AAC Blog
By Daniel Tencer
http://rawstory.com/2009/01/bush-officials-fear-ire-of-cheney/
Monday, January 4th, 2010 | Raw Story
Half a dozen former Bush administration anti-terrorism officials have told the New York Times that they support President Barack Obama's approach to fighting terrorists, but won't go on the record for political reasons.
According to an article by Peter Baker, published at the New York Times Magazine Monday, some of the unnamed former Bush officials say they fear reprisals from former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been relentlessly attacking elements of the Obama administration's foreign policy since the president's inauguration.
Others said that calling attention to the "continuity" between Bush-era policies and current policies would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And yet others are reportedly staying quiet because they don't want to help a president who has severely criticized their former boss.
In the piece published Monday, Baker reported that these former officials weren't concerned about the direction of counter-terrorism strategy under Obama -- only about the repercussions of saying so on record.
A half-dozen former senior Bush officials involved in counterterrorism told me before the Christmas Day incident that for the most part, they were comfortable with Obama’s policies, although they were reluctant to say so on the record. Some worried they would draw the ire of Cheney’s circle if they did, while others calculated that calling attention to the similarities to Bush would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And they generally resent Obama’s anti-Bush rhetoric and are unwilling to give him political cover by defending him.
That revelation has some political bloggers bemused.
"It’s really staggering what this says about the ethical caliber of the people we’re talking about," writes Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress. "Obama is, they think, doing the right thing. But some of them don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because that might make Dick Cheney mad and they’re timid, gutless careerists? And others don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because their feelings are hurt that a Democrat said bad things about his grossly unpopular Republican predecessor? For this they’re going to undermine support for policies that they themselves believe are keeping the country safe?"
OBAMA POLICY A CONTINUATION OF BUSH ERA?
Baker's NYT Magazine piece fleshes out the debate over whether Obama's terrorism strategy marks a significant break with the policies of the previous Republican administration, or whether it represents a continuation and entrenchment of those policies.
Baker points out that numerous senior officials in the Obama administration are hold-overs from the Bush years, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and Deputy Defense Secretary Michael Vickers. Gen. David Petraeus remains the commander overseeing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But Baker notes that the people who remain from the Bush era are mostly regarded as moderates who opposed some of the more extreme policies and ideas of the Bush administration.
Michael Hayden, the last CIA director under Bush, was willing to say publicly what others would not. “There is a continuum from the Bush administration, particularly as it changed in the second administration as circumstances changed, and the Obama administration,” Hayden told me. James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, was blunter. “I don’t think it’s even fair to call it Bush Lite,” he said. “It’s Bush. It’s really, really hard to find a difference that’s meaningful and not atmospheric. You see a lot of straining on things trying to make things look repackaged, but they’re really not that different.”
And Baker also notes that the counter-terrorism policies Obama inherited when he took office were already significantly altered from the frantic years immediately after the 9/11 attacks.
The battle with terrorists evolved significantly over the course of the Bush presidency, and when Obama took office, the course he set was more about accelerating that evolution than about restarting it. Under pressure from Supreme Court rulings, Congressional legislation and disclosures in the news media, Bush in his second term trimmed back some of his most expansive programs and claims to executive power. Two years before leaving office, he told advisers he wanted to use his remaining time to institutionalize what was left so that his successor, even a Democrat, would not feel compelled to reverse direction.
Yet that idea seems to be politically unappetizing to the White House. Baker notes that, despite the record of continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations, White House insiders are loathe to be seen as maintaining Bush-era polices -- perhaps the reason Obama made shutting down the Guantanamo detention facility his first executive order.
"A senior Obama adviser scoffed at the idea that Bush advisers see continuity, arguing that they are trying to launder their reputations by claiming validation," Baker wrote.
But perhaps one of the most poignant points in the article comes from White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, who argued that the political argument over terrorism policy being played out in the news media is creating the sort of internal political conflict that groups like al-Qaeda want to see.
“A lot of the knuckleheads I’ve been listening to out there on the network shows don’t know what they’re talking about,” he told me after the Christmas Day attempt. Some Republicans, including Cheney, were blatantly mischaracterizing the record, he fumed. “When they say the administration’s not at war with Al Qaeda, that is just complete hogwash.” It was the angriest I had heard him during months of conversations. “What they’re doing is just playing into Al Qaeda’s strategic effort, which is to get us to battle among ourselves instead of focusing on them,” he said.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian informant who lured intelligence officers into a trap by promising new information about al-Qaeda's top leadership, former U.S. government officials said Monday.
