Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Source/Full Story: The Weekly Standard

President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News.

The document, a formal National Security Presidential Directive, amounted to a “game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the earth,” one of the sources told NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski.

The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

In many respects, the directive, as described to NBC News, outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly to the attacks because it simply had to pull the plans “off the shelf,” Miklaszewski said.

Source/Full Story: msnbc.com

James Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, says Americans will feel “a certain shock” when a report is released today detailing the intelligence failures that could have prevented the Christmas Day attack.

Americans will feel “a certain shock” when a report is released today detailing the intelligence failures that could have prevented the alleged Christmas Day airline bomber from ever boarding the plane.

In an interview Wednesday with USA Today, White House national security adviser James Jones said President Obama “is legitimately and correctly alarmed that things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of behavior that were available, were not acted on.”

“That’s two strikes,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the failed Northwest jet attack and the shooting massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, in November. The Army base attack left 13 dead after officials failed to act on intelligence identifying suspected gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as a threat to fellow soldiers.

Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, told the paper that Obama “certainly doesn’t want that third strike, and neither does anybody else.”

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

The Obama administration has soured on a call from its top commander to double the size of the Afghan police and army, reflecting the White House’s continued skepticism about the Afghan government even as the U.S. prepares a surge of troops into the country, people familiar with the matter say.

At an address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, President Barack Obama is expected to announce that he will send roughly 30,000 American reinforcements to Afghanistan in addition to the 21,000 he deployed early in his administration. The escalation would bring total U.S. forces to some 100,000, the largest American troop deployment to Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban government.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

The Washington Post states that:  “The list of 481 records, covering the first six months of the Obama presidency, is far from a comprehensive record of who met with the president and his top staff members. Aides said they released records for only those visitors about whom a specific request was made on the Whitehouse.gov Web site since last month.“

And you gotta love that little snippet from Norm Eisen, who said that “Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process.”  Yea, because we know for a fact that it’s not the voices of the PEOPLE.

The White House on Friday began releasing the names of visitors as part of a Barack Obama campaign promise to run a more transparent administration.

Last month, Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, said records of White House visitors would be made available to the public on an ongoing basis beginning in December.

“We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside it,” he said. “Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process.”
…
The names can be seen at www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/visitor-records

Source/Full Story: CNN.com

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

Source/Full Story: NYTimes.com
Technorati Tags: Ahmed Wali Karzai

The fact that this even needs to be said by Gates is of tremendous significance.

Amid tension between the military and President Barack Obama over military action in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told a gathering of Army officers Monday that the Pentagon would follow any strategy that Obama orders.

“Speaking for the Department of Defense, once the commander in chief makes his decisions, we will salute and execute those decisions faithfully and to the best of our ability,” Gates told the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington.

Gates’ comments seemed to include a rebuke to Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Last week, McChrystal appealed for more troops during a speech before the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, calling current White House consideration of proposals that would not increase U.S. troop strenght in Afghanistan “short-sighted.”

On Monday, Gates said that military and civilian advisors should provide “our best advice to the president candidly — but privately.”

U.S. military officers, both in Washington and Afghanistan, recently have expressed growing frustration with the administration and its prolonged debate over policy in Afghanistan. The administration is now reconsidering its strategy just months after it named McChrystal as its commander there, calling him the best military mind the United States has to fight a counterinsurgency war. McChrystal has asked for as many as 45,000 troops, but the White House said it needs weeks to consider that request, with some suggesting the United States may redefine its goals there all together. In an assessment submitted to the Pentagon, McChrystal that found the effort there could fail without more troops.

Source/Full Story: McClatchy
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, Robert Gates

The “vast right-wing conspiracy” that attacked him during his presidency has been weakened, but continues to operate against President Obama, former President Clinton said Sunday.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Clinton was asked about the term his wife Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, famously coined. “Is it still there?” host David Gregory asked.

“Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It’s not as strong as it was, because America’s changed demographically, but it’s as virulent as it was,” the former president replied.

