President Obama’s Job Plan: New Details Unveiled

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- On Tuesday, ABC's World News reported on new details of the president’s job plan that he is set to reveal next week -- a plan that is critical to his re-election.

White House officials told ABC News Tuesday it will be “new,” “significant” and “detailed,” and promises that President Obama’s highly touted speech includes a proposal for how the government will pay for these initiatives without adding to our debt.

ABC News has learned that Obama will take aim at three areas in hopes of helping the 14 million unemployed Americans.  They are:

1.  Tax Relief: President Obama will propose tax relief incentives for companies that create jobs and hire new workers.

2.  Infrastructure Investment: The president wants the government to invest in clean energy and new construction projects to build schools and transportation.

3.  Assistance for Long-Term Unemployed: Obama wants to help those who have been out of work for six months or more, which adds up to about six million Americans.  Specifically the president is looking at a program such as Georgia Works -- which gives unemployed Americans eight weeks of training at a local company while allowing them to still collect their unemployment benefits. And it’s no cost to the participating company.

And as ABC News reported Tuesday, Georgia claims that the companies hired 24 percent of those workers while another 60 percent were hired elsewhere.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

GOP 'Super Committee' Members Huddle Ahead of Full Panel Meetings

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The Republican House and Senate appointees to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction met Tuesday on Capitol Hill behind closed doors for more than seven hours before vanishing without comment.
 
Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., joined Reps. Dave Camp, R-Mich., Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, for what aides described as an organizational meeting at the House Republican Conference office in the Cannon House office building.
 
After the meeting, Hensarling, the House Republican Conference chairman and co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, noted that last week he and the committee’s other co-chair, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., “encouraged members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (JSC) to engage in active and useful dialogue on the committee’s work,” and it was “in that spirit” that the Republican members met Tuesday.
 
“Republicans today discussed the work that others have contributed to the cause of deficit reduction and how we can work with our Democratic colleagues to achieve success,” Hensarling, noted in a written statement. “These conversations will continue, across the aisle and among each caucus, as everyone prepares for the first meeting of the full committee.”
 
Despite a strong contingency of the Capitol Hill press corps staking out multiple exits to the office wing, the congressmen left the meeting undetected without speaking with reporters, many of whom had been waiting in the hallways Tuesday morning for the Republicans to comment.
 
Heading into the meeting earlier Tuesday morning, members of the so-called “Super Committee” told reporters that the gathering would be an organizational meeting to determine the GOP’s plan of attack and schedule upcoming meetings with the full panel.
 
Top Republican leadership aides leaving the meeting refused to comment on the substance of the meeting and would not divulge when the next meeting might occur.
 
The full 12-member committee is expected to meet after Congress returns from summer recess next week after Labor Day, although a date has not been announced.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Former Powell Chief of Staff: Cheney 'Fears Being Tried as a War Criminal'

(WASHINGTON) -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney's memoir, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, is out Tuesday, and it's full of criticism and attacks on his Bush administration colleagues -- from describing Condoleezza Rice as "tearfully admitting" he was right on the war in Iraq to revealing private conversations with George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq war.

He reserves much of his ire for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and now Powell and his longtime aide and chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, are attempting to set the record straight, in no uncertain terms. Cheney, Wilkerson told ABC News, "was president for all practical purposes for the first term of the Bush administration" and "fears being tried as a war criminal."

In his memoir, Cheney claims Powell undermined President Bush. "It was as though he thought the proper way to express his views was by criticizing administration policy to people outside the government," Cheney writes, adding that he encouraged Powell's removal from the administration after the 2004 election, writing Powell's resignation "was for the best."

Powell himself called Cheney's criticism "cheap shots" during an interview this past Sunday on CBS News' Face the Nation.

"What really sort of got my attention was this way in which he characterized it: it's going to 'cause heads to explode,'" Powell said. "That's quite a visual. And in fact, it's the kind of headline I would expect to come out of a gossip columnist, or the kind of headline you might see one of the supermarket tabloids write. It's not the kind of headline I would have expected to come from a former vice president of the United States of America."

