5/11/11

Republicans immediately fired back against President Obama after he claimed Tuesday that the U.S. border with Mexico has improved since he took office.Countering Republican calls to focus on border security before moving to a comprehensive overhaul, Obama said in his speech to an enthusiastic crowd in the politically unfriendly territory of El Paso, Texas, that their demands have been more than met by his administration but “they’ll never be satisfied.”

“We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement,” Obama said. “But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I gotta say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.””Maybe they’ll need a moat,” Obama said mockingly to laughter from the crowd. “Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat.”

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5/9/11

India Company, a component of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, is the first combat unit to be equipped with a new package of portable, front-line solar gear developed by Navy scientists. It is a boots-on-the-ground example of the Marine Corps’ new blueprint for energy use. The Corps wants to cut per-Marine fuel use in half by 2025.Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has pushed biofuels for fighter jets, hybrid-electric drives for Navy ships, and renewable-energy systems for Marines on the move. The Marines are part of the Department of the Navy. Mabus aims for half of the Navy’s energy to come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.

Batteries make up as much as 20 percent of the weight of the 100 pounds (45kg) of gear a Marine infantryman typically carries. A Marine uses four times as much fuel as his counterpart did in the early 1990s — due to, among other things, laptops and other electronic gear that use electricity pumped out by portable generators.By allowing the troops to recharge their radios, GPS devices and other equipment, the green technology freed the Marines of India Company from constant resupply by road and air. And by carrying fewer batteries, they carried more bullets.

4/20/11

The Washington Post first reported on the aborted landing at Andrews Air Force Base due to an air traffic controller allowing the two aircraft to come too close. Obama was aboard a Boeing 737, one of the fleet of presidential passenger jets, returning from an appearance on ABC’s “The View” in New York, when the near-collision happened on final approach to Andrews.

The Obama plane aborted the landing because it “did not have the required amount of separation behind a military C-17,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a written statement. “The FAA is investigating the incident. The Boeing 737 landed safely after executing the go around. The aircraft were never in any danger.”The incident is the latest embarrassment for the FAA, which is dealing with the fallout over several air traffic controllers falling asleep this year, some while planes tried to land. 

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4/19/11

In the latest incident, the controller was watching a movie on a DVD player early Sunday morning while on duty at a regional radar center near Cleveland, Ohio that handles high-altitude air traffic, the FAA said in a statement Monday.The controller’s microphone was inadvertently activated, transmitting the soundtrack of the movie — the 2007 crime thriller “Cleaner,” starring Samuel L. Jackson — for more than three minutes to all the planes in the airspace that the controller was supposed to be monitoring, the agency said.

Babbitt was at a regional radar center near Atlanta with Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union that represents controllers. The pair met with about 50 controllers and other FAA employees as they kicked off a nationwide tour of air traffic facilities aimed at sending a message as much to the public as to controllers that unprofessional behavior won’t be tolerated.Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood underscored the same message in a series of television interviews over the past several days. Even President Barack Obama joined the chorus, telling ABC News last week: “We’ve got it under control.”

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4/15/11

WASHINGTON — Congress is preparing to leave for a two-week Spring break but not before the House votes Friday on the Republican proposal for a 2012 budget, a plan designed by Rep. Paul Ryan to chop more than $6.2 trillion in spending over 10 years. But Ryan, R-Wis., says the effort is an attempt to “preempt austerity” that will come by following the current budget route, which on its current trajectory adds $6.7 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. 

What we’re trying to do here is keep the social compact,” Ryan told an audience in Washington on Thursday. “A limited government, free enterprise system, a government that lives within its means, a government (that) keeps its promises to the most vulnerable in our society, to the seniors in our society, but a government that continues the idea of America, the characteristics of America, equal opportunity, upward mobility, prosperity.”According to Ryan’s plan, Medicare payments would no longer be paid by government sending out checks for medical bills, but would let people under age 55 choose among private insurance plans that the government would then supplement. People 55 and over would remain in the current system, but younger workers would receive subsidies that would steadily lose value over time. Ryan says those who can pay more will have to do so while lower income Americans will still be covered.

4/13/11

A mother drove a minivan into the Hudson River after a dispute at home, killing herself and her three young children, firefighters in New York reported Tuesday night.The chief said firefighters were alerted by a fourth child the mother had let out of the minivan just before it plunged into the river. The 10-year-old told firefighters his mother had driven off a boat ramp in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, and into the murky water of the river, which runs between New York and New Jersey, Vatter said.

Firefighters and police officers responded with boats. Divers searched for the minivan for about an hour before finding it submerged in 10 feet of water about 25 yards offshore. They used a heavy-duty tow truck to pull it up the boat ramp and onto land.About ten minutes before the woman drove into the river, police responded to a report of a domestic dispute at a Newburgh home, The Times Herald-Record reported.

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4/12/11

Millions of average Americans are preparing to file their tax returns, most without the help of powerful lobbyists working to make sure the tax code is tailored to minimize their obligations to Uncle Sam. But that’s exactly what many top U.S. corporations spend millions to accomplish, and it’s all legal. Critics say Bank of America, Boeing, Verizon and others are also benefiting from the current system: earning billions and either paying nothing or actually getting refunds. It’s all a result of laws heavily influenced by Washington’s top lobbyists. 

“They can gather up incredible amounts of resources in order to lobby the White House, lobby Congress — really cover the waterfront in terms of their political liabilities,” Levinthal said. It’s no secret that GE enjoys a close relationship with the Obama administration. Earlier this year, President Obama tapped GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head up his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Levinthal says GE is one of the best when it comes to putting together a “full frontal assault on politics in Washington.” He notes that GE “has a lot of money to bring to the table” and has very powerful people working on the corporation’s behalf in Washington. 

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4/8/11

Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing two Hamas gunmen and wounding seven other Palestinians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.Israel’s ongoing retaliation for the bus attack has killed five militants, a policeman and a civilian. An Israeli Cabinet minister said the strikes will continue.

In Thursday’s attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with an anti-tank rocket, badly wounding the driver and a 16-year-old boy. Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that controls Gaza, claimed responsibility for the attack. The boy remains unconscious in the intensive care ward of an Israeli hospital.”Whoever tries to hurt and murder children: the blood is on his hands,” he said during a meeting with the Czech president, according to the Jerusalem Post.”Whoever tries to hurt and murder children: the blood is on his hands,” he said during a meeting with the Czech president, according to the Jerusalem Post.

4/7/11

An investigation by the Fox News Specials Unit revealed that the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks was likely never told by the FBI about an arrest warrant filed and then dropped against American-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – the spiritual guide to at least two of the hijackers.Two senior investigators with the 9/11 Commission told Fox News that they were actively considering whether Awlaki was part of a pre- 9/11 support cell in the U.S. for the hijackers. Asked if documents on the decision by federal authorities to drop the charges should have been shared, one of the investigators said yes, adding the decision to pull the warrant on the same day Awlaki returned in October 2002 demanded further investigation.

There is no mention of the Awlaki arrest warrant in the 9/11 Commission report itself. There is a lengthy footnote about the cleric which has one reference to an FBI internal memo that was circulated Oct. 8, 2002 – just two days before the cleric’s return. Fox News sought those documents through a Freedom of Information Act request in 2010. Twenty-seven pages were produced for Fox News’ investigative team, but nearly all the text was redacted – citing an executive order – that the material should remain secret for national security reasons.

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4/6/11

With the news that President Obama is officially running for re-election in 2012, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at where some of candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign trail promises stand today.The president has said he keeps a check list of promises he made during the campaign in his pocket. Last fall Mr. Obama told “Rolling Stone” he figured his administration had “probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do.”

The watchdog organization Politifact.com* has been keeping track and puts candidate Obama’s list of promises at a staggering 506, of those they say the president has kept 122, or 24 percent. Coincidentally, of the 25 selected as the most significant promises, politifact.com says Obama has followed through on six, for a ‘promise-kept percentage’ of 24 percent.As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly stated his intentions to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, calling the facility a recruitment tool for al Qaeda. With Monday’s announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged plotters in the September 11 attacks would be tried in military courts, it has become even more obvious that Gitmo will not be shutting down anytime soon.

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