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4      "doc_id": "9",
5      "doc_html": "<h1>Gallup Poll shows 58% favor legalization, as city elections indicate increasing approval</h1>\\n<p>In legalization debate, nation has moved from \\\"if\\\" to \\\"how,\\\" drug policy expert says</p><p>White House calls legalization a \\\"nonstarter;\\\" new policy favors prevention over incarceration</p><p>Poll says in 4 in 10 Americans have tried marijuana, up from 4 in 100 in 1969</p><p>Marijuana is moving on \\\"greased tracks\\\" toward legalization, according to the advocacy group that\\'s been riding the train for more than 40 years.</p><p>The reason is a stark shift in public opinion, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. On Tuesday, Portland, Maine, followed Washington and Colorado\\'s lead and legalized recreational use of the drug , while the Michigan cities of Lansing, Jackson and Ferndale resoundingly voted to let people older than 21 possess an ounce of the green stuff on private property.</p><p>The municipal votes may seem like small potatoes, but St. Pierre said that 2013 isn\\'t just an off-year for elections, it\\'s an \\\"off-off-year.\\\"</p><p>\\\"I absolutely pinch myself every single day, affirming that these changes are happening and they appear long-lasting,\\\" he said.</p><p>In Colorado, where voters OK\\'d recreational use in last year\\'s election, another measure to tax marijuana -- opposed by some pot proponents -- also passed Tuesday .</p><p>\\\"Here on K Street, that\\'s a victory,\\\" he said, referring to the lobbyist row in Washington where NORML is headquartered. \\\"(Not taxing marijuana) would\\'ve created a whole heap of mess with the federal government. Institutionally, strategically speaking, marijuana isn\\'t going to become legal if it\\'s not being taxed.\\\"</p><p>While public opinion on legalization has changed drastically since the 1960s, St. Pierre notes there has been an unprecedented spike in approval ratings just in the past year, reaching 58%, according to a Gallup Poll last month . The number marks a 10% increase since Colorado and Washington voted to legalize it, \\\"and the legal momentum shows no sign of abating,\\\" according to Gallup.</p><p>Weed is big business at convention</p><p>Marijuana legalization and American teens</p><p>More cities OK pot use</p><p>Pot legal nationwide in 5 years?</p><p>Federal legalization isn\\'t necessarily imminent, but the Justice Department seems to lack the appetite to take down Colorado and Washington, which it could easily do under the current U.S. Code. In September, Sen. Patrick Leahy held a hearing on the conflicts between state and federal laws after Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued a memo saying the feds would stand down in all but a handful of instances when it came to state marijuana laws.</p><p>\\\"That absolutely supercharged states around the country -- to use a bad pun here -- to say, \\'We have a green light,\\' \\\" St. Pierre said.</p><p>St. Pierre, who has been with NORML for 23 years and has served as its director since 2005, said he\\'s witnessed a \\\"total sea change in the time I\\'ve been here.\\\"</p><p>Six years ago, politicians were returning NORML\\'s donations, he said. Today, they not only accept them, but request them -- along with endorsements and assistance writing marijuana-related legislation.</p><p>There\\'s even a bipartisan group of legislators St. Pierre calls the \\\"cannabis caucus,\\\" which includes Reps. Jared Polis, Earl Blumenauer and Dana Rohrabacher and Sens. Rand Paul and Sheldon Whitehouse.</p><p>What\\'s lighting the fire?</p><p>Though the tidal shift in public opinion is largely due to economics -- people think, \\\"Schools, bridges, arresting people for marijuana -- which one can we compromise on today?\\\" -- there are a host of reasons for the rapid change in opinion, he said.</p><p>Not only are sheer demographics playing a role, as the Brookings Institution pointed out earlier this year , but proponents have also concentrated on limiting access, public safety, rigorous alcohol-like enforcement and ensuring tax dollars are directed to the public good -- issues which appeal to women, who have historically been less opposed than men to pot prohibition, St. Pierre said.</p><p>It also didn\\'t hurt that that a \\\"popular, ethical doctor,\\\" CNN\\'s Sanjay Gupta, issued in August a mea culpa for denouncing marijuana\\'s viability in the past, St. Pierre said.</p><p>The same week Gupta reversed his stance on medical marijuana , Attorney General Eric Holder announced an initiative to curb mandatory minimum drug sentences and a federal judge called New York City\\'s stop-and-frisk policy unconstitutional, indicating an opinion shift on national drug policy in general. (A federal court reinstated stop-and-frisk last week while appeals are heard).</p><p>Experts told CNN then that the nation had moved from the abstract matter of \\\"if\\\" to the more tangible debate over \\\"how.\\\"</p><p>\\\"Between Attorney General Holder\\'s announcement, the decision made on stop-and-frisk and Dr. Gupta coming out with his documentary, it was a big week for drug policy,\\\" Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center and co-author of \\\"Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know,\\\" said in August.</p><p>When 49% of voters in Arkansas are voting for legal pot, we aren\\'t in Kansas anymore.</p><p>Mark Kleiman, UCLA public policy professor</p><p>Peruse the Marijuana Majority website and you\\'ll see decrying pot prohibition is no longer confined to the convictions of Cheech and Chong.</p><p>Today\\'s debate involves an unlikely alliance that of conservatives Pat Robertson and Sarah Palin and rapper Snoop Lion (aka Snoop Dogg), blogger Arianna Huffington and Jon Stewart of \\\"The Daily Show.\\\"</p><p>In June, the U.S. Conference of Mayors cited organized crime, a national change in attitude, the efficacy of medical marijuana and exorbitant costs to local governments in its resolution supporting \\\"states setting their own marijuana policies,\\\" a stance similar to the one endorsed by the National Lawyers Guild and the Red Cross.</p><p>\\\"I\\'m surprised by the long-term increase in support for marijuana legalization in the last six or seven years. It\\'s unprecedented. It doesn\\'t look like a blip,\\\" said Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland public policy professor with 30 years experience researching drug policy.</p><p>Reuter, who co-wrote the book \\\"Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate,\\\" said he believes two factors are spurring the shift in national opinion: Medical marijuana has reduced the stigma associated with the drug, making it \\\"less devilish,\\\" and the number of Americans who have tried the drug continues to rise.</p><p>Resistance fading</p><p>When Washington and Colorado legalized pot , opponents weren\\'t able to raise the money to derail the initiatives, which Reuter considers an \\\"important signal that the country is no longer willing to fight this battle.\\\"</p><p>As important as the lack of resistance, Reuter said, is the subsequent response.</p><p>Though he doesn\\'t see federal legalization on the horizon, he noted that the White House could easily shut Washington and Colorado down, either via a Justice Department crackdown or an IRS prohibition on tax deductions for the purchase of marijuana, which Reuter said would be a \\\"killer for the industry.\\\"</p><p>Yet Holder and Congress were reticent until the Justice Department issued its memo and Leahy held hearings a year later.</p><p>\\\"It may be that everyone\\'s waiting to see what happens,\\\" Reuter said in August. \\\"I take their silence to be some form of assent.\\\"</p><p>In 1969, a Gallup poll showed 12% of Americans supported pot legalization , and it estimated that same year that four in 100 Americans had taken a toke . In August, Gallup reported that number had spiked to almost four in 10 .</p><p>Gallup, Pew and CNN/Opinion Research Corp. polls conducted in the past three years indicate a nation evenly divided until last month\\'s surge in approval ratings, and Gupta\\'s documentary planted him among a loud chorus that has sung the drug\\'s praises since California approved medical marijuana in 1996.</p><p>It\\'s a cultural force, and you simply cannot legislate against a cultural force.</p><p>U.S. District Judge John Kane</p><p>Since then, 20 other states and the District of Columbia have passed similar laws, while Colorado and Washington state allowed recreational use -- a move Alaska, California, Nevada and Oregon each twice rejected between 1972 and 2010 , according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.</p><p>Sixteen states have decriminalized possession of personal amounts of marijuana since 1973, including Colorado, which approved decriminalization 37 years before voters legalized cannabis in 2012, NORML says.</p><p>Mark Kleiman, a UCLA public policy professor who has been tapped to mold Washington\\'s legal pot industry, noted in August that even in states where recent ballot initiatives were shot down, there are telling results. Perennial red state Arkansas\\' medical marijuana vote in November, for example, was a squeaker, failing 51% to 49%.</p><p>\\\"When 49% of voters in Arkansas are voting for legal pot, we aren\\'t in Kansas anymore,\\\" said Kleiman, who co-wrote \\\"Marijuana Legalization\\\" with Kilmer.</p><p>A savvier debate</p><p>The tone of the debate is also a sign that the country is nearing a tipping point at which public opinion effects political change. Rather than engaging in a simple yes-vs.-no debate about legalization, proponents are asking more nuanced questions: Should \\\"grows\\\" be large or small? What should the tax structure look like? Should potency be limited? Will the model involve for-profit companies? How will weed be distributed?</p><p>\\\"The discussion over time -- and I think it\\'s for the better -- the discussion is starting to focus more on the details,\\\" Kilmer said. \\\"Before, nobody has ever really had to confront those decisions. ... Those decisions are really going to shape the cost and benefits of policy change.\\\"</p><p>President Barack Obama\\'s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said in 2010 that marijuana legalization was a \\\"nonstarter,\\\" an assertion the Office of National Drug Control Policy says holds true today .</p><p>The office emphasizes that the administration\\'s 2013 drug policy takes a new tack with the realization that America can\\'t arrest its way out of its longtime drug epidemic.