Obama Administration to Protest Latest Attack on U.S. Embassy in Syria

Published July 11, 2011

| Associated Press

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Friday: Pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters gather in front the U.S. Embassy in Damascus.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will formally protest Monday’s attack on the American embassy in Syria and may seek compensation for damage caused when a mob breached the wall of the compound before being dispersed by U.S. Marine guard.

A U.S. official said the State Department would summon a senior Syrian diplomat to condemn the assault on the embassy and demand that Syria uphold international treaty obligations to protect foreign diplomatic missions. The official said Syrian security forces who are supposed to guard the mission were slow to respond to the attack by supporters of President Bashar Assad, which was allegedly incited by government affiliated media.

Because the Marine guard contingent at the embassy reacted quickly, the attackers were not able to break into any buildings on the compound and there were no injuries reported to embassy personnel, who are all accounted for, the official said. But the official said the attackers did damage the chancery building. The damage is still being assessed, the official said.

Witnesses said the protesters smashed windows and raised a Syrian flag on the compound. They also wrote anti-US graffiti referring to the U.S. ambassador as a “dog,” the witnesses said. The protests were over visits by the U.S. and French ambassadors last week to the opposition stronghold of Hama in central Syria.

On Sunday, the State Department complained that pro-government demonstrators threw tomatoes, eggs and rocks at the embassy over the weekend to protest Ambassador Robert Ford’s visit to Hama. There were no reports of injuries, but a senior department official said two embassy employees were pelted with food during the 31-hour demonstration.

Ford on Thursday visited Hama where he was greeted by friendly crowds who put flowers on his windshield and olive branches on his car, chanting, “Down with the regime!” The State Department said Ford made the trip to express support for the right of Syrian people to demonstrate peacefully.

The Syrian government denounced Ford’s visit, saying the unauthorized trip was proof that Washington was inciting violence in the Arab nation. The main headline of state-run daily Al-Thawra read, “Ford in Hama and Syrians are angry.”

The Obama administration has criticized Assad’s government for its violent crackdown on peaceful protests against his 11-year rule. Clashes between protesters and Assad’s supporters have resulted in the deaths of 1,600, in addition to 350 members of the security forces.

But the White House has so far refrained from calling for an end to the Assad family’s four decades of rule, leery of pressing too hard as it tries to wind down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and faces criticism for being part of the coalition battling Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

Congressional Republicans have pressed the administration to withdraw Ford from Syria, an ally of Iran that supports the Islamic militant groups Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The U.S. did not send an ambassador to Damascus for five years in protest of Syria’s alleged role in the assassination of a political leader in Lebanon.

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In this Feb. 15 file photo, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaks at the Education Summit in Denver.

An Education Department official said Sunday that the department is “concerned” about the wave of investigations and allegations regarding cheating on standardized tests in several school systems, but stressed that most schools are “doing the right thing.” 

The latest development is in Washington, D.C., where the Education Department’s inspector general joined the city’s investigation into possible cheating following a newspaper report claiming more than 100 city schools had unusually high rates of erasures on exams between 2008 and 2010. The Washington Post first reported on the federal involvement.

The news came after a yearlong investigation in Atlanta showed 178 educators were involved in a scandal in which they changed answers or helped students on tests used to meet federal benchmarks. 

Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton, while declining to comment specifically on the D.C. probe, said Sunday that it’s important investigators get “to the bottom” of the cheating claims. 

“People want to have confidence in that process,” he told FoxNews.com. “It’s clear that the real crime here is that these kids are being cheated out of the world-class education they deserve.” 

Still, Hamilton said the remaining investigations have to be allowed to run their course. 

“We feel that a vast majority of schools and school districts across the country are doing the right thing,” he said. 

Education Secretary Arne Duncan had already warned state school officials across the country last month to shape up as cheating allegations were on the rise. In a letter first reported by The Baltimore Sun and confirmed by FoxNews.com, Duncan urged the officials to do “everything you can to ensure the integrity” of standardized tests. 

“State and local officials share responsibility for defending against security breaches and threats to data quality,” Duncan wrote. He urged them to review “assessment security” and improve that security if necessary. He suggested officials make “unannounced, on-site visits” when tests are being administered, among other changes. 

The letter came as Baltimore officials announced that two more elementary schools, in addition to one last year, had cheated on standardized tests. 

The Georgia investigation was possibly the most extensive. It involved two former district attorneys with subpoena power, 2,100 interviews and up to 60 agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The probe found the former Atlanta schools superintendent knew about cheating allegations and may have tried to hide them. Investigators found a “culture of fear” in the school system that led to educators lying. 

In Washington, Mayor Vincent Gray said he would ask that more city investigators be devoted to the probe after a reporter told him Friday only one was assigned. 

“We continue to pay close attention to the integrity of the testing process,” said Gray, who oversees the city schools. “We don’t want questions raised about gains … we want the gains to be the result of children who have learned.” 

In May, city officials said test results for three D.C. classrooms were invalidated because of proven cases of cheating. Wayne Ryan, a school official promoted after test scores at Noyes Education Campus rose dramatically while he was principal there, resigned in June after the school was flagged for high erasure rates. 

Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said Friday that one teacher had been fired in the past year. 

“Any place that we’ve had a confirmation for a testing impropriety, we have moved quickly to invalidate the scores and remove the teacher,” she said. 

FoxNews.com’s Judson Berger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

AP

In this Feb. 15 file photo, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaks at the Education Summit in Denver.

An Education Department official said Sunday that the department is “concerned” about the wave of investigations and allegations regarding cheating on standardized tests in several school systems, but stressed that most schools are “doing the right thing.” 

The latest development is in Washington, D.C., where the Education Department’s inspector general joined the city’s investigation into possible cheating following a newspaper report claiming more than 100 city schools had unusually high rates of erasures on exams between 2008 and 2010. The Washington Post first reported on the federal involvement.

The news came after a yearlong investigation in Atlanta showed 178 educators were involved in a scandal in which they changed answers or helped students on tests used to meet federal benchmarks. 

Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton, while declining to comment specifically on the D.C. probe, said Sunday that it’s important investigators get “to the bottom” of the cheating claims. 

“People want to have confidence in that process,” he told FoxNews.com. “It’s clear that the real crime here is that these kids are being cheated out of the world-class education they deserve.” 

Still, Hamilton said the remaining investigations have to be allowed to run their course. 

“We feel that a vast majority of schools and school districts across the country are doing the right thing,” he said. 

Education Secretary Arne Duncan had already warned state school officials across the country last month to shape up as cheating allegations were on the rise. In a letter first reported by The Baltimore Sun and confirmed by FoxNews.com, Duncan urged the officials to do “everything you can to ensure the integrity” of standardized tests. 

“State and local officials share responsibility for defending against security breaches and threats to data quality,” Duncan wrote. He urged them to review “assessment security” and improve that security if necessary. He suggested officials make “unannounced, on-site visits” when tests are being administered, among other changes. 

The letter came as Baltimore officials announced that two more elementary schools, in addition to one last year, had cheated on standardized tests. 

The Georgia investigation was possibly the most extensive. It involved two former district attorneys with subpoena power, 2,100 interviews and up to 60 agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The probe found the former Atlanta schools superintendent knew about cheating allegations and may have tried to hide them. Investigators found a “culture of fear” in the school system that led to educators lying. 

In Washington, Mayor Vincent Gray said he would ask that more city investigators be devoted to the probe after a reporter told him Friday only one was assigned. 

“We continue to pay close attention to the integrity of the testing process,” said Gray, who oversees the city schools. “We don’t want questions raised about gains … we want the gains to be the result of children who have learned.” 

In May, city officials said test results for three D.C. classrooms were invalidated because of proven cases of cheating. Wayne Ryan, a school official promoted after test scores at Noyes Education Campus rose dramatically while he was principal there, resigned in June after the school was flagged for high erasure rates. 

Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said Friday that one teacher had been fired in the past year. 

“Any place that we’ve had a confirmation for a testing impropriety, we have moved quickly to invalidate the scores and remove the teacher,” she said. 

FoxNews.com’s Judson Berger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

U.S. Complains to Syria After 31-Hour Protest Outside Embassy

Published July 10, 2011

| FoxNews.com

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Pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters gather in front the U.S. Embassy in Damascus July 8.

Protesters backed by the Syrian government rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Damascus for 31 hours this weekend, throwing projectiles at the compound and at one point pelting two Embassy employees with food, the State Department said Sunday. The U.S. has since complained to the Syrian government. 

A senior State Department official said Damascus organized the “angry” demonstration, which started Friday and didn’t end until Saturday evening, in opposition to U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford’s visit to the turbulent city of Hama earlier in the week. 

“Protesters eventually threw tomatoes, eggs, and later glass and rocks at the Embassy. Two Embassy employees were struck by food,” the official said in a statement. 

The official said Ford “registered U.S. displeasure with these events” at a previously scheduled meeting Sunday with Syria’s foreign minister. 

Syria’s minister likewise filed a complaint with Ford over his visit to Hama. However, Ford urged Damascus not to exploit his visit for political gain. 

“Ambassador Ford made clear that Syrian government incitement of Syrians against the United States, including through aggressive protesters in front of the Embassy, must stop, and the Syrian government must not use his visit to Hama — meant only to gather information and support freedom of expression — as propaganda,” the official said. 

Hama was the scene of a massive demonstration Friday against the government of President Bashar Assad. It is also a symbolically important city, being the site where Assad’s father Hafez steamrolled a budding rebellion by ordering the massacre of thousands in 1982. 

Following the protest outside the U.S. Embassy, Ford called on Syria to protect diplomats and their facilities. 

According to the State Department, Syria’s foreign minister assured him the government would protect the Embassy and its personnel. 

“We expect the Syrian government to do so,” the State official said.

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U.S. Complains to Syria After 31-Hour Protest Outside Embassy

Published July 10, 2011

| FoxNews.com

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Pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters gather in front the U.S. Embassy in Damascus July 8.

Protesters backed by the Syrian government rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Damascus for 31 hours this weekend, throwing projectiles at the compound and at one point pelting two Embassy employees with food, the State Department said Sunday. The U.S. has since complained to the Syrian government. 

A senior State Department official said Damascus organized the “angry” demonstration, which started Friday and didn’t end until Saturday evening, in opposition to U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford’s visit to the turbulent city of Hama earlier in the week. 

“Protesters eventually threw tomatoes, eggs, and later glass and rocks at the Embassy. Two Embassy employees were struck by food,” the official said in a statement. 

The official said Ford “registered U.S. displeasure with these events” at a previously scheduled meeting Sunday with Syria’s foreign minister. 

Syria’s minister likewise filed a complaint with Ford over his visit to Hama. However, Ford urged Damascus not to exploit his visit for political gain. 

“Ambassador Ford made clear that Syrian government incitement of Syrians against the United States, including through aggressive protesters in front of the Embassy, must stop, and the Syrian government must not use his visit to Hama — meant only to gather information and support freedom of expression — as propaganda,” the official said. 

Hama was the scene of a massive demonstration Friday against the government of President Bashar Assad. It is also a symbolically important city, being the site where Assad’s father Hafez steamrolled a budding rebellion by ordering the massacre of thousands in 1982. 

Following the protest outside the U.S. Embassy, Ford called on Syria to protect diplomats and their facilities. 

According to the State Department, Syria’s foreign minister assured him the government would protect the Embassy and its personnel. 

“We expect the Syrian government to do so,” the State official said.

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July 10: President Barack Obama meets with congressional leadership in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

President Obama tells congressional leaders to come back to the White House Monday after negotiations on Sunday deadlocked over a $4 trillion plan that includes tax increases and changes to Medicare and Medicaid. 

The president and lawmakers met for over an hour Sunday at the White House. A source close to the discussions tells Fox News that the president continued to push for the $4 trillion plan, took a short-term idea off the table and also told congressional leaders to come back Monday with a view on what could pass both the House and Senate.

The president will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the status of the debt talks.

House Speaker John Boehner said during the meeting that he believes the package based on Vice President Biden’s group would be the “most viable option at this time for moving forward.” Boehner also said that there is “no path” for a bigger deal.

Instead, Boehner told the group that a smaller package of about $2 trillion to $2.4 trillion was more realistic.

Boehner told Biden that he won’t drop his “dollar-to-dollar” ratio of cuts to debt ceiling increase. Furthermore, the president indicated he wouldn’t sign a deal that didn’t extend the debt limit until at least Jan. 1, 2013.

A senior congressional Democratic source tells Fox News that Democrats are still “on the same page” and would prefer to “see the big deal” that was pulled off the table Saturday night by Boehner.

The essence, according to the Democratic aide, is that Republicans are “refusing to take yes for an answer because of their ideological adherence on revenues.”

In addition, there were discussions of Biden’s framework and how they could work off of that toward a potential agreement.

A spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell slammed the president on entitlement reform following the meeting.

“The members will meet again tomorrow, though it’s disappointing that the president is unable to bring his own party around to the entitlement reform that he put on the table. And it’s baffling that the president and his party continue to insist on massive tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis while refusing to take significant action on spending reductions at a time of record deficits,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told Fox News.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman says the GOP is trying to take the “easy way out.”

“Senator Reid remains firmly committed to getting the most robust deal possible. He stressed the need for an approach that is balanced between spending and revenues, in terms of timing, specificity and dollars. Senator Reid believes the stakes are too high for Republicans to keep taking the easy way out, and he is committed to meeting every day until we forge a deal, however long that takes,” spokesman Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that she still wants a “large, bipartisan agreement.”

“We came into this weekend with the prospect that we could achieve a grand bargain. We are still hopeful for a large bipartisan agreement.”

Before Sunday’s meeting started, the president said a debt deal with Congress needs to be worked out in the next 10 days as the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling looms.

As the meeting opened, Obama and the leaders sat around the table in Sunday casual dress. Asked whether the White House and Congress could “work it out in 10 days,” Obama replied, “We need to.”

Partisan tensions were flaring ahead of the critical summit, where aides say the president planned to make one last push for a major deficit-reduction deal amid doubts on both sides. 

The talks still happened despite a surprise announcement from Boehner that rattled the almost-optimistic mood surrounding the negotiations. 

The speaker, claiming the White House was pushing too hard for tax hikes while not pushing hard enough for entitlement reform, said Saturday evening that lawmakers should aim for a smaller deficit-reduction deal. Instead of the $4 trillion package officials were talking about just days ago, Boehner suggested negotiators aim for a deal that would be worth about half that over the next decade. 

McConnell, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” confirmed that a $4 trillion package is now off the table. 

