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AP Sources: Reid eyes payroll tax hike on wealthy

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering a plan for higher payroll taxes on the upper-income earners to help finance health care legislation he intends to introduce in the Senate in the next several days, numerous Democratic officials said Wednesday.

These officials said one of the options Reid has had under review would raise the payroll tax that goes to Medicare, but only on income above $250,000 a year. Current law sets the tax at 1.45 percent of income, an amount matched by employers.

It was not known how large an increase Reid, D-Nev., was considering, or whether it would also apply to a company’s portion of the tax. President Barack Obama has said he will not raise taxes on wage earners making less than $250,000.

The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to disclose details of private deliberations.

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Official: Obama wants his war options changed

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

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2 dead, 2 wounded in Ore. office park shooting

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

A woman was killed and two of her co-workers were injured when the woman’s estranged husband opened fire Tuesday at a drug-testing laboratory in suburban Portland before turning the gun on himself, police said.

The woman who was killed was identified as Teresa Marie Beiser, 36, of Gladstone. Her husband, Robert James Beiser, 39, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Teresa Beiser worked at the Legacy MetroLab in an office park across from a strip mall in Tualatin (pronounced too-ALL-a-tin), about 13 miles south of Portland.

The names of her injured co-workers were not released, but authorities said they were a 20-year-old woman and 63-year-old man.

The 63-year-old man was flown to Oregon Health & Science University hospital in Portland, where he was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds, Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker said.

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D.C. sniper Muhammad executed for 2002 attacks

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed Tuesday as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks in October 2002.

The 48-year-old Muhammad looked calm and stoic, but was twitching and blinking, tapping his left foot as the injections began, defiant to the end, refusing to utter any final words. Victims’ families sat behind glass while watching, separated from the rest of the 27 witnesses, who were quiet, looking straight forward, intent on what was happening.

“He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims,” said Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert, who witnessed Muhammad die by injection at 9:11 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center, south of Richmond.

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Abortion could roil Senate health care debate

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Abortion opponents in the Senate are seeking tough restrictions in the health care overhaul bill, a move that could roil a shaky Democratic effort to pass President Barack Obama’s signature issue by year’s end.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Monday he could not support a bill unless it clearly prohibits federal dollars from going to pay for abortions. Nelson is weighing options, including offering an amendment similar to the one passed by the House this weekend.

“I want to make sure something comparable … is in there,” Nelson said.

The House-passed restrictions were the price Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had to pay to get a health care bill passed, on a narrow 220-215 vote. But it’s prompted an angry backlash from liberals at the core of her party, and some are now threatening to vote against a final bill if the curbs stay in.

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Sources: Obama near decision on Afghanistan troops

Monday, November 9th, 2009

President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to add tens of thousands more forces to Afghanistan, though likely not quite the 40,000 sought by his top general there, as Pentagon planners work to ready bases and provide equipment the troops would need in a country with scant resources.

The White House emphasized Monday that the president hasn’t made a decision yet about troop levels or other aspects of the revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

Administration officials told The Associated Press on Monday the deployment would most likely begin in January with a mission to stiffen the defense of 10 key cities and towns. An Army brigade that had been training for deployment to Iraq that month may be the vanguard. The brigade, based at Fort Drum in upstate New York, has been told it will not go to Iraq as planned but has been given no new mission yet.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president would meet again on Wednesday with key members of his foreign policy and military team but was unlikely to announce final plans for Afghanistan until late this month, when he returns from an extended diplomatic trip to Asia.

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La. Gov. declares emergency ahead of Hurricane Ida

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Hurricane Ida, the first Atlantic hurricane to target the United States this year, plodded Sunday toward the Gulf Coast with 105 mph winds, bringing the threat of flooding and storm surges.

A hurricane watch extended over more than 200 miles of coastline across southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Louisiana’s governor declared a state of emergency.

Authorities said Ida could make landfall as early as Tuesday morning, although it was forecast to weaken by then. Officials and residents kept a close eye on the Category 2 hurricane as it approached, though there were no immediate plans for evacuations.

Sunday evening, Ida was located 445 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 12 mph. The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center shows Ida brushing near Louisiana and Mississippi, then making landfall near Alabama before continuing across north Florida.

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Lieberman: Senate to investigate Ft. Hood shooting

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

A key U.S. senator said Sunday he would begin an investigation into whether the Army missed signs that the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood had embraced an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology.

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s call for an investigation came a day after classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master’s program at a military college said they complained to superiors about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and what they considered to be his anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

“If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance,” Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He should have been gone.”

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Suspect told ‘There’s something wrong with you’

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

There was the classroom presentation that justified suicide bombings. Comments to colleagues about a climate of persecution faced by Muslims in the military. Conversations with a mosque leader that became incoherent.

As a student, some who knew Nidal Malik Hasan said they saw clear signs the young Army psychiatrist — who authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 29 others wounded — had no place in the military. After arriving at Fort Hood, he was conflicted about what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers about the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, alarming an Islamic community leader from whom he sought counsel.

“I told him, `There’s something wrong with you,’” Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, told The Associated Press on Saturday. “I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”

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Pelosi predicts passage of health care reform

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

President Barack Obama summoned Democrats to “answer the call of history” Saturday as the House pushed toward a vote on a landmark health care bill holding out the promise of coverage for tens of millions who lack it.

After months of struggle, capped by a final clash over abortion, Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted, “we will pass health care reform,” and likened the events to the creation of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later.

United in opposition, minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

“We are going to have a complete government takeover of our health care system faster than you can say, `this is making me sick,’” jabbed Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., adding that Democrats were intent on passing “a jobs-killing, tax-hiking, deficit-exploding” bill.

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