Obama News Conference Transcript (7-22-09)

This news conference was supposed to be on healthcare. It turned out to be more. Read the complete transcript. Excerpt below.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Congress, as you alluded to, is trying to figure out how to pay for all of this reform. Have you told House and Senate leaders which of their ideas are acceptable to you? If so, are you willing to share that stand of yours with the American people? And if you haven't given that kind of direction to congressional leaders, are you willing to -- are you willing to explain why you're not stepping in to get a deal done, since you're the one setting a deadline?

OBAMA: Well, before we talk about how to pay for it, let's talk about what exactly needs to be done. And the reason I want to emphasize this is because there's been a lot of misinformation out there.

Right now, premiums for families that have health insurance have doubled over the last 10 years. They've gone up three times faster than wages. So what we know is that, if the current trends continue, more and more families are going to lose health care, more and more families are going to be in a position where they keep their health care but it takes a bigger biting out of their budget.

Employers are going to put more and more costs on employees or they're just going to stop providing health care altogether.

We also know that health care inflation on the curve that it's on, we're guaranteed to see Medicare and Medicaid basically break the federal budget. And we know that we're spending -- on average we, here in the United States, are spending about $6,000 more than other advanced countries where they're just as healthy.

And I've said this before, if you found out that your neighbor had gotten the same car for $6,000 less, you'd want to figure out how to get that deal. And that's what reform is all about. How can we make sure that we are getting the best bang for our health care dollar.

Now, what we did very early on was say two-thirds of the costs of health care reform, which includes providing coverage for people who don't have it, making it more affordable for folks who do, and making sure that we're, over the long term, creating the kinds of systems where prevention and wellness and information technologies make the system more efficient.

That the entire cost of that has to be paid for and it has got to be deficit-neutral. And we identified two-thirds of those costs to be paid for by tax dollars that are already being spent right now.

So taxpayers are already putting this money into the kitty. The problem is, they're not getting a good deal for the money they're spending. That takes care of about two-thirds of the cost.

The remaining one-third is about what the argument has been about of late. What I've said is that there may be a number of different ways to raise money. I put forward what I thought was the best proposal, which was to limit the deductions, the itemized deductions, for the wealthiest Americans.

People like myself could take the same percentage deduction that middle class families do. And that would raise sufficient funds for that final one-third.

Now so far we haven't seen any of the bills adopt that. There are other ideas that are out there. I continue to think my idea is the best one. But I'm not foreclosing some of these other ideas as the committees are working them through.

The one commitment that I've been clear about is I don't want that final one-third of the cost of health care to be completely shouldered on the backs of middle class families who are already struggling in a difficult economy.

And so, if I see a proposal that is primarily funded through taxing middle class families, I'm going to be opposed to that because I think there are better ideas to do it.

Now there are -- you know, I have not yet seen what the Senate Finance Committee is producing. They've got a number of ideas. But we haven't seen a final draft. The House suggested a surcharge on wealthy Americans. And my understanding, although I haven't seen the final versions, is that there has been talk about making that basically only apply to families whose joint income is $1 million.

To me, that meets my principle that it's not being shouldered by families who are already having a tough time.

But what I want do is to see what emerges from these committees, continuing to work to find more savings, because I actually think that it's possible for us to fund even more of this process through identifying waste in the system.

Try to narrow as much as possible the new revenue that's needed on the front end. And then see how we can piece this thing together in a way that's acceptable to both Democrats and I hope some Republicans.

Public Turning Against Obama Healthcare Plan

This is starting to look a lot like the Clinton healthcare reform fiasco of the early 1990s. The President is playing into the hands of the Republicans by giving them an issue. Even the commercials on TV seem a lot like those that killed the previous attempt. And the same people, the heath care lobby that rule Washington, are paying for those ads and opposition.

A new poll suggests public approval of the way President Barack Obama is handling health care reform is slipping.

The Washington Post-ABC News survey says since April, Obama's approval rating on the issue has declined from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent.

The president's overall approval rating stands at 59 percent positive and 37 percent negative. It's the first time Obama's approval rating has fallen below 60 percent in Post-ABC polling since he took office.

Even some Democrats oppose the plan:

Media accounts portray the Obama team as playing defense on issues such as the overhaul costs, taxes and GOP charges that the President's plan would lead to "rationing." The mounting hurdles are delaying passage of the healthcare bill in both chambers, and indeed, some Senate Democrats believe they will need 60 votes including Republicans to clear the bill. The AP says the White House faces "both a "skeptical public" and "independent budget predictions that contradict the White House's rhetoric." NBC Nightly News reported GOP "critics and some moderate Democrats ratcheting up their criticism."

The AP notes that Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag played down "reports that lawmakers are bogged down over the health care overhaul," and said "good progress is being made toward Obama's goal of a bill in August." The Hill, however, reports that the President's "top cabinet advocates for universal healthcare were grilled on Sunday over how to raise taxes."