</p><p>The White House policy, announced in April, favors prevention over incarceration, science over dogma and diversion for nonviolent offenders, the office says. Arguments for marijuana legalization, however, run counter to public health and safety concerns , the ONDCP says.</p><p>The federal government may have a difficult time maintaining its stance, experts predict.</p><p>John Kane, a federal judge in Colorado, said in December he sees marijuana following the same path as alcohol in the 1930s. Toward the end of Prohibition, Kane explained, judges routinely dismissed violations or levied fines so trivial that prosecutors quit filing cases.</p><p>\\\"The law is simply going to die before it\\'s repealed. It will just go into disuse,\\\" Kane said. \\\"It\\'s a cultural force, and you simply cannot legislate against a cultural force.\\\"</p><p>School stops giving boy medical pot</p><p>Is it time to legalize marijuana?</p><p>Seattle opens marijuana farmers market</p><p>Free pot handed out in Colorado</p><p>Kleiman, who is also chairman of the board for BOTEC Analysis Corp., a think tank applying public policy analysis techniques to the issues of crime and drug abuse, said the federal government may have tripped itself up in the 1970s by classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug with no medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.</p><p>If the government had made it Schedule II, the classification for cocaine and oxycodone, 43 years ago, it would be easier today to justify a recreational ban, he said.</p><p>States to take lead</p><p>Kleiman said in August the infrastructure he is helping establish in Washington could provide a model for other states, but ideally, he\\'d prefer a model that involved federal legalization and permitted users to either grow their own marijuana or patronize co-ops.</p><p>\\\"All the stuff I want to do you can\\'t do as long as it\\'s federally illegal,\\\" Kleiman said. \\\"By the time we get it legalized federally, there will be systems in place in each state,\\\" which will make uniform controls at a national level tricky.</p><p>The push for legalization has gained momentum, though, he said, and he doesn\\'t foresee it moving backward. In 10 years, proponents might even move politics at a national level, he said, though predictions are problematic so long as pot prohibition endures.</p><p>\\\"It\\'s sustained right now. Whether it\\'s going to be sustained is another question,\\\" he said.</p><p>In the meantime, states are expected to continue to lead the charge. Alaska could put a legalization ballot before voters next year, while Maine, Rhode Island, and California may give it a shot in 2016, when the presidential election promises to bring younger voters to the polls.</p><p>In August, experts said Oregon could give it a go in 2016 as well, but NORML\\'s St. Pierre said a recent influx of heavy checks from influential backers will land it on the ballot next year.</p><p>\\\"I think a lot\\'s going to depend on how legalization plays out in Colorado and Washington -- also, how the federal government responds,\\\" Kilmer said. \\\"We still haven\\'t heard how they\\'re going to address commercial production facilities in those states.\\\"</p><p>The next White House administration could easily reverse course, just as it could on mandatory minimums, Kilmer said, but while pot\\'s future is nebulous, the nation\\'s change in attitude -- not only since the 1960s, but even since last year -- is clear. That makes proponents hopeful, if reluctant to make predictions.</p><p>\\\"I didn\\'t see this (shift in opinion) coming, and I think that\\'s true of my collaborators,\\\" Reuter said. \\\"So much for experts.\\\"</p><p></p>"
6    },
7    {
8      "doc_id": "10",
9      "doc_html": "<h1>Guns & Ammo editor Jim Bequette resigns amid gun control column uproar</h1>\\n<p>By Michael Martinez</p><p>updated 3:42 PM EST, Fri November 8, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Guns & Ammo publishes a column advocating gun control</p><p>A readership uproar prompts the editor to resign earlier than planned</p><p>Editor says he was trying to promote \\\"a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights\\\"</p><p>But many readers say the column only helps the \\'anti-Second Amendment crowd\\'</p><p>The editor of Guns & Ammo magazine apologized to readers and resigned immediately, earlier than planned, after he published a column advocating gun control, enraging his readers.</p><p>Editor Jim Bequette wanted to \\\"generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights\\\" when he published a commentary by Dick Metcalf, who wrote that he supported regulations on firearms.</p><p>Instead, the column in the December issue \\\"aroused unprecedented controversy\\\" among readers who began \\\"questioning \\'Guns & Ammo\\'s commitment to the Second Amendment,\\\" Bequette wrote in his apology.</p><p>Bequette also fired Metcalf, a gun writer who had written the Firearms Law column for the magazine\\'s sister publication, Shooting Times.</p><p>Is change to gun laws possible?</p><p>Metcalf couldn\\'t be immediately reached for comment.</p><p>In his recent commentary, Metcalf wrote about how \\\"way too many gun owners still seem to believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement\\\" prohibited by the Second Amendment.</p><p>\\\"The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be,\\\" Metcalf wrote.</p><p>After a readership uproar, Bequette said his magazine has an \\\"unwavering\\\" commitment to the Second Amendment.</p><p>\\\"In publishing Metcalf\\'s column, I was untrue to that tradition, and for that I apologize,\\\" Bequette wrote in a column dated Wednesday.</p><p>\\\"I made a mistake by publishing the column. I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness,\\\" he continued.</p><p>Plans were already in place for a new editor to take over the magazine on January 1, but that new editor, Eric R. Poole, who ran Guns & Ammo\\'s special interest publications, was installed immediately, Bequette said.</p><p>State battles intensify on access to guns</p><p>Among the comments generating discussion on the magazine\\'s Facebook page was Trace Simek\\'s declaration that he was canceling his subscription and boycotting parent firm InterMedia Outdoors, which describes itself as \\\"the premier outdoor sports-oriented media group in the United States.\\\"</p><p>Wrote Simek: \\\"It takes more than one Elmer Fudd to get a pro-gun control agenda editorial in the pages of a formerly-relevant national firearms industry publication: your apology rings false, and smacks of having been cobbled together as a reaction to an unexpected deluge of negative sentiment.\\\"</p><p>Gary Graf said he feared the column would energize gun control efforts -- what he called the anti-Second Amendment crowd.</p><p>\\\"Publishing Metcalf\\'s back page read was like throwing a bucket of blood in shark infested waters, especially here in California,\\\" Graf wrote. \\\"We are one step away from confiscation here as it is, and the anti 2A crowd will be further emboldened by this, especially from something as rock solid as Guns and Ammo. I sincerely hope we can recover from this, but in my state, the champagne corks are already popping.\\\"</p><p>Many readers, however, defended the column.</p><p>\\\"It is sad to see that G&A will bend so easily and that their readers are so blind and fail to understand that some regulation is necessary,\\\" Kevin Smith wrote.</p>"
10    },
11    {
12      "doc_id": "11",
13      "doc_html": "<h1>Obamacare sign-up concerns congressional staff</h1>\\n<p>By Lisa Desjardins</p><p>updated 2:02 AM EST, Fri November 8, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Starting Monday, congressional staffers will use the Obamacare health care exchanges</p><p>Some staffers participated in two information sessions on Thursday</p><p>They are concerned about higher premiums, especially for older workers</p><p>Many also want information on insurance plans that exclude abortion</p><p>Washington -- In the U.S. Capitol basement, an auditorium full of congressional staff grapples with the consequences of how their bosses upstairs wrote the Affordable Care Act.</p><p>Starting Monday, they will have to choose a health care plan.</p><p>\\\"A lot of employees are planning to separate because of this,\\\" one man stood up and declared at the first-ever congressional orientation for Obamacare. By \\\"separate,\\\" he meant quit. It was one of many sharp moments of concern at the two information sessions set up by House administrators Thursday.</p><p>Both were closed to the press, but CNN was able to watch on an in-house TV channel. The camera faced the stage, not the audience and staff members who spoke could only be heard, not seen in the broadcast. They did not identify themselves and as a result, we cannot name them.</p><p>Political fallout over Obamacare site</p><p>Democrats on edge over Obamacare</p><p>CMA hosts riff on Obamacare</p><p>Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, is the chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee. On October 31, Issa\\'s committee issued a document subpoena to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for documents and information related to HealthCare.gov. \\\"I\\'ve lost my patience,\\\" Issa said to CNN\\'s Wolf Blitzer in explaining the decision to use a subpoena. Issa also said his committee has sent a document subpoena to website contractor Optum/QSSI.</p><p>Speaking soon after the Health and Human Services secretary testified before Congress on October 30, President Obama took responsibility for fixing the troubled Obamacare site. \\\"I\\'m not happy about it and neither are a lot of Americans who need health care,\\\" Obama said at a Boston rally. \\\"There is no excuse for it and I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP. We are working overtime to improve it every day.\\\"</p><p>Amid Republican calls for her resignation, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius provided a personal mea culpa October 30 as she testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. \\\"In these early weeks, access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans,\\\" she said. Speaking directly to Americans confronting the site problems, Sebelius added: \\\"You deserve better. I apologize. I\\'m accountable to you for fixing these problems.