a bill aimed at preventing future taxpayer bailouts of financial firms.

“We’re getting there, we’re close, we’ve got more work to do,” Dodd said. “I hope can get the votes tomorrow to start the debate.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has set a procedural vote to begin debate on a Democratic bill late on Monday. Republicans said they will likely vote to block consideration of the bill unless a bipartisan agreement is reached by then, but that would just delay — not kill — the legislation.

Democrats would need at least one Republican to break ranks with their leaders to get the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to start debating the bill. Closed-door talks were likely to continue well through Monday.

“I think we’re closer than we’ve ever been,” Shelby said. “Will we get a bill by tomorrow, I doubt it.”

The broad legislative push by President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats comes as fraud charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc have thrown Wall Street and Republicans onto the defensive after months of working to weaken Democratic reform proposals.

Goldman is battling charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the firm hid vital information from investors about a subprime mortgage-linked security.

Newly released emails sent by Goldman Sachs executives on money the firm made by betting against risky mortgage securities are adding fuel to the debate.

“This underscores what is at the center of the president’s vision here: the importance of transparency, the importance of things being in the open, the importance of it being known who is in a position to benefit from what,” Larry Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” news show.

One email dated November 2007 released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations showed Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein writing: “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.”

FINANCIAL REFORM LIKELY TO PASS SENATE

Members of both parties appear anxious to pass legislation ahead of the November mid-term congressional elections. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a package of financial reform proposals late last year, and the two chambers would work out their differences once the Senate passes its version of the legislation.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told “Fox News Sunday” he thought the Senate would eventually reach a bipartisan agreement. But, he said, “It’s my expectation that we will not go forward with this partisan bill tomorrow.”

The push for reform is seen continuing despite the outcome of Monday’s vote. Lawmakers agree they do not want a repeat of the crisis that brought the U.S. economy to the brink of collapse and forced taxpayers to bail out once high-flying financial firms.

“The president is totally committed, and it’s one of his key principles that, we’re going to end too-big-to-fail,” Austan Goolsbee, chief economist for the president’s economic recovery advisory board, told ABC’s “This Week” show. “We’re going to end the bailout era that began under the last president, for good.”

Despite partisan maneuverings, the top players in the negotiations expressed confidence that they eventually will get a bill that both Democrats and Republicans support.

“I’m very confident. I think we’re going to have very strong support from Republicans for a strong bill,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on CNN’s “GPS” show. “I think everybody has to be for reform,” he added.

When trouble developed because of excessive risk-taking, customers suddenly went from “banks falling all over themselves to lend them money at unrealistic rates, to credit drying up in a heartbeat,” Geithner said. “That system didn’t work so good for our country.”

Geithner acknowledged opposition from some Wall Street firms that fear some of their trading and other activities might be curbed, but said it will not stop the reform drive.

The financial reform bill, approved along party lines by Dodd’s committee, would bring new oversight to hedge funds and derivatives while cracking down on risky bank trading and putting in place protections for consumers.

It would also establish a system for unwinding troubled financial companies to prevent a repeat of catastrophes such as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

The Lehman Brothers collapse came at the start of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, triggered by the implosion of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage derivatives market.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Glenn Somerville and Tim Gardner; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Republicans warn Obama on Supreme Court nominee

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Senate Republicans warned on Sunday they could raise procedural roadblocks to any Supreme Court nominee they consider outside the judicial mainstream, although one prominent Republican said such an effort was unlikely.

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama will name a nominee to replace retiring liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the next few weeks, sparking a potential confirmation battle in the run-up to November’s congressional elections.

Senate Republicans said they would not rule out using the procedural roadblock known as a filibuster to try to prevent a confirmation vote on any nominee they considered a liberal activist.

“If it’s somebody like that, clearly outside of the mainstream, then I think every power should be utilized to protect the Constitution,” Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Jon Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, played down the likelihood and said it would require an extraordinary circumstance.

“It is unlikely that there would be a filibuster, except if there is an extraordinary circumstance,” Kyl told ABC’s “This Week” program. “I’m not going to take it off the table. But I think it can easily be avoided.”

The Senate traditionally has not used procedural means to block Supreme Court nominees. A group of 14 centrist Republican and Democratic senators agreed in 2005 not to filibuster judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances.

“If the president picks someone from the fringe instead of from the middle, or if he picks someone who will apply their feelings instead of applying the law, then that might be an extraordinary case,” Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Obama’s fellow Democrats control 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, and would have to muster 60 votes to break the roadblock and clear the way for a direct vote on the nominee.

The most prominent early candidates for the Supreme Court opening include Solicitor General Elena Kagan and U.S. appeals court judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

‘LAZY’ APPROACH

Senator Patrick Leahy, Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, predicted that the new justice would be confirmed by the Senate this summer and take the bench for the beginning of the next court term in October.

