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Monday, December 5, 2011
Obama urges public help pushing payroll tax cuts (AP)
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama wants voters to get involved in the debate over extending the reduced payroll tax and he's asking them to tell members of Congress to keep the cut in place.
"Let your members of Congress know where you stand," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "Tell them not to vote to raise taxes on working Americans during the holidays. Tell them to put country before party. Put money back in the pockets of working Americans. Pass these tax cuts."
Obama's address directs listeners to the whitehouse.gov website, where an online calculator lets them determine how much money it's worth to them to continue the 2 percent reduction in the payroll tax that took effect this year. A family with income of $50,000 a year would pay $1,000 more in payroll taxes if Congress does not act by the end of this year to extend that reduction.
Democrats want to expand the reduction in addition to extending it. Republican leaders say they're committed to passing an extension, fearing political fallout if payroll taxes rise on Jan. 1 on 160 million wage-earners. The GOP rank-and-file appears divided, with many Republican senators voting against an extension supported by their leadership this week.
There's also disagreement about how or whether to pay for any extension. Democrats favor a new tax on millionaires; Republicans prefer to cut federal spending.
"We're going to keep pushing Congress to make this happen. They shouldn't go home for the holidays until they get this done," Obama said in his address. "And if you agree with me, I could use your help."
Obama also took note of a new monthly jobs report out Friday that showed the economy added 120,000 jobs in November, a positive number. "We need to keep this growth going and strengthen it," the president said.
Republicans devoted their weekly address to promoting a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which is headed for a vote in the Senate after failing in the House last month.
Democratic leaders worked aggressively to defeat the measure in the House, saying that such a requirement could force Congress to cut billions from social programs during times of economic downturn and that disputes over what to cut could result in Congress ceding its power of the purse to the courts. The result was that the amendment got majority support but fell short of the two-thirds needed to advance a constitutional amendment.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said "the impending vote to amend the Constitution represents a choice between changing business as usual in Washington or embracing the status quo that we can no longer afford."
"The real reason many lawmakers don't want a balanced budget amendment is the exact reason why it's so essential," Snowe said. "They don't want their hands tied; they want to continue to spend without restraint."
Like Obama, she asked listeners to make their views known.
"Contact your senators and urge them to support our balanced budget amendment," Snowe said, "so that we finally seize the fiscal reins and reclaim our future for our children and our grandchildren."
___
Online:
Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov
GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress
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Sunday, December 4, 2011
Iranian diplomats expelled from London arrive home (AP)
TEHRAN, Iran ? Iranian diplomats expelled from London in retaliation for attacks on British compounds in Tehran arrived home Saturday, the official IRNA news agency reported, sealing Iran's most serious diplomatic rift with the West in decades.
About 150 hard-liners waiting with flower necklaces had gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad airport to give the roughly two dozen diplomats and their families a hero's welcome. But the Iranian government, apparently opposed to any high-profile display that could worsen the fallout, took the diplomats off unseen from a backdoor, reflecting Iran's own internal political rifts.
Tuesday's storming of the British Embassy and residential complex ? which the British government alleges was sanctioned by Tehran's ruling elite ? deepened Iran's isolation, which has grown over the decade-long standoff with the West over its nuclear program.
Germany, France and the Netherlands have recalled their ambassadors, and Italy and Spain summoned Iranian envoys to condemn the attacks.
It amounted to the most serious diplomatic fallout with the West since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy after the Islamic Revolution, and some Iranian political figures have voiced doubts over whether anything can be gained from escalating the diplomatic battle.
The obstruction of Saturday's welcome ceremony reflected the disagreements between hard-liners and the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which opposed downgrading relations with Britain and condemned the attack on Britain's embassy.
Iran's relations with Britain have become increasingly strained in recent months, largely due to tensions over Tehran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a key component of its nuclear program. The process is of deep concern internationally because it can be used to produce material for nuclear warheads in addition to reactor fuel. Iran insists its program is entirely peaceful.
Along with the United States and other nations in Europe, Britain has backed sanctions that have so far failed to push Iran to halt its enrichment program.
Hard-liners in Iran have said the embassy attack was an outpouring of the wrath of the Iranian people who believe Britain is a hostile country seeking to damage and weaken the Islamic Republic. Mohammad Mohammadian, a representative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised the attackers, saying they had targeted the "epicenter of sedition."
Iran's hard-line constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, approved a parliamentary bill into law requiring the Iranian government to downgrade relations with Britain. The government opposed it but said it would carry out the law.
The diplomatic freeze from Europe, including key trading partner Germany, further isolates Iran just weeks after a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency that alleged Iran was making strides toward mastering critical elements for atomic weapons.
The current breakdown in relations with the West could embolden hard-liners who want a tougher stance against the International Atomic Energy Agency, which they accuse of being manipulated by the U.S. and allies.
Britain's ambassador to Iran, Dominick Chilcott ? now back in Britain ? offered new details about the attacks, saying the experience had been "frightening."
"We had no idea how it was going to end," he said, describing how the mob trashed rooms, damaged furniture, scrawled graffiti and tore up a portrait of Queen Victoria, as staff took shelter in a secure area of the embassy.
"It felt like very spiteful, mindless vandalism, but it wasn't quite mindless," Chilcott said. "They removed anything that was electronic ? mobile telephones, personal computers ? anything that might give information about who you were talking to or what you were doing."
At one point, the intruders started a fire inside the chancery building, forcing the staff to leave the safe area, climb down a fire escape and exit the building. A small number of police escorted them to a building on the edge of the compound and told them to lie low.
"We turned all the lights out and we sat in the dark and we could hear the noise of the intruders going on around us," he said.
He said seven staff at a separate residential compound that was also attacked were seized and "quite roughly handled" by the invaders.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has led the accusations that the rioters had a green light from Iranian authorities, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard. On Thursday, he said the attacks were "clearly premeditated" by high-ranking officials.
Iranian government officials said the storming of the embassy by angry protesters was unexpected and Iranian police intervened to protect the British diplomats and get the attackers out of the buildings.
The demonstrations had been organized by hard-line groups on university campuses and Islamic seminaries and included denunciations of the latest sanctions on Iran over its nuclear efforts.
Such major anti-Western rallies are rarely allowed to occur without official approval and often include state-backed forces including a paramilitary group known as the Basij, which is part of the vast security network controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.
Images broadcast around the world showed demonstrators tearing down Union Jack flags, brandishing a looted picture of Queen Elizabeth II and tossing out looted documents.
The deepening tensions with Britain and others may also trigger further rifts within Iran.
For months, Iran's ruling system has ordered arrests and intimidation against political allies of President Ahmadinejad, who has sharply fallen from favor after challenging decisions by the head of the theocracy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad has remained silent since the attacks, but his supporters have raised questions about whether Iran's interests are served by a diplomatic battle with the West.
___
Associated Press writers David Stringer, Jill Lawless and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed to this report.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Campaigns turning more to Web to link with voters
NEW YORK (AP) ? As they peruse the Internet, voters in New Hampshire and Iowa are probably seeing ads for Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama alongside those for shoes and holiday gifts. The ads will then follow those voters around the Web, popping up on news sites, Google searches and on social networking sites like Facebook.
Online advertising, once used primarily as a way to reach young and heavily wired consumers, has emerged as an essential communications tool in the 2012 presidential contest. While few expect Web ads to supplant television commercials anytime soon, strategists say online ads may be the most nimble, efficient and cost-effective way to reach voters.
"Online advertising cuts through because of its ability to target. It's unparalleled in any other medium," said Romney's digital director, Zac Moffatt. "TV may be more effective for driving a big message, but per usage, the Internet is more powerful. We are probably one presidential cycle from everyone believing that."
Web ads can take many forms, from small display boxes to clickable videos to 15- or 30-second commercials known as "pre-rolls" a viewer sees before the start of a news clip or YouTube video.
Targeting is key. While campaigns invest heavily in television ads to reach a mass audience, Web ads are geared specifically to people based on their ZIP code, demographics and, most importantly, their Internet browsing history.
That means someone who has visited the Obama campaign website will likely start seeing his ads on a number of different Web pages. And those who use Google to search for information on the Republican candidates might notice a Romney campaign pre-roll the next time they watch a TV show online.
Campaigns also buy ads on websites that cater to the different demographic groups the campaigns are hoping to reach.
"When someone expresses interest in politics online, it's an incredibly good time for the campaigns to talk to them," said Andrew Roos, a Google account leader who works with Democratic campaigns on Web ad strategy. "You want to grab people when they are paying attention and ask them to take another action, like send money or attend an offline event. It's an old-school organization principle that has been working its way online."
Campaigns were slow to adapt to online advertising even as the corporate world flocked to the Web with product ads years ago. Internet ad revenue climbed to nearly $7.9 billion in the third quarter of 2011, up 22 percent from the same time last year, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, which tracks online ad spending.
Corporations now spend from 18 to 28 percent of their advertising budget online, while campaigns historically have spent no more than 5 percent.
Chris Talbot, a freelance campaign digital strategist, noted that big companies can devote considerable time, money and research to figuring out what works online and what doesn't. Campaigns don't have that luxury.
"There is no 'next quarter' in politics, so campaigns usually revert to a template of what's worked in the past," he said.
In 2008, Obama and Republican presidential rival John McCain both did limited online campaign advertising. Web ads grew more prevalent in the 2010 midterm elections, when 85 of the top-spending House races and 600 interest groups bought display ads on Google.
To be sure, plenty of Internet users say they aren't thrilled with the proliferation of online ads, particularly those that follow them from site to site.
A USA Today/Gallup poll taken in late 2010 found 9 out of 10 respondents said they pay little attention to online ads. Two-thirds said they don't believe advertisers should be able to target them based on their past Web searches.
"The only way it works is on a mass scale. Most people ignore ads on the Web," said Aaron Shapiro, head of the digital marking firm HUGE.
Web ads' biggest advantage, many strategists say, is accountability.
"Online ads are very metric driven ? you can figure out how many impressions you got, how many people clicked, how many people signed up for an email address. All of that is calculated in real time," Google's Roos said. "It's much more efficient than direct mail and TV."
The Romney campaign's Moffatt said Web ads became part of the media strategy when officials there realized how much their own viewing habits had changed.
"Strategists here acknowledge they really don't watch live TV," Moffatt said.
___
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.
___
Follow Beth Fouhy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/bfouhy
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Clinton tests reforms on historic visit to Myanmar (AP)
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar ? Looking to cement a foreign policy success and prod democratization in one of the world's most isolated and authoritarian nations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Thursday to test the willingness of Myanmar's leaders to expand nascent reforms.
On a historic visit here, Clinton said she was hopeful, but not yet convinced, that "flickers of progress" in the Southeast Asian country will burst into flames of change.
Clinton, speaking to Myanmar's President Thein Sein during their meeting, said: "I am here today because President Obama and myself are encouraged by the steps you and your government have taken to provide for your people.
Sein said Clinton's visit was a historic chapter in relations between the two nations. Their meeting took place in a grandiose palace that has 40-to-60 foot ceilings, chandeliers and teak doors. It is situated near a virtually empty, 20-lane highway.
Clinton's diplomatically risky trip to a nation that receives few outsiders and still heavily restricts what its people can see and read is meant to test whether new civilian leaders are truly ready to throw off 50 years of military dictatorship. U.S. officials said she would also press the leadership on severing military and suspected nuclear ties with North Korea.
"I am obviously looking to determine for myself and on behalf of our government what is the intention of the current government with respect to continuing reforms both political and economic," Clinton told reporters before her arrival here. Hers is the first trip by a U.S. secretary of state to the country also known as Burma in more than half a century.
She was meeting senior Myanmar officials, including the president, the foreign minister and top lawmakers, in the capital Naypyidaw on Thursday before heading to the commercial capital of Yangon. There she will see opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is returning to the political scene after decades of detention, harassment and violent repression.
Successive military regimes canceled 1990 elections that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won. She has said she plans to run in upcoming elections.