\\\"</p><p>Marilyn Tavenner is the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is part of HHS. Tavenner testified October 29 before the House Ways and Means Committee about the Obamacare enrollment website and became the first administration official to apologize for the site\\'s performance problems. \\\"I want to apologize to you that the website does not work as well as it should,\\\" she said, adding that HealthCare.gov \\\"can and will be fixed.\\\"</p><p>Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the first congressional committee to hold hearings on the troubled Obamacare enrollment site. Upton opened the committee\\'s October 30 hearing by saying news about Obamacare \\\"seems to get worse by the day.\\\" \\\"Americans are scared,\\\" he said. At a previous hearing, Upton called the launch of the website \\\"nothing short of a disaster.\\\"</p><p>Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, is the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. During the committee\\'s October 30 hearing Waxman said that \\\"the worst abuses of the insurance industry will be halted\\\" by Obamacare. The California Democrat said the health care law\\'s reforms mean better plans are available at lower premiums, and he urged his Republican colleagues to \\\"stop hyperventilating\\\" about problems with the website.</p><p>Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is also the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. During Sebelius\\' October 30 testimony, Rogers accused the HHS secretary of putting the private information of Americans at risk by failing to properly test security measures on the Obamacare enrollment site. \\\"This is a completely unacceptable level of security,\\\" he said. \\\"You know it\\'s not secure.\\\"</p><p>Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, leads the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservatives in the House of Representatives. Scalise has an undergraduate degree in computer science and is a former systems engineer. During an October 24 hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Scalise told witnesses, \\\"There\\'s a saying in computer programming: \\'Garbage in, garbage out.\\'\\\"</p><p>Rep. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, made waves on Twitter when he called the October 24 hearing on the Obamacare enrollment site\\'s problems a \\\"monkey court.\\\" Pallone made the comment when a Republican lawmaker at the hearing interrupted Pallone and asked him to yield his remaining allotted time to speak.</p><p>Cheryl Campbell is a senior vice president of CGI Federal, a contractor for the troubled website. \\\"In principle, it worked,\\\" Campbell said at the October 24 hearing when asked by a lawmaker about the product her company delivered for use by the public on October 1. \\\"It\\'s not working great, and we\\'re working to improve it. But it is enrolling people.\\\" After Campbell testified, CNN obtained a confidential September 2013 report from CGI to CMS that warned of a number of open risks and issues for the site even as company executives were testifying publicly that the project had achieved key milestones.</p><p>Andrew Slavitt is group executive vice president of Optum/QSSI, another contractor for the site. \\\"The system didn\\'t receive adequate end-to-end testing,\\\" Slavitt told lawmakers on October 24. Soon after Slavitt testified, his company was named by the Obama administration as the new general contractor charged with overseeing efforts to fix HealthCare.gov.</p><p>Lynn Spellecy, corporate counsel of website contractor Equifax Workforce Solutions, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on October 24.</p><p>John Lau, program director of website contractor Serco, also appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on October 24.</p><p>Rep. Dave Camp, R-Michigan, is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. During the committee\\'s October 29 hearing, Camp raised concerns about the administration\\'s projection of initial low enrollment in Obamacare\\'s new exchanges. \\\"I fear we can see a fundamental breakdown of the insurance market where premiums will skyrocket, pricing millions of Americans out of health care,\\\" Camp said to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.</p><p>Rep. Sander Levin, D-Michigan, is the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.</p><p>Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Illinois, confronted Tavenner on October 29 with anecdotal evidence from a constituent about changes to the individual insurance market linked to the implementation of Obamacare, changes that undermine Obama\\'s oft-repeated pledge that \\\"if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.\\\" \\\"She has health insurance that she likes. She\\'s been paying her premium. She wants to keep it. But she can\\'t,\\\" Schock said. \\\"Isn\\'t that a lie?\\\"</p><p>Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-New Jersey lambasted Republicans on October 29 for choosing to pile on the website woes instead of working with Democrats to improve Obamacare. Pascrell pointed out that his party worked with the GOP to improve the Bush administration\\'s Medicare prescription drug benefit even though Democrats opposed the new program. \\\"We lost the policy fight\\\" then but chose to help make the program work instead of trying to discredit or undermine it. \\\"How many of you stood up to do that?\\\" the Democrat asked of his GOP colleagues, \\\"None. Zero. Zero.\\\"</p><p>Jeff Zients, former acting director of the White House Office of Budget and Management, has been tapped by the administration to provide advice to HHS as the federal agency works to resolve the problems with the Obamacare enrollment site.</p>"
14    },
15    {
16      "doc_id": "12",
17      "doc_html": "<h1>Senate passes LGBT anti-discrimination bill</h1>\\n<p>By Leigh Ann Caldwell</p><p>updated 7:46 AM EST, Fri November 8, 2013</p><p>Members of GetEQUAL, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization, stage a protest on Capitol Hill May 20, 2010 in Washington, DC.</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Bill would protect gay, lesbian and transgender employees from workplace discrimination</p><p>It\\'s the first time the Senate has passed LGBT worker protections</p><p>House opposition strong, so chances of it becoming law are slim</p><p>NEW: Ten Republicans vote for the bill in the Senate</p><p>Washington -- For the first time, the U.S. Senate approved legislation that would protect gay, lesbian and transgender employees from discrimination in the workplace.</p><p>The Employment Nondiscrimination Act, or ENDA, passed the Democratic-led chamber on Thursday, 64 to 32.</p><p>Ten Republicans joined 52 Democrats and two Independents in supporting the bill. Four Senators did not vote.</p><p>Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake became the latest GOP members to support the measure. They joined Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and the bill\\'s co-sponsor, Mark Kirk of Illinois.</p><p>\\\"The workplace is simply no place for discrimination,\\\" Collins said before the vote.</p><p>Opposition in the Republican-controlled House is strong, minimizing any chance the measure will become law. House Speaker John Boehner also opposes it.</p><p>Still, President Barack Obama urged the House to take the bill up and said he would sign it.</p><p>\\\"One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do,\\\" the President said in a statement. \\\"Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it. I urge the House Republican leadership to bring this bill to the floor for a vote and send it to my desk so I can sign it into law.\\\"</p><p>The bill would provide the same protections for LGBT workers as are already guaranteed on the basis of race, gender and religion.</p><p>It would not be lawful for employers to discriminate based on a person\\'s \\\"actual or perceived\\\" sexual orientation or gender identity.</p><p>Illinois legislature OKs same-sex marriage</p><p>ENDA\\'s path began in earnest in 1994, the first time it was introduced in Congress.</p><p>Two years later, a version that only protected sexual orientation - and not gender identity - nearly passed the Senate but failed by one vote.</p><p>The issue was not brought up again for a vote until 2007 when the House passed the narrower version.</p><p>In 2009, an ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, wanted to make sure the issue didn\\'t fall by the wayside. Just months before he died, Kennedy asked newly elected Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, to take the reins.</p><p>Eventually, Merkley approached Kirk to help him get the measure passed.</p><p>Sexual orientation and Employment Nondiscrimination Act: How we got here</p><p>Kirk voted for it while in the House and has been a co-sponsor. The two lawmakers lobbied colleagues, leading to Thursday\\'s Senate vote.</p><p>Merkley remembered Kennedy\\'s passion for the legislation, quoting him before final Senate action: \\\"The promise of America will never be fulfilled as long as justice is denied to even one among us.\\\"</p><p>But the measure\\'s path could end in the Senate this year as the Republican-led House appears unlikely to take it up.</p><p>\\\"The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,\\\" Boehner\\'s spokesman, Michael Steel, said.</p><p>Chad Griffin, president of the LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign, had harsh words for Boehner.</p><p>\\\"The Speaker, of all people, should certainly know what it\\'s like to go to work every day afraid of being fired. Instead of letting the far right trample him again, it\\'s time for Speaker Boehner to stand with the majority of everyday Republican voters and support ENDA,\\\" Griffin said earlier this week.</p><p>Regardless proponents are applauding Senate action.</p><p>\\\"Equality means equality in the workplace, as much as anywhere else in our lives,\\\" said Lisa A. Linsky, trial partner and partner-in-charge of LGBT Diversity and Inclusion at international law firm McDermott Will & Emery LLP.</p><p>Opponents say ENDA will have \\\"a chilling effect on free speech as well as religious liberty\\\" by requiring secular businesses who have a moral objection to LGBT people to not discriminate against them.</p><p>Efforts to expand the religious protection component of the bill to secular businesses failed.</p><p>The Traditional Values Coalition says passage of ENDA would \\\"hurt kids.\\\"</p><p>\\\"Young students in some states are already being confused by transgender teachers,\\\" a fact sheet by the Traditional Values Coalition read. \\\"If ENDA passes, students and children in daycare centers all across the nation will be subjected to individuals experimenting with their gender identities.\\\"</p><p>Twenty-one states currently have laws protecting lesbian and gay workers from discrimination and 17 states protect transgender workers, according to the Human Rights Campaign.</p>"
18    },
19    {
20      "doc_id": "13",
21      "doc_html": "<h1>Fewer than 50,000 sign up on Obamacare website, media report suggests</h1>\\n<p>updated 8:35 PM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Wall Street Journal reports figure for online enrollment on HealthCare.gov for first five weeks</p><p>Obama administration says enrollment figures not yet final, plans to release them this week</p><p>Obamacare website beset by serious problems, but officials say it\\'s getting better slowly</p><p>Hundreds of thousands have signed up through states but have not yet completed process</p><p>It appears fewer than 50,000 people successfully signed up for health coverage through the federally run Obamacare website during the first five weeks of open enrollment, falling well short of expectations for the period, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.</p><p>The federal online application process has been marked so far by serious technical problems with HealthCare.gov since its October 1 launch.</p><p>The website was established as the main source of public information and the primary way for consumers to purchase private insurance online under the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama\\'s signature domestic policy achievement.</p><p>The Obama administration is scrambling to fix the problems and says website use is improving daily. It hopes to have the site running smoothly for most people by the end of the month.</p><p>Some states are running their own enrollment programs for Obamacare and are faring better.</p><p>The online enrollment debacle combined with some people losing their health insurance because of Obamacare have energized Republicans, who have hammered the President politically and see the rocky start as a potent campaign issue heading into next year\\'s congressional midterm elections.</p><p>Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department, declined to discuss enrollment specifics in responding to the Journal report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter.</p><p>\\\"We cannot confirm these numbers,\\\" Peters said.</p><p>\\\"More generally, we have always anticipated that initial enrollment numbers would be low and increase over time, just as was the experience in Massachusetts, where only 0.3 percent, or 123 people paying premiums, enrolled in the first month,\\\" she said of a similar program set up in the Bay State.</p><p>\\\"And, as we have said, the problems with the website will cause the numbers to be lower than initially anticipated,\\\" Peters said.</p><p>The administration has said it will release official data later this week.</p><p>A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to CNN, said the numbers reported by the Journal were not official and that final official data for the first month of open enrollment is not ready yet.</p><p>The Journal\\'s figure is pegged to \\\"834 transmissions\\\" received by insurance companies to complete enrollments. It reported private health plans had received federal enrollment information for 40,000 to 50,000 users.</p><p>Marilyn Tavenner, the official charged with implementing Obamacare as director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told congressional lawmakers last week the administration had hoped to enroll 800,000 on the insurance exchanges by the end of November.</p><p>That figure would presumably include both the exchanges run by the federal government and those run independently in 14 states and the District of Columbia.</p><p>It is not clear if it also included enrollments for a large expansion of Medicaid meant to provide insurance to more low-income Americans.</p><p>A CNN analysis of publicly available data from the states with Obamacare exchanges showed 59,441 people had enrolled as of a week ago.</p><p>At least 344,808 people have signed up online for coverage through Obamacare\\'s state-run insurance marketplace but have not yet technically completed the enrollment process.</p><p>This figure does not include paper applications or those submitted over the phone.</p>"
22    },
23    {
24      "doc_id": "14",
25      "doc_html": "<h1>Obamacare and the failure of half-baked liberalism</h1>\\n<p>By Julian Zelizer</p><p>updated 7:08 AM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Julian Zelizer says rollout of Obama\\'s health care plan has been filled with problems</p><p>He says the Affordable Care Act was product of timid liberalism, a trend in past decades</p><p>Zelizer: Liberals have shied away from arguing strongly for government solutions</p><p>Programs such as Obamacare are complex, require cooperation of states, private industry, he says</p><p>Editor\\'s note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of \\\"Jimmy Carter\\\" and \\\"Governing America.\\\"</p><p>The rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been filled with problems and controversy. Facing entrenched opposition from a Republican Party that has been determined to subvert the program from the moment it passed, President Barack Obama has frustrated supporters by continuing to offer the GOP plenty of ammunition for their attacks.</p><p>The website for purchasing health care has been an embarrassment.</p><p>The contradictions between Obama\\'s promises about everyone being able to keep their existing coverage and the reality that millions of Americans would not be able to do so has raised memories of President George H.W. Bush\\'s famous \\\"Read My Lips\\\" pledge.</p><p>Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has admitted that the enrollment numbers will fall well short of what was expected.</p><p>While it is true that the challenges facing the program have received much more attention than the successes, the problems are impossible to ignore. There are many reasons for Obamacare\\'s troubles, ranging from the failure of White House officials to adequately prepare for the launch of the website to the successful Republican efforts to undermine its operations, including the refusal of many governors to establish exchanges in their own states.</p><p>Julian Zelizer</p><p>But a large part of the problem was the underlying ideological outlook that shaped the original proposal. The ACA was a product of a kind of half-baked liberalism that has been popular among many Democrats for several decades.</p><p>Since the 1990s, many Democrats have settled for jerry-built proposals that shy away from direct and aggressive federal intervention. Many Democrats have concluded that in the current era, the only domestic programs that stand a chance of passing Congress are those that rely on the participation of market-based actors, limited federal funding and heavy federal-state collaboration in the administrative process.</p><p>Conservatives have been very effective at defining the national agenda throughout these years, defending the argument that government is the problem, as Ronald Reagan famously said, and nurturing a political coalition that has continually pushed liberals into the corner.</p><p>In response, many Democrats concluded that the best strategy was to veer toward the center. They have pushed programs that create incentives for Americans to do certain things within the private market, rather than just offering those services themselves directly through the government.</p><p>While many domestic programs in the United States included this kind of mix throughout the 20th century, in recent decades Democrats have embraced this approach even more aggressively for fear that anything more sweeping would die in Congress.</p><p>While there are good political reasons behind this approach, it has also come at a huge long-term cost to the strength of the programs, and Obama is now paying the price.</p><p>Foremost, these mixed public-private programs have trouble building strong public support. Their complexity makes it difficult for politicians to excite the public and explain the benefits to constituents. Often the benefits are hard to discern for most Americans who see a patchwork of regulatory policies.</p><p>The complexity allows opponents to characterize the programs in unfavorable terms, even spreading false information without strong pushback. President Bill Clinton learned this in 1993 when his market-based proposal for health care was turned by Republicans into a state-centered monstrosity and went down to defeat.</p><p>The contrast with Social Security is striking.</p><p>Under President Franklin Roosevelt\\'s program, created in 1935, the federal government directly sends paychecks to the elderly. Americans have always understood the benefits they receive. The clarity of the funding, with a payroll tax paying for benefits, has also been important in creating a sense of ownership among workers that has pushed them to support the program for decades.</p><p>The other problem with half-baked liberalism is that it provides many points for opponents to weaken measures after they have passed. The implementation process becomes a nightmare.</p><p>We have seen this with the Dodd-Frank legislation that established a relatively weak regulatory infrastructure filled with loopholes that has allowed the financial services sector to continue to engage in highly risky behavior.</p><p>Another example is the fact that Obama\\'s economic stimulus program in 2009 did not include the kinds of public works jobs that defined the success of the New Deal for many Americans.</p><p>Mixed public-private programs often fail to address the underlying forces causing a problem, while giving private industry a chance to reap profits off the policy. This is what critics said of the Empowerment Zones of the 1990s, a style of urban policy that had limited effect on revitalizing impoverished urban areas.</p><p>The ACA has been no different. The legislation required states to set up federal exchanges and mandated that the federal government would create an exchange of its own for individuals living in states that lacked their own system.</p><p>This design allowed Republican governors to block the creation of state exchanges and intensify the pressure on the federal government to handle the program. Congress didn\\'t devote to ACA the funding that was needed to handle this task.</p><p>ACA also relies on the expansion of Medicaid to provide coverage to the uninsured. But the legislation left itself open to legal challenge and the Supreme Court allowed states to opt out of this expansion. The result is that in many states, the future of the uninsured remains up for grabs.</p><p>Rather than providing insurance directly through a public option, the legislation instead relied on a mandate to force qualified individuals to purchase private coverage through exchanges. The risk is that premiums continue to stay high and that access to the programs continues to remain problematic, all of which will make ACA look like less of an improvement than many hoped for.</p><p>The design of the program will also likely strengthen the government-health care complex that has grown since the creation of Medicare. The president has been notably quiet in criticizing the insurance companies in recent weeks.</p><p>As Politico reported , one White House official said, \\\"Their interests are aligned with our interests in terms of wanting to enroll targeted populations. It is not that we will agree with everything now either, but I would say for some time now there has been a collaboration because of that mutual interest.\\\" The government also tied its own hands in regulating costs by backing down from original proposals to regulate drug prices.</p><p>In a recent article in National Affairs, Johns Hopkins University political scientist Steven Teles writes about \\\" Kludgeocracy in America ,\\\" which he defines as the nation\\'s tendency to offer complex and byzantine policy solutions to the most pressing policy problems. The solutions we offer are temporary and short-term fixes to long-term problems that leave no one satisfied and often intensify distrust of government.</p><p>According to Teles, if the government chose cleaner solutions to big challenges such as health care and education, \\\"government would be bigger and more energetic where it clearly chose to act . . . but smaller and less intrusive outside of that sphere.\\\"</p><p>The stakes of fixing the health care mess are enormous for the President as well as for liberals who want to prove that government is capable of handling big problems.</p><p>But the policy problems should also be a wake up call for liberals that it might be worth fighting for something bigger next time around. It was not inevitable that Obama chose the path that he did.</p><p>Despite the conventional wisdom, there is plenty of evidence that liberalism remains quite strong in the body politic -- based on ongoing support for specific programs like Social Security, strong electoral performance of Democrats in 2008 and 2012 on campaigns that emphasized progressive themes and the miserable approval ratings of the GOP.</p><p>While it is true that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good in American politics, it is also true that sometimes a fight for the perfect is one worth having and could produce results that only strengthen the case for more.</p><p></p>"
26    },
27    {
28      "doc_id": "15",
29      "doc_html": "<h1>Iran nuclear talks: Anger, gloom in Tehran after deal falls through</h1>\\n<p>By Reza Sayah</p><p>updated 7:44 AM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>World powers and Iran fail to reach deal over Tehran\\'s nuclear program</p><p>Many Iranians blame French foreign minister for lack of agreement after talks</p><p>French foreign minister says Israel\\'s security concerns must be taken into account</p><p>Israeli prime minister has said proposed agreement was \\\"a bad deal for peace\\\"</p><p>Tehran, Iran -- Criticism covered the French Foreign Minister\\'s Facebook page and an air of disappointment hovered over much of Tehran just hours after word came that Iran and the world powers had failed to reach an agreement on Iran\\'s nuclear program.</p><p>\\\"We thought we were going to have good news,\\\" said Houman, a 24 year-old Iranian actor who has been following the talks. \\\"We were hopeful both sides were going to reach a compromise. We were disappointed when it didn\\'t happen.\\\"</p><p>Read more: U.S. isn\\'t \\'stupid\\' on Iran, says Kerry</p><p>The Sunday blues in Tehran were in stark contrast to the palpable surge of optimism here 48 hours earlier. On Friday, Iran\\'s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a \\\"framework\\\" for a deal had been agreed to.</p><p>When all six foreign ministers representing the P5+1 -- the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China and Germany -- announced plans to fly to Geneva and join the marathon talks, many Iranians felt an agreement on the first stage of a broader deal was near.</p><p>Kerry: Iranian talks in right direction</p><p>Graham: Expect new Iran sanctions</p><p>No deal on Iran\\'s nuclear program</p><p>\\\"I really thought there was going to be a deal, but all of a sudden it fell apart,\\\" said taxi driver Alireza Hashemi.</p><p>The talks in Geneva were held behind closed doors with remarkable secrecy. Two U.S. administration officials told CNN that under a potential deal, Iran would halt enriching uranium to 20% -- a key step on the path to a nuclear weapon -- and render unusable most of its existing stockpile of higher enriched uranium.</p><p>But rumors and reports swirled about possible divisions among the P5+1 countries -- with some members pushing for Iran to offer more, including a guarantee not to activate its heavy water reactor in Arak.</p><p>What ultimately spoiled an agreement remains unclear, but many Iranians took to social media to blame French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.</p><p>Shortly after arriving in Geneva, Fabius warned against signing a \\\"sucker\\'s deal\\\" with Iran and told a French radio station: \\\"It is necessary to take fully into account Israel\\'s security concerns.\\\"</p><p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the proposed agreement a \\\"bad deal for peace,\\\" and said: \\\"Iran is not required to take apart even one centrifuge. But the international community is relieving sanctions on Iran for the first time after many years. Iran gets everything that it wanted at this stage and pays nothing.\\\"</p><p>Read more: Why U.S. and Israel are split on Iran deal</p><p>Suddenly, due to ordinary Iranians\\' anger with Fabius, it seemed the U.S. government was no longer public enemy number one in Tehran.</p><p>\\\"History won\\'t forget your hostility,\\\" Omid Mousavi wrote on the French FM\\'s Facebook page. \\\"We hope for Iranian and American pride and Chevrolets instead of Peugeots.\\\"</p><p>And Mohammad Reza Ghasemi wrote: \\\"I was always respectful of people who come from France. But you have already spoiled it for me. Can you make it clear for us whether you are Foreign Minister of France or Israel?\\\"</p><p>Iran\\'s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif didn\\'t mention any names but appeared to confirm on his Facebook page that the deal was blocked by a single member of the P5+1.</p><p>\\\"The possibility of reaching an agreement with the P5 +1 existed but it was necessary for everyone to be on the same path, and you heard from public remarks from the ministers that one of the delegations had some problems,\\\" Zarif wrote on his Facebook page.</p><p>Representatives from Iran and the P5+1 are scheduled to meet again in Geneva on November 20 in another attempt to resolve a decade long dispute over Iran\\'s nuclear program.</p><p>Read more: Iranian official assassinated in Tehran</p><p>Despite their disappointment, millions of Iranians will likely tune in again for the outcome, eager for a settlement they hope will ease more than three decades of economic sanctions and political isolation from the West.</p><p>\\\"The little wisdom I have tells me there are things happening behind closed doors that we\\'re not aware of,\\\" says store clerk Amir Ghassemi. \\\"But we\\'ve learned to live with hope.\\\"</p><p></p>"
30    },
31    {
32      "doc_id": "16",
33      "doc_html": "<h1>Who is Pfc. Clarence Merriott, and why was his Purple Heart for sale?</h1>\\n<p>By Chelsea J. Carter</p><p>updated 12:04 PM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>Army Pfc. Clarence M. Merriott, 21, of Stilwell, Oklahoma was killed on D-Day+13, June 19, 1944, off the coast of Utah Beach in France. Merriott served with the 300th Engineer Combat Battalion.</p><p>This letter was discovered folded up in the bottom of the Purple Heart presentation box. It is believed to be the last letter Pfc. Clarence Merriott wrote to his family.</p><p>The Adair County War Memorial in Stilwell, Oklahoma, features an engraving of Pfc. Clarence Merriott\\'s name.</p><p>Merriott\\'s Purple Heart was found for sale at a Glendale, Arizona, swap meet. It\\'s a mystery how it got there.</p><p>This is a copy of newspaper clippings found in a scrapbook donated to the Adair County Historical Society.</p><p>Kenneth \\\"Cowboy\\\" Morris, a veteran of the 300th Engineer Combat Battalion, is pushed by his grandson, U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin.</p><p>An artist\\'s drawing of the rescue of LST 523, on Merriott served.</p><p>Matthew Carlson, 59, bought a Purple Heart for sale at a swap meet</p><p>The search focused on a WWII soldier and what became of his medal</p><p>The effort has had fascinating twists and turns and involved a lot of detective work</p><p>Mixed in with costume jewelry and trinkets was a gold and purple heart-shaped medal bearing the image of George Washington.</p><p>A Purple Heart, Matthew Carlson thought to himself. But what was it doing at a swap meet in Glendale, Arizona, for just anyone to buy?</p><p>How much do you want for it, he asked. Forty dollars, the vendor said.</p><p>\\\"I got $20 on me right now,\\\" Carlson said. \\\"I\\'ll give it to you right now.\\\"</p><p>At least, the Vietnam veteran told himself, he wouldn\\'t have to \\\"see it hanging on the shirt of some kid going to a rave party or something like that.\\\"</p><p>Who did it belong to? The answer was engraved on the back of the medal: \\\"For Military Merit, Clarence M. Merriott.\\\"</p><p>But that only spawned more questions: Who was he? How did he earn the medal? And how did it end up on a table of trinkets at the Glendale Park \\'n Swap in January?</p><p>As the nation honors the service of veterans on Monday, the journey of this particular Purple Heart will unite service members and families across decades. For each, it will serve as a reminder of service, sacrifice and loss.