Before serving as Powell's chief of staff while Powell was Secretary of State, Wilkerson worked in the first Bush administration as a special assistant to Powell, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Cheney was serving as secretary of defense. He's known Cheney for decades, but says now, "I simply don't recognize Mr. Cheney anymore," calling him a "very vindictive person."

"He's developed an angst and almost a protective cover, and now he fears being tried as a war criminal so he uses such terminology as 'exploding heads all over Washington' because that's the way someone who's decided he's not going to be prosecuted acts: boldly, let's get out in front of everybody, let's act like we are not concerned and so forth when in fact they are covering up their own fear that somebody will Pinochet him," Wilkerson said, alluding to the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was arrested for war crimes.

Cheney told NBC News that his revealing memoir would have "heads exploding all over Washington."

Wilkerson said Powell was "simply not opposed to the war," citing the former secretary of state's now-infamous trip to the United Nations in February 2003 in which he testified that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as proof that he wasn't undermining Bush. Instead, Wilkerson said, he actually criticized Powell for "expressing too much support" for the war and explained that he used his own military experience to advise Powell that the U.S. military wasn't finished with its job in Afghanistan, and the military would be stretched too thin. He said he registered "all manner of objections" to Powell, adding that "some of those probably leaked" but that Powell wasn't objecting to the war.

"From what I've read, Cheney seems to criticize everyone, including President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, [Deputy Secretary of State] Rich Armitage, and a host of others except himself. Waterboarding is a war crime, unwarranted surveillance… all of which are crimes. I don't care whether the president authorized him to do it or not, they are crimes," Wilkerson said. "Cheney was a good secretary of defense in my view. In fact I would put him up amongst the top three in the short history of the position. No longer do I feel that way, and I don't know what happened to Cheney."

Wilkerson added that he was struck that Cheney doesn't seem to admit any mistakes or backtrack on any of the decisions he made during his time in the administration.

"There are plenty of people who have written their memoirs and have had battles to fight in those memoirs who have not been as acidic or acerbic as Cheney is and I can't think of anyone…who have not at least admitted to a mistake here and there or at least given some extenuating circumstances. Cheney doesn't seem capable of that," Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson adds, "Something happened to Dick Cheney and it wasn't just 9/11," which Cheney cites as deeply changing him. Wilkerson said the former vice president always "coveted power" and that Cheney was "fully expecting that he was going to be vice president" when he headed up the search team for Bush.

"I can't speak to the psychosomatic or the genetic problems with heart attacks or whatever, but I can speak to power," Wilkerson said. "He wanted desperately to be president of the United States…he knew the Texas governor was not steeped in anything but baseball, so he knew he was going to be president and I think he got his dream. He was president for all practical purposes for the first term of the Bush administration."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

FEMA Funding: Napolitano Warns Against ‘Political Gridlock’

Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Could federal disaster relief become the next battleground over the federal deficit?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said over the weekend that because of the string of natural disasters in the past year, its disaster relief fund had dwindled to about $900 million.  The agency said it might have to restrict recovery spending for other, recent natural disasters if Congress did not approve additional funds — a stark warning after the estimated multibillion dollars in damage caused by Hurricane Irene.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday urged Congress to avoid “political gridlock” and move quickly to approve more federal disaster funding in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

Political gridlock “should not be the first concern of the Congress,” Napolitano said. “I think the first concern of the Congress is what do we need to protect the health and safety of the people that we’re all privileged to represent. Congress knows that this is historically the way disaster relief has been funded.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Republicans would approve more disaster relief only if spending cuts were made elsewhere in the federal budget to make up the difference. Napolitano and others fear that disaster relief could become the latest political football in the emotionally-charged debate over the federal deficit.

“At the beginning of the fiscal year, they don’t give you a crystal ball,” Napolitano told reporters Tuesday. “So the way they do the [Disaster Relief Fund] is they get the three-year rolling average. And then if you need more, then at the end of the year there’s a supplemental” bill passed by Congress and money is held up until more funding is provided.  She said Congress should continue to play by the established rules.