“I don’t think there is going to be any kind of filibuster,” Leahy told NBC, calling it a “lazy” approach to confirmation. “The American people elect us to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not to vote ‘maybe.’”

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said “it’s just about a certainty that the president will nominate someone in the mainstream, so the likelihood of a filibuster is tiny.”

Obama is expected to choose someone who will follow the same basic judicial philosophy as the liberal Stevens and is unlikely to change the court’s overall ideological balance, which for years has been closely divided with five conservatives and four liberals.

Supreme Court appointments have sometimes become major political battles. This year’s debate will come amid the campaign for control of Congress and in an atmosphere left polarized by the bitter debate over healthcare legislation.

“If we have a nominee that evidences a philosophy of ‘judges know best,’ that they can amend the Constitution by saying it has evolved, and effectuate agendas, then we’re going to have a big fight about that,” Sessions said.

Obama named his first Supreme Court justice last year, picking Sonia Sotomayor as the court’s first Hispanic to replace retiring Justice David Souter. She was confirmed on a largely party-line vote of 68-31.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao; Editing by Will Dunham)

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US Republicans warn Obama on Supreme Court nominee

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

* Republicans refuse to rule out Supreme Court filibuster

Bonds

* Republican senators say they want “mainstream” nominee

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) – Senate Republicans warned on Sunday they could raise procedural roadblocks to any U.S. Supreme Court nominee they consider outside the judicial mainstream, although one prominent Republican said such an effort was unlikely.

President Barack Obama will name a nominee to replace retiring liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the next few weeks, sparking a potential confirmation battle in the run-up to November’s congressional elections.

Senate Republicans said they would not rule out using the procedural roadblock known as a filibuster to try to prevent a confirmation vote on any nominee they considered a liberal activist.

“If it’s somebody like that, clearly outside of the mainstream, then I think every power should be utilized to protect the Constitution,” Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Jon Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, played down the likelihood and said it would require an extraordinary circumstance.

“It is unlikely that there would be a filibuster, except if there is an extraordinary circumstance,” Kyl told ABC’s “This Week” program. “I’m not going to take it off the table. But I think it can easily be avoided.”

The Senate traditionally has not used procedural means to block Supreme Court nominees. A group of 14 centrist Republican and Democratic senators agreed in 2005 not to filibuster judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances.

“If the president picks someone from the fringe instead of from the middle, or if he picks someone who will apply their feelings instead of applying the law, then that might be an extraordinary case,” Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Obama’s fellow Democrats control 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, and would have to muster 60 votes to break the roadblock and clear the way for a direct vote on the nominee.

The most prominent early candidates for the Supreme Court opening include Solicitor General Elena Kagan and U.S. appeals court judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

‘LAZY’ APPROACH

Senator Patrick Leahy, Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, predicted that the new justice would be confirmed by the Senate this summer and take the bench for the beginning of the next court term in October.

“I don’t think there is going to be any kind of filibuster,” Leahy told NBC, calling it a “lazy” approach to confirmation. “The American people elect us to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not to vote ‘maybe.’”

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said “it’s just about a certainty that the president will nominate someone in the mainstream, so the likelihood of a filibuster is tiny.”

Obama is expected to choose someone who will follow the same basic judicial philosophy as the liberal Stevens and is unlikely to change the court’s overall ideological balance, which for years has been closely divided with five conservatives and four liberals.

Supreme Court appointments have sometimes become major political battles. This year’s debate will come amid the campaign for control of Congress and in an atmosphere left polarized by the bitter debate over healthcare legislation.

“If we have a nominee that evidences a philosophy of ‘judges know best,’ that they can amend the Constitution by saying it has evolved, and effectuate agendas, then we’re going to have a big fight about that,” Sessions said.

Obama named his first Supreme Court justice last year, picking Sonia Sotomayor as the court’s first Hispanic to replace retiring Justice David Souter. She was confirmed on a largely party-line vote of 68-31.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Republicans warn Obama on Supreme Court nominee

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Senate Republicans warned on Sunday they could raise procedural roadblocks to any Supreme Court nominee they consider outside the judicial mainstream, although one prominent Republican said such an effort was unlikely.

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama will name a nominee to replace retiring liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the next few weeks, sparking a potential confirmation battle in the run-up to November’s congressional elections.

Senate Republicans said they would not rule out using the procedural roadblock known as a filibuster to try to prevent a confirmation vote on any nominee they considered a liberal activist.

“If it’s somebody like that, clearly outside of the mainstream, then I think every power should be utilized to protect the Constitution,” Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Jon Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, played down the likelihood and said it would require an extraordinary circumstance.

“It is unlikely that there would be a filibuster, except if there is an extraordinary circumstance,” Kyl told ABC’s “This Week” program. “I’m not going to take it off the table. But I think it can easily be avoided.”