“I mean, they’re saying things about him [Obama] — you know, it’s like when they accused me of murder and all that stuff they did,” Clinton said, in an apparent reference to conspiracy theories surrounding the suicide of White House deputy counsel Vince Foster.

Source/Full Story:  CNN.com

In the debate over the PATRIOT Act, the Bush White House insisted it needed the authority to search people’s homes without their permission or knowledge so that terrorists wouldn’t be tipped off that they’re under investigation.

Now that the authority is law, how has the Department of Justice used the new power? To go after drug dealers.

Only three of the 763 “sneak-and-peek” requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.

Source/Full Story: WATCH
Technorati Tags: Patriot Act

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson issued the only honest words spoken in that building last night.

A Republican House member shouted “You lie” during President Obama’s health care speech to Congress on Wednesday, and members of both parties condemned the heckling.

After the speech, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson issued a statement apologizing for his outburst.

“This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill,” the statement said. “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.”

Wilson also called the White House to apologize and spoke with Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who accepted the apology on the president’s behalf, according to a senior administration official.

“We can disagree without being disagreeable,” Emanuel said to Wilson, according to the official. “That was the point of the president’s speech.”

The outburst came when Obama denied that proposed health care legislation would provide free health coverage for illegal immigrants. Immediately, Wilson shouted, “You lie!”

Source/Full Story::  CNN.com

Some of the controversy surrounding Obama’s speech stems from a proposed lesson plan created by the Education Department to accompany the address. An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing "what they can do to help the president."

The letters "would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals," the plan stated.

After pressure from conservatives, the White House said that the plan was not artfully worded, and distributed a revised version encouraging students to write letters about how they can "achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."

A number of the president’s critics, however, were not placated.

"As far as I’m concerned this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality," said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell, a Republican.

Source/Full Story: CNN.com

The White House’s acting cyber-security tsar has resigned from her post, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Melissa Hathaway told the paper she was leaving for "personal reasons" and would return to the private sector.

The former strategist was appointed as acting national cyber-adviser in February and was expected to be offered the post of full time.

President Barack Obama has said that cyber-security is a high priority for his administration.

Source/Full Story: BBC

With US government and private computer networks facing increasing attack, the White House announced that President Barack Obama would unveil a report on US cyber security on Friday.

“The report is an important first step towards securing our nation’s cyber infrastructure,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

“The administration recognizes the very serious threats public- and private-sector networks face from cyber crime and cyber attack,” he said.

“Recognizing these threats, the president has elevated cyber security to a major administration priority,” Gibbs added.

The 60-day review of US cyber security policy was carried out by Melissa Hathaway, a former Bush administration official who has been serving as the interim White House cyber security adviser, and finished last month.

No single US agency is currently charged with ensuring government cyber security and lawmakers have called for creating a powerful national cyber security advisor reporting directly to the president.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Obama planned to create a post of “cyber czar” but “discussions were continuing as to what rank and title the adviser would have.”

The cyber security chief would be a senior White House official with “broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation’s government-run and private computer networks,” it said.

Source/Full Story:: Yahoo! Tech

North Korea delivered on its threat Monday, conducting a second nuclear test that angered governments around the globe.

This screen grab from North Korean television on April 9 shows leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

The North had threatened to do so unless the U.N. Security Council apologized for imposing sanctions on it following a rocket test on April 5.

The secretive communist state also apparently test-fired a short-range missile on Monday, the White House said.

Japan called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. One is expected Monday, said Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations.

The White House — which less than three weeks ago announced a new diplomatic effort to restart stalled talks with North Korea about its nuclear program — said the test was in "blatant defiance" of the Security Council.

"North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community," the White House said. "The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants action by the international community."

Source/Full Story:   CNN.com

I suppose that you can’t be tried for an criminal act that has not been committed yet, but apparently the Pre-Crime unit has already been put in place and is hard at work, protecting Amerikan lives.  I feel safer now and filled (again) with hope, don’t you?

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions — a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

Source/Full Story:   NYTimes.com