“Everything they’ve told me and the speaker is that to get a big package would require big tax increases in the middle of the economic situation,” McConnell told “Fox News Sunday.” 

Earlier in the week, Democrats had been sparring with the White House over its perceived willingness to deal with the GOP on entitlement reform. But Boehner’s statement on Sunday turned their focus back to hammering Republicans for their insistence on no tax hikes in the deficit talks. 

“All they want is to cut Medicare/Social Security and protect the rich,” a senior Democratic congressional aide told Fox News. 

Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said there must be “shared sacrifice” in any deal. 

“Everything has to be on the table. But pretty quickly, my Republican colleagues said, everything should be on the table except taxes. That doesn’t seem fair,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” 

On the other side, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., accused Obama of “gaming Republicans.” 

“It’s hard to take him seriously here,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

The partisan recriminations cast a pall over the talks Sunday evening. After a bipartisan meeting at the White House Thursday, officials were talking ambitiously about a grand bargain — one which might cut spending, address all three major entitlements, achieve tax reform and make other monumental changes in exchange for a “yes” vote on raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. 

The fact that Republicans — those pushing hardest for spending cuts and entitlement reform — were scaling back those goals Sunday signaled the negotiations were still in a tenuous place. 

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley nevertheless said Obama will push for a big deal out of Sunday’s meeting. 

“Everyone agrees that a number around $4 trillion is the number that will make a serious dent on our deficit,” Daley said. “That’s what he wants to see. … This president’s still committed to doing big things.” 

Daley, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” called Boehner’s statement “unfortunate.” 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated Sunday that a failure to negotiate a package and raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2 would have “catastrophic” consequences for the economy. 

However, he and other officials expressed confidence that no matter the course of negotiations, Congress will ultimately vote to lift the cap.

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

House Speaker John Boehner listens as President Obama speaks during a meeting with congressional leadership on the debt July 7 in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

Related Stories
McConnell: $4 Trillion Deficit-Reduction Deal Likely Off the Table
U.S. Default Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ But It Won’t Happen, Geithner Says

AP

July 10: President Barack Obama meets with congressional leadership in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

President Obama tells congressional leaders to come back to the White House Monday after negotiations on Sunday deadlocked over a $4 trillion plan that includes tax increases and changes to Medicare and Medicaid. 

The president and lawmakers met for over an hour Sunday at the White House. A source close to the discussions tells Fox News that the president continued to push for the $4 trillion plan, took a short-term idea off the table and also told congressional leaders to come back Monday with a view on what could pass both the House and Senate.

The president will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the status of the debt talks.

House Speaker John Boehner said during the meeting that he believes the package based on Vice President Biden’s group would be the “most viable option at this time for moving forward.” Boehner also said that there is “no path” for a bigger deal.

Instead, Boehner told the group that a smaller package of about $2 trillion to $2.4 trillion was more realistic.

Boehner told Biden that he won’t drop his “dollar-to-dollar” ratio of cuts to debt ceiling increase. Furthermore, the president indicated he wouldn’t sign a deal that didn’t extend the debt limit until at least Jan. 1, 2013.

A senior congressional Democratic source tells Fox News that Democrats are still “on the same page” and would prefer to “see the big deal” that was pulled off the table Saturday night by Boehner.

The essence, according to the Democratic aide, is that Republicans are “refusing to take yes for an answer because of their ideological adherence on revenues.”

In addition, there were discussions of Biden’s framework and how they could work off of that toward a potential agreement.

A spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell slammed the president on entitlement reform following the meeting.

“The members will meet again tomorrow, though it’s disappointing that the president is unable to bring his own party around to the entitlement reform that he put on the table. And it’s baffling that the president and his party continue to insist on massive tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis while refusing to take significant action on spending reductions at a time of record deficits,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told Fox News.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman says the GOP is trying to take the “easy way out.”

“Senator Reid remains firmly committed to getting the most robust deal possible. He stressed the need for an approach that is balanced between spending and revenues, in terms of timing, specificity and dollars. Senator Reid believes the stakes are too high for Republicans to keep taking the easy way out, and he is committed to meeting every day until we forge a deal, however long that takes,” spokesman Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that she still wants a “large, bipartisan agreement.”

“We came into this weekend with the prospect that we could achieve a grand bargain. We are still hopeful for a large bipartisan agreement.”

Before Sunday’s meeting started, the president said a debt deal with Congress needs to be worked out in the next 10 days as the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling looms.

As the meeting opened, Obama and the leaders sat around the table in Sunday casual dress. Asked whether the White House and Congress could “work it out in 10 days,” Obama replied, “We need to.”

Partisan tensions were flaring ahead of the critical summit, where aides say the president planned to make one last push for a major deficit-reduction deal amid doubts on both sides. 

The talks still happened despite a surprise announcement from Boehner that rattled the almost-optimistic mood surrounding the negotiations. 

The speaker, claiming the White House was pushing too hard for tax hikes while not pushing hard enough for entitlement reform, said Saturday evening that lawmakers should aim for a smaller deficit-reduction deal. Instead of the $4 trillion package officials were talking about just days ago, Boehner suggested negotiators aim for a deal that would be worth about half that over the next decade. 

McConnell, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” confirmed that a $4 trillion package is now off the table. 

“Everything they’ve told me and the speaker is that to get a big package would require big tax increases in the middle of the economic situation,” McConnell told “Fox News Sunday.” 

Earlier in the week, Democrats had been sparring with the White House over its perceived willingness to deal with the GOP on entitlement reform. But Boehner’s statement on Sunday turned their focus back to hammering Republicans for their insistence on no tax hikes in the deficit talks. 

“All they want is to cut Medicare/Social Security and protect the rich,” a senior Democratic congressional aide told Fox News. 

Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said there must be “shared sacrifice” in any deal. 

“Everything has to be on the table. But pretty quickly, my Republican colleagues said, everything should be on the table except taxes. That doesn’t seem fair,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” 

On the other side, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., accused Obama of “gaming Republicans.” 

“It’s hard to take him seriously here,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

The partisan recriminations cast a pall over the talks Sunday evening. After a bipartisan meeting at the White House Thursday, officials were talking ambitiously about a grand bargain — one which might cut spending, address all three major entitlements, achieve tax reform and make other monumental changes in exchange for a “yes” vote on raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. 

The fact that Republicans — those pushing hardest for spending cuts and entitlement reform — were scaling back those goals Sunday signaled the negotiations were still in a tenuous place. 

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley nevertheless said Obama will push for a big deal out of Sunday’s meeting. 

“Everyone agrees that a number around $4 trillion is the number that will make a serious dent on our deficit,” Daley said. “That’s what he wants to see. … This president’s still committed to doing big things.” 

Daley, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” called Boehner’s statement “unfortunate.” 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated Sunday that a failure to negotiate a package and raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2 would have “catastrophic” consequences for the economy. 

However, he and other officials expressed confidence that no matter the course of negotiations, Congress will ultimately vote to lift the cap.

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

House Speaker John Boehner listens as President Obama speaks during a meeting with congressional leadership on the debt July 7 in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

Related Stories
McConnell: $4 Trillion Deficit-Reduction Deal Likely Off the Table
U.S. Default Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ But It Won’t Happen, Geithner Says

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, right, has a brief chat with his US Generals Anthony Rock, left, and Lloyd Austin, late Sunday July 10, 2011, during an unannounced visit by the U.S. Secretary to Camp Dwyer, Sunday July 10, 2011, in southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Paul J. Richards, Pool)

From one war front to another Sunday, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta hopped from a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan’s southern desert to Baghdad, where he sought to encourage Iraqi leaders to decide soon whether they want a residual American military force beyond year’s end.

He refused to say whether the Obama administration wants the extension, but he expressed concern at a spike in U.S. deaths caused by what American officials believe are sophisticated explosive devices made in Iran.

Panetta prepared for talks Monday with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior members of a government politically divided more than a year after national elections. Iraq has gone that long without defense or interior ministers, whose departments are responsible for the military and police.

The approximately 46,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq are to depart by the end of 2011 under an agreement negotiated in 2008 by the Bush administration, which went to war in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein’s government.

Asking even a few thousand to stay longer carries political risk leaders in both countries.

A signature pledge of President Barack Obama 2008 election campaign was to get the U.S. out of Iraq. For Iraqis fed up with violence, a longer U.S. presence looks like a formula for further strife.

The Associated Press reported on July 5 that the White House is offering to keep up to 10,000 troops in Iraq next year, despite opposition from key Democrats who demand that Obama bring home the troops as promised.

Panetta spent Sunday afternoon at Camp Dwyer, a dust-choked U.S. outpost in southern Afghanistan. He pinned Purple Heart medals on two Marines, had lunch with young officers, got a glimpse at an Army Black Hawk medevac unit and quizzed an Afghan army officer on commanding a unit that specializes in detecting land mines and roadside bombs.

The 73-year-old Panetta, on the job since July 1 after 2 1/2 years heading the CIA, appeared to hold up well under the intense heat. But at one point he seemed to lose track of his latest job switch. In a pep talk to a group of Marines, he said he has always valued public service, from his time in the Army in the 1960s to eight terms as a congressman and his years in the Clinton White House, “and now as director of the CIA.”

At issue in Baghdad is whether the Iraqi government will request that the U.S. negotiate a troop extension. The scheduled departure of virtually all U.S. troops by Dec. 31 will leave the country with significant gaps in its ability to defend its own airspace and borders.

Panetta’s predecessor at the Pentagon, Robert Gates, visited Iraq in April to push for an early decision and make clear that Washington believes an extension is in both countries’ interest.

Panetta, however, seemed less willing to commit to a residual force.

Speaking to reporters before boarding his plane for the flight to Iraq from Camp Dwyer in southern Afghanistan, Panetta was asked whether he intended to encourage the Iraqis to request an extension.

“I’ll encourage them to make a decision” about what they want, he replied, leaving open the question of what the White House would accept.

Panetta said he thinks U.S. should consider any Iraqi request and he said Obama “feels we ought to consider it as well.” Obama has said repeatedly over the past year that he is responsibly ending the Iraq war and bringing U.S. troops home this year.

Panetta said he also intended to urge Iraqi leaders to do more to go after Shiite militia groups that are using Iranian-supplied weapons to step up attacks on U.S. troops. The U.S. death toll of 15 in June was the highest for any month in the past two years, Panetta said.

“That has concerned us,” he said, adding that Iraqi Shiite militiamen using Iranian weapons need to be targeted more aggressively. Pentagon officials believe the Iranians are providing more arms, such as airborne makeshift “lob bombs” and explosively formed projectiles, to give the impression of driving U.S. troops out of Iraq. Panetta came to his new job with links to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even if he was not directly involved in military strategy.

He visited both countries during his CIA tenure. Both wars have an unusually heavy intelligence component, with U.S. special operations teams taking on al-Qaida and other insurgents.

One concern about the plan to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of this year is that Iraq’s intelligence services are not yet up to the task of adequately supporting counterterrorism forces.

Panetta was a member of the Iraq Study Group, created by Congress in 2006 to consider a better way forward in a war that was spiraling out of control at the time. Coincidentally, Panetta served on the group with Gates until Gates quit because he was picked to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

Panetta signed off on the group’s final report, which concluded that it was time to get all U.S. ground combat brigades out of Iraq, leaving troops to train the Iraqi army and to undertake strikes against al-Qaida cells.

President George W. Bush took a decidedly different course, ordering troop reinforcements to Iraq as part of a new strategy that is widely credited for turning around the war.

The U.S. military reported that a service member was killed Sunday in southern Iraq and that the matter was under investigation.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, right, has a brief chat with his US Generals Anthony Rock, left, and Lloyd Austin, late Sunday July 10, 2011, during an unannounced visit by the U.S. Secretary to Camp Dwyer, Sunday July 10, 2011, in southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Paul J. Richards, Pool)

From one war front to another Sunday, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta hopped from a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan’s southern desert to Baghdad, where he sought to encourage Iraqi leaders to decide soon whether they want a residual American military force beyond year’s end.

He refused to say whether the Obama administration wants the extension, but he expressed concern at a spike in U.S. deaths caused by what American officials believe are sophisticated explosive devices made in Iran.

Panetta prepared for talks Monday with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior members of a government politically divided more than a year after national elections. Iraq has gone that long without defense or interior ministers, whose departments are responsible for the military and police.

The approximately 46,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq are to depart by the end of 2011 under an agreement negotiated in 2008 by the Bush administration, which went to war in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein’s government.

Asking even a few thousand to stay longer carries political risk leaders in both countries.

A signature pledge of President Barack Obama 2008 election campaign was to get the U.S. out of Iraq. For Iraqis fed up with violence, a longer U.S. presence looks like a formula for further strife.

The Associated Press reported on July 5 that the White House is offering to keep up to 10,000 troops in Iraq next year, despite opposition from key Democrats who demand that Obama bring home the troops as promised.

Panetta spent Sunday afternoon at Camp Dwyer, a dust-choked U.S. outpost in southern Afghanistan. He pinned Purple Heart medals on two Marines, had lunch with young officers, got a glimpse at an Army Black Hawk medevac unit and quizzed an Afghan army officer on commanding a unit that specializes in detecting land mines and roadside bombs.

The 73-year-old Panetta, on the job since July 1 after 2 1/2 years heading the CIA, appeared to hold up well under the intense heat. But at one point he seemed to lose track of his latest job switch. In a pep talk to a group of Marines, he said he has always valued public service, from his time in the Army in the 1960s to eight terms as a congressman and his years in the Clinton White House, “and now as director of the CIA.”

At issue in Baghdad is whether the Iraqi government will request that the U.S. negotiate a troop extension. The scheduled departure of virtually all U.S. troops by Dec. 31 will leave the country with significant gaps in its ability to defend its own airspace and borders.

Panetta’s predecessor at the Pentagon, Robert Gates, visited Iraq in April to push for an early decision and make clear that Washington believes an extension is in both countries’ interest.

Panetta, however, seemed less willing to commit to a residual force.

Speaking to reporters before boarding his plane for the flight to Iraq from Camp Dwyer in southern Afghanistan, Panetta was asked whether he intended to encourage the Iraqis to request an extension.

“I’ll encourage them to make a decision” about what they want, he replied, leaving open the question of what the White House would accept.

Panetta said he thinks U.S. should consider any Iraqi request and he said Obama “feels we ought to consider it as well.” Obama has said repeatedly over the past year that he is responsibly ending the Iraq war and bringing U.S. troops home this year.

Panetta said he also intended to urge Iraqi leaders to do more to go after Shiite militia groups that are using Iranian-supplied weapons to step up attacks on U.S. troops. The U.S. death toll of 15 in June was the highest for any month in the past two years, Panetta said.