The Senate traditionally has not used procedural means to block Supreme Court nominees. A group of 14 centrist Republican and Democratic senators agreed in 2005 not to filibuster judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances.

“If the president picks someone from the fringe instead of from the middle, or if he picks someone who will apply their feelings instead of applying the law, then that might be an extraordinary case,” Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Obama’s fellow Democrats control 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, and would have to muster 60 votes to break the roadblock and clear the way for a direct vote on the nominee.

The most prominent early candidates for the Supreme Court opening include Solicitor General Elena Kagan and U.S. appeals court judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

‘LAZY’ APPROACH

Senator Patrick Leahy, Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, predicted that the new justice would be confirmed by the Senate this summer and take the bench for the beginning of the next court term in October.

“I don’t think there is going to be any kind of filibuster,” Leahy told NBC, calling it a “lazy” approach to confirmation. “The American people elect us to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not to vote ‘maybe.’”

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said “it’s just about a certainty that the president will nominate someone in the mainstream, so the likelihood of a filibuster is tiny.”

Obama is expected to choose someone who will follow the same basic judicial philosophy as the liberal Stevens and is unlikely to change the court’s overall ideological balance, which for years has been closely divided with five conservatives and four liberals.

Supreme Court appointments have sometimes become major political battles. This year’s debate will come amid the campaign for control of Congress and in an atmosphere left polarized by the bitter debate over healthcare legislation.

“If we have a nominee that evidences a philosophy of ‘judges know best,’ that they can amend the Constitution by saying it has evolved, and effectuate agendas, then we’re going to have a big fight about that,” Sessions said.

Obama named his first Supreme Court justice last year, picking Sonia Sotomayor as the court’s first Hispanic to replace retiring Justice David Souter. She was confirmed on a largely party-line vote of 68-31.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao; Editing by Will Dunham)

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US Republicans warn Obama on Supreme Court nominee

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

* Republicans refuse to rule out Supreme Court filibuster

Bonds

* Republican senators say they want “mainstream” nominee

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) – Senate Republicans warned on Sunday they could raise procedural roadblocks to any U.S. Supreme Court nominee they consider outside the judicial mainstream, although one prominent Republican said such an effort was unlikely.

President Barack Obama will name a nominee to replace retiring liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the next few weeks, sparking a potential confirmation battle in the run-up to November’s congressional elections.

Senate Republicans said they would not rule out using the procedural roadblock known as a filibuster to try to prevent a confirmation vote on any nominee they considered a liberal activist.

“If it’s somebody like that, clearly outside of the mainstream, then I think every power should be utilized to protect the Constitution,” Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Jon Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, played down the likelihood and said it would require an extraordinary circumstance.

“It is unlikely that there would be a filibuster, except if there is an extraordinary circumstance,” Kyl told ABC’s “This Week” program. “I’m not going to take it off the table. But I think it can easily be avoided.”

The Senate traditionally has not used procedural means to block Supreme Court nominees. A group of 14 centrist Republican and Democratic senators agreed in 2005 not to filibuster judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances.

“If the president picks someone from the fringe instead of from the middle, or if he picks someone who will apply their feelings instead of applying the law, then that might be an extraordinary case,” Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Obama’s fellow Democrats control 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, and would have to muster 60 votes to break the roadblock and clear the way for a direct vote on the nominee.

The most prominent early candidates for the Supreme Court opening include Solicitor General Elena Kagan and U.S. appeals court judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

‘LAZY’ APPROACH

Senator Patrick Leahy, Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, predicted that the new justice would be confirmed by the Senate this summer and take the bench for the beginning of the next court term in October.

“I don’t think there is going to be any kind of filibuster,” Leahy told NBC, calling it a “lazy” approach to confirmation. “The American people elect us to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not to vote ‘maybe.’”

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said “it’s just about a certainty that the president will nominate someone in the mainstream, so the likelihood of a filibuster is tiny.”

Obama is expected to choose someone who will follow the same basic judicial philosophy as the liberal Stevens and is unlikely to change the court’s overall ideological balance, which for years has been closely divided with five conservatives and four liberals.

Supreme Court appointments have sometimes become major political battles. This year’s debate will come amid the campaign for control of Congress and in an atmosphere left polarized by the bitter debate over healthcare legislation.

“If we have a nominee that evidences a philosophy of ‘judges know best,’ that they can amend the Constitution by saying it has evolved, and effectuate agendas, then we’re going to have a big fight about that,” Sessions said.

Obama named his first Supreme Court justice last year, picking Sonia Sotomayor as the court’s first Hispanic to replace retiring Justice David Souter. She was confirmed on a largely party-line vote of 68-31.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Obama previews rhetoric for mid-term elections

April 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama, in a preview of the election campaign Democrats will roll out later this year, recalled on Thursday the economic mess he inherited from the Republicans while saying the change he had promised upon winning the White House is being delivered.