In a piece about White House strategy in pushing the President's agenda, The Politico reports that "the battle over health care" has "hardened into a fairly conventional Washington fight, a new president's sweeping agenda colliding with congressional caution." Meanwhile, the New York Times says Orszag "appeared to soften on the administration's insistence that a health care reform bill be delivered by August."

Too costly and tax increases - bad combination:

"If President Obama’s analogy holds true that reforming healthcare is a long race, this week might just be Heartbreak Hill," The Hill notes. "Beginning on Monday, Obama will find out if Congressional Democrats have the wherewithal to push ahead with their -- and his -- ambitious goal of crossing the healthcare finish line before August, or whether they have to stop and stretch before limping across at a later date. It’ll be close."

The need for 60: "The rules governing reconciliation are so complex and restrictive that the Senate Democratic leaders’ backup reconciliation plan could become mired in the same 60-vote problem they currently face as liberals, centrists and a handful of Republicans battle it out over the direction of a final Senate bill," Roll Call notes.

And on timing, is the White House softening its August timeline after last week's CBO report that costs would bend upward?

The Republican questioning of Sotomayor suggest they are less interested in having a fair judge on bench than playing politics. In particular, they are playing the kind of race politics that they showed during the last campaign and continue to show today in their attacks on President Obama. It is the politics of scapegoating and stereotyping.

I heard Pat Buchanan, a well known racial provocateur, calling Sotomayor a extremist and product of affirmative action. He dismissed all academic credentials as essentially having been given to her. In essence, he was arguing that her nomination was totally political. She is essentially a foot soldier in Obama's cultural war. This is how this bigot thinks, Buchanan. He also thinks Sarah Palin would make a great President.

This is how narrow minded the Republicans/Conservatives are.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

JP Morgan Quarterly Profits Jump 36%

Good to hear some banks are doing well. But what about the rest of the economy? This proves that the bailout of Wall St. was first about protecting big business and secondly the economy.

JP Morgan reported record revenues in the second quarter on Thursday on soaring investment banking fees and a strong performance from its commercial banking business.

The US bank’s earnings beat analysts’ most bullish expectations, jumping 36 per cent and producing net income of $2.7bn, or 28 cents a share, compared with $2bn, or 53 cents, in the same quarter the prior year.

Revenues climbed by 41 per cent in the quarter to a record $27.7bn. This was driven by $7.3bn from JP Morgan’s investment banking division, which saw fees soar grow by 29 per cent. Retail banking revenues climbed 44 per cent to $970m on higher deposit-related fees and balances and gains from its acquisition of Washington Mutual.

Related Link:
- Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profits

Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings: Transcript (7-14-09)

This is the complete transcript of yesterday's confirmation hearings considering Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor shows herself to be an impressive candidate for the highest court. She was thoughtful and responded in a dignified manner. Her answers were not evasive, which is typical of candidates to the Supreme Court, despite being grilled by small minded politicians whom are incapable of similar thoughtfulnes.

LEAHY: Well, and isn't that what -- you've been on the bench for 17 years. Have you set your goal to be fair and show integrity, based on the law?

SOTOMAYOR: I believe my 17-year record on the two courts would show that, in every case that I render, I first decide what the law requires under the facts before me, and that what I do is explain to litigants why the law requires a result. And whether their position is sympathetic or not, I explain why the result is commanded by law.

LEAHY: Well, and doesn't your oath of office actually require you to do that?

SOTOMAYOR: That is the fundamental job of a judge.

More

SOTOMAYOR: You are correct, Senator, that the panel, made up of myself and two other judges in the Second Circuit, decided that case on the basis of the very thorough 78-page decision by the district court and on the basis of established precedent.

The issue was not what we would do or not do, because we were following precedent, and you, when on (ph) circuit court, are obligated on a panel to follow established circuit precedent. The issue in Ricci was what the city did or could do when it was presented with a challenge to one of its tests that -- for promotion.

This was not a quota case; this was not an affirmative action case. This was a challenge to a test that everybody agreed had a very wide difference between the pass rate of a variety of different groups. The city was faced with the possibility recognized in law that the employees who were disparately impacted -- that's the terminology used in the law and is a part of the civil rights amendment that you were talking about in 1991 -- that those employees who could show a disparate impact, a disproportionate pass rate, that they could bring a suit and that then the employer had to defend the test that it gave.

The city here, after a number of days of hearings and a variety of different witnesses, decided that it wouldn't certify the test and it wouldn't certify it in an attempt to determine whether they could develop a test that was of equal value in measuring qualifications, but which didn't have a disparate impact.
And so the question before the panel was, was the decision a -- of the city based on race or based on its understanding of what the law required it to do?

SOTOMAYOR: Given Second Circuit precedent, Bushey v. New York State -- New York State Civil Services Commission, the panel concluded that the city's decision in that particular situation was lawful under established law.

The Supreme Court, in looking and review that case, applied a new standard. In fact, it announced that it was applying a standard from a different area of law and explaining to employers and the courts below how to look at this question in the future.