"We and many other nations are quite hopeful that these flickers of progress ... will be ignited into a movement for change that will benefit the people of the country," Clinton said. President Barack Obama used the same description ? "flickers of progress" ? when he announced he was sending Clinton to Myanmar.
Clinton was greeted at Naypyidaw's small airfield by a deputy foreign minister, several other officials and a large contingent of international press who were granted rare visas to cover her visit. But her presence here appeared to take second stage to the expected arrival Thursday of the prime minister of Belarus and his wife, to whom two large welcoming signs were erected at the airport and the road into the city. Belarus is often criticized for its poor human rights record and is subject to U.S. sanctions similar to those Myanmar is under.
No signs welcoming Clinton were visible as her motorcade bounced from the airport to the city on a bumpy cement road that was largely devoid of vehicles, with traffic police stopping small and scattered groups of cars, trucks and motorbikes at intersections.
Officials say Clinton will be seeking assurances from Myanmar's leaders that they will sign an agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog that will permit unfettered access to suspected nuclear sites. The U.S. and other Western nations suspect Myanmar has sought and received nuclear advice along with ballistic missile technology from North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions. A U.S. official said missiles and missile technology are of primary concern but signs of "nascent" nuclear activity are also worrying.
The Obama administration also hopes to loosen Chinese influence in a region where America and its allies are wary of China's rise. Myanmar has historic ties with China, but has pulled back from a major dam project sought by China amid signs the new leaders are sensitive to criticism that China is taking unfair advantage of its much smaller but resource-rich neighbor.
U.S. officials are cautious about what Clinton's three-day visit can accomplish beyond being a symbolic stamp of approval for the small steps of political and social reform under way since elections last year. They are careful to point out that there are no immediate plans to lift heavy U.S. sanctions on Myanmar imposed because of an abysmal human rights record.
That could come in time, if Myanmar proves serious about reform. Other steps being contemplated include upgrading diplomatic relations that would see the two countries exchange ambassadors.
Some members of Congress have expressed concern that the trip is an undeserved reward for the regime.
"I am concerned that the visit of the secretary of state sends the wrong signal to the Burmese military thugs," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "Secretary Clinton's visit represents a monumental overture to an outlaw regime whose DNA remains fundamentally brutal."
Suu Kyi said Wednesday that she still supports U.S. sanctions against her country's government, but will have a better idea of the chances for reform after she meets with Clinton. She said she would like to see cease-fires and serious talks with ethnic minorities fighting the military as well as respect for the rule of law, a clean judiciary and the release of political prisoners.
"There has to be enough progress in those directions for us to be sure the reforms will keep going forward and not regress," Suu Kyi told a webcast to the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. "What we have to do is make sure no one can put a stop to the reform process. We all have to cooperate to make sure it goes forward."
The trip is the first major development in U.S.-Myanmar relations in decades and comes after the Obama administration launched a new effort to prod reforms in 2009 with a package of carrot-and-stick incentives. That effort failed, but rapprochement sped up when Myanmar held elections last year that gave power to a new government that pledged greater openness.
Last week, Myanmar's parliament approved a law guaranteeing the right to protest, which had not previously existed, and improvements have been made in areas such as media and Internet access and political participation. The NLD, which had boycotted previous flawed elections, is now registered as a party.
But the government that took office in March is still dominated by a military-proxy political party, and Myanmar's commitment to democratization and its willingness to limit its close ties with China are uncertain.
Corruption runs rampant, hundreds of political prisoners are still jailed and violent ethnic conflicts continue in the country's north and east. Human rights activists have said Clinton's visit should be judged on improvements in those conditions.
Myanmar's army continues to torture and kill civilians in campaigns to stamp out some of the world's longest-running insurgencies, according to rights groups. They say ongoing atrocities against ethnic minorities serve as a reminder that reforms recently unveiled by the country's military-backed government to worldwide applause are not benefitting everyone.
Aid groups have reported atrocities that occurred as recently as last month: A village leader was killed, allegedly by soldiers, for helping a rebel group, his eyes gouged out and his 9-year-old son buried beside him in a shallow grave. The boy's tongue was cut out.
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