SanLuisObispo.com: Politics

Obama will meet Netanyahu at White House

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:55 PST

By By STEVEN R. HURST -- The White House announced Sunday that President Barack Obama would be meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister's trip to Washington to address Jewish groups, ending days of uncertainty.

Netanyahu was to arrive in the U.S. capital Sunday night for a speaking engagement at the three-day 2009 General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America. He will meet with Obama on Monday evening.

U.S.-Israeli relations have been strained since Netanyahu rejected Obama's demand that the Israeli government stop building or expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians say Israel has deeply encroached into land the Palestinians claim for a future state.

House health care vote is just the first step

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:55 PST

By By DAVID LIGHTMAN -- Any momentum from Saturday's historic House approval of a sweeping health care overhaul is likely to be short-lived as the focus moves to the Senate, where progress has been stalled for weeks.

Washington lawmakers on Sunday had two views of what the House's 220 to 215 vote means.

One was that the narrowness of the vote, with 39 Democrats opposed, showed the weakness of the bill. President Barack Obama, whose top lieutenants lobbied furiously, including a presidential visit to the Capitol 11 hours before the vote.

Obama calls new election law a milestone for Iraq

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:05 PST

By By STEVEN R. HURST -- President Barack Obama hailed the Iraqi parliament's passage Sunday of a much-delayed election law, declaring it a milestone as the Iraqi people take charge of their future.

In a Rose Garden statement, Obama said the development would facilitate national elections in January, as required by the constitution, and ease fears of a delay in withdrawing American combat forces by September.

Obama acknowledged the continuing sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq, and said approval of the law was more evidence that Iraqis had chosen democracy over that chaos that threatened the country with civil war in 2006 and 2007.

GOP officials say Dems put agenda ahead of country

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:05 PST

By By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL -- Democrats just don't get the election message from voters and are pushing a liberal, big government agenda at their party's peril, Republican officials said Sunday as they predicted a political price after the majority's victory on health care.

Voters are "tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers," said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 House GOP leader, pointing to GOP victories in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey last week.

The Democratic-controlled House narrowly approved a health care bill Saturday night, with 39 Democrats voting against it and a single Republican voting in its favor. President Barack Obama's top domestic initiative faces a high hurdle in the Senate, which must pass its own bill and then negotiate a compromise with the House to craft a final measure.

Senator: Senate will investigate Army shootings

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:25 PST

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee says he plans to begin a congressional investigation of the shootings at Fort Hood.

An Army major, Nidal Malik Hasan (nih-DAHL' mah-LEEK' hah-SAHN'), is suspected of killing 13 people and wounding 29 others at the Army post in Texas.

Sen. Joe Lieberman says he wants to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack. He says he also wants to find out whether the Army missed warning signs that Hasan was becoming extreme in his Islamist views.

Casey says war in Afghanistan needs more US troops

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:05 PST

The Army's chief of staff says he believes more troops are needed in Afghanistan. But Gen. George Casey isn't saying exactly how many more should be sent into the war.

Casey says more troops would help cut into the Taliban's successes while U.S. forces continue training Afghan security forces.

President Barack Obama is considering several options to increase the number of troops fighting in Afghanistan, including Gen. Stanley McChrystal's preference of about 40,000 additional U.S. forces next year.

Casey: Shootings leading to a hard look at Army

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:00 PST

The Army's chief of staff says the Army is taking a hard look at itself to make certain that something like the Fort Hood rampage doesn't happen again.

The shootings left 13 dead and 29 wounded. The alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (nih-DAHL' mah-LEEK' hah-SAHN'), was wounded by civilian police.

Gen. George Casey warns against reaching conclusions about motives until investigators have fully explored the attack. Early reports suggest Hasan, a Muslim, was angry about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and worried about his pending deployment to Afghanistan.

Alleged shooter tied to mosque of 9/11 hijackers

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:20 PST

By By PAMELA HESS -- The family of the alleged Fort Hood shooter held his mother's funeral at the same Virginia mosque that two Sept. 11 hijackers attended in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there.

Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 and wounding 29 at the Texas military base, held his mother's funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper.

As oceans fall ill, Washington bureaucrats squabble

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:15 PST

By By LES BLUMENTHAL -- Off the coast of Washington state, mysterious algae mixed with sea foam have killed more than 8,000 seabirds, puzzling scientists. A thousand miles off California, researchers have discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex roughly twice the size of Texas filled with tiny bits of plastic and other debris.

Every summer a dead zone of oxygen-depleted water the size of Massachusetts forms in the Gulf of Mexico; others have been found off Oregon and in the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie, and the Baltic and Black seas. Some studies indicate that North Pole seawater could turn caustic in 10 years, and that the Southern Ocean already may be saturated with carbon dioxide.

A recent bird kill off the coast of Washington state came without warning, said Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "There will be more surprises than that," she said.

Couple's book tackles evangelicals' questions on climate change

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:15 PST

By By RENEE SCHOOF -- As an evangelical Christian living in Texas, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe found that many conservatives had questions about climate change based on things they'd heard on talk radio.

So Hayhoe and her husband, Andrew Farley, the pastor of a nondenominational church in Lubbock, Texas, decided to answer the questions in a new book from religious publisher FaithWords, "A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-based Decisions."

"The observed increase in greenhouse gas levels, due to human production, is the only explanation we can find to account for what has happened to our world," Farley and Hayhoe wrote. "We've dusted for fingerprints. There's only one likely suspect remaining. It's us."

Obama's Asia tour kicks off at critical time on home front

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:15 PST

By By MARGARET TALEV -- President Barack Obama will leave the country for a four-nation tour of Asia starting Wednesday despite a host of domestic concerns, including the massacre at Fort Hood, a sharply rising jobless rate, his health care legislation stalled in the Senate and his Afghanistan troop decision still pending.

He planned his Nov. 11-19 trip around the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Singapore, but added stops in Japan, China and South Korea. The itinerary reflects the growing importance of East Asia - especially China - to everything from financing U.S. debt and powering the global economic recovery to climate change, disease control and containing nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.

Asia's importance in global affairs rose over the past decade as U.S. foreign policy was dominated by the war on terror, and as U.S. domestic spending and borrowing from foreign countries spiraled.

House Roll Call: How they voted on abortion issue

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:55 PST

The 240-194 roll call Saturday by which the House voted to prohibit federal funding of abortions in a Democratic-written health care bill.

A "yes" vote is a vote to prohibit federal funding of abortions.

Voting yes were 64 Democrats and 176 Republicans.

House Roll Call: Health care

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:30 PST

The 220-215 roll call Saturday by which the House passed a Democratic-written health care bill.

A "yes" vote is a vote to pass the bill.

Voting yes were 219 Democrats and 1 Republican.

Key details of Democrats' health overhaul bill

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:05 PST

The House health care bill passed Saturday would:

-Require most Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

-Expand health care coverage to 36 million more people over the next decade.

House passes historic health-care overhaul bill after day of wrangling

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:45 PST

By By DAVID LIGHTMAN -- The House of Representatives Saturday passed, by a 220-215 vote, historic health-care overhaul legislation that would require virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance and create a government-run health insurance plan to help them do so.

If passed by the Senate, the bill would bring about the most sweeping changes in the American health care system since Medicare was created 44 years ago.

Supporters of the measure burst into cheers and applause on the House floor as it became clear the measure had won, but the vote was excruciatingly close, just two more than the bare minimum needed. One Republican, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted for the bill; 39 Democrats voted against.