While calling for more funding, Napolitano said it was too early to tell just how much Hurricane Irene was going to cost.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

ATF Shake-Up Comes after Government Gun-running Scandal

ATF(WASHINGTON) -- Ken Melson, the man who oversaw the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives during the controversial “Fast and Furious” gun trafficking operation is leaving ATF and returning to Justice Department headquarters.

Two other top officials involved in the “Fast and Furious” operation resigned or were reassigned, the department announced Tuesday.

Melson headed the ATF when the bureau ran the botched gun-running investigation in Arizona. The program -- allegedly meant to track illegal gun sales -- actually allowed hundreds of assault rifles and other weapons to be illegally sent to Mexico, with some firearms going to drug cartels. Guns from the program have also been traced to a series of crimes in Arizona -- including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

The Department also announced Tuesday that Dennis Burke, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona where operation Fast and Furious was overseen, was resigning. Additionally, the assistant U.S. attorney who helped run the program, Emory Hurley, has been reassigned from working on criminal cases and will now work in the civil division at the Arizona U.S. attorney’s office.

Under “Fast and Furious,” ATF agents recorded and tracked straw purchases of weapons and allowed the guns to “walk” across the U.S. border into Mexico in an effort to locate major weapons traffickers, rather than catching the low-level buyers. The operation took a tragic toll when two weapons found on the scene where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered were linked to the ATF program. The bloodshed didn't end there: the thousands of assault rifles and pistols -- which were completely operational and deliberately allowed to get into criminals' hands -- have been linked to 11 other violent crimes as part of the seemingly endless, and increasingly bloody, drug cartel violence over the border. Some of the 2,500 weapons included dozens of the fearsome, military-grade Barrett .50 sniper rifle, so powerful it can kill at 2,000 meters, or even severely damage airplanes in flight.

A Congressional investigation into the program has revealed numerous shortcomings and poor oversight of the program, which was overseen by the ATF field office in Phoenix and the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. 

According to administration officials, Attorney General Eric Holder pushed for the personnel moves to provide stable leadership at ATF. Holder claims he has pushed for the department’s inspector general to review the “Fast and Furious” program, but the status of that review is unknown.

U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has lead the charge into the investigation of Fast & Furious. Rep. Issa has claimed Holder is "stonewalling" the inquiry. President Obama has denied he knew of the operation. Of this, Issa has said, "President Obama has been keen to talk about who didn’t know about the program and who didn’t authorize it. These answers will not suffice.  The American people have a right to know, once and for all, who did authorize it and who knew about it."

Last month, appearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the former head of the ATF’s Phoenix office admitted that mistakes were made in the controversial gun trafficking operation. William Newell, the ATF agent who helped oversee the operation told the committee, “I recognize that in retrospect there were mistakes made in how we handled this investigation.”

The committee has requested numerous documents and testimony from ATF agents and Department of Justice officials as they looked into the operation.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Actress Daryl Hannah Arrested Outside White House

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Actress Daryl Hannah was arrested again Tuesday for protesting for an environmental cause. This time, Hannah was taken into police custody outside the White House during a protest urging President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

“We want to be free from our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels. If Obama approves of this Keystone XL pipeline...it would be a disaster. These pipelines, it’s not 'if' it’s going to spill, it’s 'when' it’s going to spill,” Hannah told ABC moments before her arrest. “We cannot risk these precious resources and we cannot shackle ourselves to this type of destructive energy future when we have solutions available to us. We have American made, American grown, clean, safe energy.”

Hannah was arrested along with roughly 100 other protestors who sat on the sidewalk in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and refused repeated requests to move, violating the White House demonstration rules.

Tuesday’s protest was organized by the group Tar Sands Action, which claims the pipeline will pump 900,000 barrels a day of “the world’s dirtiest oil” from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas. The crowd outside the White House chanted “keep the tar sands in the soil, we don’t need your dirty oil,” as members of their group were hauled off by police.