U.S. | Barack Obama

In remarks sown with references to the recession that Obama says his actions helped reverse, he assured fellow Democrats that his overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare sector will yield genuine benefits for ordinary Americans.

“The change you fought for is beginning to take hold,” he told a fund-raising speech in Boston.

The reassurance may have been needed. Opinion polls show many Americans are skeptical about the cost and scale of Obama’s healthcare measures, risking possible Democratic losses in mid-term congressional elections in November.

Republican lawmakers, who opposed the bill unanimously, are targeting Democratic lawmakers who voted for the healthcare legislation. Opposition to Obama’s healthcare proposals has energized the Republicans’ conservative base.

Shrugging off such concern, the president said unpopularity was a badge of honor that showed his administration was doing the right thing.

“If you govern by pundits and polls you lose sight of why you got into public service in the first place,” he said. “My job wasn’t to husband my popularity, make sure I wasn’t making waves. It’s how a lot of folks govern. It’s easy.”

Americans remain anxious over still-sluggish economic growth and national unemployment of 9.7 percent. Obama signed a $787 billion economic stimulus package last year to create jobs, but knows it will take time to pay dividends, and in the meantime his best defense is to keep reminding voters that it was the Republicans who are to blame.

He invoked the bailout of Wall Street launched by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush, and promised the audience that every dime of taxpayers’ money would be recouped, before reminding them about the rescue of U.S. automakers who were now hiring again.

In addition to healthcare, Obama also touted the nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia to be signed on April 8 in Prague and education finance reforms, while warning of the looming fight to reform Wall Street and deliver on climate-change legislation.

But in a coded reference to the election setback some Democrats worry lies ahead in November, Obama recalled he had addressed a similar crowd of loyal supporters in Boston after losing the Democratic primary in New Hampshire to his then-rival Hillary Clinton — before going on to win the Democratic nomination and ultimately triumph in the 2008 presidential election.

“We’re going to be OK. We’re going to be better than OK,” he said.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

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Obama previews rhetoric for mid-term elections

April 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama, in a preview of the election campaign Democrats will roll out later this year, recalled on Thursday the economic mess he inherited from the Republicans while saying the change he had promised upon winning the White House is being delivered.

U.S. | Barack Obama

In remarks sown with references to the recession that Obama says his actions helped reverse, he assured fellow Democrats that his overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare sector will yield genuine benefits for ordinary Americans.

“The change you fought for is beginning to take hold,” he told a fund-raising speech in Boston.

The reassurance may have been needed. Opinion polls show many Americans are skeptical about the cost and scale of Obama’s healthcare measures, risking possible Democratic losses in mid-term congressional elections in November.

Republican lawmakers, who opposed the bill unanimously, are targeting Democratic lawmakers who voted for the healthcare legislation. Opposition to Obama’s healthcare proposals has energized the Republicans’ conservative base.

Shrugging off such concern, the president said unpopularity was a badge of honor that showed his administration was doing the right thing.

“If you govern by pundits and polls you lose sight of why you got into public service in the first place,” he said. “My job wasn’t to husband my popularity, make sure I wasn’t making waves. It’s how a lot of folks govern. It’s easy.”

Americans remain anxious over still-sluggish economic growth and national unemployment of 9.7 percent. Obama signed a $787 billion economic stimulus package last year to create jobs, but knows it will take time to pay dividends, and in the meantime his best defense is to keep reminding voters that it was the Republicans who are to blame.

He invoked the bailout of Wall Street launched by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush, and promised the audience that every dime of taxpayers’ money would be recouped, before reminding them about the rescue of U.S. automakers who were now hiring again.

In addition to healthcare, Obama also touted the nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia to be signed on April 8 in Prague and education finance reforms, while warning of the looming fight to reform Wall Street and deliver on climate-change legislation.

But in a coded reference to the election setback some Democrats worry lies ahead in November, Obama recalled he had addressed a similar crowd of loyal supporters in Boston after losing the Democratic primary in New Hampshire to his then-rival Hillary Clinton — before going on to win the Democratic nomination and ultimately triumph in the 2008 presidential election.

“We’re going to be OK. We’re going to be better than OK,” he said.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

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Holder defends criminal trials for 9/11 suspects

March 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday defended plans to prosecute some terrorism suspects in traditional criminal courts, urging lawmakers to avoid politicizing the decision and inflaming public fears.

U.S. | Barack Obama

Holder has faced fierce criticism for planning to try the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in a criminal court, with many calling for military trials for him and four alleged conspirators.

Faced with the prospect of Congress withholding funds for both the trials and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the White House has intervened and is now reconsidering the trial venue. However, that decision is weeks away.

Nonetheless, Holder defended criminal trials as a successful method for prosecuting terrorism suspects, noting that security at past trials has been tight with no incidents and they make it easier to get guilty pleas from suspects.

“They are tested … they are secure, we have tried these cases in a safe manner,” Holder told a House Appropriations subcommittee. “Our allies around the world support us in bringing these cases in (criminal) courts.”

Republicans, and even some of President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats, have demanded that the five men be prosecuted in revamped military trials, arguing that they should not receive full U.S. legal rights or be given a platform for their anti-American rhetoric.

“There is a very legitimate and robust conversation we should have about it,” Holder said. “But we cannot allow the politics of fear to drive us apart.”

Holder bristled at suggestions that the suspects would be “coddled” if afforded full U.S. legal rights, saying they would be treated “just like any other murderer.”

He also said that judges have prevented outbursts by terrorism suspects, pointing to the recent trial of a Pakistani woman in a New York court last month, during which the judge removed her repeatedly in response to her outbursts.

FULL LEGAL RIGHTS?

Still, Republicans on the subcommittee slammed the prospect of criminal court trials for terrorism suspects and clashed with Holder on whether full legal rights should be given to enemy combatants captured overseas.

“This is war and in a time of war we as a nation have never given constitutional rights to foreign nationals, enemy soldiers, certainly captured overseas,” said Representative John Culberson.

Seizing on the suggestion by Holder that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would be treated similarly to mass murderer Charles Manson, Culberson argued that showed a disconnect between the administration and the American public.

Holder said that the Obama administration knew the United States was engaged in a war but said that it was vastly different than past wars and that even in military trials the defendants are given access to lawyers and other legal rights.

“I understand we are at war with al Qaeda,” Holder said, adding that the United States was unlikely to face the prospect of putting bin Laden on trial because he had indicated he would rather die fighting.

“We would be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden,” Holder said, referring to a criminal suspect’s right to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning. “He will never appear in an American courtroom. That’s a reality.”

Later in the hearing, Holder tried to clarify his remarks, saying he frequently has heard that terrorism suspects are being given the rights equal to the average American.

“They are not treated as average Americans. They are treated as murderers,” he said.

Holder said a decision about where to prosecute Mohammed and the four alleged co-conspirators was likely weeks, but not months, away.

“Facts, facts, not fear, must be the basis of all of our discussions,” he said.

(Editing by David Alexander and Eric Walsh)

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New York governor David Paterson withdraws election bid after scandal

March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

NEW YORK: New York Governor David Paterson on Friday withdrew his election bid after coming under huge pressure not to run over an abuse-of-office scandal.

Paterson, a Democrat who took office in 2008 after then-governor Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, said he would not stand in elections this November.

“Today I am announcing I am ending my campaign for governor of the state of New York,” Paterson, 55, told a news conference.

Paterson, the state’s first black governor, is embroiled in allegations that he and state police improperly sought to pressure a woman who had accused one of his top aides of domestic violence.

In his statement Friday, Paterson insisted: “I have never abused my office — not now, not ever. And I believe that when the facts are reviewed the truth will prevail.”

He also resisted growing calls for his resignation, saying he would serve out his term.

The announcement marked a dramatic reversal for Paterson, who rose from relative obscurity to the governorship when Spitzer, a hard-driving former prosecutor, was forced to step down after being caught frequenting prostitutes.

Paterson, who is legally blind, had launched his election campaign just a week ago, despite a mounting whispering campaign against him by fellow Democrats and low poll numbers.

Regardless of the scandal, Democrats are expected to retain the governor’s seat in November’s midterm nationwide elections, with state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo widely believed to be preparing a run.

Paterson has been derided as ineffective and has been unable to push a budget through the bitterly divided, often nearly dysfunctional state assembly.

His downfall may even be a boon to President Barack Obama’s White House and to other New York Democrats who did not want to be associated with Paterson while contesting seats in the midterms, when resurgent Republicans will look to exploit a strongly anti-incumbent mood.

The scandal began when The New York Times revealed that one of Paterson’s closest aides, David Johnson, had been accused of beating his girlfriend and that state police harassed the alleged victim until she dropped the case.

Even more damaging were revelations that Paterson had telephone contact with the woman, although the nature of that contact remains unclear.

On Wednesday, Paterson suspended Johnson and asked Cuomo — the state’s top prosecutor, as well as the undeclared frontrunner for the governor’s seat — to investigate the allegations.

Paterson became governor by accident in March 2008, when he stepped into Spitzer’s vacated office from his post as lieutenant governor.

No sooner did he take office than Wall Street collapsed, taking the US economy with it and bringing New York’s state finances to the brink of bankruptcy.

Paterson defiantly insisted Friday that he would not walk away from the job entirely.

“There are 308 days left in my term. I will serve every one of them fighting for the people of New York,” he said.

“I cannot run for office and manage the state’s business full time. At this time New York needs a leader.”

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Obama Pleads With Dems to Pass His Health Bill

March 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The president urges uneasy rank-and-file moderates and progressives to focus on the positives rather than their deep disappointment with parts of his massive health care overhaul.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama summoned more than a dozen Democrats from the House of Representatives to the White House, pleading with them to put aside their qualms and vote for his massive health care overhaul.

In back-to-back meetings Thursday, Obama urged uneasy rank-and-file moderates and progressives to focus on the positives rather than their deep disappointment with parts of the bill. The lawmakers said Obama assured them the legislation was merely the first step, and he promised to work with them in the future to improve its provisions.

It’s the opportunity of a generation, he told them — and a chance to revive the party’s agenda after his rough first year in office.

“The president very pointedly talked about how important this is historically,” said Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, “how he needs our help.” Obama told them that “‘this is an opportunity, it’ll give us momentum”‘ on other issues, the congressman said.

Congressional leaders said they were hoping for votes on the legislation in as soon as two or three weeks.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters he believes the House is on schedule to approve the landmark legislation by March 18, when the president leaves for an Asian trip, and he can sign it into law “shortly thereafter.”

Concerned about fellow Democrats’ trepidation about a legislative drive that has garnered only modest public support, House leaders expressed optimism but hardly certainty that they would nail down enough support that soon. Democrats have repeatedly missed self-imposed deadlines for moving the legislation.

On Wednesday, Obama made what was expected to be his final push to overhaul the U.S. health care system, announcing a revised plan at the White House in an attempt to win the support of moderate Democrats.

Though Obama’s latest proposal included some ideas favored by Republicans, he has little hope of winning over even one member of the conservative party. Republicans want to scrap the plan and start over.

However, the White House hopes that including elements of Republican plans will entice Democratic lawmakers from conservative districts whose re-election hopes in November could be jeopardized by voting for the bill.

Obama’s revved-up personal involvement, along with the cautious tone of congressional leaders’ forecasts, illustrated the uncertainty still facing the president’s yearlong drive to push his signature legislative initiative through Congress.

The United States is the only major industrialized country without a comprehensive health care plan. Nearly 50 million people are uninsured.

Lawmakers were almost finished merging House and Senate versions of sweeping health care overhaul legislation when a special election in January cost Democrats a key Senate seat. The Senate Democrats were left one seat shy of the margin they needed to bypass Republican stalling tactics, throwing the reform effort into disarray.

Under the current strategy, Democratic leaders want Congress to send Obama the nearly $1 trillion health overhaul that the Senate passed in December, plus a separate bill making changes that House Democrats want.

Of the House Democrats Obama met with on Thursday, all but two voted for a more far-reaching version of the health bill last year. The attendance list spotlighted the White House’s need to reassure those supporters on the legislation, even as it struggles to retain backing from more moderate Democrats worried about the bill’s costs and its language on abortion.

Republicans say the legislation would create government-controlled health care that the public does not want.

In another event at the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met with the chiefs of four major health insurance companies and asked them to provide justifications for double-digit price increases that have angered consumers. Health insurers, who have blamed rising medical costs for their own price rises, made no final commitments about what they would provide.

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Obama tries to regain control of security debate

May 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Obama tries to regain control of security debateU.S. President Barack Obama sought on Thursday to regain control of the debate on U.S. national security in a major speech that also sketched his plan for closing Guantanamo Bay prison within a year.

* Opposition Republicans, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, have tried to portray Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo prison, which houses 240 terrorism suspects, as a threat to U.S. national security. Despite polls showing most Americans approve of Obama’s handling of national security, the attacks on his approach in Congress and in the media have been a distraction as he tries to rescue the recession-hit economy.

* Obama’s speech on Thursday contained few concrete details and may do little to satisfy fellow Democrats who have demanded a detailed plan on closing Guantanamo before they approve the necessary money to do it. He said some Guantanamo inmates may be moved to top security prisons in the United States, but this will prove a tough sell among lawmakers have already voiced concern about having prisoners moved to their state.

* Obama’s decision to deliver the speech in the National Archives, home to the United States’ most important documents, including the Constitution and Bill of Rights, was his most concerted effort yet to regain the initiative from Republicans and explain to Americans the decisions he has taken on national security and how he plans to deal with Guantanamo’s inmates when the prison at a U.S. Naval base in Cuba is closed.

* Obama repeatedly stressed that his national security policies were based on the rule of law and represented a sharp break with those of his predecessor George W. Bush, which he said had undercut rather than strengthened U.S. national security.

* Obama has faced criticism from both the left and the right over his decisions to block the release of photos of alleged detainee abuse, reviving military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects, and the publication of documents detailing Bush-era interrogation techniques. In responding to critics on Thursday, he sought to portray himself as tough on security while still promising a more transparent government.

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Obama to lay out ‘framework’ for closing Guantanamo

May 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Obama to lay out 'framework' for closing GuantanamoPresident Barack Obama on Thursday will outline his strategy for closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, hoping to defuse a revolt by lawmakers over the fate of an internationally reviled symbol of Bush-era detainee policy.

In a much-anticipated speech, Obama will defend his still-emerging plan to shutter the detention camp at a U.S. Naval base in Cuba as he tries to ease concerns that some terrorism suspects held there could be set free in the United States.

He had vowed on his second day in office to close the prison within a year as part of his effort to repair America’s tarnished image abroad.

At the same time Obama is speaking, former Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect of Bush’s detainee policy and a harsh critic of Obama’s approach, will be at a Washington think tank giving a speech partly entitled “Keeping America Safe.”

But four months into his presidency, Obama suffered a stinging setback on Wednesday when the Senate, controlled by fellow Democrats, blocked the $80 million he had sought for the shutdown until he decides what to do with the facility’s 240 inmates.

Democratic lawmakers, worried that some of the prisoners could be jailed or even released in the United States, rebelled against Obama after opposition Republicans threatened to brand them as soft on terrorism.

Despite his high public approval rating, Obama faces a major test of his leadership as he tries to quell a controversy that threatens to divert his attention from his declared top priority of rescuing the ailing U.S. economy.

While most Democrats agree Guantanamo should be closed, they are demanding a detailed plan before releasing funds to launch the process.

If the funds are not released soon, it could be difficult for Obama to meet his January 2010 deadline for decommissioning the prison, which was authorized by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and has long been condemned by international human rights groups.

LAYING OUT ‘FRAMEWORK’

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would lay out a “framework” for the decisions ahead on Guantanamo when he speaks at 10:10 a.m. EDT (1410 GMT) at the National Archives.

Signaling the likelihood Obama would be short on specifics, Gibbs said many details were still to be worked out and the president had not yet decided whether any of the detainees would be sent to prisons inside the United States.

European allies have been reluctant to accept more than a handful of the prisoners.

Gibbs insisted, however, that Obama would not make any decision that “imperils the safety of the American people” and that the president was determined to stick to his self-imposed timetable for turning the page on Guantanamo.

“Members of both parties agree that Guantanamo Bay has become an image for recruitment for terrorists around the world,” Gibbs told reporters on Wednesday. “And the president signed an order early in his administration to close it, and he intends to keep that promise.”

At the time, Obama also won praise internationally for banning harsh interrogation methods like “waterboarding,” or simulated drowning, which human rights group call torture, and for ordering an end to secret CIA jails overseas.

But he has recently faced criticism on the left and the right for new national security decisions, including blocking the release of photos of alleged detainee abuse and reviving military commissions created by the Bush administration to prosecute terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo.

Seeking to wrest back control of the debate, Obama planned to address those issues as well in what White House aides billed as a wide-ranging speech.

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US Congress takes up 2010 budget

April 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 2 (DPA) With the US House of Representatives preparing to vote Thursday on President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal, Republican lawmakers have presented an alternative spending plan that they argued cuts the deficit while still reviving the economy.

The Republican alternative, put forward in the House of Representatives, has little chance of becoming law as Democrats hold a sizeable majority in both chambers of Congress. But the versions offer insights into the parties’ sharply differing ideologies and answers to the economic crisis.

Democrats promise middle-class tax cuts and spending on education, energy and health care. The Republicans countered with tax cuts across the board, incentives for business and a spending freeze over the next five years in all areas except defence.

Obama’s $3.6-trillion budget plan for 2010, which has been tweaked slightly by his fellow Democrats in Congress, is set to be voted on by the House Thursday, according to speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Senate is expected to vote by the end of the week.

‘Americans understand that we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past eight years,’ Pelosi said. ‘Republicans would halt our economic recovery in its tracks.’

The Democrats’ plan raises the federal budget deficit for 2010 to more than 13 percent of gross domestic product, something Obama has argued is necessary to pull the US out of a deep recession.

The Republican group argued that their brand of tax cuts would create more jobs while slashing nearly $800 billion from Obama’s 2010 budget, in large part by cutting the massive $787-billion stimulus plan adopted by Congress earlier this year aimed at kickstarting the US economy.

‘The budget that we have before the Congress spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too much from our kids and grandkids,’ said John Boehner, the top Republican in the House. ‘Republicans in the House will offer a better solution.’

The Republicans’ rival plan also promised to keep a series of tax cuts put in place by former president George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. Obama has pledged to allow the tax cuts to expire in 2010 for wealthy workers making more than $250,000 per year.

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US Congress takes up 2010 budget

April 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 2 (DPA) With the US House of Representatives preparing to vote Thursday on President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal, Republican lawmakers have presented an alternative spending plan that they argued cuts the deficit while still reviving the economy.

The Republican alternative, put forward in the House of Representatives, has little chance of becoming law as Democrats hold a sizeable majority in both chambers of Congress. But the versions offer insights into the parties’ sharply differing ideologies and answers to the economic crisis.

Democrats promise middle-class tax cuts and spending on education, energy and health care. The Republicans countered with tax cuts across the board, incentives for business and a spending freeze over the next five years in all areas except defence.

Obama’s $3.6-trillion budget plan for 2010, which has been tweaked slightly by his fellow Democrats in Congress, is set to be voted on by the House Thursday, according to speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Senate is expected to vote by the end of the week.

‘Americans understand that we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past eight years,’ Pelosi said. ‘Republicans would halt our economic recovery in its tracks.’

The Democrats’ plan raises the federal budget deficit for 2010 to more than 13 percent of gross domestic product, something Obama has argued is necessary to pull the US out of a deep recession.

The Republican group argued that their brand of tax cuts would create more jobs while slashing nearly $800 billion from Obama’s 2010 budget, in large part by cutting the massive $787-billion stimulus plan adopted by Congress earlier this year aimed at kickstarting the US economy.

‘The budget that we have before the Congress spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too much from our kids and grandkids,’ said John Boehner, the top Republican in the House. ‘Republicans in the House will offer a better solution.’

The Republicans’ rival plan also promised to keep a series of tax cuts put in place by former president George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. Obama has pledged to allow the tax cuts to expire in 2010 for wealthy workers making more than $250,000 per year.

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US Congress takes up 2010 budget, Republicans unveil rival version

April 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

US Congress takes up 2010 budget, Republicans unveil rival version Washington – With the House of Representatives preparing to vote Thursday on President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal, Republican lawmakers have presented an alternative spending plan that they argued cuts the deficit while still reviving the economy.

The Republican alternative, put forward in the House of Representatives, has little chance of becoming law as Democrats hold a sizeable majority in both chambers of Congress. But the versions offer insights into the parties’ sharply differing ideologies and answers to the economic crisis.

Democrats promise middle-class tax cuts and spending on education, energy and health care. The Republicans countered with tax cuts across the board, incentives for business and a spending freeze over the next five years in all areas except defence.

Obama’s 3.6-trillion-dollar budget plan for 2010, which has been tweaked slightly by his fellow Democrats in Congress, is set to be voted on by the House on Thursday, according to speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Senate is expected to vote by the end of the week.

“Americans understand that we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past eight years,” Pelosi said. “Republicans would halt our economic recovery in its tracks.”

The Democrats’ plan raises the federal budget deficit for 2010 to more than 13 per cent of gross domestic product, something Obama has argued is necessary to pull the US out of a deep recession.

The Republican group argued that their brand of tax cuts would create more jobs while slashing nearly 800 billion dollars from Obama’s 2010 budget, in large part by cutting the massive 787- billion-dollar stimulus plan adopted by Congress earlier this year aimed at kickstarting the US economy.

“The budget that we have before the Congress spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too much from our kids and grandkids,” said John Boehner, the top Republican in the House. “Republicans in the House will offer a better solution.”

The Republicans’ rival plan also promised to keep a series of tax cuts put in place by former president George W Bush in 2001 and 2003. Obama has pledged to allow the tax cuts to expire in 2010 for wealthy workers making more than 250,000 dollars per year. dpa

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Obama links education reform to economic crisis

March 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Obama links education reform to economic crisis Washington – President Barack Obama said reforming the US education system was critical to the long-term health of the country’s economy as he outlined his reform plans in a policy speech Tuesday.

Obama, whose time has mostly been taken up with a deepening recession since he entered office in January, warned that suffering standards of education could not be ignored and threatened the United States’ global standing over the long haul.

“We don’t have the luxury of choosing to get our economy moving now and rebuilding it over the long term,” Obama said in a speech before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

“The relative decline of American education is untenable for our economy, it’s unsustainable for our democracy, it’s unacceptable for our children, and we cannot let it continue,” he said.

Obama outlined the broad strokes of his education reform plans, calling for a bipartisan solution and tasking teachers, parents and students to take on greater responsibility.

Obama called out both political parties for holding onto “failed” ideas. He challenged fellow Democrats to accept an incentivized pay system for teachers, which rewards performance but has been opposed by teachers unions, and said schools must be willing to fire underperforming teachers.

Obama called on Republicans to lift their opposition to more funding for early childhood education programmes that have shown results.

Obama warned that the US was quickly falling behind the education standards of other countries, and noted that less educated workers had “borne the brunt” of an economic crisis that has cost more than 4 million jobs since a recession began in December 2007.

“The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens,” Obama said. “My fellow Americans, we have everything we need to be that nation.” (dpa)

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