</p><p>Searching for answers</p><p>Purple Hearts have been popping up for sale on the Internet and at flea markets in the past year, spurred by a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Stolen Valor Act on the grounds of free speech. The act made it a crime to falsely claim high military honors.</p><p>As a result, the ruling also lifted a ban on the buying and selling of military decorations and medals.</p><p>Among online collectors, the medals -- awarded to those killed or wounded in action -- can fetch anywhere between $50 to $500.</p><p>The Pentagon does not release information about a service member or family members, citing privacy concerns.</p><p>So, for Carlson, tracking the medal\\'s origins would be no easy task.</p><p>The medal\\'s blue presentation case with its gold lettering, bearing the words \\\"Purple Heart,\\\" appeared to Carlson to be in fairly good condition.</p><p>Inside the box, the lining was faded and the cloth hinge was ripped. But the medal itself was in decent shape.</p><p>Carlson stored it in his bedroom for safekeeping while mulling how to go about finding Merriott or his family.</p><p>A few clues -- and help from the Internet</p><p>For months, the medal sat untouched in Carlson\\'s suburban Phoenix home.</p><p>But it was never far from his thoughts. The 59-year-old had served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He, like so many, lost friends in the war. He knew what the medal meant to the families of the fallen.</p><p>Surely, Merriott\\'s medal must mean something to someone, he thought. But how to find out?</p><p>\\\"Do you know how to use the Internet to find things?\\\" Carlson, a self-proclaimed computer illiterate, asked his son in late April.</p><p>The answer, of course: Yes.</p><p>He opened up the case to show his son, removing the medal from the box. For the first time, he noticed several pieces of paper folded tightly into the bottom of the box. One was the medal certificate, which indicated Merriott had been killed on June 19, 1944.</p><p>With a name and a date of death, an Internet search yielded a hit on a website honoring men of the 300th Engineer Combat Battalion during World War II.</p><p>Carlson and his son pieced together from the website that Merriott was one of 90 men killed when a landing ship -- LST 523 -- struck an underwater mine just off Utah Beach in Normandy, France.</p><p>But it was the other papers -- a two-page letter dated April 21, 1944 -- that offered the first tangible details about Merriott.</p><p>\\\"Dearest Mother, Dad & Sis,\\\" it began, \\\"Truly hope you all are doing OK. As for myself, I\\'m just fine.\\\"</p><p>Carlson read the letter, and then read it again.</p><p>It didn\\'t offer details about the war or where the soldier was deployed. Rather it was the kind of letter that Carlson says he wrote to his own family while he was away at war.</p><p>\\\"This was a young man trying to keep his family at peace,\\\" Carlson said.</p><p>In the letter, Merriott told his family how he missed the \\\"warm, good spring sunshine.\\\" He asked after his mother, and he inquired whether his father had finished planting the corn crop.</p><p>It had been sent to an address in Stilwell, Oklahoma.</p><p>The Carlsons called a few people with the same last name in the area. Did they know where to find Merriott\\'s family? The answer: No.</p><p>Maybe the people behind the website knew more about Merriott, Carlson thought.</p><p>A call across the miles</p><p>The message on Jan Ross and Brad Peters\\' voice mail was intriguing.</p><p>It was from Carlson\\'s son, who relayed the story of his father\\'s find at the swap meet, how he found Merriott\\'s name on their website and how his father wanted to give the medal to the man\\'s family.</p><p>Did they know anything more about the private first class? Would they speak with his father?</p><p>For nearly eight years, Ross and Peters had been detailing the stories of the men of the 300th Engineers on their website based in Erving, Massachusetts.</p><p>It\\'s a journey that began with a single question by Ross: What did my father do with the 300th Engineers during the war?</p><p>Her father didn\\'t talk about the war very much. When he died two decades earlier, Ross was left with more questions than answers about his service. So she and her husband, Peters, turned to the Internet.</p><p>Through the effort, she learned her father was a member of a four-man unit responsible for making potable water under combat conditions.</p><p>They had heard lots of stories over the years. But this story about the medal and Merriott was something different.</p><p>Peters called the elder Carlson.</p><p>No, Peters didn\\'t know anything more about Merriott beyond what was on the website.</p><p>But maybe one of the surviving members of the 300th -- as they are known -- might know more. There was an upcoming gathering of the former combat engineers, Peters said.</p><p>Can you give it to the right people, Carlson asked?</p><p>Carlson carefully packaged up the medal, the certificate and the letter, and sent it to Peters and Ross.</p><p>In the package, he included a letter of his own: \\\"Sometimes we tend to forget the past brothers in arms, I cannot. We must remember their service with all the dignity and respect we can muster. Pfc. Merriott gave his all for our country. Can we do less?\\\"</p><p>Finding a name</p><p>By the time the medal arrived in the mail, Peters and Ross had already been making inquiries about Merriott. They began by contacting some of the surviving members of the 300th.</p><p>They knew at least two of the men attending the reunion had survived the sinking of the LST. Did they know Merriott? The answer was no.</p><p>The couple knew one of the men was from the same area in Oklahoma -- Adair County -- where the letter was mailed.</p><p>Did he know of Merriott or his family? Again, no.</p><p>Peters and Ross put the story about Merriott\\'s medal in the 300th Engineers newsletter, which eventually caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin .</p><p>The congressman\\'s grandfather, Kenneth \\\"Cowboy\\\" Morris, was a veteran of the 300th Engineers, having served with the battalion during World War II.</p><p>Mullin and Morris, who were from Adair County, were intrigued by the story.</p><p>Together, the two men began to look for answers. They soon found Merriott\\'s name inscribed on the Adair County War Memorial in front of the county courthouse in Stilwell.</p><p>They also turned to the Adair County Historical Society.</p><p>With a population of about 4,000, Stilwell is the kind of place that\\'s big enough to offer all the amenities of a city and just small enough for families to know of one another.</p><p>Wanda Elliot at the historical society knew the name Merriott. There were a couple of families in the area with the last name. She called some of them.</p><p>Do you know of the fallen soldier? Yes. He was a distant cousin.</p><p>Did they know how to find any of the family? No.</p><p>Elliott and others at the historical society then went to the Stilwell Democrat Journal, the local newspaper. But the newspaper archives were incomplete. A fire had destroyed some of the \\\"war years\\\" issues, including those from the summer of 1944.</p><p>Then someone remembered a scrapbook that had been donated a few years earlier.</p><p>It had been compiled by a teenage girl, who collected newspaper clippings between 1943 and 1945 about the young men from the area who had gone off to war.</p><p>Because of age and time, the scrapbook was in fragile condition. The staff at the historical society put it in a sealed archival box, where it sat unexamined. Perhaps it offered a clue.</p><p>Putting a face to a name</p><p>The headline was brief: Missing In Action.</p><p>The face of the man in the brittle, yellowed newspaper clipping was smiling. He wore a World War II-era Army dress uniform, with the hat cocked to one side.</p><p>The article reported how the man had been missing since June 19, 1944.</p><p>It revealed that he was born on December 21, 1922. How he graduated from Stilwell High School, where he was a \\\"prominent in all school activities, including football.\\\"</p><p>It described how he joined the Army in February 1943. It said he was sent to Europe in December 1943, \\\"spending his 21st birthday in England.\\\"</p><p>\\\"Let us all hope and pray that when the battles are all won in Germany, he will be liberated from an internment camp safe and sound thereby returning to his loved ones,\\\" the article said.</p><p>The man in the article? Pfc. Clarence M. Merriott.</p><p>Finally, the name on the medal had a face -- and a background.</p><p>Also in the scrapbook, a few pages later, the staff found another article: Merriott\\'s death notice.</p><p>A missing medal</p><p>Elliott and the historical society staff turned to the Internet for help, searching online genealogical records.</p><p>Merriott had a sister, Elliott and the staff discovered. But she had married and moved away even before her brother had joined the Army.</p><p>The group focused their search on Merriott\\'s sister, Haleen. That turned up details about her son, and that led them to a listing of a possible grandson.</p><p>A few telephone calls later, Elliott was on the phone with the grandson.</p><p>Elliott recounted to him the journey of the medal: how Carlson found it and wanted to return it to the family.</p><p>It was in that call that Elliott learned that Merriott\\'s sister ended up with the Purple Heart and that it eventually had been given to her son.</p><p>Then a few years ago, the medal was lost in a move, the grandson told her.</p><p>\\\"They were very grateful it had been found, and they said that they would prefer it be placed in a museum,\\\" Elliott said.</p><p>\\\"They wanted people to appreciate the medal and the sacrifice it represented.\\\"</p><p>A medal\\'s mettle</p><p>Peters packed the Purple Heart carefully as he and his wife prepared to make their way last month for the reunion of the 300th Engineers.</p><p>They planned to hand the medal over to Morris, who would take it to Stilwell and give it to the historical society.</p><p>Peters had never held a Purple Heart in his hands. But he knew what it signified, the ultimate sacrifice of a soldier.</p><p>It was D-Day plus 13, and the landing ship was carrying the second wave of the more than 620 men who made up the battalion as well as the supplies they would need to do their job -- everything from blowing up bridges to making reconnaissance maps.</p><p>A mine explosion ripped the ship in two, according to eyewitness accounts.</p><p>Like a number of those killed aboard the LST, Merriott\\'s name was inscribed on the hallowed Tablets of the Missing at Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission .</p><p>None of the men at the reunion remembered Merriott. But that hardly mattered. He was one of them, one of the 300th Engineers.</p><p>Merriott and the medal were part of a much larger story, Peters said. \\\"It was a very emotional moment for the people there.\\\"</p><p>The Purple Heart was finally given to Morris, who took it back to Adair County.</p><p>The journey home</p><p>How the medal made its way from the Merriott family to a vendor hawking costume jewelry and trinkets remains a mystery.</p><p>Merriott\\'s medal will make one final journey on Monday, when it will be the centerpiece of a transfer ceremony hosted by Mullin. The medal will be formally presented to the county historical association.</p><p>The ceremony will begin in front of the war memorial -- where Merriott\\'s name is engraved among the fallen -- and then make its way to a case inside the historical society\\'s museum.</p><p>Carlson has thought a lot about the fallen soldier as new details came to light.</p><p>He plans to be there for the ceremony. So, too, will Elliott and Morris.</p><p>All will honor a man they have never met but have come to know through the journey of a Purple Heart.</p><p></p>"