More Transcripts
- Transcript for 3rd day (7-15-09)

China Demands Turkish Retract 'Genocide' Remark

The Turkey government apparently has more backbone than American politicians in calling out China. It will be interesting to see if China forces Turkey to take back it's criticism. Or will the West urge Turkey to play down the matter. As with the Tibetans, the world does not give a damn about the Chinese persecution of the Uighurs.

China has demanded that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan retract his accusation that Beijing practised genocide against ethnic Uighurs.

Mr Erdogan made the claim after riots in the Uighur heartland of Xinjiang during which 184 people were killed.

Separately, more than 100 Chinese writers and intellectuals have signed a letter calling for the release of Ilham Tohti, an outspoken Uighur economist.

Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, is under heavy police and military control.

China's rejection of Mr Erdogan's remarks came in an editorial headlined "Don't twist facts" in the English-language newspaper China Daily.

It said the fact that 137 of the 184 victims were Han Chinese "speaks volumes for the nature of the event".

The newspaper urged Mr Erdogan to "take back his remarks... which constitute interference in China's internal affairs", describing his genocide comments as "irresponsible and groundless."

Mr Erdogan made the controversial comments last Friday, telling NTV television: "The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide. There's no point in interpreting this otherwise."

He had called on Chinese authorities to intervene to prevent more deaths.

The persecution continues:

Heavily armed security forces were out in force in China's volatile Urumqi on Tuesday close to where police shot dead two Muslim Uighurs who state media said were calling for jihad.

Large groups of police armed with semi-automatic weapons and batons were deployed close to the scene of Monday's violence, where Chinese authorities said police shot and killed two Uighur "lawbreakers" and wounded another.

The shootings showed the capital of the northwest Xinjiang region remained a powder keg more than a week after ethnic unrest on July 5 left at least 184 people dead, despite an ongoing security clampdown.

The Tibetans are still alive:

Nepalese police detained 15 Tibetans who were demonstrating against China in front of a U.N. office outside Kathmandu on Tuesday, a police official said.

Superintendent Kedar Mansingh Bhandari, head of Lalitpur police, said the Tibetans were detained while chanting anti-China slogans in front of the U.N. building in Lalitpur.

Bhandari also accused the Tibetan demonstrators of obstructing traffic. "We are discussing what action they will face," he said.

The Nepalese government has authorized the police to charge people who obstruct traffic under the Public Offense Act in a bid to check the almost-daily traffic obstructions in Kathmandu by groups making various demands.

Those charged under the public offense law face imprisonment of up to six months.

Tibetans in Nepal have staged anti-China protests since March 10 last year when China crushed protests in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profits

Thanks to the American taxpayer, Goldman Sachs is doing better than ever. That was pretty quick. So why isn't the rest of the economy doing as well? Their stocks have boomed but the rest of the economy is still anemic. Someone might want to ask that question of the administration:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s second- quarter profit exceeded analysts’ estimates as record trading and stock underwriting led the company to its highest quarterly profit.

Net income in the three months ended June 26 was $3.44 billion, or $4.93 a share, the New York-based bank said today in a statement. That surpassed the $3.65 per-share average estimate of 22 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and compared with $2.09 billion, or $4.58 per share, in last year’s second quarter.

Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, 54, made Goldman Sachs the highest-paying Wall Street firm in history before last year’s credit freeze led him to convert to a bank, accept government funds and report the first quarterly loss as a public company. This year Goldman Sachs has issued new stock, returned $10 billion to the U.S. Treasury and reaped fees from selling stocks and bonds.

“Goldman’s got a sweet spot in here, they were the go-to players,” said Peter Sorrentino, a senior portfolio manager at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, which oversees $13.8 billion including Goldman shares, before earnings were released. “For the time being, they’ve got kind of an open playing field all to themselves.”

Crooks and liars quotes a government report, from the NY Times, arguing that all illegal wiretapping, and the dastardly tactics used to obtain it, accomplished very little in protecting our country. That traditional methods of intelligence gathering were just as effective. Cheney, who's in trouble for ordering the CIA to lie to Congress about a secret program to kill terrorists, did not have to use these illegal methods.

It seems to me that the Bush administration was more interested in making up for their failure to prevent 9-11 by acting macho after the attacks. They wanted to look like they were doing everything possible to punish those responsible even if it meant breaking the law. In that way they could clear their consciences. In the process they've made America weaker.

Poll: 41 Percent Support Pot Legalization

More proof that this country has lost it's moral fiber. It is the latest example of a nation headed for an abyss. It has been become fashionable and "cool" to smoke marijuana. We thank the popular culture/media for the change in attitudes. But look at the people who the biggest supporters of legalization: gangster rappers and rockers. Then there is the notion that marijuana has medicinal use. Legalization should be limited to prescriptions only. Just every other drug. So don't buy these bogus arguments. Marijuana is more destructive to the body than cigarettes.

