Politics

Background check missed suspect\’s prison stay

By CNN on March 10, 2010

(CNN) — A background check conducted in 2009 on an Ohio State University employee suspected of opening fire Tuesday on his co-workers turned up no criminal record, even though he apparently served five years in prison.

The background check, released by the university Wednesday, was performed by third-party vendor OPENonline in September 2009 after shooting suspect Nathaniel Brown applied for a job as a janitor in the schools Facilities Operations & Development Department.

Under the criminal records section, the check shows "No records found" nationally or locally. A check by CNN on Wednesday by a different vendor also revealed no criminal past. However, according to The Columbus-Dispatch, records show Brown spent five years in prison between 1979 and 1984 for receiving stolen property.

Police say Brown, 50, was apparently angry over a poor performance evaluation when he entered a university maintenance building early Tuesday and opened fire, killing a manager before turning the gun on himself and ending his own life. Another employee, Henry Butler, was wounded in the shooting. His injuries werent life-threatening, and he has since been released from the hospital.

Ohio State President Gordon Gee expressed condolences Wednesday to the family of victim Larry Wallington, calling his death "a significant loss."

"We cant replace him, but we certainly can learn from what has happened here," Gee said at a news conference.

Obama pledges to continue Haiti aid

By cnn.com politics on March 10, 2010

Washington (CNN) — President Obama met Wednesday with Haitian President Rene Preval to discuss relief, recovery and reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

The two leaders pledged to continue working for a more coordinated, sustained global relief effort to help Haiti recover from a massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck January 12.

Much of Haitis capital, Port-au-Prince, was destroyed, and more than 217,000 people were killed, according to the latest figures from international relief organizations.

The situation on the ground in Haiti "remains dire," Obama said at the White House. A continuing desperate need for food, medicine and shelter will be exacerbated by the onset of Haitis spring rain season, he said.

"You will continue to have a steady and reliable partner in the United States of America," Obama promised Preval.

Preval extended his thanks "not only for the material aid" from the United States, but also for Americas "psychological response," which made Haitians realize "we were not alone."

Washington has already provided $700 million in aid to Haiti. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday a donors conference is planned in New York for the end of March. More than half of all United States households have made private contributions to Haitian relief, Clinton said.

Preval said Tuesday his country is working to get its election timetable rescheduled, telling reporters after meeting with Clinton that political stability is "fundamental" for the development of a country. "I think that is what constitutes a guarantee for investors, for the population — that theres some guarantees, that theres some security about their future," he said.

Parliamentary elections set for February were postponed, and it is unclear whether a presidential election scheduled for the fall can proceed.

Clinton said she assured Preval "that the United States would work with the international community to hold elections as soon as appropriate."

CNNs Charley Keyes contributed to this report.

WWII Women fliers honored

By cnn.com politics on March 10, 2010

Washington (CNN) — Some 65 years after their service, a group of former civilian women pilots whose unheralded work was key to helping the U.S. effort in World War II were honored Wednesday with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Fewer than 300 Women Airforce Service Pilots are still alive. About 175 of them, along with thousands of family members, traveled to Washington for the ceremony at the Capitol.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted that the event had one of the largest crowds ever gathered inside the Capitol.

Deanie Parrish, a WASP who joined in 1943 at the age of 21, thanked members of Congress, those in attendance and members of the media.

"I believe this is the day that when the people of America no longer hesitate in answering, Do you know who the WASPs are?" she said to the crowd filled with old and young alike. "Its because of the media that that will happen."

Parrish said that it "was both a privilege and an honor to serve our country during some of the darkest days of World War II."

The Women Airforce Service Pilots was born in 1942 to create a corps of female pilots able to fill all types of flying jobs at home, thus freeing male military pilots to travel to the front.

As part of the commemoration, the former pilots attended a wreath-laying ceremony Tuesday at the Air Force Memorial just outside Washington to remember their colleagues killed in the line of duty.

With only about a quarter of the former 1,102 WASPs surviving and all in their late 80s or older, Rep. Susan Davis, D-California; Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland; and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, pushed a bill through Congress to honor these women by awarding them the medal, given as an expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions, according to the House of Representatives Office of the Clerk.