Hannah and others believe the president is falling prey to special interests and the power of oil and gas lobbyists. “There are some powerful forces that want things to continue...to go their way and they’re the ones that have the loudest voices,” Hannah said. “If [President Obama] doesn’t do right by the American citizens, he will not be back in this office again.”

The actress, known for her roles in Splash and Wall Street, is an avid environmental activist and has been arrested several times in the past for issues ranging from coal mining to urban gardens.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Obama Salutes Veterans, Promises Help to Unemployed

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images(MINNEAPOLIS) -- With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks only days away, President Obama on Tuesday thanked military veterans for their service and emphasized the need to care for them as they come home from war, especially with so many currently unemployed.

"As a nation, we’re facing tough choices as we put our fiscal house in order.  But I want to be absolutely clear -- we cannot, and we must not, balance the budget on the backs of our veterans.  And as Commander in Chief, I won’t allow it,” the president said to a standing ovation in a speech at the 93rd American Legion National Convention at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

“The bond between our forces and our citizens is a sacred trust.  And for me and my administration, upholding that trust isn’t just a matter of policy. It’s not about politics. It’s a moral obligation,” he said.

The president urged Congress to act immediately on his proposals to help the nearly one million unemployed veterans transition back to the workforce, including a “reverse boot camp” of job training and tax credits for companies that hire service members.

“For the sake of our veterans, for the sake of our economy, we need these veterans working and contributing and creating the new jobs and industries that will keep America competitive in the 21st century,” he said. “These are the obligations we have to each other -- our forces, our veterans, our citizens. These are the responsibilities we must fulfill.  Not just when it’s easy, or when it’s convenient, but always.”  

While Obama touted his support for veterans, in Texas Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked the president for portraying “weakness” in his foreign policy. For his part, Obama avoided mentioning his 2012 opponents directly, opting instead to focus on his accomplishes including the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden and efforts to improve health care services for veterans.

Obama’s appearance also came on the same day that August became the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the ongoing war in Afghanistan and with the 9/11 anniversary around the corner, the president paid special tribute to the “9/11 generation.”

“They were there, on duty, that September morning, having enlisted in a time of peace, but they instantly transitioned to a war-footing.  They’re the millions of recruits who have stepped forward since, seeing their nation at war and saying, 'send me,'” he said.

Obama flew to Minnesota for Tuesday’s speech before the nation’s largest gathering of veterans and their families. He is scheduled to return to Washington, D.C., later in the day.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Romney to Veterans: We Can't Just 'Hope' for Peace

James Devaney/WireImage(SAN ANTONIO) -- Presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized President Obama’s foreign policy Tuesday in a speech delivered to the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention, accusing the president of simply “hoping” for peace, and later vowing that if he wins the White House in 2012 he will cut spending where he could to bolster the nation’s military prowess.

“We can’t lead the world by hoping our enemies will hate us less,” said Romney to the veterans gathered at the convention held in San Antonio, Texas. “American strength is the only guarantee of liberty.”

Speaking in the home state of his top GOP rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Romney also took a veiled swipe at his competitor, remarking, “I have spent more of my life outside of politics, dealing with the real problems in the real economy. Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don’t know how to get us out.”

Taking a jab at the president’s time at Harvard, Romney quipped that while some may think that foreign policy based on the belief that “if we are weak, tyrants will choose to be weak as well” and that if we “chose to talk more, engage more” that peace will come, he said, “That may be what they think in that Harvard faculty lounge, but it’s not what they know on the battlefield!”

“As American veterans, you understand better than anyone that weakness invites aggression and that the best ally of peace is a strong America,” said Romney.

“We’ve lost a couple of years,” said Romney, referring to Obama’s time in office. “But we haven’t lost our way.”

Referring to “enormous waste” in the defense budget, Romney said that his background in the private sector gives him the urge to “look at that kind of inefficiency and bloat and say, ‘Let me at it.’”