A CBS News Poll released today finds that 41 percent of Americans think the use of marijuana should be made legal. Fifty-two percent disagree.

The percentage supporting legalization has varied a bit recently. In March of this year 31 percent favored legalization but the number was higher in January at 41 percent, matching what it is now.

Thirty years ago just 27 percent thought the use of marijuana should be made legal.

Younger Americans are more likely than those who are older to support legalization.

Sen. Feinsten: Cheney, CIA Secret Plan "Outside of the Law"

The Wall St. Journal says the secret plan was intended to kill or capture al Qaeda members. So why hide it? It would've been acceptable to Congress. Unless it included more torture. Then again, let's not forget WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the CIA program concealed from the U.S. Congress was a secret plan to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives.

Former intelligence officials tell the Journal that the plan, which was ordered halted by agency Director Leon Panetta, was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential finding authorized by President George W. Bush.

Citing anonymous sources, the newspaper reported Monday ($) that the CIA spent money on planning and maybe some training, but it never became fully operational. The plan was highly classified and the CIA has refused to comment on it.

Senator Feinstein suggests keeping the program secret might've been illegal.

WALLACE: In our final moments, I want to turn to another subject, and this involves your role, Senator Feinstein, as chair of the Intelligence Committee.

CIA director Panetta briefed you recently on an 8-year-old program that he had stopped but that Congress had never been told about. Now there are reports that Vice President Cheney ordered the CIA not to tell Congress about it.

One, should Congress have been told about this program, which apparently was never fully implemented? And what do you make of the vice president's apparent role in telling the CIA not to brief Congress?

FEINSTEIN: The answer is yes, Congress should have been told. We should have been briefed before the commencement of this kind of sensitive program.

Director Panetta did brief us two weeks ago — I believe it was on the 24th of June — said he had just learned about the program, described it to us, indicated that he had canceled it and, as had been reported, did tell us that he was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress. This is...

WALLACE: And what do you think of that?

FEINSTEIN: Oh, I think this is a problem, obviously. This is a big problem, because the law is very clear. And I understand the need of the day, which was when America was in shock, when we had been hit in a way we'd never contemplated, where we had massive loss of life, where there was a major effort to be able to respond and — but this — see, I don't — I think you weaken your case when you go outside of the law.

And I think that if the Intelligence Committees had been briefed, they could have watched the program. They could have asked for regular reports on the program. They could have made judgments about the program as it went along. That was not the case because we were kept in the dark. That's something that should never, ever happen again.

Senator Durbin on This Week also suggests the program hiding was illegal:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me switch subjects, here, because there's a pretty startling allegation in this morning's New York Times.

The headline is "Cheney is Linked to Concealment of CIA Project."

And both of you gentlemen have served, in the past, on the Intelligence Committee.

According to this article, the Central Intelligence Agency, at the beginning of this decade, for eight years, withheld information on the secret counterterror program at the direct orders of the vice president.

This is according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. They say that Leon Panetta told the intelligence committees that.

Senator Durbin, do you think this has to be investigated?

DURBIN: Absolutely, it does. Let me tell you, we have a system of checks and balances. There's accountability in our Constitution. The executive branch of government cannot create programs like these programs and keep Congress in the dark. There is a requirement for disclosure.

It has to be done in an appropriate way so it doesn't jeopardize our national security, but to have a massive program that is concealed from the leaders in Congress is not only inappropriate; it could be illegal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you want the Intelligence Committee to look into this?

DURBIN: Absolutely.

- Additional links:

• The complete transcript of the ABC This Week program (7-12-09)

Top Republican Implies Sotomayor UnAmerican

Read the complete transcript (Face the Nation, 7-12-09) of Senator Sessions', while appearing on Face The Nation (7-12-09), critique of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. He somehow suggests her views are un-American and that she wouldn't be a fair judge while on the Supreme Court in confirmed:

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, let’s turn to the hearings that open tomorrow on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. She has visited now with over 89 senators over these past weeks. There is also an overwhelming Democratic majority. And there’s an overwhelming Democratic majority on the committee that you chair, Senator Leahy.

Some people are saying it’s already a done deal. That she’s going to be confirmed and that’s there’s nothing Senator Sessions and other -- and the Republicans can do about it. Is she going to be confirmed?

LEAHY: I suspect she will be confirmed. But you know, I would hope that it does not turn into a partisan fight for the good of the courts and for the good of the Supreme Court. Now Chief Justice Roberts is not somebody I would have recommended as a nominee to President Obama. But I voted for him when he was nominated by President Bush because I felt chief justice of the United States should not be on a party-line vote.

I just want to read something about -- there’s a profile today of Judge Sotomayor. Says she was inspired by the ideal of neutrality. She said: “I’m not going to be playing for the Hispanic team, the Democratic team, the Republican team. I’m going to be playing for the Constitution team.”

I don’t know what more you could ask of a judge. And here is...

SCHIEFFER: OK.