“That has concerned us,” he said, adding that Iraqi Shiite militiamen using Iranian weapons need to be targeted more aggressively. Pentagon officials believe the Iranians are providing more arms, such as airborne makeshift “lob bombs” and explosively formed projectiles, to give the impression of driving U.S. troops out of Iraq. Panetta came to his new job with links to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even if he was not directly involved in military strategy.

He visited both countries during his CIA tenure. Both wars have an unusually heavy intelligence component, with U.S. special operations teams taking on al-Qaida and other insurgents.

One concern about the plan to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of this year is that Iraq’s intelligence services are not yet up to the task of adequately supporting counterterrorism forces.

Panetta was a member of the Iraq Study Group, created by Congress in 2006 to consider a better way forward in a war that was spiraling out of control at the time. Coincidentally, Panetta served on the group with Gates until Gates quit because he was picked to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

Panetta signed off on the group’s final report, which concluded that it was time to get all U.S. ground combat brigades out of Iraq, leaving troops to train the Iraqi army and to undertake strikes against al-Qaida cells.

President George W. Bush took a decidedly different course, ordering troop reinforcements to Iraq as part of a new strategy that is widely credited for turning around the war.

The U.S. military reported that a service member was killed Sunday in southern Iraq and that the matter was under investigation.

AP

Sunday: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker John Boehner, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell meet in the Cabinet Room of the White House to discuss the deficit.

President Obama is meeting with congressional lawmakers at the White House again on Monday after negotiations the day before deadlocked over a plan to cut $4 trillion from a 10-year budget blueprint that Democrats insist include $1 trillion in tax hikes.

Obama suggested lawmakers come back to the table every day until a deal is done. But the “grand bargain” is unlikely to pick up any Republican support as long as the administration seeks tax increases to pay for the gap between spending and revenues in Washington. 

The president will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the status of the debt talks, as the Aug. 2 deadline looms. Obama has indicated that any deal must extend the debt limit until at least Jan. 1, 2013.

House Speaker John Boehner said during Sunday’s meeting that he believes the package based on negotiations reached while Vice President Biden led a working group a few weeks ago would be the “most viable option at this time for moving forward,” a Republican source familiar with the talks told Fox News. 

That deal would be worth about $2 trillion to $2.4 trillion. The source said Boehner, R-Ohio, concluded that there is “no path” for a bigger deal because Republicans demand a “dollar-to-dollar” ratio of cuts to debt ceiling increase. 

A senior congressional Democratic source told Fox News that Republicans are “refusing to take yes for an answer because of their ideological adherence on revenues.”

Democrats, however, are still “on the same page” and prefer to “see the big deal” that Boehner pulled off the table Saturday night, the aide said.

“We came into this weekend with the prospect that we could achieve a grand bargain. We are still hopeful for a large bipartisan agreement,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

Ideologically speaking, Democrats also refuse to make changes to entitlement programs that make up the bulk of federal government spending. 

“The members will meet again tomorrow, though it’s disappointing that the president is unable to bring his own party around to the entitlement reform that he put on the table,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.  ”And it’s baffling that the president and his party continue to insist on massive tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis while refusing to take significant action on spending reductions at a time of record deficits.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman says the GOP is trying to take the “easy way out.”

“Senator Reid remains firmly committed to getting the most robust deal possible. He stressed the need for an approach that is balanced between spending and revenues, in terms of timing, specificity and dollars. Senator Reid believes the stakes are too high for Republicans to keep taking the easy way out, and he is committed to meeting every day until we forge a deal, however long that takes,” spokesman Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said in a statement that he was “disappointed” that Republicans “have indicated they’re not in favor of a compromise deal that would address the fiscal crisis in a serious way.”

Before Sunday’s meeting started, the president said a debt deal with Congress needs to be worked out in the next 10 days as the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling looms.

As the meeting opened, Obama and the leaders sat around the table in casual dress. Asked whether the White House and Congress could “work it out in 10 days,” Obama replied, “We need to.”

Earlier in the week, Democrats had been sparring with the White House over its perceived willingness to deal with the GOP on entitlement reform. But Boehner’s statement on a smaller deal turned Democratic focus back to hammering Republicans for their insistence on no tax hikes in the deficit talks.

“Everything has to be on the table. But pretty quickly, my Republican colleagues said, everything should be on the table except taxes. That doesn’t seem fair,” Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., told “Fox News Sunday.”

On the other side, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., accused Obama of “gaming Republicans.”

“It’s hard to take him seriously here,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated Sunday that a failure to negotiate a package and raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2 would have “catastrophic” consequences for the economy.

However, he and other officials expressed confidence that no matter the course of negotiations, Congress will ultimately vote to lift the cap.

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

AP

Sunday: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker John Boehner, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell meet in the Cabinet Room of the White House to discuss the deficit.

President Obama is meeting with congressional lawmakers at the White House again on Monday after negotiations the day before deadlocked over a plan to cut $4 trillion from a 10-year budget blueprint that Democrats insist include $1 trillion in tax hikes.

Obama suggested lawmakers come back to the table every day until a deal is done. But the “grand bargain” is unlikely to pick up any Republican support as long as the administration seeks tax increases to pay for the gap between spending and revenues in Washington. 

The president will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the status of the debt talks, as the Aug. 2 deadline looms. Obama has indicated that any deal must extend the debt limit until at least Jan. 1, 2013.

House Speaker John Boehner said during Sunday’s meeting that he believes the package based on negotiations reached while Vice President Biden led a working group a few weeks ago would be the “most viable option at this time for moving forward,” a Republican source familiar with the talks told Fox News. 

That deal would be worth about $2 trillion to $2.4 trillion. The source said Boehner, R-Ohio, concluded that there is “no path” for a bigger deal because Republicans demand a “dollar-to-dollar” ratio of cuts to debt ceiling increase. 

A senior congressional Democratic source told Fox News that Republicans are “refusing to take yes for an answer because of their ideological adherence on revenues.”

Democrats, however, are still “on the same page” and prefer to “see the big deal” that Boehner pulled off the table Saturday night, the aide said.

“We came into this weekend with the prospect that we could achieve a grand bargain. We are still hopeful for a large bipartisan agreement,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

Ideologically speaking, Democrats also refuse to make changes to entitlement programs that make up the bulk of federal government spending. 

“The members will meet again tomorrow, though it’s disappointing that the president is unable to bring his own party around to the entitlement reform that he put on the table,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.  ”And it’s baffling that the president and his party continue to insist on massive tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis while refusing to take significant action on spending reductions at a time of record deficits.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman says the GOP is trying to take the “easy way out.”

“Senator Reid remains firmly committed to getting the most robust deal possible. He stressed the need for an approach that is balanced between spending and revenues, in terms of timing, specificity and dollars. Senator Reid believes the stakes are too high for Republicans to keep taking the easy way out, and he is committed to meeting every day until we forge a deal, however long that takes,” spokesman Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said in a statement that he was “disappointed” that Republicans “have indicated they’re not in favor of a compromise deal that would address the fiscal crisis in a serious way.”

Before Sunday’s meeting started, the president said a debt deal with Congress needs to be worked out in the next 10 days as the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling looms.

As the meeting opened, Obama and the leaders sat around the table in casual dress. Asked whether the White House and Congress could “work it out in 10 days,” Obama replied, “We need to.”

Earlier in the week, Democrats had been sparring with the White House over its perceived willingness to deal with the GOP on entitlement reform. But Boehner’s statement on a smaller deal turned Democratic focus back to hammering Republicans for their insistence on no tax hikes in the deficit talks.

“Everything has to be on the table. But pretty quickly, my Republican colleagues said, everything should be on the table except taxes. That doesn’t seem fair,” Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., told “Fox News Sunday.”

On the other side, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., accused Obama of “gaming Republicans.”

“It’s hard to take him seriously here,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated Sunday that a failure to negotiate a package and raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2 would have “catastrophic” consequences for the economy.

However, he and other officials expressed confidence that no matter the course of negotiations, Congress will ultimately vote to lift the cap.

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

China: U.S. Spends Too Much on Military

Published July 11, 2011

| Associated Press

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BEIJING –  The United States is spending too much on its military in light of its recent economic troubles, China’s top general said Monday while playing down his country’s own military capabilities.

The chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, Chen Bingde, told reporters that he thought the U.S. should cut back on defense spending for the sake of its taxpayers. He was speaking during a joint news conference in which he traded barbs with visiting U.S. counterpart Adm. Mike Mullen.

“I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis,” Chen said. “Under such circumstances, it is still spending a lot of money on its military and isn’t that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers?”

“If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people … wouldn’t that be a better scenario?” he said.

The visit by Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the first of its kind in four years. Mullen and Chen are trying to upgrade military-to-military ties after setbacks over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, cyberattacks traced to China and concern about Beijing’s military plans.

Chen made a similar trip to the U.S. in May as part of efforts to improve often frosty relations between the two militaries, especially as the economies of the countries become more codependent.

The world’s two biggest economies frequently clash over financial issues, such as Beijing’s resistance to exchange rate reforms and the ballooning U.S. trade deficit with China. Such issues are not usually at the forefront of military to military talks, though both sides chide each other for their defense spending.

China’s military budget of $95 billion this year is the world’s second-highest after Washington’s planned $650 billion in defense spending.

Chen said China remains more than two decades behind the U.S. in terms of military technology and Beijing still needs to upgrade by adding new hardware such as aircraft carriers.

“China is a big country and we have quite a number of ships but these are only small ships and this is not commensurate with the status of a country like China,” he said. “Of course I hope that in future we will have aircraft carriers.”

Chen said U.S. military exercises with the Philippines and Vietnam in the disputed South China Sea were inappropriate because of heightened tensions in the region, while Mullen defended the operations as routine.

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China: U.S. Spends Too Much on Military

Published July 11, 2011

| Associated Press

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BEIJING –  The United States is spending too much on its military in light of its recent economic troubles, China’s top general said Monday while playing down his country’s own military capabilities.

The chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, Chen Bingde, told reporters that he thought the U.S. should cut back on defense spending for the sake of its taxpayers. He was speaking during a joint news conference in which he traded barbs with visiting U.S. counterpart Adm. Mike Mullen.

“I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis,” Chen said. “Under such circumstances, it is still spending a lot of money on its military and isn’t that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers?”

“If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people … wouldn’t that be a better scenario?” he said.

The visit by Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the first of its kind in four years. Mullen and Chen are trying to upgrade military-to-military ties after setbacks over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, cyberattacks traced to China and concern about Beijing’s military plans.

Chen made a similar trip to the U.S. in May as part of efforts to improve often frosty relations between the two militaries, especially as the economies of the countries become more codependent.

The world’s two biggest economies frequently clash over financial issues, such as Beijing’s resistance to exchange rate reforms and the ballooning U.S. trade deficit with China. Such issues are not usually at the forefront of military to military talks, though both sides chide each other for their defense spending.

China’s military budget of $95 billion this year is the world’s second-highest after Washington’s planned $650 billion in defense spending.

Chen said China remains more than two decades behind the U.S. in terms of military technology and Beijing still needs to upgrade by adding new hardware such as aircraft carriers.

“China is a big country and we have quite a number of ships but these are only small ships and this is not commensurate with the status of a country like China,” he said. “Of course I hope that in future we will have aircraft carriers.”

Chen said U.S. military exercises with the Philippines and Vietnam in the disputed South China Sea were inappropriate because of heightened tensions in the region, while Mullen defended the operations as routine.

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July 10: U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, right, has a brief chat with his U.S. Generals Anthony Rock, left, and Lloyd Austin during an unannounced visit by the U.S. Secretary to Camp Dwyer in southern Afghanistan.

BAGHDAD –  The U.S. will not “walk away” from the challenge of Iran’s stepped-up arming of Iraqi insurgents who are targeting and killing American troops, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday.

“We’re very concerned about Iran and the weapons they’re providing to extremists in Iraq,” he told a small group of soldiers on his first visit to Iraq as Pentagon chief.

“We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue to happen” he said. “This is not something we’re going to walk away from. It’s something we’re going to take on head on.”

Panetta said Iraq must more aggressively go after the Shiite militias that are using what he called Iranian-supplied weapons.

Three rockets fired from a mainly Shiite neighborhood hit Baghdad’s Green Zone during Panetta’s visit, Iraqi police said. No casualties were reported.

Panetta was visiting the U.S. military’s Camp Victory on the capital’s western outskirts at the time of the attack on the Green Zone, the heavily secured district in central Baghdad that is home to the U.S. and other embassies as well as Iraqi government offices.

In his pep talk to the troops on the sprawling compound outside of Baghdad that houses the U.S. military headquarters, Panetta appeared to slip on the politics of the Iraq war, which was started by the Bush administration in March 2003 on grounds that then-ruler Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Some in the Bush White House also suggested a Saddam link to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaida — a connection that President Barack Obama and other Democrats have called wrong and unproved.

Panetta told the troops he is firmly focused on ensuring that al-Qaida never again is able to attack the U.S. homeland.

“The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,” he said.

Asked later to explain that remark, he said he was not talking about the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq but instead the need to go after al-Qaida in Iraq once it developed a lethal presence in the country following the invasion. He has said there are about 1,000 al-Qaida fighters in Iraq. That compares with an estimated 50-100 in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden’s group was sheltered by the Taliban until the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.

Panetta will also huddle with the top U.S. military and diplomatic representatives in Baghdad before meeting with Iraqi leaders to discuss the possibility of keeping some U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011. He will also press Iraq for stronger action to stop stepped-up attacks on U.S. forces.

Panetta is meeting separately with Army Gen. Lloyd Austin at his headquarters outside Baghdad and with Ambassador James Jeffrey.

Later, he talks to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani.

The Obama administration believes Iraq needs a slimmed-down U.S. military presence beyond 2011, when virtually all U.S. troops are scheduled to depart. Many Iraqi leaders agree, but they’ve been unwilling to make a formal request.

There are now 46,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

AP

July 10: U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, right, has a brief chat with his U.S. Generals Anthony Rock, left, and Lloyd Austin during an unannounced visit by the U.S. Secretary to Camp Dwyer in southern Afghanistan.

BAGHDAD –  The U.S. will not “walk away” from the challenge of Iran’s stepped-up arming of Iraqi insurgents who are targeting and killing American troops, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday.

“We’re very concerned about Iran and the weapons they’re providing to extremists in Iraq,” he told a small group of soldiers on his first visit to Iraq as Pentagon chief.

“We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue to happen” he said. “This is not something we’re going to walk away from. It’s something we’re going to take on head on.”