White House slams insurers

By cnn.com politics on March 10, 2010

St. Charles, Missouri (CNN) — President Obama took his increasingly populist health care overhaul pitch to the political battleground state of Missouri Wednesday, turning up the heat on private health insurers in a speech.

"What were proposing is a common-sense approach to protecting you from insurance company abuses, and saving you money," said Obama, his shirtsleeves rolled up in the 75-degree heat. "Thats the proposal and its paid for. I believe Congress owes the American people a final up-or-down vote on health care reform."

He added, "The time for talk is over. Its time to vote."

Obama said many of the changes would be paid for by cutting waste in health care, which he said is estimated to have cost taxpayers almost $100 billion last year.

He likened the national debate about proposed changes to the current system to previous debates that swirled around the topic, including the passage of Medicare in 1965, and before.

"Weve been debating it for 70 years," he said.

Obama rejected the suggestion from his opponents that the Democrats scrap the current plan and start over. "Let me tell you something," he said. "The insurance industry is not starting over. They just announced a 39 percent rate increase in California. And a rate increase of up to 60 percent right across the border in my own state of Illinois. Sixty percent in one year. Thats the future if we fail to act."

Obama said the changes in the Democrats bill would result this year in people with pre-existing conditions being able to buy health insurance, would ban insurance companies from denying coverage to children, would ban the industry from dropping coverage when people get sick and would impose a government review on proposed increases in premiums.

It would also create a marketplace where small businesses can get better deals for their employees by including them in large pools of people, he said. Finally, it would lower cost by cutting waste, he said, estimating the bills price at $100 billion per year.

"Thats real money," he said, "But most of that money comes from the nearly $2.5 trillion a year that Americans already spend on health care that were not spending well."

Obama then addressed his critics, who have likened his proposal to a government takeover of health care. "There is no government takeover, unless you consider reining in insurance companies a government takeover," he said. "And I think thats the right thing to do."

Senate extends jobless aid, business tax breaks; measure now goes to House talks

By topix.com on March 10, 2010

The Senate voted Wednesday to extend key pieces of last year’s economic stimulus measure, including help for the jobless and money to help financially strapped states pay for health care for the poor.

House Dems plan ban on earmarks to for-profits

By cnn.com politics on March 10, 2010

Washington (CNN) — House Democrats said Wednesday that they will ban earmarks directed to for-profit companies.

The move, announced by the Appropriations Committee and its Defense subcommittee, would apply to government spending bills Congress is considering for next year. But the committee said in a written statement that the new rules are also "intended to become a long-term proposition."

Out the door will be earmarks directed to private firms, many of them military contractors who frequently obtain multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts through the process. Instead, those companies will be allowed to apply directly for funding to the Defense Department, which will decide what projects it wants to fund.

Defense earmarks include research proposals, systems upgrades and equipment production.

The Appropriations Committee said the earmark restrictions would have prohibited 1,000 earmarks this year, amounting to $1.7 billion.

In addition, the Appropriations Committee said it plans greater oversight of earmarks going to nonprofits, directing executive agencies to audit 5 percent of all of those earmarks to make sure they are, in fact, being used as intended.

"Earmarks" refer to federal funding designated for particular projects, with taxpayer money allocated by members of Congress to home-state and home-district projects, often with an eye toward re-election.

But such earmarks bring money into a congressmans district, feeding jobs, road and other projects sought by constituents.

House Democrats added rules last year requiring members to post their requests on their own Web sites, but the committee will create a "one-stop" link so the public can view all requests for federal dollars.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group that tracks earmark spending, there were 9,500 earmarks this year worth $15.9 billion.

The announcement on earmarks comes as Democrats are contending with stories about ethics violations and opinion polls showing that the public is fed up with excessive Washington spending. In recent years, members of both parties have come under fire for accepting millions in campaign contributions from lobbyists pushing for earmarks for their for-profit clients.

In an effort not to be outdone by the Democrats, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said the House GOP will meet Thursday to talk about banning all earmarks.

"Clearly, our members have some strong feelings on this, but I think its time for our conference to sit down and have a real adult conversation about whether were really willing to do whats necessary to come all the way back," Boehner said.