LEAHY: And here she is, she has been a judge longer than anybody who has gone on the Supreme Court in almost 100 years.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let’s ask Senator Sessions. What more can you ask?

SESSIONS: Well, I wish she had been saying that in her speeches over the last 10 years than what she has been saying. It’s absolutely critical that whoever sits on the bench -- and no one should sit on the federal bench who is not committed to the principles of the oath, which is that you should be impartial and do equal justice to the rich and poor alike, and not respect persons but do justice every day.

And in her -- a number of her speeches, for example, she has advocated a view that suggests that your personal experiences, even prejudices -- she uses that word, it’s expected that they would influence a decision you make, which is a blow, I think, at the very ideal of American justice.

Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies, influence the nature of their decision- making process. It’s the core of the American system.

LEAHY: Well, that’s...

SCHIEFFER: So would you oppose her because of that?

SESSIONS: Well, I think she’s going to have to answer that. Because this is a mature judicial philosophy that she has stated. She has criticized the idea that a woman and a man would reach the same result. She expects them to reach different results. I think that’s philosophically incompatible with the American system.

LEAHY: I totally disagree with that.

SESSIONS: Well, I’ve read her speeches in great depth. And I am convinced that’s what she said. And it wasn’t just the one line: a wise Latina will do a better job than a white male.

But what about her record?

LEAHY: That’s grasping at straws and I’ll tell you why. Here’s a woman who is a mainstream judge. She deserves respect as a judge. During her time actually for the days that she was a very tough prosecutor to her days as a trial judge to a court of appeals judge, that’s what we base it on. She has a track record. She has shown to be a mainstream judge. You don’t have to guess what kind of a judge she’s going to be.

I’ve asked her about her speeches. And she said ultimately and completely, the law controls. And as a judge, she’s shown over and over again that ultimately and completely, the law controls. We’ve had a lot of judicial nominees of both Republicans and Democrats talk about the background, how that has influenced them. Former President Bush talked about empathy when he nominated a Republican to the Supreme Court. You know, the fact is her answers are these. Ultimately and completely, the law controls. And she has the experience and the cases to be a mainstream judge. Anything else is nitpicking.

Cheney Ordered CIA to Hide Spy Program from Congress

It is clear Dick Cheney directed efforts to misleed Congress while vp. It is time for him to be prosecuted for his criminal conduct during the Bush years. If the Obama administration does not bring Cheney to justice they will betraying the American people; President Obama will be violating his oath of office.

Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney gave direct orders to the CIA to conceal an intelligence programme from Congress, US media reports say.

The existence of the programme, set up after 9/11, was hidden for eight years and even now its nature is not known.

CIA director Leon Panetta is said to have abandoned the project when he learnt of it last month.

He has now told a House committee that Mr Cheney was behind the secrecy, the unnamed US sources say.

There has been no comment from Mr Cheney.

War of words

The claims come amid an increasingly bitter row between the CIA and Congress over whether key information was withheld about other aspects of the agency's operations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed that the CIA misled her about interrogation methods including waterboarding, while other senior Democrats have quoted Mr Panetta as admitting that his agency regularly misled Congress before he took office.

This has Watergate written all over it:

So what are the "significant actions" that these seven lawmakers insist were kept from Congress? Another theory being bandied about concerns an "executive assassination ring" that was allegedly set up and answered to former Vice President Dick Cheney. The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, building off earlier reporting from the New York Times, dropped news of the possibility that such a ring existed in a March 2009 discussion sponsored by the University of Minnesota.

"It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," Hersh said. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it," he added. "It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths. Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That's been going on, in the name of all of us."

Asked if this was the basis of her letter to Panetta, Eshoo said she could not discuss what was a "highly classified program." She did, however, note that when Panetta told House Intelligence Committee members what it was that had been kept secret, "the whole committee was stunned, even Republicans." A Republican committee member told Who Runs Gov's Greg Sargent it was something they hadn't heard before.

Why wasn't something done or said about years ago? Where was the press in all this? Where were the Democrats? We knew about Cheney in 2004:

Vice President Cheney was aware of a meeting held by his staff that started a chain of events that ended with the "effective betrayal of our country," former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson charged Thursday in an interview with USA TODAY.

That betrayal was the revealing of his wife's identity as an undercover CIA operative, said Wilson, who served in diplomatic or White House posts in the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration before leaving government service in 1998.

Wilson did not accuse Cheney of leaking his wife's identity or of knowing about the leak before it was made. But he said Cheney had to have known that his staff was investigating Wilson in a probe that led to the discovery of his wife's job.

Knowingly revealing a CIA operative's name is a federal offense. Last July's leak of the name and CIA status of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, mushroomed into a red-hot controversy by fall. The leak is being investigated by the Justice Department. Columnist Robert Novak, who first reported the news about Plame, has said his original source was "two senior administration officials."