Panetta said Iraq must more aggressively go after the Shiite militias that are using what he called Iranian-supplied weapons.

Three rockets fired from a mainly Shiite neighborhood hit Baghdad’s Green Zone during Panetta’s visit, Iraqi police said. No casualties were reported.

Panetta was visiting the U.S. military’s Camp Victory on the capital’s western outskirts at the time of the attack on the Green Zone, the heavily secured district in central Baghdad that is home to the U.S. and other embassies as well as Iraqi government offices.

In his pep talk to the troops on the sprawling compound outside of Baghdad that houses the U.S. military headquarters, Panetta appeared to slip on the politics of the Iraq war, which was started by the Bush administration in March 2003 on grounds that then-ruler Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Some in the Bush White House also suggested a Saddam link to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaida — a connection that President Barack Obama and other Democrats have called wrong and unproved.

Panetta told the troops he is firmly focused on ensuring that al-Qaida never again is able to attack the U.S. homeland.

“The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,” he said.

Asked later to explain that remark, he said he was not talking about the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq but instead the need to go after al-Qaida in Iraq once it developed a lethal presence in the country following the invasion. He has said there are about 1,000 al-Qaida fighters in Iraq. That compares with an estimated 50-100 in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden’s group was sheltered by the Taliban until the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.

Panetta will also huddle with the top U.S. military and diplomatic representatives in Baghdad before meeting with Iraqi leaders to discuss the possibility of keeping some U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011. He will also press Iraq for stronger action to stop stepped-up attacks on U.S. forces.

Panetta is meeting separately with Army Gen. Lloyd Austin at his headquarters outside Baghdad and with Ambassador James Jeffrey.

Later, he talks to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani.

The Obama administration believes Iraq needs a slimmed-down U.S. military presence beyond 2011, when virtually all U.S. troops are scheduled to depart. Many Iraqi leaders agree, but they’ve been unwilling to make a formal request.

There are now 46,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Tough New Georgia Sex Trafficking Law Takes Effect

Published July 11, 2011

| Associated Press

Tough New Georgia Sex Trafficking Law Takes Effect

Published July 11, 2011

| Associated Press

Obama to Talk About Debt Negotiations With Lowered Expectations

“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”

– House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a Saturday statement on debt ceiling negotiations.

After a weekend that saw hopes dashed for a mega-deal to cut $4 trillion from the federal budget while raising the nation’s debt ceiling, President Obama takes to the White House briefing room Monday ahead of yet another meeting with congressional leaders during which a smaller deficit deal is expected to be discussed.

Though the president proposed the larger deal and said he was ready to “make tough decisions,” House Speaker John Boehner claims Democrats were unwilling to do the larger deal without at least some tax increases and thus, there is no path to passage in the House. Congressional Republicans have long held that they won’t approve any plan to add to America’s credit line that includes adding revenues through tax increases while Democrats want a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes. Both Senate and House Democrats are staunchly opposed to tapping Medicare and Medicaid to find funds as well.

“This package must do no harm to the middle class or to economic growth,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement after Sunday’s meeting. “It must also protect Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries, and we continue to have serious concerns about shifting billions in Medicaid costs to the states.”

Both sides are deeply divided on entitlements with Republicans saying there must be reforms to control deficit spending.

Moreover, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said on Fox News Sunday he feels the president has been gaming Republicans by failing to send proposals of his own. “He has been talking about this for six months, and the only proposal he sent us is his budget to raise the debt $10 trillion,” DeMint said. “So it’s hard to take him seriously here.”

With talk having turned sour over the weekend, the president, Monday, will have to tamp down expectations many had for a big weekend deal. Talks are deadlocked with both sides holding firm to their ideological lines with only 21 days left until the Treasury Department says the U.S. hits its current debt limit.

With the $4 trillion mega plan now off Boehner’s agenda and a short, stop-gap debt limit increase off the president’s plate, the leaders get to work Monday on something in between. But, in a sense, they’ll come full circle, getting back to the heart of what has driven negotiations for weeks.

What negotiators are looking at is something akin to the $2 trillion plan Vice President had been travelling up and down Pennsylvania Avenue to negotiate with Congress. Those talks ultimately stalled, leading Obama to take the lead in negotiations and to talk more directly to Americans about them and to call for a the more ambitious $4 trillion plan.

Still, a Capitol Hill source tells Fox News that Monday’s 2 p.m. meeting at the White House will likely focus on numbers generated from the Biden talks.

But the president will get the first word when he holds the 11 a.m. news conference to update the progress of the crumbling talks. He’ll likely try to keep provide a positive spin while keeping expectations a bit lower than those many had on Friday.

Negotiators will now be forced to try to work out within days, a plan similar to the one that fell apart after being discussed for weeks.

Economy Hinges on Answers from Debt and Deficit Talks

“I think it’s going to take a long time still. This is a very tough economy. And I think for a lot of people, it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in a lifetime now for some time to come. And that is because that is the tragic effects of a crisis this deep and this bad caused by a long period of lost opportunities to do things that made the country stronger.”

– Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on NBC’s Meet The Press when asked when Americans would feel an economic recovery.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner doesn’t paint a rosy picture of the U.S. economy going forward, saying the effects of the economic downturn and meager recovery will be hard and long-felt by Americans. The Sunday comments come two days after a dreadful jobs report on Friday showed unemployment reached 9.2 percent.

And many agree debt ceiling indecision is dragging the economy down, placing yet another level of significance on the continuing but sputtering debt and deficit talks.

And with finger-pointing and blame-game playing surrounding Sunday night’s White House meeting, there will likely be more questions than answers as the U.S. inches ever closer to Treasury’s August 2 deadline for raising the debt limit.

With a combination of near-continuous poor economic indicators and the uncertainty coming out of Washington surrounding debt negotiations, Geithner’s prognosis takes on an especially bleak context. With Americans spending less in an effort to get their own fiscal houses in order, the mixed messages coming out of Washington as it tries to get its fiscal house in order aren’t inspiring confidence.

Geithner insists passing the August 2 deadline would be calamitous. But in the near-term, not creating certainty could continue many Americans down the long, hard path Geithner describes.

House Looking to Re-Light Incandescent Light Bulbs

“The unanticipated consequence of the ’07 act – Washington-mandated layoffs in the middle of a desperate recession – is one of many examples of what happens when politicians and activists think they know better than consumers and workers.”

– Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, on an incandescent light bulb ban that was part of a 2007 energy bill.

The House of Representatives will vote Monday on a bill introduced by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, that reverses what he calls a de facto ban on incandescent light bulbs.

The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, or BULB Act, will reverse the ban that has led some to hoard the older-style bulbs that were to be phased out in favor of newer, more energy efficient light bulbs.

Many argue the newer compact fluorescent light bulbs glow an unattractive green color and can expose people to dangerous chemicals if broken.

Under an energy bill signed by then-President George W. Bush, the federal government introduced new efficiency standards that all but prohibit the use of the light first perfected by Thomas Edison.

There is one hitch though. The measure is being considered under an expedited floor schedule that will require a two-thirds majority to pass.

The House will also vote on the energy and water spending bill for this year. The White House recently slammed the bill for making large cuts to renewable energy programs, but stopped short of a veto threat.

And Now, A Word From Charles

“It’s the overregulation, the Dodd/Frank financial regulation, EPA, and now the National Labor Relations Board. And of course the uncertainty over Obamacare and taxes. That’s why all the money is on the sideline. That’s why corporate profits are good and no one is hiring.”

– Charles Krauthammer on Special Report w/Bret Baier talking about private sector job creation.

________________________________________

Chris Stirewalt is taking some time away from Power Play this week but will return on Monday, July 18.

For the same period, Power Play, the Web show, will be helmed by a rotation of generous colleagues including Shannon Bream, Mike Emanuel, Carl Cameron, James Rosen and Juan Williams.

***Today on “Power Play w/ Chris Stirewalt”: Carl Cameron talks with Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Tune in at 11:30 am Eastern at http://live.foxnews.com/ ***

Obama to Talk About Debt Negotiations With Lowered Expectations

“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”

– House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a Saturday statement on debt ceiling negotiations.

After a weekend that saw hopes dashed for a mega-deal to cut $4 trillion from the federal budget while raising the nation’s debt ceiling, President Obama takes to the White House briefing room Monday ahead of yet another meeting with congressional leaders during which a smaller deficit deal is expected to be discussed.

Though the president proposed the larger deal and said he was ready to “make tough decisions,” House Speaker John Boehner claims Democrats were unwilling to do the larger deal without at least some tax increases and thus, there is no path to passage in the House. Congressional Republicans have long held that they won’t approve any plan to add to America’s credit line that includes adding revenues through tax increases while Democrats want a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes. Both Senate and House Democrats are staunchly opposed to tapping Medicare and Medicaid to find funds as well.

“This package must do no harm to the middle class or to economic growth,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement after Sunday’s meeting. “It must also protect Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries, and we continue to have serious concerns about shifting billions in Medicaid costs to the states.”

Both sides are deeply divided on entitlements with Republicans saying there must be reforms to control deficit spending.

Moreover, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said on Fox News Sunday he feels the president has been gaming Republicans by failing to send proposals of his own. “He has been talking about this for six months, and the only proposal he sent us is his budget to raise the debt $10 trillion,” DeMint said. “So it’s hard to take him seriously here.”

With talk having turned sour over the weekend, the president, Monday, will have to tamp down expectations many had for a big weekend deal. Talks are deadlocked with both sides holding firm to their ideological lines with only 21 days left until the Treasury Department says the U.S. hits its current debt limit.

With the $4 trillion mega plan now off Boehner’s agenda and a short, stop-gap debt limit increase off the president’s plate, the leaders get to work Monday on something in between. But, in a sense, they’ll come full circle, getting back to the heart of what has driven negotiations for weeks.

What negotiators are looking at is something akin to the $2 trillion plan Vice President had been travelling up and down Pennsylvania Avenue to negotiate with Congress. Those talks ultimately stalled, leading Obama to take the lead in negotiations and to talk more directly to Americans about them and to call for a the more ambitious $4 trillion plan.

Still, a Capitol Hill source tells Fox News that Monday’s 2 p.m. meeting at the White House will likely focus on numbers generated from the Biden talks.

But the president will get the first word when he holds the 11 a.m. news conference to update the progress of the crumbling talks. He’ll likely try to keep provide a positive spin while keeping expectations a bit lower than those many had on Friday.

Negotiators will now be forced to try to work out within days, a plan similar to the one that fell apart after being discussed for weeks.

Economy Hinges on Answers from Debt and Deficit Talks

“I think it’s going to take a long time still. This is a very tough economy. And I think for a lot of people, it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in a lifetime now for some time to come. And that is because that is the tragic effects of a crisis this deep and this bad caused by a long period of lost opportunities to do things that made the country stronger.”

– Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on NBC’s Meet The Press when asked when Americans would feel an economic recovery.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner doesn’t paint a rosy picture of the U.S. economy going forward, saying the effects of the economic downturn and meager recovery will be hard and long-felt by Americans. The Sunday comments come two days after a dreadful jobs report on Friday showed unemployment reached 9.2 percent.

And many agree debt ceiling indecision is dragging the economy down, placing yet another level of significance on the continuing but sputtering debt and deficit talks.

And with finger-pointing and blame-game playing surrounding Sunday night’s White House meeting, there will likely be more questions than answers as the U.S. inches ever closer to Treasury’s August 2 deadline for raising the debt limit.

With a combination of near-continuous poor economic indicators and the uncertainty coming out of Washington surrounding debt negotiations, Geithner’s prognosis takes on an especially bleak context. With Americans spending less in an effort to get their own fiscal houses in order, the mixed messages coming out of Washington as it tries to get its fiscal house in order aren’t inspiring confidence.

Geithner insists passing the August 2 deadline would be calamitous. But in the near-term, not creating certainty could continue many Americans down the long, hard path Geithner describes.

House Looking to Re-Light Incandescent Light Bulbs

“The unanticipated consequence of the ’07 act – Washington-mandated layoffs in the middle of a desperate recession – is one of many examples of what happens when politicians and activists think they know better than consumers and workers.”

– Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, on an incandescent light bulb ban that was part of a 2007 energy bill.

The House of Representatives will vote Monday on a bill introduced by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, that reverses what he calls a de facto ban on incandescent light bulbs.

The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, or BULB Act, will reverse the ban that has led some to hoard the older-style bulbs that were to be phased out in favor of newer, more energy efficient light bulbs.

Many argue the newer compact fluorescent light bulbs glow an unattractive green color and can expose people to dangerous chemicals if broken.

Under an energy bill signed by then-President George W. Bush, the federal government introduced new efficiency standards that all but prohibit the use of the light first perfected by Thomas Edison.

There is one hitch though. The measure is being considered under an expedited floor schedule that will require a two-thirds majority to pass.

The House will also vote on the energy and water spending bill for this year. The White House recently slammed the bill for making large cuts to renewable energy programs, but stopped short of a veto threat.

And Now, A Word From Charles

“It’s the overregulation, the Dodd/Frank financial regulation, EPA, and now the National Labor Relations Board. And of course the uncertainty over Obamacare and taxes. That’s why all the money is on the sideline. That’s why corporate profits are good and no one is hiring.”

– Charles Krauthammer on Special Report w/Bret Baier talking about private sector job creation.

________________________________________

Chris Stirewalt is taking some time away from Power Play this week but will return on Monday, July 18.

For the same period, Power Play, the Web show, will be helmed by a rotation of generous colleagues including Shannon Bream, Mike Emanuel, Carl Cameron, James Rosen and Juan Williams.

***Today on “Power Play w/ Chris Stirewalt”: Carl Cameron talks with Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Tune in at 11:30 am Eastern at http://live.foxnews.com/ ***

AP

In this July 7 photo, Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty speaks in Urbandale, Iowa.

Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty stood by his criticism of fellow Minnesotan Michele Bachmann’s record, saying Monday that her “great speeches” do not make up for a “nonexistent” record in Congress. 

Bachmann said in a statement late Sunday, after Pawlenty first leveled the criticism on a morning news show, that she will “focus on her accomplishments” and avoid being negative toward Pawlenty. 

“People can count on me as a fighter; I am proud of my record of fighting with resolve, and without apology, for our free markets, for sane fiscal policies, and in opposition to the advancement of the big government left,” she said. 

But Pawlenty didn’t back off. 

“With all due respect, she just doesn’t have that kind of experience, and secondly her record in Congress … is again, great remarks and great speeches, but in terms of results and accomplishments, nonexistent,” he said on Fox News. “I don’t think it’s a disputable point that we should have somebody in the Oval Office who has executive experience.” 

Pawlenty is a former Minnesota governor. Bachmann, a former state legislator and tax attorney, is serving her third term in Congress representing Minnesota. 

The former governor’s tough comments come as he faces mounting questions about the viability of his campaign. Pawlenty is trailing far behind his competitors in the polls, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney typically leading and Bachmann catching up to him. 

Bachmann is touting her Iowa roots as she makes a big play for voters ahead of the leadoff Iowa caucuses and, before that, a key straw poll. With Pawlenty likewise staking much of his success on Iowa, the ex-governor first argued Sunday that voters should square his record against Bachmann’s. 

“I like Congresswoman Bachmann. I’ve campaigned for her, I respect her. But her record of accomplishment in Congress is nonexistent,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re not looking for folks who just have speech capabilities. We’re looking for people who can lead a large enterprise in a public setting. … I’ve done that, she hasn’t.” 

Pawlenty acknowledged he wants to see “significant progress” in his own numbers in the upcoming Iowa Straw Poll next month. But he expressed confidence in his ability to recover and downplayed his standing in recent polls. 

“Rudy Giuliani would be president or Hillary Clinton would be president or Howard Dean would be president if these early polls meant anything,” Pawlenty said.

AP

In this July 7 photo, Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty speaks in Urbandale, Iowa.

Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty stood by his criticism of fellow Minnesotan Michele Bachmann’s record, saying Monday that her “great speeches” do not make up for a “nonexistent” record in Congress. 

Bachmann said in a statement late Sunday, after Pawlenty first leveled the criticism on a morning news show, that she will “focus on her accomplishments” and avoid being negative toward Pawlenty. 

“People can count on me as a fighter; I am proud of my record of fighting with resolve, and without apology, for our free markets, for sane fiscal policies, and in opposition to the advancement of the big government left,” she said. 

But Pawlenty didn’t back off. 

“With all due respect, she just doesn’t have that kind of experience, and secondly her record in Congress … is again, great remarks and great speeches, but in terms of results and accomplishments, nonexistent,” he said on Fox News. “I don’t think it’s a disputable point that we should have somebody in the Oval Office who has executive experience.” 

Pawlenty is a former Minnesota governor. Bachmann, a former state legislator and tax attorney, is serving her third term in Congress representing Minnesota. 

The former governor’s tough comments come as he faces mounting questions about the viability of his campaign. Pawlenty is trailing far behind his competitors in the polls, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney typically leading and Bachmann catching up to him. 

Bachmann is touting her Iowa roots as she makes a big play for voters ahead of the leadoff Iowa caucuses and, before that, a key straw poll. With Pawlenty likewise staking much of his success on Iowa, the ex-governor first argued Sunday that voters should square his record against Bachmann’s. 

“I like Congresswoman Bachmann. I’ve campaigned for her, I respect her. But her record of accomplishment in Congress is nonexistent,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re not looking for folks who just have speech capabilities. We’re looking for people who can lead a large enterprise in a public setting. … I’ve done that, she hasn’t.” 

Pawlenty acknowledged he wants to see “significant progress” in his own numbers in the upcoming Iowa Straw Poll next month. But he expressed confidence in his ability to recover and downplayed his standing in recent polls. 

“Rudy Giuliani would be president or Hillary Clinton would be president or Howard Dean would be president if these early polls meant anything,” Pawlenty said.

Hiring slowed to a stagnant pace last month, pushing the unemployment rate up for the third consecutive month and raising questions about whether the economy has what it takes to climb out of its post-recession slump. 

President Obama, addressing the bleak report outside the White House Friday, acknowledged the economy still has a “long way to go” to fill the jobs hole left in the wake of the 2008 recession. “Our economy as a whole just isn’t producing nearly enough jobs for everybody who’s looking,” Obama said. 

The Labor Department reported that employers added just 18,000 net jobs in June, the fewest in nine months. The jobless rate ticked up to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent. The pace of job growth is not even enough to keep up with population growth — it would take about 125,000 jobs per months to do so — and certainly not enough to bring down the unemployment rate. 

The president blamed “headwinds” like rising gas prices, European financial crises, state and local budget cuts and uncertainty over the debt limit for hampering growth. He called on Washington to “redouble” its efforts by investing in infrastructure, approving trade agreements, passing a new patent law, extending a one-year tax cut and working in earnest to hammer out a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

“I’m ready to roll up my sleeves,” Obama said. 

But Republicans claimed they’ve been trying all along to pass jobs-creation measures, as they lined up Friday morning to pin blame for the bleak outlook on the Obama administration’s economic policies. 

“After two-and-a-half years, it is time for him to take responsibility,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said, acknowledging that Obama inherited a bad economy but accusing him of making it worse with “job-killing regulations” and other policies.

Republicans continued to promote their own jobs bills, while pointing to the unemployment report in arguing Congress cannot and will not raise taxes as part of any deal to raise the country’s debt ceiling. 

“It just does not make sense for Americans to suffer under higher taxes in an economy like this,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. 

The economic situation has hung over the president as the 2012 presidential race gets underway and his GOP opponents make the weak recovery a centerpiece of their respective campaigns. Before Obama spoke Friday, the 2012 candidates blasted out tweets and statements assailing him for the jobs numbers. 

Since Obama took office, the economy is down 2.5 million jobs. The jobless rate has been at 9 percent or higher for 24 of the past 26 months.  

In June, businesses added the fewest jobs in more than a year. Governments cut 39,000 jobs. Over the past eight months, federal, state and local governments have cut a combined 238,000 positions. 

The latest report offered evidence that that the recovery will be painfully slow. Two years after the recession officially ended, companies are adding fewer workers despite record cash stockpiles and healthy profit margins. 

Hiring has slowed sharply in the past two months, after the economy added an average of 215,000 jobs per month in the previous three months. 

Economists have said that temporary factors have, in part, forced some employers to pull back. High gas prices have cut into consumer spending. And supply-chain disruptions stemming from the Japan crisis slowed U.S. manufacturing production. 

Unemployment has never been so high so long after a recession ended. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent. 

Average hourly wages declined last month. After-tax incomes, adjusted for inflation, have been flat this year. The average work week declined to 34.3 hours, from 34.4, which means employers demanded less work from their existing staffs. 

The number of unemployed workers rose almost 175,000 to 14.1 million, pushing up the unemployment rate. The number of long-term unemployed — those without a job for 27 weeks or more — made up nearly half of that number. 

There are signs that economy could improve in the second half of the year. Gas prices have come down since peaking in early May at a national average of nearly $4 per gallon. Prices averaged $3.59 a gallon nationwide on Friday, according to AAA. 

And manufacturing activity expanded in June at a faster pace than the previous month, according to the Institute for Supply Management. That suggests the parts shortage caused by the March 11 earthquake in Japan is beginning to abate. 

Still, the government said last month that the economy grew only 1.9 percent in the January-March quarter. Analysts are expecting similarly weak growth in April-June quarter. 

The economy will grow at a 3.2 percent pace in final six months of the year, according to an Associated Press survey of 38 economists. 

Still, growth must be stronger to significantly lower the unemployment rate. The economy would need to grow 5 percent for a whole year to significantly bring down the unemployment rate. 

Economic growth of just 3 percent a year would hold the unemployment steady and keep up with population growth.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

In this June 15 photo, job seekers wait in a line at a job fair in Southfield, Mich.

AP

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters June 16 on Capitol Hill in Washington.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, coming out of a meeting with rank-and-file Democrats, declared Friday that lawmakers in her party are “firm” in their opposition to Medicare and Social Security benefit cuts, as the White House puts entitlement programs on the table in bipartisan deficit-reduction talks. 

Pelosi’s comments underscore the tension flaring within the Democratic caucus over the potential course of talks as they pick up steam after temporarily breaking apart amid GOP objections. As President Obama coaxes Republicans back to the bargaining table, Democrats are expressing concern that he might offer too many concessions in order to gain their support on raising the debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. 

“They’re as firm as ever on what I have been saying,” Pelosi told reporters Friday afternoon, as she shuttled between meetings. She said Democrats do not want to “subsidize tax cuts for the rich” on the backs of seniors and others, and are demanding “no benefits cuts in Medicare and Social Security.” She also said she has “serious concerns” about what might happen with Medicaid. 

“This is a big deal. … It’s a 10-year bill and we want to work together to have something that has bipartisanship, that has balance,” she said. “It has to be reflective of our values.” 

Still, ahead of another meeting scheduled for Sunday evening, Pelosi said she’s “optimistic.” 

With Democrats demanding entitlements be left alone and Republicans demanding steep cuts without tax hikes, the president has a heavy lift in trying to reconcile the two sides in pursuit of a deal. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Friday it is “absolutely necessary” to extract “savings” out of entitlements. However, he said that doesn’t mean “transferring all of the burden onto seniors.” 

“We certainly don’t think in order to pay for tax cuts or to balance the budget that we need to essentially end Medicare as we know it and voucherize it,” Carney said. 

But asked whether Democrats would be feeling “political pain” over entitlements, Carney said they would. 

“Absolutely there are tough choices here that in a different world we may not make. And we expect Republicans to do the same — to make tough choices that in their perfect world they would not have to make,” Carney said. 

Republicans are not on the same page as Obama either. House Speaker John Boehner said Friday there is “no imminent deal” and Republicans still have “serious disagreements” to work out. Republicans have insisted that they will not accept tax hikes as part of the deal — though they’ve opened the door to discussing tax “loopholes.” 

But a senior House Republican source told Fox News that the president’s contribution in Thursday’s meeting was seen on their side of the aisle as progress. 

The most vocal backlash over the talks appears to be coming from the left, particularly from Democrats still feeling burned over the president’s deal with Republicans late last year to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts. 

“If a deal involves Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, that has political consequences that would befall both parties,” Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said. 

After Pelosi met Friday morning with Obama, sources told Fox News she told the president directly that revenues must be on the table and her caucus will not compromise on Medicare. 

The House Progressive Caucus told Obama Thursday that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security entitlement programs should be off the table in any negotiations over raising the nation’s debt limit. They added that any deal must include an increase in revenues in order to pass muster with their voting bloc. 

In the House, Obama technically wouldn’t need Democrats to approve a deficit-reduction deal if the entire GOP caucus were on board. But because some Republicans are likely to oppose a debt ceiling increase no matter the details of a trade-off, the president will need to win some Democratic support. Democrats also still control the Senate, though there are several moderate Democrats in the chamber who could get behind a “grand bargain” that drives down spending significantly. 

The White House is increasingly talking about a major compromise that achieves far more in deficit reduction than was originally discussed. 

“Bigness is our target,” Carney said Thursday, after Obama finished meeting with eight congressional leaders at the White House. He compared the negotiations to those that yielded a balanced budget during the Clinton administration. 

“The opportunity to do something this significant does not present itself very often. The stars, in some ways, have aligned here because of the circumstances of the economy, the dynamic in Washington, the recognition by members of both parties of what the problem is in a very real sense,” Carney said. 

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report. 

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AP

July 7: President Barack Obama meets with the Congressional leadership in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, to discuss the debt. From left are, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Md., House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, the president, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Ill.

Washington –  Even as they seek a grand deal to bring the deficit under control, both President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies and GOP rivals head into a rare weekend negotiating session with their options sharply limited by months of angry rhetoric and political posturing.

Faced with sharp divisions over increasing taxes and cutting public benefit programs, hopes of reaching agreement on an ambitious plan to cut spiraling deficits by $4 trillion or more over the coming decade have diminished since a friendly, earnest meeting at the White House on Thursday. Officials now say a smaller, $2 trillion agreement, appeared more doable.

“It’s not like there’s some imminent deal about to happen,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “There are serious disagreements about how to deal with this very serious problem.”

Added Boehner: “In all honesty, I don’t think things have narrowed. I don’t think this problem has narrowed at all in the last several days.”

Obama cited a bleak jobs report Friday in hopes of prodding Congress toward a swift agreement on deficits and the national debt. But the higher unemployment numbers hardened the views of partisan lawmakers who think a weak economy can’t tolerate added taxes or cuts in spending, key components for the sweeping kind deal that Obama seeks.

White House and congressional negotiators and their aides continued to work Friday on deficit-cutting ideas to add to a set of proposals tentatively agreed to in talks led by Vice President Joe Biden in May and June. The earlier proposals would shave $2 trillion or so off the deficit. Obama has asked the top eight leaders of Congress to come to the White House Sunday to assess progress in the talks.

A budget agreement is central to increasing the nation’s borrowing limit, currently capped at $14.3 trillion, by Aug. 2. If that deadline is not met, there could be a potentially catastrophic government default on obligations to bondholders, government contractors and people relying on Social Security and other government programs. That looming deadline and a new unemployment rate of 9.2 percent heightened the pressure for a deal, uniting the two most high-profile challenges facing Obama’s presidency.

Obama urged Congress to move quickly to raise the debt ceiling, saying the uncertainty over a potential default has hindered hiring in the private sector.

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and hire,” Obama said Friday from the White House Rose Garden.

Obama later made his case privately to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi during a half-hour meeting at the White House.

Both parties and private economists agree that if Washington does not raise the debt ceiling by early August, the economy will be deeply shaken and perhaps slip back into recession.

The White House and Congress are seeking common ground on a budget deal that would trim 10-year deficits by as much as $4 trillion. Obama has urged lawmakers to strive for that number, but some officials on Friday said they believed that a smaller, $2 trillion deal appeared more realistic.

The larger package would require new tax revenues — with hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into federal coffers from a future overhaul of the loophole-laden tax code — and significant spending reductions in large government benefit programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

But liberal Democrats whose votes will be needed to balance GOP defections and get a deal passed recoiled over the possibility that Obama would endorse cuts to Medicare or Social Security. The administration and lawmakers are eyeing, for example, less generous adjustments for inflation, a move that would reduce future Social Security payments.

“I’m a Democrat. I got elected to Congress to protect Social Security and Medicare, not dismantle them,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “Yes, we do need entitlement reform, but we need to do this thoughtfully, not come to a deal in a weekend.”

Republicans, meanwhile, played down media reports suggesting that Boehner was willing to entertain the possibility of higher tax revenues as part of a “grand bargain” that included cuts to benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare.

“Conservatives are just not going to vote for a tax increase on this economy,” Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said, reflecting a common view among his GOP colleagues.

“It’s just not going to happen.”

The jobless numbers only cemented that view, as Republicans argued that increasing taxes would be ill-timed during an economic slowdown.

“The revenue idea was trumped up by the president and latched onto by the press,” said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. “There isn’t anything to the fanciful notion by this president that we’ll go along with his desire to increase taxes on the American people.”

At the same time, Democrats argued that a weak economy is not the time to consider trimming government spending.

“It’s pretty clear that in this time of economic distress, attacks on Social Security and on Medicare are really wrong for the country,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

On health care, negotiators have been closing in on cuts of about $200 billion over 10 years, about equally divided between Medicare and Medicaid, with most of the burden falling on individual industries such as hospitals, drug manufacturers and nursing homes.

One Social Security proposal on the negotiating table would lower annual cost-of-living increases, reducing the retirement benefits for older Americans over the long term.

While Pelosi said she will not countenance any Social Security change that reduces benefits, she appears open to a proposal to use a lower cost-of-living measurement to calculate Social Security adjustments. She said that any savings in Social Security would have to be funneled back into the trust fund that finances the retirement program.

Republicans have showed some new flexibility on the closing tax loopholes and ending corporate tax breaks as Obama has demanded. But they say any revenue generated by those steps would have to be used to lower tax rates and simplify the tax system. Such a step would require a major overhaul of the tax code and could not be accomplished in the few weeks left before the Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline.

AP

Casey Anthony, right, is on trial for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, left.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Lawmakers outraged over Casey Anthony’s acquittal have responded by proposing so-called Caylee’s laws that would allow prosecutors to bring felony charges against parents who do not quickly report missing children.

The new measures were triggered, at least in part, by an online petition that had more than 700,000 signatures Friday. Some questioned whether a new law would do any good because the circumstances of the Anthony case were so rare, but lawmakers in at least 16 states have already floated proposals reacting to the verdict.

“Casey Anthony broke new ground in brazenness,” said Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon, who is sponsoring the proposal in his state. “It’s very sad that we even need a law like this, but Casey Anthony just proved that we do as unfortunate as that is.”

In June 2008, Anthony’s 2-year-old daughter Caylee was last seen at the Orlando home she shared with her mom and her maternal grandparents. For the next month, Casey Anthony, then 22, left her parents’ house and spent most of her time with friends, shopping and partying, telling her family and others that Caylee was with an imaginary nanny.

Anthony’s mother called detectives when Anthony could not produce her child. Anthony told investigators she hadn’t called them because the nanny had kidnapped the child and she had been conducting her own search, two of the numerous lies she told investigators.

Anthony was acquitted of murder in Caylee’s death, but convicted of four misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators. She was sentenced to the maximum of four years, but after serving nearly three years in jail awaiting trial, coupled with good behavior credits, she is set to go free next Sunday.

Florida’s proposal would make it a felony for a parent or other caregiver to not report a child under the age of 12 missing after 48 hours. It also makes it a felony to not report a child’s death or “location of a child’s corpse” to police within two hours of the death.

Had Florida’s measure been in place and Anthony been convicted, she could have faced another 15 years behind bars.

Other states are considering similar measures and the online petition at Change.org, started by an Oklahoma woman, calls for a federal law.

“It’s certainly something that we want to look into, because right now looking at the Maryland state law we’re not seeing anything that would fit the circumstances to the degree that we want to,” said Joseph Cassilly, a prosecutor in Harford County, Md., which is one of the state’s considering a Caylee’s law.

But others think it’s unnecessary.

“It only applies to people like her and fortunately those are not common everyday occurrences,” said Willie Meggs, who served as a state attorney in Florida for more than three decades. “I don’t think it changes anything.”

When Caylee was reported missing, the sheriff’s office launched a massive search, but her remains weren’t discovered until six months later, near the Anthony family home. The bones were in such bad shape, prosecutors said they had difficulty collecting forensic evidence from them, making it harder to present their case to the jury.

Anthony’s attorneys argued that Caylee drowned in the family pool. They said Anthony panicked and her father decided to cover up the death by making it look like murder. Anthony’s lies and conduct during the month her child was missing were caused by the sexual abuse she had suffered herself as a child by her father, her attorney said.

Defense attorneys did not present evidence to support the claims regarding George Anthony, and he vehemently denied the allegations on the witness stand and said he would have done anything to save his granddaughter.

In Alabama, a bill would make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian or caretaker not to notify law enforcement authorities within an hour after the death of a child and also require parents to report a missing child within 24 hours. In Kentucky, the proposal would make failing to report a child under 12 who has been missing for 12 hours or more punishable by one to five years in prison.

Other states where lawmakers are considering such measures include Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia, according to news reports.

“God forbid we ever run into a mother like Casey Anthony again,” said Plakon, the Florida legislator. “If we do, that mother will be a felon.”

Reuters

A combination photo shows U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, right, smiling at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston in a May 17, 2011 photo released on her Facebook page and another during an appearance in Tucson, Arizona in an undated 2010 handout photo.

As Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords makes her slow but steady recovery amid speculation about her political future, Republicans are faced with the challenging and delicate task of putting up a candidate for her seat in 2012.

Whether Giffords stands for reelection or not, Republicans in Arizona have indicated they want to seek the office — but who that candidate may be and how they’ll go about campaigning is a subject they’re not discussing, at least publicly.

“I don’t envy whoever is going to be running there,” GOP strategist Kurt Luidhardt said. 

Giffords, a Democrat representing Arizona’s 8th Congressional district, was shot in the head on Jan. 8 outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson. The accused gunman, Jared Loughner, allegedly shot the congresswoman at point-blank range with a 9mm Glock pistol that sent a bullet through the left hemisphere of her brain. The rampage left six people dead, including Giffords’ staff member Gabe Zimmerman, and injured 12 others. 

“Many of us know Gabby and we’re all praying for her continued recovery,” Mike Shaw, vice chairman of the Pima County Republican Party, told FoxNews.com. “The whole thing was horrible and that adds a lot of sensitivity to the seat.”

Friday marks six months since the shooting and neither Giffords nor her staff members has said definitively whether she’ll return to Congress or seek reelection in 2012. Her doctor said in June that it will be another year before it can be determined whether she can return to her duties, leaving many to wonder whether she can meet the state’s May 2012 filing deadline for reelection. The congresswoman continues to undergo rehabilitation in Houston.

While Giffords’ political future remains uncertain, Republicans are quiet on how they will approach a campaign for that office.

In a statement released last month, the Pima County Republican Party said it “has not and will not support or pursue efforts” to remove Giffords prior to 2012 but will look to compete next year.  

“Our prayers for a full and speedy recovery are with Ms. Giffords. We remain committed to fielding a quality candidate for the 2012 election cycle, and our efforts are and will remain focused on the normal election process,” the statement said. 

A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee declined comment Thursday when asked if the GOP had plans to recruit candidates for Giffords’ seat, which includes most of Tucson in Pima County as well as small portions of Santa Cruz and Pinal counties.

Shaw told FoxNews.com that at least two people have “put feelers out” for the seat but he declined to name them and said the Pima County Republican Party is “not actively recruiting” candidates yet for a run in 2012.

“I think there are at least a couple of people that are looking into it,” he said. “It’s really going to be up to them on how they handle the sensitivity of it.”

Shaw said he didn’t expect candidate names to surface publicly until this November, at the earliest.

Republican strategists, meanwhile, say the task of challenging Giffords — should she seek reelection — will be a tricky one.

“You have to run a very positive campaign in that district because she’s certainly paid the ultimate price for being a public servant,” said Luidhardt, vice president of the Prosper Group, who stressed that Republicans must focus solely on “substantive policy debate.”

“That is what voters will respond to best,” said Luidhardt. “The patience voters would have with a personal attack will be a lot lower than in a normal race – and for good reason.”

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on Friday a $649 billion defense spending bill that boosts the Pentagon budget by $17 billion and covers the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The strong bipartisan vote was 336-87 and reflected lawmakers’ intent to ensure national security, preserve defense jobs across the nation and avoid deep cuts while the country is at war.

While House Republican leaders slashed billions from all other government agencies, the Defense Department is the only one that will see a double-digit increase in its budget beginning Oct. 1.

Amid negotiations to cut spending and raise the nation’s borrowing limit, the House rejected several amendments to cut the Pentagon budget, including a measure by Democratic Rep. Barney Frank to halve the bill’s increase in defense spending.

“We are at a time of austerity. We are at a time when the important programs, valid programs, are being cut back,” Frank said.

He scoffed at the suggestion by congressional leaders that “everything is on the table” in budget negotiations with the Obama administration, Frank said, “The military budget is not on the table. The military is at the table, and it is eating everybody else’s lunch.”

Still, the overall bill is $9 billion less than President Barack Obama had sought. The White House has threatened a veto, citing limits on the president’s authority to transfer detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and money for defense programs it did not want.

The measure includes $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The House also voted to slow repeal of the policy allowing gays to serve openly in the military, backing an amendment to block funds for the training manual for the Chaplain Corps on ending the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp, sponsor of the amendment, said its purpose was to prohibit chaplains from performing same-sex marriages on Navy bases regardless of a state’s law. The House approved the measure 236-184.

The overall bill must be reconciled with a still-to-be-completed Senate version.

The final vote came after the House turned back an amendment by Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio that would have barred funds for the U.S. operation against Libya. The vote was 251-169.

The House has sent mixed signals on Obama’s military action against Libya, voting to prohibit weapons and training to rebels looking to oust Moammar Gadhafi but stopping short of trying to cut off money for American participation in the NATO-led mission.

In a series of votes Thursday, Republicans and Democrats expressed their dissatisfaction with the Libya operation, now in its fourth month with no end in sight and waning support from some nations in the international coalition. The House voted to bar military aid to the rebels but moments later rejected efforts to prevent funding for the limited U.S. mission.

The votes mirrored the contradictory actions of the House last month, when lawmakers refused to approve the operation but declined to cut off the money.

The congressional unrest over Libya stems from a stalemated civil war and Obama’s contention that he did not need congressional authorization to engage in another war on top of Afghanistan and Iraq because Libya fighting does not amount to full-blown hostilities. Among war-weary NATO allies, Italy announced that it was reducing its participation in the campaign by removing an aircraft carrier from the region and pulling thousands of troops home.

“Libya did not attack us. Libya did not attack NATO,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said. “However much we detest Mr. Gadhafi and his regime, we have no reason to be at war.”

The House voted 225-201 for an amendment sponsored by Cole to bar the Pentagon from providing “military equipment, training or advice or other support for military activities” to an outside group, such as rebel forces, for military action in or against Libya.

Forty-eight Democrats backed the Republican-sponsored measure.

Groups Sue to Block Alabama’s Illegal Immigration Law

Published July 08, 2011

| Associated Press

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Civil rights groups sued Friday in federal court to block Alabama’s new law cracking down on illegal immigration, which supporters and opponents have called the strictest measure of its kind in the nation.

The lawsuit, filed in Huntsville, said the law is of “unprecedented reach” and goes beyond similar laws passed in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges already have blocked all or parts of the laws in those states. It asks a judge to declare Alabama’s law unconstitutional and prevent it from being enforced.

Alabama’s law, which takes effect Sept. 1, allows police to arrest anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant if the person is stopped for some other reason. It also requires businesses to check the legal status of new workers and requires schools to report the immigration status of students.

The lawsuit said the new law will subject Alabama residents, including U.S. citizens and non-citizens who are in the country legally, to racial profiling. The law also recalls memories of Alabama’s troubled segregationist past by making life more difficult for a targeted class of people, according to the lawsuit.

“Individuals who may be perceived as `foreign’ by state or local law enforcement agents will be in constant jeopardy of harassment and unlawfully prolonged detention by state law enforcement officers,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit was filed by various organizations across northern Alabama that represent immigrant groups as well as individual immigrants who are listed under the pseudonyms John Doe and Jane Doe. The lawsuit names as defendants various state and local officials, including Republican Gov. Robert Bentley, Attorney General Luther Strange and state schools Superintendent Joe Morton.

Supporters of the new law, including Bentley, have predicted it would withstand any legal challenges.

The law was written so that if any provisions are found to be unconstitutional, other parts of the law can remain in effect.

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President Obama used a gun metaphor to describe debt talks with Republicans during a Twitter Town Hall in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2011.

Six months after the nation’s leaders called for a more civil discourse following the mass shooting tragedy in Arizona, politicians in both parties have struggled to avoid using violent or overheated rhetoric.

Just this week, as the White House and Congress engaged in high-stakes negotiations over raising the nation’s borrowing limit while reducing the deficit, President Obama said the debt ceiling should not “be used as a gun against the heads of American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars.”

It was Obama in January who urged Americans to tone down the rhetoric at a memorial service in Tucson for the six killed and 13 wounded in the shooting, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” he said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

A string of comments since that speech, from the president and many others, demonstrates that officials still have a long way to go to heed that call:

– On the same day as the memorial service, Sarah Palin drew sharp criticism for accusing journalists and pundits of “blood libel,” a historical reference to Jews being accused of kidnapping and murdering Christian children to obtain their blood for religious rituals.

Palin said she used the term to describe comments by those who falsely tried to link her to the assassination attempt against Giffords.

– Weeks after Obama’s speech, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., compared Republican attacks on the health care overhaul to Nazi propaganda advanced by Joseph Goebbels.

“They don’t like the truth so they summarily dismiss it,” Cohen said to a mostly empty chamber on the House floor. “They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like (Nazi propagandist Joseph) Goebbels.”

Cohen, who is Jewish, expressed regret that anyone was offended but stood by his remarks in the face of fierce criticism from Jewish groups.

– In February, a Republican lawmaker drew criticism for not rebuking a constituent at a town hall meeting when he asked, “Who’s going to shoot Obama?”

Instead, Rep. Paul Broun said he understood the frustration with Obama and reminded his audience that they would have the chance to help elect a new president next year. After the exchange was reported by local media, Broun issued a statement calling the question “abhorrent” and saying he chose not to dignify it with an answer. Broun also said he alerted the Secret Service.

– In the same month, Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., told a Boston crowd protesting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to weaken collective bargaining rights that union members should “get a little bloody.”

“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going,” he said. “Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”

Capuano later apologized.

Despite the apologies, the acrimonious budget talks between Republicans and Democrats have since opened the door to even more over-the-top rhetoric.

– In March, Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, was overhead on a conference call telling his colleagues that they should all use the word “extreme” to describe the deep spending cuts that Tea Party-backed Republicans were seeking “because that’s what the caucus instructed me to do the other week.”

– In April, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., told a crowd of abortion rights supporters that Republicans who who sought to defund Planned Parenthood want to “kill women.”

She also compared the GOP proposal to the Nazi movement.

“You are allowed to have an abortion if you’ve been raped or it’s a matter of incest. However, you have to keep a receipt,” Slaughter said. “Did you know that? It’s sort of like an old German Nazi movement: show me your papers.”

– And since Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz became head of the Democratic National Committee, she has ignited a storm of controversy over the language she has used to attack Republicans in her new position.

She has characterized Republicans policies as amounting to waging “a war on women.” She said last month that Republican state proposals for voter ID requirements and limits on early voting proved that the GOP wants to “literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.”

She walked back the Jim Crow reference but continues to accuse Republicans of trying to block access to the polls.

And she said the Republican plan to overhaul Medicare would, for people under 55, “throw you to the wolves.”

– For a few months, Donald Trump took his reputation for blunt talk to a new level as he flirted again with a presidential run. After relentlessly questioning whether Obama was born in the U.S. – which led the president to produce his detailed Hawaii birth certificate – Trump outdid himself during a speech in Las Vegan in which he unleashed an f-bomb-laced attack on Obama and Washington politics.

“Our leaders are stupid, they are stupid people,” he said. “It’s just very, very sad.”

At one point, Trump told a woman who yelled out he should run for president that he thinks he’s going to make her happy.

But later, he said, “There is a really good chance that I won’t win because of one of these blood-sucking politicians.”

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sent two distinct messages by dispatching the U.S. ambassador to Syria to meet anti-regime protesters in a besieged city. To Syrian President Bashar Assad: Reform now. To domestic critics of its engagement policy: Stop complaining. 

Greeted by demonstrators with roses and cheers, the envoy, Robert Ford, on Friday finished a two-day trip to the restive city of Hama aimed at driving home the message that the United States stands with those in the Syrian streets braving a brutal government crackdown. 

The visit prompted fierce reaction from the Syrian regime and a renewed American warning that Assad was failing to stabilize his country by satisfying the democratic yearnings of his people. 

Ford “had a chance to talk to lots of average citizens — these were shopkeepers, people out on the street, young men,” said Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman. “When he got into the city, the car was immediately surrounded by friendly protesters who were putting flowers on the windshield, they were putting olive branches on the car, they were chanting `Down with the regime!’ It was quite a scene.” 

So far, the U.S. government has refused to call for an end to the Assad family’s four-decade dynasty. The government’s harsh repression of dissent has escalated the crisis with protesters increasingly calling for Assad’s ouster after 11 years full of promises of democratic reform but little change from the iron-fisted rule of his father. 

The Obama administration has grown increasingly disgusted with the violence in Syria that has claimed the lives of 1,600 people plus 350 members of the security forces. Yet it hasn’t mustered sufficient international outrage to secure a U.N. condemnation of Assad’s government or a unified global demand that he step down. 

The administration can’t press too hard by itself because the threat of military action wouldn’t be taken seriously while it is trying to wind down wars in neighboring Iraq and in Afghanistan, and struggling to justify its participation in an international coalition against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. 

The solution has been to balance stinging criticism of the Assad regime’s conduct with continued pleas for it to lead a democratic transition. But the measured approach has faced a clamoring at home and in Syria for tougher action. 

There has been no U.S. ambassador in Syria for the five previous years in protest of alleged Syrian involvement in the assassination of a Lebanese politician who had criticized Syrian domination of his country. 

Republican members of Congress have challenged Ford’s continued presence in the country, calling it an unwarranted reward to Assad’s often pro-Iran and anti-U.S. government stance, and untenable in light of recent violence against civilians. 

Ford’s participation in a Syrian government-organized trip to the country’s north last month didn’t help. The State Department said at the time that Ford’s outing to the abandoned town of Jisr al-Shughour allowed him to “see for himself the results of the Syrian government’s brutality.” 

However, he mostly encountered deserted streets and buildings that wouldn’t prove the existence of a foreign conspiracy to destabilize Syria, as the government claims, or mass atrocities, as Western governments and human rights groups allege. 

Ford has been rebuffed in several attempts to speak directly with senior Syrian officials. 

“Any continued presence of a U.S. ambassador will either be used by the regime for propaganda purposes or just plain ignored,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said last month. Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Ford’s participation in the government trip “compromised U.S. credibility with freedom and pro-democracy advocates within Syria.” 

U.S. officials nevertheless insist that Ford is serving a vital role in making American concerns known to the Syrian government and providing assessments to policymakers back in Washington. Beyond that, he is providing moral support to protesters, officials say. 

Ford’s trip allowed him to see firsthand the lies of the Syrian regime, Nuland told reporters. While the government blames foreign instigators or armed gangs for unrest, Ford “witnessed average Syrians asking for change in their country,” she said. 

In recent days, Hama residents have largely sealed off their city, setting up makeshift checkpoints with burning tires and concrete blocks to keep security forces away. 

The government seized on Ford’s visit to insist that foreign conspirators lay behind the unrest and called it proof the U.S. was inciting violence in the Arab nation. The U.S. is trying to “aggravate the situations which destabilize Syria,” the state-run news agency said Friday. 

Nuland called the claim “absolute rubbish.” 

“The reason for his visit was to stand in solidarity with the right of the Syrian people to demonstrate peacefully,” she said. 

Nuland also disputed the Syrian argument that Ford’s trip was unauthorized, explaining that the U.S. embassy informed the government ahead of time. 

“They really need to focus their attention on what their citizens have to say, rather than on spending their time picking at Ambassador Ford,” Nuland said. 

Ford left Hama during Friday prayers ahead of what are usually the week’s largest protests. He returned to Damascus safely Friday afternoon.

Somali Terror Suspect Met With Awlaki in Yemen Before Capture, Official Says

By Catherine Herridge

Published July 08, 2011

| FoxNews.com

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Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is said to be the first American on the CIA’s capture or kill list.

The Somali terror suspect transferred this week to a New York City federal court spent “significant time” with American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a U.S. official told Fox News. 

Ahmed Warsame, described as a senior commander with the Al Qaeda franchise known as al-Shabaab, was in Yemen for one year, Fox News has learned. While there, he met with Awlaki to “build bridges and a closer relationship” between al-Shabaab and the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, the official said. 

Warsame was on his way back from Yemen when he was picked up in the Gulf of Aden in April during a U.S. military operation. 

Awlaki’s contact with the senior al-Shabaab leader is another indicator, according to U.S. officials, that the first American on the CIA’s kill-or-capture list has reached “the upper echelons” of the group in Yemen — which is seen as the most operational and global franchise within Al Qaeda. Its primary goal is to launch attacks on the United States. 

The contact between Awlaki and Warsame is now part of a growing body of evidence that the two franchises are working to develop a closer union. As one U.S. official told Fox News, “Al Qaeda in Yemen wants to be global and is in an expansive frame of mind. Al-Shabaab is physically close and a natural partner to work with.” 

As Fox News has previously reported, U.S. officials say they are seeing jihadists from Pakistan traveling to Yemen — which is seen as lawless and without a government since the Yemeni president left the country after he was wounded in a mortar attack. 

Meanwhile, the circumstances surrounding Warsame’s capture continue to stir controversy in Washington. Republicans criticized the Obama administration this week for bringing the suspect up on charges in a civilian court after he was detained on a U.S. warship. 

“Why is a man who is a known terrorist and enemy of the U.S. being afforded the protection of an American citizen?” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

National Correspondent Catherine Herridge’s first book “The Next Wave: On the Hunt for al Qaeda’s American Recruits” was published by Crown on June 21. It draws on her reporting for Fox News into al-Awlaki and his new generation of recruits — Al Qaeda 2.0. New evidence shows the cleric was an overlooked key player in the 9/11 attacks who double crossed federal investigators.

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WASHINGTON — Intent on delaying a new policy allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces, the House voted Friday to prohibit military chaplains from performing same-sex marriages on the nation’s bases regardless of state law. 

On a 236-184 vote, the House attached the measure to the defense spending bill, one of several steps the Republican-controlled chamber has taken this year to delay President Obama’s new policy. Pentagon leaders have said they see no roadblocks to ending the 17-year ban, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is likely to certify the change for midsummer after military training ends. 

Still, opposition remains strong in the House. 

Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., sponsor of the amendment, said he wanted to ensure that “America’s military bases are not used to advance a narrow social agenda.” 

The measure would block funds to train the Chaplain Corps on the new policy. Huelskamp said the intent was to prevent chaplains from performing same-sex marriages, especially on Navy bases. 

“What will happen to chaplains who decline to officiate over same-sex ceremonies?” Huelskamp asked. “The directive states that chaplains `may’ perform same-sex civil marriage ceremonies. I fear that chaplains who refuse to perform these ceremonies may find themselves under attack and their careers threatened.” 

Last month, New York became the sixth state, joining Iowa, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, to legalize gay marriage along with the District of Columbia. 

Separately, a federal appeals court in California this week ordered the U.S. government to immediately cease enforcing the ban on openly gay members of the military. 

Opponents of the amendment argued that more than a million members of the military have been trained on the new standard and Pentagon leaders see no adverse impact on the force. 

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said the measure simply tries to delay implementation of the law. 

Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., one of several openly gay members of Congress, said it was “an offense to the military to second guess their training for chaplains.” 

The vote’s practical effect is unclear. The ban is likely to be lifted before Congress completes the defense spending bill for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. 

The overall House bill must be reconciled with a still-to-be completed Senate version. 

In a statement, Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said, “fringe lawmakers in the House are continuing to desperately try to slow down or undo a settled issue. 

Given that the majority of the American people, the military and our senior defense leaders support this policy change, these votes will be a stain on the legacies of those who cast them in the long run.” 

Servicemembers United is the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans.

AP

U.S. sailors of the USS Monterey stand next to their vessel in the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania, Tuesday, June 7, 2011.

With more sailors staying in the military amid a slumping economic recovery, the U.S. Navy is taking the unprecedented step of firing low-ranking petty officers to help rein in spending.

The Navy plans to let go of 3,000 young sailors after economic uncertainty put the service in the unusual position of having a manpower surplus.

The move comes as a new government report shows that the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent — marking 29 straight months that number has been over 8 percent and a record streak since the Great Depression.

In August, the Navy will convene a board to review the cases of 16,000 sailors and eliminate 3,000 positions, about 1 percent of the force. Navy officials say the jobs cuts will be based on experience and individual performance records.

It’s a complete reversal for the military, which just four years ago at the height of the fighting in Iraq, had a hard time meeting its recruiting goals. At the time there was talk of the Army being spread so thin it would not have enough fighters to conduct its wars. Now with the White House aiming to cut spending and pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for more men has diminished.

Rep. Mike Coffman, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and served in the Marine Corps, says it’s not a good situation for those young sailors.

“There’s no retirement for them and… there’s no severance for them,” Coffman said. “So essentially they’re with so many other Americans on unemployment.”

Coffman told Fox News it’s not unusual for the military’s retention rates to go up during bad economic times, but he called this particular case “unprecedented.”

“It’s never gone up to this level where so many people, the vast majority of people want to stay in the United States Navy.”

The Air Force retention rates are also up to a 6-year high, causing it to convene a similar reduction-in -force board. The Air Force will review the records of more than 9,000 officers, mostly majors, and roughly 400 are expected to be let go.

Fox News military analyst and retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales, says it all boils down to pressure on Washington to save money and simple arithmetic.

“The quickest way to reduce the budget for the military is to cut people,” Scales said. “They can be pulled out of the ranks immediately and the savings are immediate. Whereas when you try to cut programs often times for new weapons systems it takes years, if not decades, to get all that money back.”

The retention rate for sailors with one to six years of service rose 10 percent from 2005 to 2010. And the Navy is overstaffed in 31 different job categories: jet engine mechanics, avionics technicians, electricians.

“What we’re seeing in the Navy is just the tip of iceberg for all the services,” Scales said. “The Air Force and the Navy have gone down in strength over the last few years and as the troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq and as pressure mounts on the defense budget, we’re going to see similar consequences for the ground services.”

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in January that as the wars come to a close in 2015 the Pentagon has plans to cut active-duty soldiers by 27,000 and reduce the Marine Corps by roughly 15,000.

In October, the Army will begin cutting its ranks by 22,000 — and that means even more job seekers in a market with fewer and fewer good jobs.

Sponsor of Arizona Immigration Law Faces Recall Election

Published July 08, 2011

| Associated Press

AP

In this Aug. 30,1994 file picture, former first lady Betty Ford talks with reporters at the Old Executive Building in Washington D.C. On Friday, July 8, 2011, a family friend said that Ford had died at the age of 93.

Former first lady Betty Ford has died at age 93, the Director of the Ford Museum and Library says.

Betty Ford was the wife of former president Gerald Ford. She married Mr. Ford two weeks before he was elected to his first term in Congress. Gerald Ford died in December 2006, after undergoing surgery for an undisclosed ailment in April 2007.

Betty Ford served as First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977. During her time in the White House, Ford was an outspoken advocate of women’s rights — encouraging the appointment of more women to senior government posts, supporting the U.N. International Women’s Year in 1975, and supporting passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

In 1982, Mrs. Ford, together with Ambassador Leonard Firestone, founded the non-profit Betty Ford Center at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California. Today, the Betty Ford Center is regarded as one of the top treatment facilities in the world.

“I was deeply saddened this afternoon when I heard of Betty Ford’s death,” fellow former first lady Nancy Reagan said in a statement. “She has been an inspiration to so many through her efforts to educate women about breast cancer and her wonderful work at the Betty Ford Center.”

Former president George H. W. Bush also released a statement on the former first lady’s death:

“Barbara and I loved Betty Ford very much. She was a wonderful wife and mother; a great friend; and a courageous First Lady.”

“Throughout her long and active life, Elizabeth Anne Ford distinguished herself through her courage and compassion,” President Obama said in a statement.

Cause of death is unconfirmed at this time.

During her White House tenure, Mrs. Ford won acclaim for her candor, wit and courage as she fought breast cancer, severe arthritis and the twin addictions of drugs and alcohol.

But it was her Betty Ford Center, a desert oasis that rescued celebrities and ordinary people from addiction, that made her famous in her own right. She was modest about that accomplishment.

“People who get well often say, `You saved my life,’ and `You’ve turned my life around,”‘ she recalled. “They don’t realize we merely provided the means for them to do it themselves and that’s all.

“That’s a God-given gift as far as I’m concerned. I don’t take any credit for providing anything that wasn’t provided to me.”

After the former president died Dec. 26, 2006, at age 93, his widow said: “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.” 

As she and their children led the nation in mourning him, Americans were reminded anew of her own contributions, as well as his. It was calculated then that the Betty Ford Center had treated 76,000 people.

“It’s hard to imagine a more important figure in the substance abuse field than Mrs. Ford,” Rick Rawson, associate director of the integrated substance abuse program at the University of California at Los Angeles, said at the time.

She and her husband had retired to Rancho Mirage after he lost a bruising presidential race to Jimmy Carter in 1976. She went to work on her memoirs, “The Times of My Life,” which came out in 1979. But the social whirlwind that engulfed them in Washington was over, and Betty Ford confessed that she missed it.

“We had gone into the campaign to win and it was a great disappointment losing, particularly by such a small margin,” she said. “It meant changing my whole lifestyle after 30 years in Washington, and it was quite a traumatic experience.”

By 1978, she was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs. She would later describe herself during that period as “this nice, dopey pill-pusher sitting around and nodding.”

“As I got sicker,” she recalled, “I gradually stopped going to lunch. I wouldn’t see friends. I was putting everyone out of my life.” Her children recalled her living in a stupor, shuffling around in her bathrobe, refusing meals in favor of a drink.

Her family finally confronted her in April 1978 and insisted she seek treatment. She credited their “intervention” with saving her life.

“I was stunned at what they were trying to tell me about how I disappointed them and let them down,” Ford told The Associated Press in 1994.

“I was terribly hurt — after I had spent all those years trying to be the best mother, wife I could be. … Luckily, I was able to hear them saying that I needed help and they cared too much about me to let it go on, she said.

She entered Long Beach Naval Hospital and underwent a grim detoxification, which became the model for therapy at the Betty Ford Center. She saw her recovery as a second chance at life.

“When you come back from something that was as disagreeable and unsettling as my alcoholism, when you come back to health from that, everything is so much more valuable,” she said in her book, “A Glad Awakening.”

Her own experience, and that of a businessman friend whom she helped save from alcoholism, were the inspiration for the center, located on the grounds of the Eisenhower Medical Center. She helped raise $3 million, lobbied in the state capital for its approval, and reluctantly agreed to let it be named for her.

“The center’s name has been burden, as well as honor,” she wrote. “Because even if nobody else holds me responsible, I hold myself responsible.”

She liked to tell patients, “I’m just one more woman who has had this problem.”

Her efforts won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from the first President Bush in 1991. In October 1999: Gerald and Betty Ford both were awarded Congressional Gold Medals.

She continued to be outspoken on public issues, pressing for fellow Republicans to be moderate on social questions. She spoke out in favor of gays in the military in a 1993 Washington Post interview, saying they had been serving for many years.

During the Clinton presidency, Mrs. Ford praised first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying she had been with her at a meeting on health care and found her “courteous, charming, able, attractive. … She asks good questions. She picked out one of the most demanding roles she possibly could.”

In 2005, she was presented with the Gerald R. Ford Medal of Distinguished Public Service from her husband’s foundation, telling the gathering that it was “very, very special.” She added in her typical candor: “It’s kind of all in the family, and I feel a little guilty about it.”

Mrs. Ford’s first public appearance after her husband’s death was in August 2007, when she attended a ceremony near Rancho Mirage as a postage stamp honoring the late president was issued. She did not speak. She had not traveled to Texas for the funeral of Lady Bird Johnson the previous month.

Elizabeth Bloomer was born in Chicago on April 8, 1918, and raised in Grand Rapids, Mich. She was talented in dancing and ultimately studied with the great dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. She also worked as a model to make extra money during the Depression.

With her gray-green eyes, chestnut hair and stately bearing, she was often described as regal.

An early marriage to a furniture company representative, William Warren, ended in divorce before she met Gerald Ford, a lawyer just out of the Navy. When he proposed in 1948, she said later, she had no idea he planned a political career.

“I really thought I was marrying a lawyer, and we’d be living in Grand Rapids,” she recalled. Then he announced his plan to run for Congress and even made a campaign appearance during their honeymoon.

Political life was hard for her. While her husband campaigned or worked late on Capitol Hill, she raised their four children: Michael Gerald, born in 1950; John Gardner, born in 1952; Steven Meigs, born in 1956; and Susan Elizabeth, born in 1957.

She said the pressure led her to consult a psychiatrist who told her “I shouldn’t give up everything for my husband and my children, but had to think about what mattered to me.”

The children were in their late teens and early 20s by the time the Fords moved into the White House and only Susan lived there. But they were a close family, gathering at Vail, Colo., for Christmas skiing vacations.

“When I came to Washington, I saw my job as a supporting wife and mother,” Mrs. Ford said. “But I came to feel an emptiness in spite of the fact I was happy. The old term housewife just didn’t seem right. That’s when I looked for support in my thinking that there must be something more than that. And indeed there is.”

She became an outspoken advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, favored legal abortion and supported drafting women for the armed services. When asked on “60 Minutes” what she would do if her daughter, Susan, had an affair, she responded, “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d think she was a perfectly normal human being. … If she wanted to continue, I would certainly counsel and advise her on the subject.”

Drawing on her dance background, she also helped foster interest in the arts during her time as first lady. She reconnected with her old teacher Graham, who remembered her as “very dedicated,” and Graham received the Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony during the Ford years.

When she underwent a radical mastectomy for removal of a cancerous breast, she kept no secrets, bringing the disease into the open.

Thousands of women rushed to get breast examinations because of Ford’s example.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Pawlenty Aide Apologizes for Remark on Bachmann’s ‘Sex Appeal’

Published July 07, 2011

| FoxNews.com

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AP

Presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks at a Tea Party rally outside the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines July 2.

A top aide for Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign apologized after citing Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “sex appeal” as a reason why she’s gaining momentum in the polls. 

Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and co-chairman of Pawlenty’s campaign, made the original comments during an interview with The Hill. In the interview, he claimed Bachmann would be “very hard to beat” in Iowa’s leadoff presidential caucuses for several reasons. 

“She’s got hometown appeal, she’s got ideological appeal, and, I hate to say it, but she’s got a little sex appeal, too,” he said. 

Within hours, Weber issued a statement apologizing for his remarks. 

“I made a mistake that was disrespectful to my friend Congresswoman Bachmann,” he said. “I’ve been a Bachmann supporter in her congressional bids and I apologize. I was not speaking on behalf of Gov. Pawlenty’s campaign, but, nevertheless, it was inappropriate and I’m sorry.” 

Bachmann, who is from Iowa, has been rising in the polls since before her formal campaign kickoff last month. Pawlenty, by contrast, has struggled to gain traction despite being considered a likely presidential contender since the 2008 election. 

Pawlenty is the former governor of Minnesota, the state Bachmann currently represents in Congress.

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Study: No Evidence Cell Phone Bans Reduce Crashes

By Doug McKelway

Published July 07, 2011

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A comprehensive study on distracted driving has found there is no conclusive evidence that hands-free cell phone use while driving is any less risky than hand-held cell phone use. 

The study, which was commissioned by the non-profit Governors Highway Safety Association, and funded by State Farm Insurance, also found that there is no evidence that cell phone or texting bans have reduced crashes. 

The findings come after nine states have imposed bans on hand-held cell phone use while driving, and 34 states have imposed texting bans for drivers behind the wheel. Despite the findings, The Governors Highway Safety Association does not recommend that restrictions on cell phone use or texting be lifted in any of the states where they presently exist. 

But it does recommend that those 41 states which don’t ban talking on a cell phone hold off on enacting new legislation. 

The study offers often contradictory findings. For example, it found that drivers are frequently distracted by any number of factors ranging from eating, to talking to texting, perhaps as much as 50 percent of the time they spend behind the wheel. 

But it also found that drivers adapt by paying more attention to driving — and less to distractions — when the road risk level increases. It also found that states should enforce existing distracted driving laws, but should consider that such enforcement takes away from other traffic enforcement efforts. 

The study also documents the proliferation of cell phone use and texting among American motorists. 

It found two-thirds of all motorists reported using a cell phone while driving, about one-third of them routinely. It also found that one-eighth of all drivers reported texting while driving, although observational studies during the daylight hours in 2009, show that only 1 percent of all drivers were observed to be texting. 

The authors make a number of recommendations including enacting a total ban of cell phone use for novice drivers, as well as texting bans for all drivers. 

It also suggests that greater use of highway engineering solutions, such as rumble strips and automotive technological innovations can reduce distracted driving accidents.

Megan Verbeck, St. Louis, checks her phone for a new text message while working on projects at Ellis Library at the University of Missouri, Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, in Columbia, Mo. Verbeck sent text messages to five friends, ’28 days until Spring Break.’ The massacre at Virginia Tech last year sent colleges nationwide scrambling to improve how they get alerts to students during crises on campus. One solution: Text messages sent to cell phones. Most students have not adopted the system. (AP Photo/Dan Gill)

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EPA Aims to Cut Pollution in Downwind States

Published July 07, 2011

| Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is clamping down on pollution from power plants in 27 states that contributes to unhealthy air downwind. 

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced on Thursday a plan to clean up smog, soot and acid rain in downwind states — where they combine with locally produced pollution, making it impossible for those states to meet air quality standards on their own. 

The rule differs from one proposed in July. Power plants in the District of Columbia and five states — Delaware, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana and Massachusetts — will no longer have to control for two pollutants — sulfur dioxide, responsible for acid rain, and nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog and soot. 

Texas, by contrast, will have to reduce more pollution than the initial proposal. 

The regulation replaces a 2005 Bush administration proposal that was rejected by a federal court. 

Jackson, in a call with reporters Thursday, said the regulation would make sure no community has to bear the burden of another community’s polluters. She said just because pollution drifts far from a power plant, “doesn’t mean pollution is no longer that plant’s responsibility.” 

“Pollution that crosses state lines places a greater burden on (downwind) states and makes them responsible for cleaning up someone else’s mess,” she said. 

The rule, which will start going into effect next year, will cost power companies $800 million annually in 2014. That’s in addition to the $1.6 billion spent per year to comply with the Bush rule that was still in effect until the government drafted a new one. The agency said that cost would be far outweighed by the public health benefits.

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AP

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney briefs reporters at the White House July 5.

The Obama White House is making a public push for “significant” spending cuts as part of a deficit-reduction deal, marking an apparent departure from the days when President Obama urged lawmakers to use a “scalpel,” not a “machete,” to fix the nation’s budget woes. 

After being branded by Republicans for the last two-and-a-half years as a chronic big spender, Obama and his aides are talking about deficit cuts — big ones — as something they wholeheartedly endorse. 

The rhetoric may reflect the reality that congressional Republicans are demanding such cuts as a condition for raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the White House, while still at odds with the GOP over the prospect of tax hikes, has gone from complaining about Republican tactics to casting the talks as a unique opportunity to achieve historic cuts. 

“Bigness is our target,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday, after Obama finished meeting with eight congressional leaders at the White House. He compared the negotiations to those that yielded a balanced budget during the Clinton administration. 

“The opportunity to do something this significant does not present itself very often. The stars, in some ways, have aligned here because of the circumstances of the economy, the dynamic in Washington, the recognition by members of both parties of what the problem is in a very real sense,” Carney said.

“Often you get a situation here where one side thinks something is a very, very important issue and a big problem that needs to be solved, and the other side doesn’t even accept the premise that there’s a problem. And that’s just not the case here. We saw this last in the mid-’90s.” 

Though he and the lawmakers involved in the talks would not get into the specifics about what is being discussed, Carney said savings would come from many fronts — including “painful but necessary” cuts in programs, cuts in defense spending, cuts in entitlement spending, cuts in health care costs and tax increases. 

Coming out of the talks, House Speaker John Boehner said he’s optimistic that a deal can be struck with the president over the debt ceiling. Another meeting has been scheduled for Sunday. 

But the White House move to put entitlement spending including Social Security on the table — a position Carney insists is not new — has drawn the ire of some Democrats. 

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said cuts to Social Security and Medicare should be off the table. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also said Thursday that Democrats will oppose cuts to those two programs in any deficit-reduction deal. 

But Obama is calling on both parties to give ground. He wants Republicans to drop their opposition to tax hikes — GOP leaders have indicated a willingness to discuss tax “loopholes” — and he may have to make a special appeal to Democrats on entitlements. Fox News has learned Pelosi will meet with Obama at the White House Friday morning. 

“Everybody acknowledged that the issue of our debt and our deficits is something that needs to be tackled now,” Obama said Thursday after the bipartisan meeting. “And everybody acknowledged there’s going to be pain involved politically on all sides.” 

Though the White House is speaking with renewed urgency about deficit reduction, the president tried to underscore his commitment to that goal back in April when he outlined a plan to cut $4 trillion over 12 years. Democrats claimed at the time it was similar to a House GOP plan aimed at cutting $4.4 trillion over 10 years — though the White House quietly estimated their plan would cut $2.9 trillion over a similar 10-year window. 

But Democrats subsequently ramped up a tough campaign against the Republican proposal, describing it as extreme and harmful to seniors. 

With the White House and Republicans — at least in general terms — now stressing the need to reduce the deficit, the leaders of the president’s deficit-reduction panel on Thursday praised both sides for their efforts. 

“We are very encouraged by the reports that the president and congressional leaders in both parties are discussing a serious, comprehensive deficit reduction plan with ‘everything on the table,’” co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, a former senator, said in a statement. “Let’s pull together, not pull apart.”

Casey Anthony Case Fuels Push in States for ‘Caylee’s Law’

Published July 08, 2011

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Reuters

July 7: Casey Anthony sits in court during her sentencing at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Florida.

The trial and acquittal of Casey Anthony has spawned a slew of proposed laws named after her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, as lawmakers and their constituents try to extract some measure of reform out of a case that ended — for many onlookers — with frustration. 

The state proposals, which sprung up after an Oklahoma woman started an online petition drive Tuesday, would generally make it a felony for a parent not to report the death or disappearance of his or her child in a certain period of time. 

Lawmakers have been drafting the bills at a furious pace since the Florida mother was found not guilty Tuesday in the death of her daughter.

In Maryland, Sen. Nancy Jacobs said she received nearly two dozen emails from constituents in the days following the verdict. She said they asked that she review Maryland law and find a way to criminalize the act of not reporting the death of one’s child. 

Jacobs, who is proposing a bill, said her version would make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian or caretaker not to notify law enforcement of the death of a child within a short period of time after the death is discovered. 

Back in Florida, several lawmakers filed “Caylee’s Law” on Thursday. Their proposal would require caregivers to promptly report a missing or dead child, and to promptly report to law enforcement the location of a child’s corpse if it is known. 

Other proposals are either filed or in the works in North Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states, according to local reports. 

Caylee was last seen on June 16, 2008, but her mother didn’t report her missing. The child’s grandmother notified authorities July 15. 

The case captivated the country for three years, but Anthony was convicted this week only on counts of lying to investigators. She is expected to be released July 17. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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