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Obama signs order to begin $85B in spending cuts


Fox News
Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
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Washington - President Obama signed an order authorizing the government to begin cutting $85 billion from federal accounts, officially enacting across-the-board spending reductions.

Obama acted Friday, the deadline for the president and Congress to avoid the steep, one-year cuts.

The president placed blame squarely on Republican lawmakers at a Friday press conference for failing to stop automatic spending cuts that were to begin kicking in later in the day, calling the cuts "dumb, arbitrary."

Republicans, for their part, said the fault was his, for insisting that increased taxes be part of the resolution

The president said the impact of the cuts won't immediately be felt, but middle class families will begin to "have their lives disrupted in significant ways." He said that as long as the cuts stay in effect, Americans will know that the economy could have been better had they been averted.

"The pain, though, will be real," Obama said.

He said he still believed the cuts could be replaced but he wanted a deal that includes more tax revenue.

"Let's be clear: None of this is necessary," Obama told reporters at the White House. "It's happening because of a choice that Republicans in Congress have made. We shouldn't be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things."
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Megaphone

Woodward at war with the White House

Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei
Politico
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:42 UTC
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© politicalbooks.org
Bob Woodward called a senior White House official last week to tell him that in a piece in that weekend's Washington Post, he was going to question President Barack Obama's account of how sequestration came about - and got a major-league brushback. The Obama aide "yelled at me for about a half-hour," Woodward told us in an hourlong interview yesterday around the Georgetown dining room table where so many generations of Washington's powerful have spilled their secrets.

Digging into one of his famous folders, Woodward said the tirade was followed by a page-long email from the aide, one of the four or five administration officials most closely involved in the fiscal negotiations with the Hill. "I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today," the official typed. "You're focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. ... I think you will regret staking out that claim."

Woodward repeated the last sentence, making clear he saw it as a veiled threat. " 'You'll regret.' Come on," he said. "I think if Obama himself saw the way they're dealing with some of this, he would say, 'Whoa, we don't tell any reporter 'you're going to regret challenging us.'"

Comment: No threat intended?
Woodward's not alone - Fmr. Clinton aide Davis says he received White House threat

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Vader

'Star Wars,' 'Star Trek' play tricks on Obama's mind


The Washington Post
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:59 UTC
Obama, sequester
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President Obama on Friday urged cooperation between Democrats and Republicans on automatic budget cuts.

But the only things that seemed to be mixing were his science-fiction metaphors.

During a news conference at the White House, Obama said some people unfairly expected him to force Republicans to accept his terms in order to head off the spending cuts.

"Even though most people agree . . . I'm presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don't take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what's right."

That phrase, "Jedi mind meld," which he uttered during the question-and-answer portion of the briefing, appeared to combine elements from two distinct sci-fi worlds.

A "Jedi mind trick" is a power exercised by Jedi Knights in "Star Wars," usually accomplished by verbal ma­nipu­la­tion. (Perhaps the most famous example is from the original Star Wars movie in 1977, when Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi seems to hypnotize the evil Stormtroopers with a simple phrase: "These aren't the droids you're looking for.")
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Great idea! Pay cuts for Congress

Diane Russell
Moveon.org
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:25 UTC
Congress/State of Union
© n/a
Congress is about to impose furloughs amounting to a 20% across-the-board pay cut for 800,000 federal employees, more than 44 percent of whom are veterans.

And yet, where is the same 20% cut for Congress and the president? Are they not federal employees? Aren't these the people who keep telling us that everyone must share the burden?

The across-the-board cuts set to go into effect at the end of the week will hurt the economy and they should be stopped.

But if Congress insists on cutting anyone's salary, they should cut their own paychecks first. We pay their salaries.That's why I created petitionon MoveOn.org's petition site, SignOn.org, which says:

Any across-the-board pay cuts for federal employees must include the same pay cuts for all members of Congress and the president of the United States.

It's up to us to demand that if members of Congress pass these unnecessary and harmful cuts---despite overwhelming public opposition---that they start with themselves.To be delivered to: The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama
Petition Statement Any across-the-board pay cuts for federal employees must include the same pay cuts for all members of Congress and the president of the United States. Petition Background
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Arrow Down

Francois Hollande is least popular French president for 30 years, says poll


The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
Ten months into his mandate, President Francois Hollande has scored the worst of any French president since 1981 in a new poll.
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© Agence France-Presse
The survey suggested Mr Hollande has only enjoyed a short-lived boost from his military intervention in Mali
Socialist voters who propelled Mr Hollande to the presidency in May 2012 are now questioning his government's handling of an economy teetering near recession, a series of industrial layoffs and joblessness at a 15-year high.

Mr Hollande's rating fell by 5 points in February in the monthly TNS Sofres poll for Le Figaro magazine, released on Thursday, to 30 percent when respondents were asked whether they had confidence in their president to resolve the country's problems.