34    },
35    {
36      "doc_id": "17",
37      "doc_html": "<h1>\\'Fat Leonard\\', Lady Gaga and the U.S. Navy: New details in bribery case</h1><p>updated 2:46 PM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Three Navy officers charged with taking bribes from Malaysian businessman</p><p>Two high-ranking Navy intelligence officers have been suspended in wake of scandal</p><p>Former Navy captain who crossed paths with businessman says he thinks officers were \\'seduced\\'</p><p>Government: Officer developed friendship with businessman, called each other \\'Big Bro\\' and \\'Little Bro\\'</p><p>Washington -- A former Navy officer who has crossed paths with a Malaysian businessman at the center of the U.S. Navy bribery scandal says he can understand how those implicated were seduced by Leonard \\\"Fat Leonard\\\" Francis.</p><p>\\\"He\\'s a larger-than-life individual. He\\'s charming. He\\'s very social,\\\" said retired Navy Capt. Kevin Eyer, who was commanding officer of a ship that frequented the same ports where Francis operated and attended some of his parties. \\\"Whereas I might be at this party and drinking a Budweiser, Leonard is having Dom Perignon.\\\"</p><p>Francis, whose nickname around the Navy comes from his 400-pound heft, operates Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd., which provides services to Navy ships such as fuel and tugboats to nudge ships into port.</p><p>Three Navy officials have been arrested and are accused of accepting cash, hookers and all-expense paid trips in exchange for steering ships to ports where Francis\\' company operates.</p><p>Third Navy official arrested in bribery case</p><p>Two admirals in charge of Navy intelligence -- Vice Adm. Ted Branch and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless -- have had their access to classified material suspended.</p><p>Neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged but CNN is told that allegations have been made about their \\\"personal conduct.\\\"</p><p>Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz and Naval Criminal Investigative Service Supervisory Special Agent John Bertrand Beliveau II were arrested in probes involving Francis\\' company in September. Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, 41, was arrested last week in Florida.</p><p>Francis, Sanchez, Misiewicz and Beliveau are charged with conspiring to commit bribery and could face up to five years in prison if convicted. All have pleaded not guilty.</p><p>Intelligence chiefs suspended</p><p>Neither Branch nor Loveless, who are on temporary leave, has been charged with any crime or violation and both retain their ranks and security clearances, said Rear Adm. John Kirby, chief of Navy information.</p><p>They are on temporary leave. Their suspension was deemed prudent given the sensitive nature of the admirals\\' current duties and to protect the integrity of the investigative process, Kirby said.</p><p>The allegations against Branch and Loveless involve conduct before their current assignments and flag officer ranks, Kirby said.</p><p>The Naval Criminal Investigative Service initiated the investigation in 2010.</p><p>Federal prosecutors allege Sanchez, as deputy logistics officer in the U.S. 7th Fleet and later as the Fleet Logistics Command\\'s operations director, directed Navy business and sensitive information to Francis\\' company. In return, Francis allegedly gave Sanchez more than $100,000, travel expenses and prostitutes during a period covering January 2009 to April 2013.</p><p>Court documents say Sanchez allegedly asked Francis for pictures of prostitutes for \\\"motivation.\\\" A few days later, Sanchez sent a Facebook message to Francis saying, \\\"Yummy ... Daddy like.\\\"</p><p>Prosecutors say Misiewicz, 46, as deputy operations officer of the U.S. 7th Fleet, helped schedule visits of U.S. Navy ships to ports where Francis\\' company worked and Francis allegedly overbilled the government for its work.</p><p>In return, Francis provided Misiewicz with paid travel, luxury hotel stays, tickets to \\\"The Lion King\\\" in Tokyo and a Lady Gaga concert in Thailand and prostitutes, the U.S. attorney\\'s office said.</p><p>\\'We got him!!\\'</p><p>The government says Francis and Misiewicz became close friends over private e-mail, calling each other \\\"Big Bro\\\" and \\\"Little Bro.\\\" Prosecutors say that after Misiewicz received some gifts, a Francis associate declared, \\\"We got him!!\\\"</p><p>A separate complaint alleges Beliveau, 44, provided Francis with information about an NCIS fraud investigation into his company\\'s dealings with the Navy.</p><p>\\\"In exchange, Francis provided Beliveau with, among other things, paid travel, luxury hotel stays and prostitution services,\\\" the U.S. attorney\\'s office said.</p><p>No evidence was found that Beliveau paid for his hotel or travel, or that he reimbursed Francis for the trip. Francis also arranged for a female escort to entertain Beliveau while there, according to the complaint.</p><p>In return, Francis allegedly saved 125 NCIS investigative reports to his government computer. The affidavit states the reports were in connection with the investigation into Francis\\' company.</p><p>By all accounts, Francis lived life large -- from fast cars to women to travel.</p><p>\\\"I think it would be fair to say that they were seduced by Mr. Francis,\\\" Eyer said. \\\"You can kind of see how if you fell into the mode of socializing with him, it would be possible to get swept up in that. That\\'s why so many military officers are little bit wary about him.\\\"</p>"
38    },
39    {
40      "doc_id": "18",
41      "doc_html": "<h1>Kerry: U.S. isn\\'t \\'blind\\' or \\'stupid\\' on Iran</h1><p>By Matt Smith</p><p>updated 6:14 PM EST, Sun November 10, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>\\\"This would be a good deal, or there\\'ll be no deal,\\\" Secretary of State John Kerry says</p><p>Nuclear talks with Iran broke up without agreement early Sunday</p><p>French FM says Paris wasn\\'t interested in a \\\"fool\\'s game\\\"</p><p>President Hassan Rouhani says Iran won\\'t trade uranium enrichment</p><p>The United States and its allies aren\\'t \\\"blind\\\" or \\\"stupid\\\" when it comes to negotiations with Iran, Washington\\'s top diplomat said Sunday after nuclear talks with the Islamic republic broke up without an agreement.</p><p>\\\"We are absolutely determined that this would be a good deal, or there\\'ll be no deal,\\\" Secretary of State John Kerry told NBC\\'s \\\"Meet the Press.\\\"</p><p>\\\"This is a new overture, and it has to be put to the test very, very carefully,\\\" he added.</p><p>But Israel\\'s prime minister cheered the failure of the talks, saying the agreement reportedly on the table would have been a \\\"jackpot\\\" for Iran. Iran\\'s president, meanwhile, tried to reassure his parliament that he won\\'t trade away Tehran\\'s ability to produce nuclear fuel in any agreement to lift international sanctions.</p><p>No deal on Iran\\'s nuclear program</p><p>Fareed\\'s take on Iran nuclear talks</p><p>Graham: Expect new Iran sanctions</p><p>Netanyahu: \\'This is a very bad deal\\'</p><p>After two days of foreign minister-level talks, negotiations between Iran and the five U.N. Security Council members plus Germany ended in Geneva, Switzerland, early Sunday. The European Union\\'s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, told reporters , \\\"A lot of concrete progress has been achieved, but some differences remain.\\\"</p><p>Negotiations are set to resume November 20, with Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif attending.</p><p>\\\"I think we are all on the same wavelength, and that\\'s important,\\\" Zarif said. \\\"And that gives us the impetus to go forward.\\\"</p><p>Iran insists its aims are peaceful</p><p>Iran has refused U.N. Security Council demands to halt its production of enriched uranium, which can be used to power nuclear reactors or in extremely high concentrations, to make an atomic bomb.</p><p>It insists it wants to build civilian power plants, but Western powers and Israel accuse it of harboring ambitions for a nuclear weapon. U.N. inspectors reported in 2011 that they could no longer verify the Iranian program was strictly peaceful.</p><p>Iran\\'s refusal to stop enriching uranium has led to sanctions that have crippled its economy, slashing its crude oil exports and triggering widespread inflation at home. But President Hassan Rouhani, whose overtures to the West since taking office in August raised hopes of a deal, said Sunday that Tehran has its own \\\"red lines\\\" that his government won\\'t cross.</p><p>\\\"The rights of the Iranian nation and national interests are our red lines, and those rights include nuclear rights within the framework of international law, as well as enrichment on Iranian soil,\\\" Rouhani told lawmakers, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.</p><p>But nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione told CNN\\'s \\\"Fareed Zakaria GPS\\\" that the outlines of a deal appear clear, and he expected one would be clinched \\\"very soon.