Obama Speech in Ghana: Transcript, Video (7-11-09)

Read the complete transcript (video below). Excerpt below:

I am speaking to you at the end of a long trip. I began in Russia, for a Summit between two great powers. I traveled to Italy, for a meeting of the world’s leading economies. And I have come here, to Ghana, for a simple reason: the 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra as well.

This is the simple truth of a time when the boundaries between people are overwhelmed by our connections. Your prosperity can expand America’s. Your health and security can contribute to the world’s. And the strength of your democracy can help advance human rights for people everywhere.

So I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world – as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children. That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility, and that is what I want to speak with you about today.

We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans.

I say this knowing full well the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world. I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family’s own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story.

My grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya, and though he was a respected elder in his village, his employers called him "boy" for much of his life. He was on the periphery of Kenya’s liberation struggles, but he was still imprisoned briefly during repressive times. In his life, colonialism wasn’t simply the creation of unnatural borders or unfair terms of trade – it was something experienced personally, day after day, year after year.

My father grew up herding goats in a tiny village, an impossible distance away from the American universities where he would come to get an education. He came of age at an extraordinary moment of promise for Africa. The struggles of his own father’s generation were giving birth to new nations, beginning right here in Ghana. Africans were educating and asserting themselves in new ways. History was on the move.

But despite the progress that has been made – and there has been considerable progress in parts of Africa – we also know that much of that promise has yet to be fulfilled. Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea’s when I was born, have been badly outpaced. Disease and conflict have ravaged parts of the African continent. In many places, the hope of my father’s generation gave way to cynicism, even despair.

It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father’s life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many.

Of course, we also know that is not the whole story. Here in Ghana, you show us a face of Africa that is too often overlooked by a world that sees only tragedy or the need for charity. The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. And with improved governance and an emerging civil society, Ghana’s economy has shown impressive rates of growth.

This progress may lack the drama of the 20th century’s liberation struggles, but make no mistake: it will ultimately be more significant. For just as it is important to emerge from the control of another nation, it is even more important to build one’s own.

So I believe that this moment is just as promising for Ghana – and for Africa – as the moment when my father came of age and new nations were being born. This is a new moment of promise. Only this time, we have learned that it will not be giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta who will determine Africa’s future. Instead, it will be you – the men and women in Ghana’s Parliament, and the people you represent. Above all, it will be the young people – brimming with talent and energy and hope – who can claim the future that so many in my father’s generation never found.

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Why Healthcare Reform Will Fail, Again

We are seeing a repeat of the healthcare fiasco we saw during the Clinton administration. The idea of raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession, especially when hundreds of billions of tax dollars were spent to bail out Wall St., is a mistake. This is a gift to the Republicans as a campaign issue. It reinforces the idea that this administration's spending is out of control. Timing is all bad and so is the cost. We can't afford it in present proposal format. Any healthcare reform should save money not increase the government cost.

House Democrats agreed yesterday to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for a sweeping expansion of the nation's health-care system, proposing a surtax on the highest earners that could send the top federal tax rate toward 45 percent.

Beginning in 2011, the plan would target all income over $350,000 a year for families and $280,000 a year for individuals, Democratic sources said. The surtax would start at 1 percent, rise to around 1.5 percent for families earning more than $500,000, then step up again, to around 3 percent, for families earning more than $1 million, Democrats said.

That would raise about $550 billion over the next decade, Democrats said -- about half the cost of reforms that are expected to cost about $1 trillion. The surtax percentages could rise two years later, they added, if lawmakers think additional cash is needed to cover the cost of health-care reform.

Obama News Conference in Italy: Transcript (7-10-09)

Read the complete transcript. Excerpt below:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. As you've pushed for an agreement to reduce nuclear stockpiles between Russia and the U.S., part of your rationale has been that you want to have the moral authority to then turn to North Korea and Iran to get them to suspend their programs. Why will they listen to what the U.S. and Russia have to say? What would it matter to them what we do?

OBAMA: Well, I don't think it matters so much necessarily that they will listen to the United States or Russia individually. But it gives us the capacity, as the two nuclear superpowers, to make appeals to the broader world community in a consistent way about the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the need to reduce that danger and hopefully at some point in time eliminate it.

So there are countries that have decided not to pursue nuclear weapons. Brazil, South Africa, Libya have all made a decision not to pursue nuclear weapons. Now, part of the concept behind the nonproliferation treaty was countries could develop peaceful nuclear energy, they would not pursue nuclear weapons if they were signatories to the treaty, and in turn the United States and Russia would also significantly reduce their nuclear stockpiles.

And so part of the goal here is to show that the U.S. and Russia are going to be fulfilling their commitments so that other countries feel that this is an international effort and it's not something simply being imposed by the United States or Russia or members of the nuclear club. And I am confident that we can rebuild a nonproliferation framework that works for all countries. And I think it's important for us to establish a set of international norms that can be verified, that can be enforced. And when we are speaking to Iran or North Korea it's not a matter of singling them out, but rather it's a set of international norms of behavior that we're expecting everybody to abide by.

[...]The momentum seems to have slowed a bit. The Senate Finance Committee is still wrestling with the cost issue. The Blue Dog Democrats, members of your own party, yesterday said they had strong reservations about what's developing so far. I was just wondering, when are you going to be jumping in really full force with this? Do you have any sweeteners planned? What is your push before the August recess?

OBAMA: Well, we jumped in with both feet. Our team is working with members of Congress every day on this issue, and it is my highest legislative priority over the next month.

So I think it's important just to recognize we are closer to achieving serious health care reform that cuts costs, provides coverage to American families, allows them to keep their doctors and plans that are working for them.

We're closer to that significant reform than at any time in recent history. That doesn't make it easy. It's hard. And we are having a whole series of constant negotiations. This is not simply a Democratic versus Republican issue. This is a House versus Senate issue; this is different committees that have different priorities.

My job is to make sure that I've set some clear parameters in terms of what I want to achieve. We have to bend the cost curve on health care, and there are some very specific ways of doing that - game changers that incentivize quality as opposed to quantity, that emphasize prevention.

Obama will not Eradicate Afghanistan Opium Crop

The Heroin produced by Afghanistan poppy crops end up on the streets of America killing our people. So why is the Obama administration refusing to try and eradicate the crops. The greatest victims of heroin: blacks in the inner cities of America. I guess the White House believes that if can't beat them, join them. This stupid policy stems from a military strategy without much hope of succeeding. What makes it so foolish is that the Taliban, which is getting rich from the opium trade, is using that wealth to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. Obama just proved to me that he is totally clueless when it comes to national security.

The 4,000 U.S. Marines now pushing deep into Taliban-controlled tracts as part of an expanded war in southern Afghanistan are setting up fire bases amid some of the most productive poppy fields in the world's opium-producing capital.

It's not harvest time in Helmand province, the center of Afghanistan's thriving opium poppy industry. But even if the flowers were blooming, it's doubtful the Marines would do much about it.

Convinced that razing the cash crop grown by dirt-poor Afghan farmers is costing badly needed friends along the front lines of the fight against Taliban-led insurgents, U.S. authorities say they are all but abandoning the Bush-era policy of destroying drug crops.

"Eradication is a waste of money," U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke told The Associated Press last month.

On a small scale, the new live-and-let-live policy on poppy farming neatly illustrates the redrawn goals for a nearly eight-year war that all the military might of the United States and its allies has failed to win.

Heroin may be a deadly scourge, but there are more pressing concerns, U.S. officials say, and ways to fight drug production without driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.

"You're able to put a hurt on the Taliban without necessarily putting the hurt on the people who happen to live there," said William Wechsler, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counter-narcotics and global threats.

The United States has spent about $45 million annually in recent years to support poppy eradication in Afghanistan, and the policy has also been a cornerstone of the United Nations anti-drug program.

Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. While opium cultivation dropped 19 percent last year, it remains concentrated in Afghanistan's southern provinces where the Taliban is strongest. The U.N. estimates that opium poppies earned insurgents an estimated $50 million to $70 million last year.

U.S. officials said they will now "greatly de-emphasize" eradication, which has been carried out by Afghan forces with U.S. backing. The U.S. military stays at arms' length, and NATO forces fighting alongside the U.S. do not participate.

The shift away from eradication is still more plan than policy, and it has little practical effect right now. The announcement came after the largest harvest was in for the season.

"The real difference as we move from how we were focusing on Afghanistan in the past (to) the president's new focus on counterinsurgency is this is a policy that defines the strategic interest, that defines winning over the population," as the primary goal, Wechsler said.

As a forthcoming mission statement from the new American commander in Afghanistan is expected to conclude, the Obama administration will measure success in Afghanistan not by the number of insurgents killed but by the number of civilians protected.

Poll: World has Little Confidence in Leaders' Economic Measures

The world, like the U.S., have little faith in their governments being able to get us out of this financial mess. With good reason. They failed to prevent to the crisis in the first place. So why should we trust them not to be pawns of international finance and corporations.

As President Barack Obama and other world leaders meet in Italy , a global survey released Thursday reflects wide concern that governments won't meet their budgets in this economic climate — and a universal preference to respond by cutting services rather than raising taxes.

What kinds of cuts? The top choices internationally in the Ipsos / McClatchy poll were reducing aid to foreign countries (57 percent) and cutting the salaries and benefits of government workers (56 percent). People drew a distinction, however, between general foreign aid and disaster relief, which few wanted to reduce.

Cutting military spending was the third most popular choice (43 percent), though less popular in the United States , where only 35 percent favored it.

Least popular internationally were cuts to education and health care (only 4 percent favored each). Only 9 percent of the international respondents favored slashing social welfare, but 20 percent of Americans were willing to clip welfare recipients.

If higher taxes become necessary, the most palatable targets internationally were cigarettes (65 percent), alcohol (53 percent) and junk food (35 percent), all of which were preferred to raising corporate, property, vehicle or sales taxes.

