Australia stated that Tuesday it will “roll out the welcome mat” for President obama at any moment in time, taking into account the Us president delayed then shorten down his state visit to barely above 24 hrs.
Barack obama has rollback the visit, in the course of which he will attend to the joint houses of parliament as well as meet Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as he tries to propel his healthcare changes via Congress.
President obama, who has put off plans to get togather with his wife, Michelle, as well as his 2 daughters in favor of the tour to Indonesia and Australia, will turn up in Canberra later next Thursday after that take off the subsequent night.
“We welcome very much his arrival,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith stated to Sky News. “As the prime minister has stated that, anytime President Obama wishes to drop by Australia, we are incredibly contented to roll out the greeting mat.”
Smith pointed out that parliament, which will probably be recalled from a disruption for Obama’s address, is not going to sit as intended on Monday and Tuesday next week except on Friday, March 26.
Washington officials have stated that Barack obama’s trip will speak well of the United states “model alliance” with Australia as well as bolster the allies’ shared strategies on trade, the environment as well as security.
“Australia… is an increasingly critical ally in both the region as well as the world,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security.
Obama, who had been anticipated to drop by Sydney, has to at the moment narrow down his tour to Canberra, where he will even have a combined news meeting with Rudd.
The Us is Australia’s most vital ally, with Canberra transporting military personnel to battle alongside US troopers in Afghanistan. The nations will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the US-Australia alliance throughout Obama’s stay.

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What a debate! It is because of things like this that we do politics, events that make us do this work despite the little money we earn. For the first time, I was made to watch the debate with the rest of the ST team, and the 7 hours was worth it.

For the first time, the debate was very clean, civil. There were no unnecessary distractions. Characters shone through and others faltered. If ever people want an introduction to what the parties are about, tell them to watch the clips of this mammoth health-care session.

The only disappointment that initially pist me off was with Senate leaders, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. They had terrible body language and were behaving like 10 year old girls not talking to each other. Leader McConnell was sitting with his arms folded and Leader Reid had the stench of arrogance.

Because of them, I thought it was going to be ugly. How wrong I was! This session had the notion of a sporting event. The first half was exclusively Republican. All the Democrats did was to say, “We agree on this and that.” They were spineless and pathetic.

A character who really stole the “first half” was Senator Tom Coburn. I have been told by some member of the team that he was a wing-nut from the right, but that was not how he came off at all. This guy oozed sincerity, something nobody else in the room had. He was passionate and very real. He reminds me of people like Representatives Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, whose politics we do not agree with but we respect their sincerity in service to our country.

Senator John McCain deserves very special mention for his substantial input. He pointed out the flaw that there were many “special deals” in the Senate bill which had little or nothing to do with healthcare. The Democrats were caught with their pants down here.

I saw Representative Eric Cantor perform today, and he was outstanding. He was cool calm and even though we heard all the points being recycled, one could still be impressed with the way that Representative Cantor made his case. Mark my words, this guy is headed for bigger things. Senator McCain made a huge mistake not giving him the VP nomination.

The star of the Democrats was the President. He was the only one that actually put up a fight against the Republican arguments. I liked some of his logic. For example he rebutted the Republican talking point of regulation driving the cost of things up by saying that we could make food significantly cheaper, if we get rid of the meat inspectors. But would you want that? That was well done.

In the first half, the Republicans were very strong in their arguments, but they just could not kill the argument. The reason was that they kept hovering back to talking points which were obviously planned and lacked substance. They kept on harping about the mandate without going for the jugular early. They spoiled their arguments by keep on mentioning things like ,” The American people do not want this bill” and kept complaining about the bill being over 2000 pages long.

President Obama was enough to hold the Republicans off. The only one that he could not beat was the amazing Senator Coburn, so he absorbed some of Senator Coburn’s ideas. The attacks from the Republicans were relentless and they came thick and fast. The first half for the Democrats was so bad that VP Biden intervened in frustration, stating that the ideas weren’t that different, but the approach was.

So what would happen in the Second half? It was something that we would have to watch to believe. All this was thanks to a blunder from a very senior Republican, which game the Democrats with the ammo to attack….

For more, read the 2nd half!

There are many incumbent Senators and Representatives whom we do not like and whom we wish to send them off soon. Leaders Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are classic examples of people that have been there for too long to be effective.

For one, I think that the job of being a Congressperson is a sacred one. They are part and parcel of the balance of powers in the our country that makes our political system the best in the whole world. A Senator or a Representative hold tremendous powers and are temples of authority.

However, I do feel that once in a while, there should be some fresh ideas injected. Just like many sports, the length of time would affect an individual’s performance. That is one of the reasons why our President cans serve a maximum of 2 terms and serve a maximum of 10 years.

I think that we should make similar term limits for our Congress as well. My suggestion is to have a 6 year term for both the House and the Senate and to limit it to 3 terms and allow people to serve a maximum of 20 years in Congress.

Here is my first reason. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that elections for Representatives take place every 2 years. Not only is it irritating, but I really do not see what one can accomplish in merely 2 years? There is nothing really much that can happen. To me, it is just a waste of the state’s treasury to hold elections ever so frequently. I agree with Governor Jesse Ventura’s idea of only having elections on even numbered years to save money. I am also open to Representatives serving a maximum 5 four year terms instead.

Another reason is that with young blood, there comes a new approach to getting things to work. For example, even a wing nut like Senator Al Franken has done some good work when he wrote the “rape bill.” Do you think he would be as productive as he is in his first year? I highly doubt so.

The most important reason though is that this could help stop some corruption. If Senators or Representatives are serving their last terms, they do not need lobbyists help for re-elections. They can serve their terms the way they want it. Also, this removes any complacency amongst some Congresspeople who enjoy safe seats, like Representatives Michelle Bachmann and Barney Frank.

I would like to state that this is just a proposal. I am not in any Tea Party like manner trying to call for a revolution on this topic. I think it is an interesting idea. If you find any cons to this, please highlight it. I want to hear what the thoughts of Americans on this topic. Please comment.

WASHINGTON – A grim-faced President Barack Obama declared Tuesday there was a deep failure of national intelligence in the botched Christmas Day airliner terror attack over Detroit, telling the nation the government had enough information to thwart potential disaster but could not “connect those dots.”
“The information was there,” Obama said, blistering agencies and analysts for not figuring out the threat — but without singling any out by name.
“I will accept that intelligence, by its nature, is imperfect,” Obama said. Obama never said who, if anyone, in the government might be held accountable, and the White House would not say whether any officials would be fired.
The director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, said in a statement that the intelligence community had received the president’s message. The president’s own analysis is centered on identifying security gaps and filling them. Obama announced no new steps to improve the intelligence or security systems. Since the attack, the government has added dozens of names to its lists of suspected terrorists and those barred from flights bound for the United States. One of those countries, Cuba, summoned the top U.S. diplomat on the island on Tuesday to protest extra screening for Cuban citizens flying into the United States, calling the new step “this hostile action.”
“When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way,” Obama said. Tight security — and perhaps nerves — was showing up far from the White House.
A Bakersfield, Calif., airport was temporarily shut down Tuesday after officials said a passenger’s luggage tested positive for TNT. As for Obama’s meeting with security aides, the White House released a statement later quoting him as telling them: “This was a screw-up that could have been disastrous. Obama also is suspending the transfer of Guantanamo prison detainees to Yemen. “Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison,” Obama said. The camp, he said, “was an explicit rationale for the formation of al-Qaida” operating in Yemen.

“Our intelligence community failed to connect those dots which would have placed the suspect on the no-fly list,” he said. “This was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already have.”

Obama said that it was clear the government knew that the suspect, Abdulmutallab, had traveled to Yemen and joined with extremists there.

“It now turns out that our intelligence community knew of other red flags that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula sought to strike not only American targets in Yemen, but the United States itself. Before Obama’s comments, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president still has full confidence in his three top national security officials: Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

They were among the 20 high-level officials who sat down with Obama in the White House Situation Room for a meeting that lasted over 90 minutes.

Abdulmutallab remains in federal custody, charged with trying to destroy the Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit. That omission prompted a review of the National Counterterrorism Center’s massive Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Joan Lowy, Philip Elliott, Matthew Lee and Faryl Ury in Washington, and Ahmed Al-Haj in San’a, Yemen, contributed to this report.

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Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is announcing new measures Tuesday to beef up airline security after an alleged terrorist attempt to destroy a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
Fresh off a Hawaiian vacation dominated by news of the incident, Obama scheduled a meeting Tuesday afternoon with high-ranking government officials charged with carrying out two reviews he ordered after the botched attack — on screening for airline passengers and on the U.S. terror watch-list system.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, CIA Director Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller were among those expected to meet with Obama in the White House Situation Room.
Attorney General Eric Holder; Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence; Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center; national security adviser James Jones; and John Brennan, the president’s counterterrorism adviser, also were to attend.
Brennan will update the president on his own review of the system of watch lists and outline his initial findings. Agency heads will comment on their internal reviews.
Obama prepared Monday afternoon by meeting privately with national security aides.
The government also has added dozens of names to its lists of suspected terrorists and those barred from U.S.-bound flights. The addition of names to the government’s terrorist watch list and the no-fly list came after U.S. officials scrutinized a larger database of suspected terrorists, an intelligence official said Monday. That omission prompted a review of the National Counterterrorism Center’s massive Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database.
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