Obama: Rich must pay fair share of deficit cuts
September 21, 2011

An impassioned President Barack Obama set up an acerbic and personal clash with Republicans Monday, demanding $1.5 trillion in new taxes on the rich in a plan aimed at slashing the deficit.
"This is not class warfare, it is math," Obama declared, arguing that without tax increases on those who could afford it, the budget gap, which is casting a shadow over future generations of Americans, could never be closed.
"All I'm saying is that those who have done well, including me, should pay their fair share in taxes," Obama said in a speech that effectively staked out the ground on which the 2012 presidential election will likely be fought.
But Republicans immediately came out against the move, making it more likely that a fierce partisan row over taxes and spending will rumble on and define the terrain of the 2012 presidential election.
"Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership," said Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
A fiery, populist Obama laid out a plan few experts believe has any chance of passing Congress but which will make clear the battle lines between the White House and Republicans on the lumbering economy.
"We can't just cut our way out of this hole," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden, laying out his plans to cut $3.0 trillion from the deficit with a mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes.

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Palestine power play
September 20, 2011

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said "all hell has broken out" over his statehood bid, but he vowed to press for a showdown on Friday that may force the United States into an embarrassing veto vote.
Abbas arrived in New York yesterday and quickly told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of his plans to ask the world body to make "Palestine" its 194th member.
He took a shot at the US when he said he was under "tremendous pressure" to back down -- a hint he is risking a cutoff of Western financial aid.
"We don't know to what extent. We will know later," he added.
But, even if aid is chopped, the Palestinian Authority may avoid a cash crisis, thanks to a $200 million grant from Saudi Arabia, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Abbas intends to give Ban a letter applying for UN membership after he makes a pitch for recognition to the General Assembly on Friday.
The application would have to win approval from nine of the 15 members of the Security Council, including the US and the four other veto-wielding permanent members.
The Obama administration opposes the Palestinian move, saying statehood can come about only through negotiations with Israel. Talks between the two sides have been moribund for more than a year.

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Air race safety questioned after Reno crash
September 20, 2011

Late summer is a popular time for air shows and races, and many fans are drawn to the spectacle of high flight, breakneck speeds, and daredevil aerial acrobatics.
But two crashes over the weekend - one at an air race in Reno, Nev. and the other at an air show in West Virginia, left both pilots and nine spectators dead, and dozens of others injured.
They also left some people asking whether the air races have become too dangerous, reports CBS News correspondent Karen Brown.
"The objective, really, is to go as fast as possibly just as in any type of race," points out CBS News aviation safety expert Mark Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "The problem is, when you begin to go as fast as possible, you really do reach the edge of the safety envelope."
Twenty-five-year-old Noah Joraanstad barely survived the crash are the race in Reno, Nev., that killed nine people in all.
"When that thing started coming down, I couldn't believe it. I was like, 'I'm gonna die. I'm gonna start running.' And then, I reached around and touched my back, and that's when I realized I'd been cut open."

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Obama to unveil $3 trillion in debt cuts
September 19, 2011

President Obama will unveil a plan on Monday to cut the national debt by roughly $3 trillion over the next decade.
Obama's plan reflects his vision for how best to put the country on a more fiscally sustainable course, so it is different in nature than the kind of legislative compromise he was trying to broker this summer during the debt-ceiling debate, a senior administration official said.
A driving principle behind the proposal is that high-income individuals and corporations should pay more in taxes than they do currently so that they will bear some of the burden of debt reduction going forward.
Indeed, in remarks on Monday morning, the president will make clear he'll veto any debt-reduction legislation that takes "one dime away from Medicare benefits without asking the wealthy to pay their fair share," the official said.
Obama will even introduce the "Buffett Rule" for millionaires -- named after investor Warren Buffett, who has frequently argued that the very rich are not taxed enough

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Plane in NV crash had 'radical' changes to compete
September 19, 2011

The World War II-era plane that plummeted into an air-race crowd like a missile bore little resemblance to its original self. It was rebuilt for speed, if not for stability.
The 65-year-old "Galloping Ghost" underwent years of massive overhauls that took a full 10 feet off its wingspan. The ailerons - the back edges of the main wings used to control balance - were cut from about 60 inches to 32.
Pilot Jimmy Leeward had said the changes made the P-51 Mustang faster and more maneuverable, but in the months before Friday's crash even he wasn't certain exactly how it would perform.
"I know it'll do the speed," he said in a podcast uploaded to YouTube in June. "The systems aren't proven yet. We think they're going to be OK."
Investigators don't yet know what caused the plane to pitch sharply into the crowd at the National Championship Air Races in Reno, killing nine people, including Leeward, and injuring dozens. They have focused on the "elevator trim tab" - a piece of the tail that helps the aircraft maintain lift and appeared to break off before the crash. While investigators did not identify the items, the NTSB released a photo late Sunday of two board officials at the crash site with items they said were part of the investigation.
In the highly competitive, bravado-filled world of air racing, pilots go for broke on the ground and in the sky, hitting speeds of 500 mph. Leeward is the 20th pilot to die at the air races since they began 47 years ago, but Friday's crash was the first in which spectators were killed.

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Solyndra Loan 'Crony Capitalism at Its Worst'
September 19, 2011

The fallout over the Obama administration's half-billion dollar loan to a now-bankrupt solar panel company shows the government should get out of the business for good of "picking winners and losers," Republicans said Sunday.
The company, California-based Solyndra, received $528 million in taxpayer dollars before filing for bankruptcy earlier this month and laying off more than 1,000 people. A cascade of emails and documents released over the past week showed that the loan guarantee was approved in 2009 following pressure from the company itself and the White House.
As House Republicans investigate the loan and its back-story, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., suggested the company's situation represented the tip of the iceberg. The chairman of the House Budget Committee said Washington needs to let the private sector take on these kinds of risks in the future.
"There are billions more of this exact kind of spending that came out of the stimulus that will produce these results we fear. This is industrial policy and crony capitalism at its worst. It's exhibit A for how this kind of economic policy doesn't work," he told "Fox News Sunday." "We shouldn't be picking winners or losers in Washington. We should be setting the conditions for economic growth so that the private sector can create jobs. Washington is not good at picking winners and losers, so we shouldn't try."

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Professors offer more than $10,000 for proof that Bachmann's story about HPV is true
September 17, 2011

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's story about a woman who claimed that her daughter suffered "mental retardation" after receiving a vaccine against HPV could fetch the woman's family thousands of dollars. But the family can only collect if Bachmann or the unnamed woman can prove the story is true.
Two bioethics professors have offered to pay more than $10,000 for medical records that prove the anecdote Bachmann told after Monday night's Republican presidential debate is true, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:
Steven Miles, a U of M bioethics professor, said that he'll give $1,000 if the medical records of the woman from Bachmann's story are released and can be viewed by a medical professional.
His offer was upped by his former boss from the University of Minnesota, Art Caplan, who is now director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics. Caplan said he would match Miles' challenge and offered $10,000 for proof of the HPV vaccine victim.
"'These types of messages in this climate have the capacity to do enormous public health harm,'" Miles said of why he made the offer. 'The woman, assuming she exists, put this claim into the public domain and it's an extremely serious claim and it deserves to be analyzed.'"
Bachmann told the story after she criticized opponent Texas Gov. Rick Perry for using an executive order in 2007 to mandate that all girls entering the sixth grade receive a vaccination against the Human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical cancer. The Texas legislature overturned the mandate and the policy was never enacted.
"There's a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate," Bachmann said after the debate, where she had told Perry on stage that she was "offended" by his decision. "She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine." She repeated the story to several news outlets over the next 24 hours and sent a fundraising letter to supporters about the exchange she had with Perry on the debate stage.
When pressed by Fox News' Sean Hannity on his radio program about the story, Bachmann said she had "no idea" if it were true.
Bachmann's story drew criticism members of the medical community along with several conservatives allies, including radio host Rush Limbaugh, who have refused to defend her. Ed Rollins, who advised Bachmann's campaign through the summer, said she should take it back.
"She made a mistake," Rollins said on MSNBC. "The quicker she admits she made a mistake and moves on, the better she is."

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Obama touts jobs bill benefits for small business
September 16, 2011

President Barack Obama urged enthusiastic college students Wednesday to join him in his fight to get Congress to act on his new jobs bill. "Every single one of you can help make this bill a reality," the president called out at a hot and noisy rally at North Carolina State University.
Someone in the crowd yelled out, "I love you!"
"If you love me you got to help me pass this bill," the president responded.
It was Obama's second campaign-style rally in two days as he pushes for action on his $450 billion jobs plan. His program is running into a buzz saw of opposition from Republicans - and even some in his own Democratic Party - over his plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for it.
The president was in Ohio Tuesday, and last week in Virginia, as he travels key electoral states to sell the plan with the economy stuck in neutral heading into his 2012 re-election campaign.
On Wednesday Obama's focus was small businesses, which would be helped by Social Security payroll tax cuts. Before speaking, he toured WestStar Precision, a small business in the Raleigh suburb of Apex. It makes specialized components for the aerospace, medical and alternative energy industries.

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Solyndra Bankruptcy Raises Questions About Federal Loan Guarantees
September 16, 2011

High risk was essentially the nature of the ill-fated Solyndra investment from its conception, but it's really only now--after what could potentially amount to a scandal for either the bankrupt solar company, the Obama administration, or both--that the risks taken by the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program are coming to the forefront.
Solyndra, a solar manufacturing company based in Fremont, Calif. that specializes in producing a new type of cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels, was the Obama administration's clean-energy poster child back in September 2009 when it finalized a loan guarantee deal with the Energy Department. Early this month, however, after receiving $527 million in federal funds over two years, the company filed for bankruptcy.
With the half billion in taxpayer dollars loaned to Solyndra mostly likely lost for good, Americans now have to ask themselves whether the loan guarantee program is worth the gamble, and whether they should trust the administration with managing the risks involved.
Democrats have been quick to point out that it was the Republican Bush administration that set the loan guarantee program in motion and first began to process Solyndra's application; it was the Obama administration, however, that ultimately moved forward on Solyndra's loan guarantee with money set aside by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the 2009 stimulus. According to the Energy Department, more than two years of due diligence were completed before the loan guarantees were first offered conditionally in March 2009, and then finally closed later that year. At the time, Solyndra's new rolled-tube technology seemed like it had potential. Though it was more expensive to deploy than other more traditional solar panels already in the market, it didn't have to account for the price of polysilicon--which was fairly high at the time--and it was also much cheaper and easier for consumers to install.
However, after the deal was signed, the global solar market changed unexpectedly, significantly changing Solyndra's business prospects. A large influx of Chinese state loans to domestic silicon producers and a decline in demand in the European market drove down the price of polysilicon and it continues to fall--as much as 42 percent just since the beginning of 2011, according to the DOE. Though this benefited consumers, Solyndra lost its competitive advantage with other solar manufacturers around the world, something that even a new facility built with the money backed by the loan guarantees couldn't overcome.

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After Kabul attack, a fight for the narrative
September 15, 2011

Six insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles attacked the heart of the U.S. presence in Kabul, Afghanistan. They fired grenades into the grounds of the U.S. embassy, killed three Afghans and injured 21 others over a 20-hour period.
The six men held off a counter-attack by U.S., NATO and Afghan soldiers and helicopter gunships for 20 hours before being killed.
How did the U.S. government characterize this attack? "Harassment," said the U.S. ambassador in Kabul. "Far from spectacular," said the top spokesman in the Pentagon.
At the same time, U.S. and NATO officials pointed to the reaction by Afghanistan security forces to fight back. Early on, the Twitter feed from the International Security Assistance Force media relations team had comments from the secretary general of NATO that he was "confident Afghan authorities can deal with the situation."
"Once again, I was impressed by the courage, skill and fighting spirit of Afghan forces. The insurgency has again failed," said Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, in a statement.
If you figure the six insurgents were aiming to seize or destroy the U.S. Embassy and ISAF headquarters, it was a major failure, the Pentagon spokesman said. No U.S. or coalition personnel were killed and no walls were even breached.
"They were defeated and roundly defeated at the end of the day," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said. "It was far from spectacular."
Ambassador Ryan Crocker said it wasn't even an attack. "They were firing from at least 800 meters (half-mile) away and with an RPG, that's harassment. That's not an attack."
But for all the downplaying by U.S. and NATO officials, military analysts CNN spoke to said the Taliban did succeed in gaining attention, even if ultimately the action was stopped.

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