Boehner, who does not request earmarks and made such reforms a cornerstone of his campaign for the leadership, said the GOP proposal would go further than the Democrats plan.

"Theres no way to be half-pregnant on this issue," he said.

Reforming the spending process on Capitol Hill is historically a contentious issue for both Democrats and Republicans. Efforts by Boehner to get his GOP colleagues to refrain from requesting pet projects for their districts have failed. And votes on the House floor to stop the practice of setting aside money for individual members districts have fallen short, with members of both parties arguing that its part of their responsibility to bring home federal money for local needs.

Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, has defended the prerogative of Congress to allocate such spending, saying on the House floor as recently as February 2009, "the fact is without the earmarking process, the White House and its anonymous bureaucrats would make every single spending decision in government."

House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence, who in recent years pledged not to request any spending, said its time to respond to calls from the public to cut back on spending.

"The American people are sick and tired of business as usual in Washington, D.C., and earmarks have become emblematic of everything thats wrong with government spending," he said.

Pence would not say whether the GOP conference would take a vote on the issue Thursday, but the deadline for members requesting earmarks is later this month.

The Democrats plan has been applauded by an unlikely ally in the Senate.

House Speaker "Nancy Pelosi and I dont agree on many things, but if shes willing to take a stand for taxpayers, Ill work with her to put an end to the earmark favor factory," said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina. DeMint also pledged to force the Senate to vote on a similar policy this week.

But Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawaii, who chairs the Senate spending panel, immediately slammed the House Democrats earmark plan.

"I dont believe this policy or ceding authority to the Executive Branch on any spending decision is in the best interests of the Congress or the American people. In my view, it does not make sense to discriminate against for-profit organizations. I am not sure why we should treat for-profit earmarks any differently than non-profit earmarks," Inouye said in a written statement.

Biden: U.S. won\’t play favorites with Israelis, Palestinians

By cnn.com politics on March 10, 2010

Ramallah, West Bank (CNN) — The United States will hold both Israel and the Palestinians responsible for any steps that make peace between them more difficult, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

He said both sides must "build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not complicate them," specifically criticizing an Israeli announcement that it would build more apartments on disputed land.

The move "undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin as well as produce profitable negotiation. That is why I immediately condemned the action," Biden said.

Israel announced Tuesday it would build 1,600 new apartments on land which both Israel and the Palestinians claim.

The Palestinians contend the area is in East Jerusalem; Israels Interior Ministry says it is not. Biden referred to the disputed site as being in East Jerusalem — land which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat reacted to the announcement with fury and despair.

"The choice the Israeli government has right now is settlements or peace," a visibly agitated Erakat said on CNNs "The Brief."

"Stopping settlements is not a Palestinian condition, its an Israeli obligation under the road map," he said, referring to the internationally backed peace plan. "They did not stop settlements, they did not stop incursions, they did not stop dictation … who is to be blamed now?

"This kills the process, this kills the efforts being exerted to revive the peace process," he said.

"Why would the Israeli government … why would they throw in the face of Mr. Biden 1,600 housing units knowing that this undermines the efforts being exhibited?" he demanded.

Jury recommends death for \’Dating Game\’ killer

By CNN on March 10, 2010

(CNN) — A California jury recommended Tuesday that a man who once appeared on "The Dating Game" be executed for the murders of four women and a child.

The jury deliberated an hour before deciding that Rodney Alcala, 66, should pay with his life for the murders of Robin Samsoe, Jill Barcomb, Georgia Wixted, Charlotte Lamb and Jill Parentau, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office said.

Alcala will be formally sentenced Wednesday in Santa Ana, Orange County, where the case was tried even though most of the crimes were committed in neighboring Los Angeles.

The slayings took place between November 1977 and June 1979, covering a wide swath of suburban Los Angeles from Burbank to El Segundo, prosecutors said.

Before he was a convicted serial killer, Alcala was a winning bachelor on "The Dating Game."

"Oh yeah, I remember it quite clearly," said Jed Mills, the game-show contestant who sat next to Alcala in 1978. "He was creepy. Definitely creepy."