The attacker, a physician-turned-mole, had been recruited to infiltrate al-Qaeda's senior circles and had gained the trust of his CIA and Jordanian handlers with a stream of useful intelligence leads, according to two former senior officials briefed on the agency's internal investigation. His track record as an informant apparently allowed him to enter a key CIA post without a thorough search, the sources said.
The bomber, identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was standing just outside an agency building on the base Wednesday when he exploded a bomb hidden under his clothes, killing the seven Americans along with a Jordanian officer who had been assigned to work with him. Six CIA operatives were wounded.
The agency has declined to publicly identify the victims, a mix of career officers and contractors with backgrounds ranging from law enforcement to military Special Forces.
Details about the suicide bomber's identity provided jarring insight into how a vital intelligence post in eastern Afghanistan was penetrated in the deadliest attack on the CIA in more than 25 years. Initial reports suggested that the bomber was an Afghan soldier or perhaps a local informant who had been brought onto the base for debriefing.
Instead, the new evidence points to a carefully planned act of deception by a trusted operative from a country closely allied with the United States in the fight against al-Qaeda. U.S. and Jordanian officials had come to regard Balawi as trustworthy, former officials said, despite a history of support for Islamist extremism -- a point of view he appeared to endorse in an interview with an al-Qaeda-affiliated publication as recently as this past fall.
"He was someone who had already worked with us," said a former U.S. counterterrorism officer who discussed the ongoing investigation on the condition of anonymity. The official said Balawi had been jointly managed by U.S. and Jordanian agencies and had provided "actionable intelligence" over several weeks of undercover work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The CIA declined to comment on reports identifying Balawi as the bomber, first posted by al-Jazeera television on its Web site. A U.S. intelligence official said only that the agency is "looking closely at every aspect" of the attack on the facility known as Forward Operating Base Chapman, in the province of Khost near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.
"The agency is determined to continue pursuing aggressive counterterrorism operations," the official said. "Last week's attack will be avenged. Some very bad people will eventually have a very bad day."
Al-Jazeera described Balawi as a 36-year-old physician from Zarqa, a Jordanian town that also was the home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the slain leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. It said Balawi had been recruited to help track down Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian physician and second in command of al-Qaeda, who U.S. intelligence officials believe is hiding in the lawless border region.
Balawi had a history of supporting jihadist causes and had been arrested in late 2007, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist Web sites. He was detained by Jordan's intelligence agency, which sought to turn him into an informant, the former government officials said.
Before his arrest, Balawi, who used the online name Abu Dujana al-Khorasani, was a well-known contributor to al-Hesbah, a once-prominent jihadist forum, according to SITE. He eventually became an administrator of the Web site.
In September of last year, Balawi gave an interview to Vanguards of Khorasan, a magazine associated with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, according to SITE. His handlers presumably were aware of the interview but may have regarded it as part of his cover.
Balawi nonetheless spoke at length and in sometimes overwrought language about his devotion to jihad and martyrdom.
"I have had a predisposition for love of jihad and martyrdom since I was little," he told the magazine, according to a translation by SITE. "If love of jihad enters a man's heart, it will not leave him even if he wants to do so."
He also expressed his admiration for the stoicism of the mujaheddin with whom he was encamped.
"If the name of a martyr they knew is mentioned in front of them, you find that blood has frozen in their veins as though it were a dew drop on the mouth of a beautiful flower," Balawi said. "You find that the weeping in their straying looks is more eloquent than screams."
The role of Jordanian intelligence at the CIA's base was tacitly acknowledged over the weekend when the body of the Jordanian intelligence operative was flown home for a military burial in the capital city of Amman. The man, identified in Jordanian news accounts as Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was assigned to work as a handler for Balawi, the former U.S. counterterrorism official said.
Jordan is a key ally in the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda, and its intelligence operatives have been integrated into missions in the Middle East and beyond, current and former U.S. intelligence officials say. Yet, despite its critical role, officials from both countries have insisted that its participation remain virtually invisible, in part to avoid damaging Jordan's standing among other Muslim nations in the region, former intelligence officials said.
Bin Zeid was honored with a military funeral when his body arrived in the capital. The ceremony was attended by Jordan's King Abdullah II and his wife, Rania, but official news reports said only that the intelligence captain had died while performing humanitarian service in Afghanistan.
Bin Zeid, who had married about a year ago, was described by a former Jordanian intelligence officer who knew him as a modest but highly effective officer who never traded on his royal status as a cousin to the king. His family ties nonetheless made him ideally suited for the most sensitive missions, the former officer said. "He loved his work; it was his life."
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, other agency and national security officials, and friends and family members of the seven CIA employees attended a private ceremony Monday at Dover Air Force Base, Del., where the bodies were returned, agency spokesman George Little said.
"These patriots courageously served their nation," he said.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
By James Oliphant
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/sns-dc-health-congress4,0,6833132.story
January 4, 2010 | Baltimore Sun
Washington Bureau - As Congressional Democrats attempt to arrive at a final healthcare bill, they appear increasingly likely to forego the formal conference committee process for merging House and Senate versions of legislation, instead opting for closely-held negotiations between leaders from the two chambers.
Under that scenario, aides said, the House would be likely to take up and amend the Senate bill before sending that bill back to the Senate for a vote.
In theory, the Senate could amend the new version and send it back to the House, triggering another round in a process sometimes called "ping-ponging.
But Democratic leaders will seek to draft a compromise version of the healthcare overhaul that would be acceptable to both the House and Senate, opening the way for final congressional action later this month or in early February.
House leaders will return to Washington this week to begin talks in earnest and to chart the path forward--and aides stressed Monday that no final decision had been made. The entire House Democratic caucus will meet Thursday before the House returns to business next week.
Typically, competing bills are reconciled by a conference committee composed of House and Senate chairmen of key committees. But Democrats on the Hill are free to fashion an alternative and more informal procedure because they aren't relying on Republican votes to pass the final bill.
For congressional Democrats and the White House, the advantages of the alternative process are numerous. Bypassing a conference committee would deny Senate Republicans--who have promised to use every procedural tactic available to delay the bill--an opportunity to filibuster motions in the Senate to appoint and instruct representatives to the committee.
And, forcing the House to vote on a Senate bill would prevent the House GOP from using a stalling maneuver known as a "Motion to Recommit" to hold up the bill there.
In remarks to constituents in Santa Monica, Calif. Sunday, Rep. Henry Waxman, who as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee looms as a pivotal figure in any negotiations, said he believed that Democrats would avoid a formal conference, citing the procedural hurdles in the Senate.
House Republicans Monday argued that informal negotiations go against Democrats' pledges of government transparency.
"Something as critical as the Democrats' health care bill . . . shouldn't be slapped together in a shady backroom deal," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R- Ohio.)
"Skipping a real, open conference shuts out the American people and breaks one of President Obama's signature campaign promises," he said.
Just one Republican in the House voted for the healthcare overhaul, with no Senate Republican supporting it.
But the real challenge for Democrats won't lie in keeping the Republicans at bay; it will be holding unruly caucuses together in both the House and Senate long enough to push through a final version of the bill and send it to President Obama's desk.
Working from the Senate bill, which was passed Christmas Eve, makes more than procedural sense. Republicans could filibuster a bill in the Senate after it returns from the House, meaning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) needs every one of his 58 Democrats to support the bill, along with two independents.
Several moderates have already said they would withdraw their support if the final bill strays too sharply from the Senate version.
Regardless of what form the talks take, points of contention include whether to help pay for the overhaul with a tax on high-end health plans or to levy a surtax on wealthy Americans, how tightly to restrict the separate federal subsidy dollars from abortion coverage, and whether to include a government-run health insurer, the "public option."
Preserving the public option appears to be most difficult objective for liberal Democrats. It's unlikely that any final bill with such a provision could garner 60 votes in the Senate.—
Health-care vote means senators will spend Christmas Eve at the Capitol
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
It's the bill that stole Christmas. Behind each cranky senator dealing his or her way toward a historic Christmas Eve vote on health-care reform is a cadre of staff members laboring day and night to make sense of the ever-changing 2,457-page bill, tutor their bosses, spin the press and break down...
It's the bill that stole Christmas.
Behind each cranky senator dealing his or her way toward a historic Christmas Eve vote on health-care reform is a cadre of staff members laboring day and night to make sense of the ever-changing 2,457-page bill, tutor their bosses, spin the press and break down what it means for constituents back home.
Senators and their staff members have been deprived of sleep and are subsisting on takeout pad Thai, cafeteria panini and office cookies. Stuck on Capitol Hill every day since Nov. 30, they have had no time for the gym, let alone Christmas -- no time to buy a tree, unpack lights and ornaments, or shop for presents. Republican aides have taken to wishing one another a "Harry, Harry Christmas," a not-so-subtle slight at Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the Ebenezer Scrooge majority leader.