While just 33 percent internationally expressed confidence that their governments could meet their budgets, two nations stood out in contrast: Eighty-three percent were confident that China would stay on budget, and 77 percent said so of India.

Some Imported Chinese drywall may be Radioactive

More evidence of Chinese products that could harm our people. And especially how the Bush administration had no concern for our welfare. It's up to the Obama administration to show that they put American safety above profits.

Some Chinese-made drywall imported into the United States contained radioactive material, news reports suggest, but state and federal tests so far haven't detected it.

Copies of customs reports obtained by The Los Angeles Times show drywall made with a radioactive waste product was shipped to the states in 2006 by at least four Chinese manufacturers and trading firms.

The substance, called phosphogypsum, has been banned from use in nearly all products made in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency since 1989.

The EPA says that phosphogypsum, a fertilizer byproduct, contains uranium and radium.

Radium decays to form radon, a cancer-causing, radioactive gas. A geoscientist interviewed by The Times said the material can cause corrosion.

Defying the Government Thousands Protest in Iran

If the protests in Iran succeed in bringing down the government, which is highly unlikely, it will happen without much help from the rest of the world. As I've written before, revolution in Iran will not be achieved without publicity. And that means video coming out of that country. The Iranian people must find a way to get their story out. Twitter is helpful but enough. Without video it is hopeless. The Iranian government understands this. That is they've done everything to prevent pictures and news from coming out of the country. If the Obama administration had any sense it would use the CIA to get those video cameras out to the protesters. In addition, the protesters should use not violent means for achieving their goals; not violence. They need to take a lesson from the civil rights movement in America. They should legal means against the criminal government in Iran. Jim Crow was not destroyed because of inspired leadership, but because video and pictures that shocked America. The protesters do not have enough force, along with leadership to overthrow the government in Tehran. They are using the wrong tactics. They must focus on using the freedoms to push for greater democracy - Peaceably. It can be done only if they use weapons that are available. Not guns but video, the internet, and civil disobedience.

Thousands of protesters streamed down avenues of the capital Thursday, chanting "death to the dictator" and defying security forces who fired tear gas and charged with batons, witnesses said.

Turning garbage bins into burning barricades and darting through choking clouds of tear gas, the opposition made its first foray into the streets in nearly two weeks in an attempt to revive mass demonstrations that were crushed in Iran's postelection turmoil.

Iranian authorities had promised tough action to prevent the marches, which supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been planning for days through the Internet. Heavy police forces deployed at key points in the city ahead of the marches, and Tehran's governor vowed to "smash" anyone who heeded the demonstration calls.

In some places, police struck hard. Security forces chased after protesters, beating them with clubs on Valiasr Street, Tehran's biggest north-south avenue, witnesses said.

Women in headscarves and young men dashed away, rubbing their eyes in pain as police fired tear gas, in footage aired on state-run Press TV. In a photo from Thursday's events in Tehran obtained by The Associated Press outside Iran, a woman with her black headscarf looped over her face thrust her fist into the air in front of a garbage bin that had been set on fire.

[...]Many of the marchers were young men and women, some wearing green surgical masks, the color of Mousavi's movement, but older people joined them in some places. Vehicles caught in traffic honked their horns in support of the marchers, witnesses said. Police were seen with a pile of license plates, apparently pried off honking cars in order to investigate the drivers later, the witnesses said.

Soon after the confrontations began, mobile phone service was cut off in central Tehran, a step that was also taken during the height of the postelection protests to cut off communications. Mobile phone messaging has been off for the past three days, apparently to disrupt attempts at planning.

The calls for a new march have been circulating for days on social networking Web sites and pro-opposition Web sites. Opposition supporters planned the marches to coincide with the anniversary Thursday of a 1999 attack by Basij on a Tehran University dorm to stop protests in which one student was killed.

Secret Program Fuels CIA-Congress Dispute

What the hell is going on here. Is anyone is charge? Or is reminiscent of the Weimar Republic? Whatever they're doing very little of it has to do with preserving and protecting America. And everyday we lose more and more of our freedoms. We have a rogue government, folks.

Four months after he was sworn in, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta learned of an intelligence program that had been hidden from Congress since 2001, a revelation that prompted him to immediately cancel the initiative and schedule a pair of closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill.

The next day, June 24, Panetta informed the House and Senate intelligence committees of the program and the action he had taken, according to Democratic and Republican members of the panels.

The incident has reignited a long-running dispute between congressional Democrats and the CIA, with some calling it part of a broader pattern of the agency withholding information from Congress. Some Republicans, meanwhile, privately questioned whether Panetta -- who has stood with CIA officers in a dispute with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) -- was looking to score points with House Democrats.

The program remains classified, and those knowledgeable about it would describe it only vaguely yesterday. Several current and former administration officials called it an "on-again, off-again" attempt to create a new intelligence capability and said it was related to the collection of information on suspected terrorists that was instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.