Alcala was found guilty on February 25 of murder, kidnapping and an array of sexual offenses. He acted as his own attorney during the penalty phase of the trial.

At the time of the murders, no one knew that the man with the wavy long hair and toothy grin was a serial killer. That included Mills, a veteran television and film actor, whose only encounter with Alcala was when both of them appeared on "The Dating Game."

"Thats when I became part of a nightmare, and I didnt realize it was a nightmare until 32 years later," Mills said.

Alcala, who already had been convicted for the 1968 rape of an 8-year-old girl, was the first contestant to be introduced in the game-show episode.

Opinion: \’Terrorist\’ label can apply to whites, too

By CNN on March 10, 2010

(CNN) — Within the last month, our country has witnessed two senseless, high-profile acts of criminal violence that would have been labeled terrorism if brown-skinned Arab Muslim men with foreign-sounding names had committed them.

Because two white men committed these acts of violence, however, our political and media chattering class never used the word "terrorism" in its discussions.

Most recently, John Patrick Bedell, a 36-year-old man from California, walked up to two security guards outside the Pentagon Metro station in suburban Washington and started shooting. He was then shot and killed. According to The Christian Science Monitor, Bedell appeared "to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent anti-government feelings" and also battled mental illness before his shooting rampage.

A few weeks ago, on February 18, another white anti-government extremist named Joseph Stack flew his small airplane into an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas, killing two people and injuring 13 others.

According to media reports, Stack had left behind a disjointed suicide letter in which he expressed his hatred of our American government and outlined grievances with the IRS, chillingly stating that "violence not only is the answer; it is the only answer."

Both the Pentagon Metro and IRS attacks come at a time of "explosive growth in [domestic] extremist-group activism across the United States," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A recently released law center report showed so-called patriot groups — steeped in anti-government conspiracy theories — grew from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009 — a 244 percent increase that the Southern Poverty Law Center report judged to be an "astonishing" rise in the one-year period since President Obama took the oath of office. The number of these groups that are domestic extremist paramilitary militias grew from 42 in 2008 to 127 in 2009, the report said.

Even so, for any reasonable observer who is still skeptical about labeling the recent Pentagon area shooting and IRS attack terrorism, keep one thing in mind:

Let us imagine that these Pentagon and IRS attacks had been committed by an olive-skinned Arab Muslim man named Ali Muhammad.

\’Terrorist\’ a multipurpose label

By CNN on March 10, 2010

(CNN) — Within the last month, our country has witnessed two senseless, high-profile acts of criminal violence that would have been labeled terrorism if brown-skinned Arab Muslim men with foreign-sounding names had committed them.

Because two white men committed these acts of violence, however, our political and media chattering class never used the word "terrorism" in its discussions.

Most recently, John Patrick Bedell, a 36-year-old man from California, walked up to two security guards outside the Pentagon Metro station in suburban Washington and started shooting. He was then shot and killed. According to The Christian Science Monitor, Bedell appeared "to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent anti-government feelings" and also battled mental illness before his shooting rampage.

A few weeks ago, on February 18, another white anti-government extremist named Joseph Stack flew his small airplane into an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas, killing two people and injuring 13 others.

According to media reports, Stack had left behind a disjointed suicide letter in which he expressed his hatred of our American government and outlined grievances with the IRS, chillingly stating that "violence not only is the answer; it is the only answer."

Both the Pentagon Metro and IRS attacks come at a time of "explosive growth in [domestic] extremist-group activism across the United States," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A recently released law center report showed so-called patriot groups — steeped in anti-government conspiracy theories — grew from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009 — a 244 percent increase that the Southern Poverty Law Center report judged to be an "astonishing" rise in the one-year period since President Obama took the oath of office. The number of these groups that are domestic extremist paramilitary militias grew from 42 in 2008 to 127 in 2009, the report said.

Even so, for any reasonable observer who is still skeptical about labeling the recent Pentagon area shooting and IRS attack terrorism, keep one thing in mind:

Let us imagine that these Pentagon and IRS attacks had been committed by an olive-skinned Arab Muslim man named Ali Muhammad.

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