With the final vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act slated to start after sundown Dec. 24, senators and hundreds of their health policy analysts, press secretaries and other aides -- not to mention the universe of police officers, clerks and student pages who keep the place humming -- wishing to be with their families will instead spend the holiday in Washington. And there's a possibility the Senate could be called back next week, to take up debt-limit legislation.
For all the drama playing out on the chamber floor, hundreds of mini-family crises are playing out in e-mails and phone calls summed up by one weighty concern: What about Christmas?
The prospect of not making it home has senators and their aides so vexed that some have not confessed the scheduling details to their families. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr.'s daughter found out about the scheduled Christmas Eve vote while watching CNN on Saturday. "Mom!" she shrieked upon hearing the news.
On Sunday, the Pennsylvania Democrat drove four hours north to his Scranton home. After two hours with his wife and kids, he headed back to be at the Capitol in time for a 1 a.m. cloture vote. He said the family time was worth the risk of getting stuck in the snow on a highway and missing the vote.
But he acknowledged that Senate leaders never would have forgiven him. "I would have been a dead man," Casey said.
Unlike most years, when the Senate takes off several weeks around the holidays, few key aides made Christmas vacation plans this year, knowing it could come to this.
Those who did are staying flexible. A Democratic aide on the Senate Finance Committee said she booked two flights to Boston, one leaving on Dec. 23 and the other on the 24th, to ensure she'll make it to her uncle's house by Christmas.
A top aide to a Democratic senator said she hopes to be in Wisconsin on Christmas Eve to join her family at a lake house. "My mom has been very nervous about planning a family hayride and sleigh ride, and wants to know if I'm in or out," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "My mom kicked me out of the sleigh ride because I didn't RSVP."
With no time to pick out presents for her young nieces and nephews, she hit up the Senate's basement gift shop. "Everyone's getting a United States Senate mug for Christmas this year," she said.
Bah, humbug!
In the annals of Senate yuletide tradition, nothing has been quite like this. The Senate last convened a Christmas Eve session in 1963, as the Vietnam War escalated, for a report on foreign aid appropriations, said Betty Koed, associate Senate historian. The chamber has never been in session on Dec. 25, she said -- not even during the 1700s and early 1800s, when senators remained in Washington through the winter because there was no easy transportation to and from their states.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said his wife shipped a Christmas tree from Vermont to his home in Washington, and she's planning to join him here for Christmas.
Republicans have been quick to cast Democratic leaders as grinches calling for votes so close to Christmas. Of course, the Senate may have already finished its business were it not for GOP delay tactics, such as Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) demanding last week that the clerk read aloud a 767-page amendment.
The marathon debate on health-care legislation has become the "era of the unexpected," Lauren Gilchrist said. As the top health policy aide to Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Gilchrist has been working on overdrive. "You don't want to be that crazy person who e-mails at 3:30 in the morning, but sometimes you are," she said.
Gilchrist said she has been clocking so many hours that she long ago stopped cooking her meals and hasn't been to the gym since August. "It got to a point where there was a bag of Halloween candy and I'd eaten everything except those really gross candy corns," she said.
When the voting is finally over, Gilchrist, 33, plans to fly home to Minnesota and stay for a while. "I'm going to cook, hang out with my friends and family, exercise again, read novels and things that are not blogs, and be normal again."
For many staff members, the search for food sometimes has been a test of survival. On Saturday morning, with some restaurants shuttered because of the snowstorm, about two dozen staff members -- and even a few senators -- stood in line in a tiny Capitol basement snack shop for egg sandwiches and coffee. It's a source of pride for a Florida senator's health-care aide that he has been eating three meals a day from the Senate cafeteria for 19 days and counting.
On the Finance Committee, whose members wrote the health-care bill, tales of woe abound. Tom Reeder, a senior counsel who helped draft key tax provisions, has guests from Alaska staying with him in Alexandria. But he has not seen them, because they are asleep when he comes home at night and are still in bed when he leaves for work in the morning.
Russ Sullivan, the committee's Democratic staff director, has been given the key to his dry cleaner because he never makes it during business hours to pick up his clothes.
Few staff members are griping -- and if they are, it's strictly off the record, lest they draw negative attention to their bosses. "No one's complaining," said Scott Mulhauser, a top adviser to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). "Everyone's just excited to be at the center of this."
But a senior aide to another Democratic senator acknowledged -- anonymously, of course -- that "it's a little frustrating."
"It's the week before Christmas," he said, "and we'd rather be getting ready for the holidays."
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
President Obama outlined Tuesday a first-year legislative record that he said rescued the economy and placed it on a path of long-term growth, even as he acknowledged that some unfinished items would probably be more difficult to achieve heading into a midterm election year.
In an Oval Office interview with The Washington Post, Obama rejected criticism that he has compromised too much to secure health-care reform or turned over too much authority to congressional leaders in pursuing his broad legislative agenda.
But some of Obama's signature initiatives, including cap-and-trade legislation and financial regulatory reform, remain unfulfilled heading into an election year likely to be shaped by what he achieved in Congress this year. Obama personally made the case for his legislative record at a time when his approval ratings are among the lowest of his presidency and as even some of his most ardent supporters are questioning the results of his congressional strategy.
"Overall, if you had a checklist of promises made, a lot of those promises have been kept," Obama said. "When those things are complete, and I think they will be, we will have achieved a fundamental shift in health care, energy, education and our financial regulatory system that will put this economy on a firmer footing to grow over the long term."
As the Senate prepares to pass its version of health-care reform legislation, Obama's advisers have portrayed a highly successful year pushing important bills through Congress, comparing his record to those of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Presidential scholars offer a more cautious appraisal, even as they note that Obama is operating in a more partisan time in Washington than those Democratic predecessors had.
Obama's legislative record includes the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in February, a mix of tax cuts, infrastructure spending and aid to state and local governments that was the largest of its kind. It also includes a variety of bills addressing issues of particular interest to his political base that had been languishing for years.
His top domestic priority
Although Obama noted in the interview that "the most important thing we did this year was to ensure that the financial system did not collapse," health-care reform dominated his agenda and will stand as at least one pillar of the legacy he leaves behind. He has come under sharp criticism for the size and shape of the legislation, including from former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, who has said he would prefer that the Senate defeat the bill rather than pass what he considers weak legislation.
In the interview, Obama vigorously defended the legislation, saying he is "not just grudgingly supporting the bill. I am very enthusiastic about what we have achieved."
"Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill," Obama said. "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill."
In listing those priorities, he cited the 30 million uninsured Americans projected to receive coverage, estimated savings of more than $1 trillion over the next two decades, a "patients' bill of rights on steroids," and tax breaks to help small businesses pay for employee coverage.
Those elements are in the House and Senate versions of the legislation; their competing proposals will have to be reconciled in conference committee next year. The House bill includes a government-run insurance plan favored by progressive Democrats; the Senate version does not. "I didn't campaign on the public option," Obama said in the interview.
Throughout the health-care debate, the president has declined to weigh in with specific preferences. The tactic has exasperated his supporters, but his advisers have deemed it key in keeping the bill moving through a balky Congress. Obama called the public option his preferred choice to ensure broad coverage and provide cost-cutting competition to the private insurers. But he has never demanded that it be part of a final bill.
"We don't feel that the core elements to help the American people have been compromised in any significant way," Obama said. "Do these pieces of legislation have exactly everything I want? Of course not. But they have the things that are necessary to reduce costs for businesses, families and the government."
Obama highlighted some of the less well-known measures that he said "in a normal legislative year would be considered really big achievements." Those include bills to ensure equal pay, expand hate-crimes categories, extend health insurance to an additional 4 million children, place stronger regulations on tobacco products, reform the military procurement process and implement consumer credit-card protections. He also noted the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court.
But David M. Kennedy, a presidential historian at Stanford University who has written about Roosevelt, characterized some of those measures as "Clintonesque -- trying to make a big deal about small things." He said Obama's stimulus plan showed that "the president and Congress learned some lessons from the Great Depression, that you had to counterpunch really hard."
"But it remains to be seen, in my view, what the health care will look like," Kennedy said.
A full plate from the start
On taking office, Obama, a former senator whose senior staff members include many Hill veterans, settled on a legislative strategy that departed from those of his predecessors. He decided that rather than pursue big pieces of legislation one at a time, his administration would seek health-care reform, a cap-and-trade bill, financial reform legislation and other measures simultaneously.
"In some ways, we just didn't have an option," Obama said. "Because of the financial crisis, we had to make a series of decisions that, back in 2007 when my presidential campaign began, were not at the top of our list."
Robert Dallek, a presidential historian specializing in Johnson's tenure, said that despite Democratic majorities, "the fact he's [Obama's] put forward such a bold agenda has made it exceptionally difficult to get bills passed."
Dallek said Roosevelt had the "advantage" of a huge crisis to bridge partisan division over the New Deal. Johnson, he said, was "able to invoke [John F.] Kennedy's legacy" to push through civil rights and Medicare legislation.
"While Obama has had a crisis, it's not the sort that the opposition would give in to his demands," he said. "Obama, in a sense, has had a tougher assignment than either Roosevelt or Johnson had. The fact that he's getting so close on this health-care bill speaks to his talent of leadership, doggedness and determination to put across the biggest piece of social legislation since Social Security."
In the interview, Obama said he "could have put off" health-care reform, adding: "There are some people who would say that wouldn't be such a bad thing."
"Given how difficult fighting the special interests has been on Capitol Hill, it's clear that if we hadn't decided to make a bold step forward this year, we probably wouldn't have had the political capital to get it done in the future," said Obama, who has argued that health-care reform is essential to the country's future fiscal and financial health.
Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution, said that "the word that comes to mind" in assessing Obama's first-year legislative record is "incompleteness."
He added: "That reflects a huge agenda and perhaps an arrogance about how much he thought he could do. But he really thought there was that much of a wind behind him, and he certainly had a lot of people who knew an awful lot about Congress who helped him make that decision."
Obama acknowledged that cap-and-trade and financial reform legislation -- both of which the House has passed -- would carry over into the midterm election year, when political calculations slow down Congress. "I think there's no doubt that energy legislation is going to be tough," he said. "But I feel very confident in making an argument to the American people that we should be a leader in clean-energy technology, that that will be one of the key elements that will drive growth for years to come."
Congressman Larry Kissell may have made a fatal error in judgment.
It is the type of error that no Congressman especially a first term Congressman can made and survive and that error is not staying in touch with his constituency.
The Democratic Congressman representing the 8th District of North Carolina angers supporters by voting against the health-care bill.
Fueled by the liberal grass roots, Democrat Larry Kissell stitched together a winning message about jobs and kitchen-table concerns, including rising health insurance costs, and he rode the Obama wave to unseat a five-term GOP congressman by 11 percentage points. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/17/AR2009121704799.html
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, AP
President Barack Obama appealed directly to senators’ desire for history-making change and their short-term political fears Sunday in urging them to stand together and overhaul the nation’s health care system.
At the request of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Obama made a trip to the Capitol during a rare weekend legislative session to ask rank-and-file Democrats to work for compromise and do it quickly. Vice President Joe Biden joined Obama for the closed-door meeting.
Greeted by applause, Obama spoke for 45 minutes and took no questions, according to several lawmakers. He highlighted the progress he said his administration has made on jobs, and focused on the implications for remaking a health care system that represents one-sixth of the economy.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said Obama described the health care bill as the “most significant social legislation in decades so don’t lose it.”
Reid called the weekend session as he races to finish the 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bill by Christmas. The legislation would provide coverage to more than 30 million additional people over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. There would be new marketplaces where people could shop for and compare insurance plans, and lower-income people would get subsidies to help them afford coverage.
The federal-state Medicaid program for the poor would grow, and there would be a ban on unpopular insurance company practices such as denying coverage based on medical history.
With midterm congressional elections looming next year, Democrats are determined to revamp health care, achieving a long-sought goal that has proven elusive for decades.
“In short, he (Obama) pledged to work with us in any meaningful way that he can. …. There are still a few things we have to work out in the bill, but issues are being narrowed as we speak,” Reid told reporters after the meeting.
Obama and Reid must unite liberals and moderates in the 60-member caucus, even as moderates balk over abortion and the option of government-run health insurance. Sixty is the precise number needed to overcome Republican stalling tactics in the 100-member Senate, so Reid doesn’t have a vote to spare.
“I think if we don’t deliver, we’ve got a problem,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., when asked on a Sunday talk show about the political consquences for Democrats should they fail to produce a bill.
Moderate and liberal lawmakers met throughout the day Saturday to try to find a compromise on the government insurance plan that they could all support and that could also potentially attract Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the one Republican to vote for the Democrats’ health overhaul bill in committee.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the second-ranking Senate GOP leader, said that right now his party remained united against the Democratic bill, which he complained would “get the government very deeply involved into health care at an enormous expense.”
A new idea being discussed was national nonprofit insurance plans that would be administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the popular Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a key centrist, was enthusiastic about the idea, which she’s proposed in different forms in the past. “I think it bodes well for being able to do what we want to do, which is to create greater choice and options in the marketplace,” she said.
Liberals were cool to the proposal, holding out for a fully government-run plan.
“I’m willing to talk to anybody about anything but they haven’t sold it yet,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. “We have compromised enough on the public option.”
Someone will have to give. But despite the apparent divide, lawmakers and White House officials sounded increasingly optimistic.
“It’s going really well. They’re having a lot of really productive meetings,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, told reporters in the Capitol Saturday. “It’s about where it should be at this point in the legislative process.”
While negotiations continued behind the scenes, the Senate rejected a Lincoln-sponsored amendment to limit the tax deductions insurance companies take for what they pay their top executives. The vote was 56-42 on a measure that needed 60 votes.
Lawmakers also voted down a measure by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., to limit plaintiff lawyers’ fees in medical malpractice cases, a politically fraught issue that pits Republicans against Democrats. The vote was 32-66.
The House passed its version of a health care bill last month. The competing versions would have to be reconciled before sent to Obama for his signature.
A busy schedule limited Obama’s opportunities to speak directly to senators as they work to complete the legislation. The president will be in Oslo on Dec. 10 to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and then plans to attend climate change talks in Copenhagen shortly thereafter. Obama heads to Hawaii on Dec. 23 for Christmas.
Feinstein and Kyl spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Despite falling unemployment rates overall, African-Americans face the biggest uphill battle in their search for employment.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- While the overall unemployment rate for Americans fell in November, the jobless gap between African-Americans and all other races actually rose, continuing a disturbing trend that has many lawmakers up in arms.
The black community has suffered the hardest during the economic downturn, with an unemployment rate that currently stands at 15.6%. That's a much higher rate than for all of the other races that the Labor Department tracks, including Hispanics (12.7%), whites (9.3%) and Asians (7.3%).
The jobless rate for blacks has also grown much faster than for other races.
The difference between the unemployment rates for blacks and whites fell to an all-time low of 3.5 percentage points in August 2007. As the economy fell into a recession, that gap rapidly grew. By April 2009, the gap hit a 13-year high, doubling to a staggering 7 percentage points.
Though the separation between white and black jobless rates has narrowed slightly since the spring, it is still trending higher, rising to 6.3 percentage points in November from 6.2 points in the previous month.
Washington's solution
The trend has many in Washington heated.
"We're so focused on 'too big to fail' that we're treating this issue as 'too little to matter,'" said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus' jobs task force. "We have a serious problem, and the army of the unemployed is growing darker by the month."
Cleaver said the main reason for such a high rate of black unemployment is a lack of opportunities for proper job training in urban communities. That's an issue that the Obama administration says it is working on with stimulus money and other government-funded programs.
"Traditionally, these groups are most impacted when there's a recession," Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told CNNMoney.com.
Solis said that through stimulus and Labor Department grant programs, the government has targeted job training in communities with high unemployment, particularly heavily urban communities with high concentrations of African-Americans and Latinos.
"We have had some success in doing that, but of course we have a long way to go," Solis said.
Washington's job solution
But Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., argued that many of those programs are wasted money. She said a large amount of government dollars are spent on funding private post-secondary schools that are targeted to urban communities, and she believes the schools are "rip-offs."
"They're soliciting people to sign up for training on job titles that don't widely exist like 'nurses assistants,'" said Waters, also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. "That money should be used for training for jobs that will be around in the new economy like green jobs and new technologies."
Furthermore, Rep. Cleaver noted that 50% of the nation's foreclosures are on homes owned by African-Americans, which makes the jobs situation for blacks all the more urgent.
"If you're in a training program and you have a notice that you'll be kicked out of your house if you don't make your payment in two weeks, chances are high that you're going to quit the training program," Cleaver said. "We need some immediate help from a program where the government funds municipalities and non-profits to hire individuals to do real work right now."
0:00 /03:55Magic's brand beats HIV
That theme was echoed by entrepreneur and former basketball great Magic Johnson, who attended President Obama's jobs summit on Thursday. Johnson said that training is key to narrowing the unemployment gap, but the government must create plans that are targeted to specific racial and ethnic communities that have different labor issues.
"We have to find a way to give these [African-American] people a skill to put them to work," Johnson told CNN's Larry King on Thursday. "We have to come up with a general plan, a Latino plan and an African-American plan because that general plan won't affect our community."
The problem of racism
Training is not the only hurdle that needs to be crossed in order to narrow the jobless gap among races, Education presents another challenge. There remains a high degree of inequality in employment for blacks and whites who have received equal education.
The rate of unemployment for whites with a college degree is 4.3%, but for blacks, it is 5.8%. For those with a high school diploma but no college, the unemployment rate is 9.1% for whites and 15% for blacks.
"We don't like to talk about it, but there's still discrimination in our society," said Waters. "Black college graduates can't get professional jobs as easily as whites. We have blacks disguising their voices on the telephone or trying to hide their blackness in responding to job announcements. It's real."
Waters said that when Obama became the first African-American president, there was a great hope in the black community that some myths and stereotypes about blacks would cease. But racism isn't something that can be easily overcome, Waters said.
However, there are steps that African-Americans can take take to improve their job situation, the Congresswoman added. For example, she encourages the unemployed members of the black community who have been unable to find work in their fields to take risks in their job searches.
She suggested some people opt for less desirable jobs, even if they consider the jobs "beneath them," so they can look for work while still earning a paycheck.
For others, she urged people to interview for jobs slightly above their qualifications and offer to take less money while they are in training. Lastly, she encouraged African-Americans to consider moving if there are no jobs in their areas.
"You have to survive, you have to keep going," Waters said. "Be persistent in what you do, and take a chance. A lot of that really works."
First Published: December 4, 2009: 2:20 PM ET
When the final votes in the Atlanta mayor’s runoff are counted, it’s likely the black political machine that has controlled this city for four decades will pull through one more time.
But just barely.
Ballots are still being tallied. Unofficial results show black former state legislator Kasim Reed ahead of white councilwoman Mary Norwood by a mere 715 votes. A recount is inevitable.
The campaign ended up in a runoff when none of the candidates in November’s general election garnered more than 50 percent of the vote.
The reality is that Atlanta’s black population has shrunk and its white population has increased, and black political power in this beacon of African-American culture is no longer the united force it once was.
AP
By Andrew Sullivan
The Daily Dish, "The Atlantic"
It's an odd formulation in some ways as "the right" is not really a single entity. But in so far as it means the dominant mode of discourse among the institutions and blogs and magazines and newspapers and journals that support the GOP, Charles Johnson is absolutely right in my view to get off that wagon for the reasons has has stated. Read his testament. It is full of emotion, but also of honesty.
The relationship of a writer to a party or movement is, of course, open to discussion. I understand the point that Jonah Goldberg makes that politics is not about pure intellectual individualism; it requires understanding power, its organization and the actual choices that real politics demands. You can hold certain principles inviolate and yet also be prepared to back politicians or administrations that violate them because it's better than the actual alternatives at hand. I also understand the emotional need to have a default party position, other things being equal. But there has to come a point at which a movement or party so abandons core principles or degenerates into such a rhetorical septic system that you have to take a stand. It seems to me that now is a critical time for more people whose principles lie broadly on the center-right to do so - against the conservative degeneracy in front of us. Those who have taken such a stand - to one degree or other - demand respect. And this blog, while maintaining its resistance to cliquishness, has been glad to link to writers as varied as Bruce Bartlett or David Frum or David Brooks or Steve Chapman or Kathleen Parker or Conor Friedersdorf or Jim Manzi or Jeffrey Hart or Daniel Larison who have broken ranks in some way or other.
I can't claim the same courage as these folks because I've always been fickle in partisan terms. To have supported Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Dole and Bush and Kerry and Obama suggests I never had a party to quit. I think that may be because I wasn't born here. I have no deep loyalty to either American party in my bones or family or background, and admire presidents from both parties. My partisanship remains solely British - I'm a loyal Tory. But my attachment to the Anglo-American conservative political tradition, as I understand it, is real and deep and the result of sincere reflection on the world as I see it. And I want that tradition to survive because I believe it is a vital complement to liberalism in sustaining the genius and wonder of the modern West.
For these reasons, I found it intolerable after 2003 to support the movement that goes by the name "conservative" in America. I still do, even though I am much more of a limited government type than almost any Democrat and cannot bring myself to call myself a liberal (because I'm not). My reasons were not dissimilar to Charles Johnson, who, like me, was horrified by 9/11, loathes Jihadism, and wants to defeat it as effectively as possible. And his little manifesto prompts me to write my own (the full version is in "The Conservative Soul"). Here goes:
I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.
I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.
I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.
I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.
I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.
I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.
I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.
I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.
I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.
I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.
I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.
I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.
I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.
I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.
I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.
I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.
Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.
To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.
And increasingly, I'm not alone.