"Until now, the Elysee (presidential) palace could congratulate itself by saying that those who voted for the president remained loyal. That's now over," the survey said.
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Dollars

Sequester in U.S. is a 'plague on both houses'

Myles Burke
The Telegraph
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:11 UTC
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© ktvz.com
US political analyst, Dr James Boys, says the Democrats, Republicans, and ultimately the country, will all lose from politicians' failure to agree a deal to avert the $1.2 trillion collection of spending cuts, known as the sequester.

The across-the-board $1.2 trillion collection of sweeping spending cuts will begin on Friday and stretch over the next ten years if politicians on both sides are unable to reach an agreement.

The cuts were designed back in 2011 as a doomsday device that was so unpalatable to Democrats and to Republicans that it would force them to come together and agree on a compromise to cut the US government's spending deficit.

The cuts are divided evenly between the military budget and domestic spending programmes.

Dr James Boys, US political analyst and visiting senior research fellow at King's College London said this has come about "because of political intransigence" which will cost both parties.

"The people who will suffer most from this are those who really need help from government most.
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Pistol

What are they hiding? Local Connecticut Prosecutor keeps Sandy Hook massacre files sealed

Ralph Lopez
Digital Journal
Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:29 UTC
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Connecticut State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky III
Connecticut State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky has argued that unsealing warrants in the Sandy Hook case might "seriously jeopardize" the investigation by disclosing information known only to other "potential suspects."

Sedensky said that unsealing the warrants would also:
"identify persons cooperating with the investigation, thus possibly jeopardizing their personal safety and well-being."
The statement by the CT prosecutor's office is the first indication from state authorities that Adam Lanza may have not acted alone. The statement was made in support of a motion to continue the seal on the results of five search warrants for 90 more days.
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Nuke

Highly radioactive: 1,000 gallons of nuclear waste leak in Washington every year


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Reuters
Six tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are leaking an estimated 1,000 gallons of nuclear waste each year. And with billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts about to occur, the US government may not have the funds to clean up the mess.

Three underground tanks at the Washington-based nuclear reservation were last week found to be leaking at an initially-estimated rate of 300 gallons of waste per year. But Department of Energy investigators this week discovered three additional tanks were leaking, bringing the total estimated annual waste to 1,000 gallons per year.

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, is mostly decommissioned but still holds two-thirds of the nation's radioactive waste in its 177 tanks. The millions of gallons of radioactive material, which still remain from Cold War-era plutonium production, are highly dangerous and are quickly dripping into American soil.

Leaks were discovered years ago, but the Department of Energy said the problem had been solved when it was initially discovered in 2005.
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Eye 1

Mind control: Pentagon's DARPA researchers learn to control rat's brain over internet


RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:17 UTC
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© Agence France-Presse/Mauricio Duenas
Government mind control may not be as farfetched as it sounds: after 15 years of research, scientists have found a way to transmit information from one brain to another, thereby controlling the thoughts of its test subject.

Scientists have successfully captured the thoughts of a rat in Brazil and electronically transmitted them through the Internet to the brain of a rat in the US. The Brazilian rat had been energetically running around in a lab. When the American rat received the brain waves of its South American counterpart, it immediately began to mimic the behavior - despite the thousands of miles between them, Reuters reports.

Scientists refer to the technique as a "brain link". The $26 million study of brain-machine interfaces was funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which ultimately hopes to have this technology available to humans.

By linking human brains together, scientists believe they can combine brainpower to solve problems that are too difficult for one person to handle alone, Duke University Medical Center neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis told Reuters. Nicolelis refers to this link as an "organic computer", and said scientists will first test it out on monkeys to determine its feasibility.

But not all researchers are excited about the prospect of brain manipulation.
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USA

Two U.S. Navy sailors convicted of rape that shocked Japan


RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Agence France-Presse/Yoshikazu Tsuno
Civic group members shout slogans and hold placards as they attend a protest over the alleged rape of a local woman by two US servicemen in Okinawa.
Two US Navy sailors have been convicted of raping a Japanese woman in Okinawa while on duty. The rape, which occurred in October, provoked anger among locals and forced the American military to enforce a curfew upon its service members.

The two Americans plead guilty to the charges, admitting to raping the young Japanese woman and robbing her of about $76 in October 2012. The indictment claims that the two sailors "attacked the woman as she walked along a street in central Okinawa just before 4 a.m., choking her and covering her mouth, causing a neck sprain, as they forced her to have sex" with both of them.

The rape dominated Japanese news reports late last year and prompted a reaction from American ambassador to Japan, John V. Roos, who said the US government was "extremely concerned."

"These allegations, given their seriousness, will continue to command my full personal attention," Roos told the New York Times in a statement.

This week, the Japanese court in Naha sentenced 24-year-old Seaman Christopher Browning to 10 years imprisonment and 23-year-old Petty Officer 3rdClass Skyler Dozierwalker to nine years imprisonment. Both of them plead guilty to the charges. Browning is serving a longer sentence for robbing the victim of her cash.
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