“I will slice billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency and bureaucracy from the defense budget,” said Romney. “I will use the money we save for modern ships and planes, and for more troops. And I’ll spend it to ensure that veterans have the care they deserve.”

While Perry, who spoke on Monday at the same convention, highlighted his history in the Air Force, for which he flew C-130s for from 1972 to 1977, Romney drew on his experience as the Governor of Massachusetts, a post that led him to many military hospitals both stateside and abroad.  

“I met with our soldiers in the anxious days before deployments to dangerous places,” said Romney. “I welcomed them home, sometimes in celebrations. Sometimes in caskets.”

Romney also repeated a story he’s told before on the campaign trail about a time when he was asked to go to Boston’s Logan International Airport to receive the body of a soldier who had been killed in Iraq. Romney recalls how he had his hand over his heart as the casket came off the plane and when he looked behind him into the glass enclosed terminal, a “huge crowd” had gathered to watch – their hands over their hearts, too.

“I couldn’t see the tears through the class, but I could see the faces, the sorrow, the admiration, the appreciation for that young soldier,” he said.

Romney never served in the military: He received a deferment from the draft during the Vietnam War because of his work as a Mormon missionary.  

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Doubting Democrats Seek Boldness in Obama's Jobs Speech

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- As President Obama prepares to deliver another major speech on the economy, his supporters demand a job growth plan that's big and bold, even as they prepare to be underwhelmed.

"The president has just got to become much more aggressive about what his vision is, where he wants to get the economy and why other approaches are not as good as his.  Period," said Simon Rosenberg, a former adviser to President Clinton and founder of the New Democrat Network.

Many Democrats say they want to hear a forceful presidential push for new stimulus spending and middle-class tax cuts, with less emphasis on deficit reduction and government spending cuts they say could stunt job creation and hamper economic recovery.

Others, rankled by the administration's willingness to compromise with Republicans during the recent debt ceiling debate, also want Obama to draw a clearer line in the sand over tax hikes for the wealthy and protecting entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, from cuts.

Obama needs to stop "nibbling around the edge," AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka told reporters last week, as he criticized the administration's economic strategy. "History will judge him, and I think working people will judge him."

"Unemployment is unconscionable," said an exasperated Rep. Maxine Waters at a Congressional Black Caucus town hall meeting earlier this month. "We don't know what his strategy is," the controversial congresswoman said to to shouts of approval.

The latest Gallup poll shows Obama's job approval rating has slumped to a new low of 38 percent, while his disapproval rating has risen to a new high of 55 percent.

And there is growing skepticism over whether another Obama jobs plan can do what previous plans could not.

"There's an austerity-led approach that Republicans are offering, and there's a more investment-led approach the president laid out," said Rosenberg. "That distinction has to be made clearer for the American people to understand there's a choice.  Moreover, the ultimate concern of his has to be to do the right thing for the country, not to appease the Republican Party."

In the midst of all this, Republicans hoping to unseat Obama in 2012 are lining up to release job plans of their own.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman will unveil a jobs proposal Wednesday, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is slated to roll out his plan on Sept. 6.  One day later, the GOP candidates will take the stage at a presidential debate that will likely focus on the economy and jobs.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Rush Limbaugh: White House Wanted Hurricane Irene to Be Much Worse

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Was Hurricane Irene a “national embarrassment?”

That’s what conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh is claiming.

Limbaugh went on a tirade Monday to complain that the storm was “politicized” to provide a boost to President Obama’s reelection chances in 2012.

According to the right-wing pundit, the White House and the national media were both hoping that Irene would cause far more death and destruction than what actually occurred.  A huge disaster would have revived Obama’s political fortunes, Limbaugh said, not to mention help prove climate change theory touted by the administration and the media.

Limbaugh mused, “It was a lesson, if you pay any attention to this, the hype, the desire for chaos, I mean literally, the media desire for chaos was a great learning tool, this was a great illustration of how all of the rest of the media in news, in sports, has templates and narratives and exaggerates beyond reality, creating fear so as to create interest.”

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio