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President Obama gave an ad hoc speech about Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood during an appearance at the Department of the Interior's Tribal Nations Conference. The president's speech did not enumerate details beyond those already made public, but expressed sympathy and "thoughts and prayers" for those killed or wounded in the "horrific outburst of violence." Noting that he had already spoken to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, Obama said the Pentagon, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security were working to secure the base. "It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas," the president said. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."
At least 12 people were killed and 31 more wounded at a shooting at Ford Hood in Texas on Thursday. The attack took place at a soldier readiness facility, where soldiers were preparing for deployment. It was originially reported that the gunman was killed at the scene, but Army officials have announced tonight that he is alive and hospitalized, despite being shot multiple times. Two other suspects were apprehended, but they have been released, according to the Associated Press, and officials are now saying he acted alone. The Army has confirmed the gunman was Major Nidal Malik Hasan. He had no prior overseas deployments. Hasan carried two weapons, one of them semi-automatic, which explains the high casualty count. Hasan, 39, is "a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to work with soldiers at Darnall Army Medical Center on Fort Hood." His cousin told Fox News that at Walter Reed, Hasan treated soldiers returning from war with combat stress and PTSD, and heard horrifying stories. According to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the shooter was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq and was unhappy about it. The shootings took place at 1:30 Central Time, and the base was on lockdown for five and a half hours afterward. Among the dead is a civilian police officer. Hasan's picture is here. Hasan reportedly drew the attention of federal law enforcement six months ago for online posts about suicide bombings and other threats. Authorities reviewed "a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades."
A day after defending moderates in his party, RNC Chairman Michael Steele has apparently changed his mind. “Candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you’re crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we’ll come after you,” Steele told ABCNews.com. “You’re gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you’re arguing for the president’s stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi’s health plan.”
What's the state of the secretary of State? Time magazine's Joe Klein takes a look at the first 10 months of Hillary Clinton's tenure and finds a "mixed record." Clinton has three traits that could make her term "memorable," Klein writes: Her "vision of departmental reform," her political acumen, and, "most important," her "international celebrity." Those assets combined for a knockout trip to Pakistan, where Clinton made herself available to hostile lines of questioning and gave candid and honest answers to her audiences. But her overly blunt recent pronouncements on Israeli settlements are "perplexing," says Klein, and at this point it's still unclear whether the White House's foreign-policy goals are being advanced. Hillary, Klein writes, "will have to become a more sure-handed negotiator, and, most important, a trusted adviser to a president who knows where he wants to go in the world but hasn't quite figured out how to get there."
Raymond Jessop, a polygamist belonging to the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a West Texas sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was handed a guilty verdict Thursday for sexually assaulting an underage girl. Arrested in the raid last year, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. Jessop, who maintained that he had a "spiritual marriage" with the underage girl, allegedly has nine wives. The victim, who is now 21, was traded between Jessop and his brother, and impregnated at 16 years old. Jessop is likely the father.
Michele Bachmann's "Super Bowl of Freedom" is off to a good start: The 4,000 or so protesters who showed up at the Capitol Building Thursday were greeted by 45 to 60 members of the GOP. Speaking to the crowd, House Minority Leader John Boehner called the Democrats’ health-care bill “the greatest threat to freedom that I’ve seen in the 19 years I’ve been in Washington.” Michele Bachmann told the crowd, “It was Thomas Jefferson who said a revolution every now and then is a good thing.” Rep. Pete Hoekstra said that the Democrats “wanna take your freedoms away.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced Thursday that he wouldn't seek reelection, endangering hopes of progress in Middle East peace talks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to the area sparked Palestinian ire when she applauded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise to slow down, but not halt, the building of settlements in the West Bank. The move portends bad news for the Obama administration, which had pledged to redouble peace efforts in the region. It could also lead voters come election time to lean toward Hamas, which the U.S. defines as a terrorist organization. Clinton vowed to continue to work with Abbas, no matter his title or position.
Fourteen people, including Roomy Khan, the informant whose tip led to the arrest of Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam last month, were arrested Thursday and charged with insider trading and conspiracy. Nine of the 14 individuals—many associated with trading firm Incremental Capital—were charged with three criminal complaints alleging that Incremental Capital founder and former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer managed an "insider-trading network" that obtained and acted on confidential information—some of it, such as the Blackstone Corp. acquisition of Hilton Hotels, similar to the information received by Rajaratnam. Khan is said to have used familial connections to a Moody's analyst, Deep Shah, to acquire information; she and Shah are being charged with a separate criminal complaint. As with the Galleon case, law-enforcement officials have said that wiretaps and recorded conversations were essential to the pursuit and eventual arrest of the accused individuals. Galleon and Incremental Capital declined to comment.
The queen of daytime television is reportedly abdicating her syndication throne in favor of her own cable fiefdom, according to Nikki Finke. Winfrey, whose syndicated talk show is viewed by an estimated 7 million people, is expected to announce the launch date of the long-delayed Oprah Winfrey Network later this week. Soon afterward, Finke reports Winfrey will make public her intention to end her show, moving the Chicago-based program to Los Angeles as soon as 2011. CBS Television Distribution, which syndicates Oprah and some of her spinoffs, will be hit especially hard by the Discovery Channel-partnered OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), which will launch in place of Discovery Health in 70 million homes. Though the show is still the highest-rated daytime talk show, its high syndication fees and falling viewer numbers mean that some stations may welcome Oprah's move to cable; even so, Winfrey, the richest African-American woman on the planet, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.3 billion and controls an extensive media empire with stakes in book and magazine publishing.
The Congressional Budget Office has analyzed the Republicans’ proposed alternative to the Democrats’ health-care bill. The results? Under the GOP plan, 17 percent of legal, non-elderly Americans would be uninsured in 2010. By 2019, 17 percent of legal, non-elderly Americans would still be uninsured. The GOP plan would also save less money than the Democratic plan. According to the CBO, the GOP plan will reduce the deficit by $68 billion over the next two years. The Democratic plan will reduce the deficit by $104 billion. “The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan,” Ezra Klein writes.
To celebrate the Berlin Wall coming down, another one was erected in its place. At the MTV Europe Music Awards Wednesday night, revelers who came out to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the wall were met with an unpleasant surprise. Event organizers had thrown up a barrier to prevent non-ticketholders from getting views of U2, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z performing. Some 10,000 free tickets were made available for the open-air concert celebrating the historic moment.
Wal-Mart might be encouraging its customers to "Live Better," but according to a report by the National Labor Committee, its draconian policies regarding work absences are having the opposite effect on its employees-and putting everyone else in danger as well. The report, cited by the Institute for Southern Studies' blog Facing South and The Washington Independent, claims that Wal-Mart hands out demerits and docks pay when workers stay home-even when they, or their children, are sick. One sick day causes a one-point demerit and the loss of eight hours of wages; three absences over six months results in disciplinary absence, and a sixth absence brings about "Decision Day," after which an employee is either fired or put on a one-year probationary period. Since H1N1 can cause a week or more of absence from work, staying home with swine flu could get you fired, leaving some employees with little choice but to work through the illness-and possibly create a public health risk. The NLC is urging Wal-Mart to end its policies immediately.
On Thursday, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty to lying to the White House when he was nominated for the Homeland Security post in 2004. Kerik's plea bargain, which involved eight anticipated charges, accepted the prosecution's suggestion that the onetime 9/11 hero's crimes would mean 27 to 33 months behind bars. Before formally entering his pleas, Kerik said he would also admit to a series of tax crimes in the first of his three pending federal criminal trials, scheduled to begin Monday in White Plains, New York. He told the presiding judge he would confess to cheating the IRS, aiding in the preparation of fraudulent tax returns, and giving the federal government other dishonest reports. The judge warned Kerik of the maximum 61-year prison sentence, but the defendant said he was giving up his right to appeal and promised to file revised tax returns for three previous years.
Levi Johnston doesn’t have a problem exposing all for Playgirl, but he draws the line at inaccurate late-night humor. Johnston’s lawyer told TMZ that he’s demanding a retraction from NBC after William Shatner did a dramatic reading of Twitter updates on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien from a Johnston impostor. Before Shatner took the stage to reinterpret Johnston’s alleged racist words, O’Brien claimed the comments were “completely verbatim... These are all real... We didn’t make these up.” Though Conan didn’t forge the comments, someone, Johnston’s attorney alleges, did. “We are in the process of dealing with Twitter first. I think they have an obligation once something like this happens to make some kind of corrective measure,” the lawyer told TMZ.
Looks like David Letterman will have to head out of Manhattan if he wants a personally autographed copy of Going Rogue: CNN’s Political Ticker notes that Sarah Palin’s book tour will skip over major cities like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Instead, she will visit places like Fort Wayne, Indiana; Washington, Pennsylvania; Roanoke Virginia; and Jacksonville, Florida. She kicks off the tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan—a choice that may be symbolic: The McCain campaign originally accused Palin of “going rogue” after she disagreed with its pulling out of Michigan.
The Yankees won their 27th World Series Thursday, after beating the Phillies 7 to 3 in Game 6, with a crowd of 50,315 people looking on. Pedro Martinez managed to last four innings, giving up four runs and three hits to the Yankees, as fans flashed yesterday's New York Post poster of Martinez in a diaper and chanted "Who's Your Daddy?" Hideki Matsui, who knocked in six runs to tie the single-game World Series record, was named MVP. Andy Pettitte pitched almost six innings for the Yankees, and left the game to a standing ovation. After the win, Alex Rodriguez wept, moved no doubt, not just by the win, but because he will no longer have to answer questions about choking in the post-season. A ticker tape parade for the Yankees is scheduled for Friday.
Senator Chris Dodd has often been charged with being too cozy with the banks. How’s this for compensation? According to The Wall Street Journal, Dodd is proposing a financial-regulation bill that would strip the Federal Reserve’s and the FDIC’s regulatory powers and vest them in a new agency, which would supervise all banks and bank-holding companies. He would also create a council of regulators to monitor systemic risks. The Journal calls the plan “an extreme position” that is “likely to face major resistance.” A final agreement on the bill is months away.
Rihanna was simply crazy in love with Chris Brown, emphasis on the crazy, she told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America during her first television interview about the assault. Rihanna said that she went back to Brown after he assaulted her because she was "So far in love. So unconditional that I went back. It's humiliating to say this happened. To accept that? It's a traumatizing experience." She added that she was embarrassed that "that's the type of person I fell in love with." Rihanna views her decision to return to Brown as a mistake. "I stayed," she said. "I even went back after he beat me, which was wrong."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration blasted Toyota for its "inaccurate and misleading" statements that there were no defects in the 3.8 million vehicles it has recalled since the Aug. 28 accident that killed four people when a Lexus sedan accelerated out of control. Toyota officials contend that the incident—and other instances of uncontrolled acceleration across the country—resulted from gas pedals that became trapped in improperly installed floor mats. In a rare public upbraiding of the company, the NHTSA called the matter a "very dangerous problem" that would not be closed "until Toyota has effectively addressed the defect by providing a suitable vehicle-based solution." Toyota is still developing "vehicle-based" remedies including changing pedal placement or engine-control software in onboard computers.
Twilight star Kristen Stewart is fending off real-life vampires in the form of a gossip-starved press desperate for the perfect romance between two actors portraying, well, a perfectly creepy romance. Perhaps fearing retribution from hordes of teen girls, the 19-year-old starlet has refused to confirm or deny rumors that she is dating co-star and lord-of-the-stare Robert Pattinson. As she put it in Entertainment Weekly, "I'm not going to give the fiending an answer," evidently because she feels she deserves some privacy. Plus, she's caught on to the fact that she can't say anything without making tongues wag. "Think about every hypothetical situation," she said. "'Okay, we are. We aren't. I'm a lesbian."
Ted Haggard, who was famously expelled from the megachurch he founded after his relationship with a male prostitute was revealed in 2006, is leading prayer again. Haggard will lead a prayer group in his Colorado Springs home on Nov. 12, a move that carries shades of his past—22 years ago he and his wife Gayle started a church in their basement that grew from 20 people to 14,000. Haggard called his new prayer meeting "exploratory" and said "we just thought it would be a great time to get together with people to find out what they're doing and pray for them. Since the scandal broke in 2006, Haggard has pursued a new career as an insurance salesman.
A Democratic climate-change bill that would require a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020 was approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Ten of the committee's eleven Democrats voted for the bill—only Max Baucus of Montana voted against it—while Republicans decided to boycott, contending that the legislation required more analysis. The bill, which bases its 20 percent figure on 2005 levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is not the only legislation taking on global warming: John Kerry is working with Republicans and the White House on a compromise bill which could see a vote sometime next year.
Divisions within the Republican Party threaten chances of a "Republican renaissance," the term party chief Michael Steele used Wednesday to describe gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia. As both parties now turn their attention to the 2010 midterms, tensions between moderates and conservatives in the GOP are heating up in important races from Florida to Illinois to California. One moderate, Rep. Mark Kirk, has contacted Sarah Palin's camp, hoping an early endorsement could head off potential trouble. It's the kind of move that's been repeating even in seats of Yankee moderatism like Connecticut. In Washington, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas warned of self-immolation. "We need to temper our conservative approach with pragmatism," the senator told The Washington Post.
Republicans caved on Wednesday night, ending their opposition over a bill that would extend unemployment benefits, after holding the process hostage for several weeks. The bill in question extends unemployment benefits for an additional 14 weeks across the board—and for 20 weeks in states with ultra-high unemployment. The extension passed 98-0 and wasn't itself controversial, although the difficulty of its passage demonstrates how a minority party in the Senate has the power to make the majority's agenda extremely difficult. Republicans had filibustered the bill, they said, to stand up for their right, as the minority party, to add amendments to bills. While the bill was stalled, 200,000 people actively looking for work lost their unemployment benefits.
It's not just people and pigs, anymore. Washington Post blog The Checkup reports that a cat in Iowa has tested positive for the H1N1 virus, "marking the first time a cat has been diagnosed with this strain of influenza," according to state officials. The 13-year-old cat is believed to have caught the illness from one of the two humans in its household who battled swine flu. All members of the household, including the cat, recovered. H1N1 has now been documented in cats, humans, pigs, birds, and ferrets.
With voters staying home from the polls, Democrats are left wondering whether to appeal to the liberal wing of the party by pushing hard on health-care reform and climate change, or to pull back and pursue a middle-of-the-way agenda that will appeal to moderates and independents. “We have to do something, but it has to be right,” said one first-term Democratic representative. “We must deliver. I need to give Democrats something to be excited about," said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia. Republicans said Wednesday that their victories in Virginia and New Jersey indicated that voters were unhappy with the Democratic agenda.
The United Nations announced Thursday that it is relocating 600 staff members or about half of its international workers in Afghanistan following an attack by Taliban aimed at its staff. The attack last week left 5 staffers dead. While the organization said it is still committed to Afghanistan, the relocation indicates how poor security has become in the country. The U.N. is considering other locations including Dubai for the workers. "There is no going back to the previous situation we were in. Our security clearly isn't up to the job of dealing with these kinds of attacks," a spokesman said.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would extend unemployment benefits for up to 20 weeks in states with rates of joblessness above 8.5 percent, which means the jobless in those areas could get up to 99 weeks of benefits. (States with lower rates would get 14 weeks.) This is the “second stimulus” some have buzzed about (though Democratic leadership has avoided the term); it contains other measures to boost the economy as well, all of which were in the original $787 billion stimulus package but were set to expire. This includes an extension of a first-time homebuyer tax credits, credits for homeowners who lived in the same place for at least five years, and would allow businesses who suffered operating losses in 2008-2009 to seek refunds on taxes paid over the past five years. The legislation will likely pass the House Thursday and be quickly signed by President Obama.
The killing of five British soldiers has put new pressure on the country's commitment to the war in Afghanistan as public leaders warn a clear strategy is needed there. The deaths of the soldiers came when a British-trained policeman opened fire at a base in Southern Afghanistan. Margaret Thatcher's former foreign-policy adviser wrote in The Times of London, "There is now a real chance that we will lose this struggle in the bars and front-rooms of Britain, before we lose it in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan." Other leaders voiced concern over the nature of the British fight in Afghanistan as well.
Bonuses are back on Wall Street and now the numbers are out to prove it: projections from a compensation consulting firm in New York predict that incentive pay will increase 40 percent this year at investment banks. Other financial firms, like hedge funds, are expected to see declines of 15 percent to 30 percent. Wall Street must worry about political pressure as well as perception that their year-end bounties come at the expense of tax-payers. "Governments are taking this very seriously," said one recruiting firm head. Still, The Wall Street Journal reports, some bankers are complaining about two straight years of disappointing compensation.
A host of mistakes by authorities allowed Jaycee Lee Dugard to remain imprisoned by convicted rapist Phillip Garrido, according to report released by California's inspector general. Dugard was held captive for 18 years, and Garrido fathered two daughters by her. During that period, Garrido was on parole and should have been closely monitored by authorities. The report declared, "Our review shows that Garrido committed numerous parole violations and that the department failed to properly supervise Garrido and missed numerous opportunities to discover his victims."
Glenn Beck could be the best thing to hit the flagging publishing industry since Oprah's book club. He's one of the few talk-show hosts to carve out time for authors on-air—and he loves him some thriller writers. On his weekly radio show and daily television Fox News program, which attract audiences of 9 million and 2.7 million respectively, Beck has interviewed about 40 thriller writers including David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille, and James Patterson. While Beck often selects thrillers that push his own political agenda (such as Vince Flynn's latest novel, which includes a scene where a CIA operative defends harsh interrogation tactics before Congress), the conservative host has also interviewed liberal writer Andrew Gross. The endorsements have the power to help bolster sales. For example, James Rollins' recent thriller The Doomsday Key stayed in the New York Times Top 10 fiction best-seller list for longer than novels of its type usually due, thanks in part to Rollins' stint on Glenn Beck.
During a conference call on Wednesday night, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann called on protesters to "scare" members of Congress into killing health-care reform. "Nothing scares members of Congress more than freedom-loving Americans," Bachmann said. At noon, Republican organizers plan to have activists head into the House buildings and U.S. Capitol to confront House members after a press conference at noon. "Don't bring your pitchforks," Bachmann said, "bring your video cameras." She believes that these actions will "absolutely scare these members of Congress so much" that the bill will die, not to be resuscitated, for 10 years.
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