\\\"</p><p>\\\"We\\'ve seen some remarkable developments over the last couple days, including the normalization of U.S and Iranian dialogue,\\\" Cirincione said. \\\"We now take it for granted that the secretary of state should talk to Iran\\'s foreign minister, but that hadn\\'t happened in 34 years until last September.\\\"</p><p>What\\'s on the table in talks</p><p>Two senior U.S. administration officials said that in the proposal on the table, Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium to a concentration of 20% -- well above the level needed to fuel a nuclear power plant, though still far below what\\'s needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Tehran would render most of its existing stockpile of 20% enriched uranium unusable under the proposal.</p><p>In addition, it would agree not to use its advanced IR-2 centrifuges, which can operate five times faster than older models used in its enrichment plants. And it wouldn\\'t activate a heavy-water reactor at Arak, which can be used to produce plutonium. That\\'s a demand that France in particular insisted upon, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.</p><p>Iran\\'s nuclear capabilities</p><p>The officials said that in return, the P5+1 powers of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany would unfreeze some Iranian assets held in banks overseas and consider easing sanctions banning trade in gold, precious metals and petrochemicals. Other sweeteners were also under consideration, they said.</p><p>One of the officials said the deal was designed to delay the point at which Iran could develop a nuclear weapon while providing temporary, reversible sanctions relief. But Fabius told radio station France Inter on Saturday that while Paris wanted a deal, it wouldn\\'t agree to a \\\"fool\\'s game\\\" -- and that the proposal on the table at that time was unsatisfactory.</p><p>\\\"Thank God for France,\\\" U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican who is pushing for another round of sanctions on Iran, told CNN\\'s \\\"State of the Union.\\\" The Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, told ABC\\'s \\\"This Week\\\" that the United States \\\"can\\'t want the deal more than Iranians.\\\"</p><p>Graham: New sanctions on Iran needed</p><p>And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had criticized the negotiations last week, told CBS\\'s \\\"Face the Nation\\\" that Iran should have to dismantle its existing centrifuges and the Arak reactor as part of any agreement.</p><p>\\\"Iran gives practically nothing, and it gets a hell of a lot. That\\'s not a good deal,\\\" Netanyahu said. He said other Arab states shared his opinion.</p><p>\\\"And you know, when you have the Arabs and Israelis speaking in one voice -- it doesn\\'t happen very often -- I think it\\'s worth paying attention to.\\\"</p><p>Kerry: We know what we\\'re doing</p><p>Kerry told NBC that critics are underestimating the negotiators.</p><p>\\\"Some of the most serious and capable, expert people in our government, who have spent a lifetime dealing both with Iran as well as with nuclear weapon and nuclear armament and proliferation, are engaged in our negotiation. We are not blind, and I don\\'t think we\\'re stupid,\\\" Kerry said.</p><p>\\\"I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe, and particularly of our allies like Israel and Gulf states and others in the region.\\\"</p><p>The State Department dispatched a top Kerry deputy, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, to Jerusalem to discuss the Geneva talks with Israeli officials, a senior State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity.</p><p>For years, international leaders have been fearful of the instability a nuclear-armed Iran could bring to the Middle East. Those fears, for example, include the possibility of a pre-emptive Israeli strike that could spark a broader conflict. In the past, Iran has threatened Israel with military attack.</p><p>They also include concerns that an Iranian bomb could spur other countries in the region to seek nuclear weapons of their own, leading to a spiraling arms race in the region.</p><p>Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it has never declared itself to be a nuclear power.</p><p>CNN\\'s Marilia Brocchetto, Karl Penhaul, Elise Labott and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.</p><p></p>"
42    },
43    {
44      "doc_id": "19",
45      "doc_html": "<h1>Iran nuclear talks: Anger, gloom in Tehran after deal falls through</h1>\\n<p>By Reza Sayah</p><p>updated 7:44 AM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>World powers and Iran fail to reach deal over Tehran\\'s nuclear program</p><p>Many Iranians blame French foreign minister for lack of agreement after talks</p><p>French foreign minister says Israel\\'s security concerns must be taken into account</p><p>Israeli prime minister has said proposed agreement was \\\"a bad deal for peace\\\"</p><p>Tehran, Iran -- Criticism covered the French Foreign Minister\\'s Facebook page and an air of disappointment hovered over much of Tehran just hours after word came that Iran and the world powers had failed to reach an agreement on Iran\\'s nuclear program.</p><p>\\\"We thought we were going to have good news,\\\" said Houman, a 24 year-old Iranian actor who has been following the talks. \\\"We were hopeful both sides were going to reach a compromise. We were disappointed when it didn\\'t happen.\\\"</p><p>Read more: U.S. isn\\'t \\'stupid\\' on Iran, says Kerry</p><p>The Sunday blues in Tehran were in stark contrast to the palpable surge of optimism here 48 hours earlier. On Friday, Iran\\'s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a \\\"framework\\\" for a deal had been agreed to.</p><p>When all six foreign ministers representing the P5+1 -- the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China and Germany -- announced plans to fly to Geneva and join the marathon talks, many Iranians felt an agreement on the first stage of a broader deal was near.</p><p>Kerry: Iranian talks in right direction</p><p>Graham: Expect new Iran sanctions</p><p>No deal on Iran\\'s nuclear program</p><p>\\\"I really thought there was going to be a deal, but all of a sudden it fell apart,\\\" said taxi driver Alireza Hashemi.</p><p>The talks in Geneva were held behind closed doors with remarkable secrecy. Two U.S. administration officials told CNN that under a potential deal, Iran would halt enriching uranium to 20% -- a key step on the path to a nuclear weapon -- and render unusable most of its existing stockpile of higher enriched uranium.</p><p>But rumors and reports swirled about possible divisions among the P5+1 countries -- with some members pushing for Iran to offer more, including a guarantee not to activate its heavy water reactor in Arak.</p><p>What ultimately spoiled an agreement remains unclear, but many Iranians took to social media to blame French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.</p><p>Shortly after arriving in Geneva, Fabius warned against signing a \\\"sucker\\'s deal\\\" with Iran and told a French radio station: \\\"It is necessary to take fully into account Israel\\'s security concerns.\\\"</p><p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the proposed agreement a \\\"bad deal for peace,\\\" and said: \\\"Iran is not required to take apart even one centrifuge. But the international community is relieving sanctions on Iran for the first time after many years. Iran gets everything that it wanted at this stage and pays nothing.\\\"</p><p>Read more: Why U.S. and Israel are split on Iran deal</p><p>Suddenly, due to ordinary Iranians\\' anger with Fabius, it seemed the U.S. government was no longer public enemy number one in Tehran.</p><p>\\\"History won\\'t forget your hostility,\\\" Omid Mousavi wrote on the French FM\\'s Facebook page. \\\"We hope for Iranian and American pride and Chevrolets instead of Peugeots.\\\"</p><p>And Mohammad Reza Ghasemi wrote: \\\"I was always respectful of people who come from France. But you have already spoiled it for me. Can you make it clear for us whether you are Foreign Minister of France or Israel?\\\"</p><p>Iran\\'s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif didn\\'t mention any names but appeared to confirm on his Facebook page that the deal was blocked by a single member of the P5+1.</p><p>\\\"The possibility of reaching an agreement with the P5 +1 existed but it was necessary for everyone to be on the same path, and you heard from public remarks from the ministers that one of the delegations had some problems,\\\" Zarif wrote on his Facebook page.</p><p>Representatives from Iran and the P5+1 are scheduled to meet again in Geneva on November 20 in another attempt to resolve a decade long dispute over Iran\\'s nuclear program.</p><p>Read more: Iranian official assassinated in Tehran</p><p>Despite their disappointment, millions of Iranians will likely tune in again for the outcome, eager for a settlement they hope will ease more than three decades of economic sanctions and political isolation from the West.</p><p>\\\"The little wisdom I have tells me there are things happening behind closed doors that we\\'re not aware of,\\\" says store clerk Amir Ghassemi. \\\"But we\\'ve learned to live with hope.\\\"</p><p></p>"
46    },
47    {
48      "doc_id": "20",
49      "doc_html": "<h1>Why the U.S. and Israel are split over the Iran deal</h1><p>By Aaron David Miller</p><p>updated 5:52 PM EST, Sun November 10, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Talks between major powers and Iran break down but are expected to resume</p><p>Aaron Miller says a key problem is gap between U.S. and Israel on Iran</p><p>Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu\\'s world view very different from President Obama\\'s, he says</p><p>Miller: An agreement Israel opposes would be unpopular in Congress</p><p>Editor\\'s note: Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. Follow him on Twitter .</p><p>The failure of the P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, Russia plus Germany) to reach agreement with Iran Saturday in Geneva is a good thing if it allows the United States and Israel to sort out what really divides them on the Iranian nuclear issue before negotiations resume in coming days.</p><p>That the French -- not the United States -- seem to have taken the lead in stiffening the allies\\' demands with Iran is in itself a reflection of those differences.</p><p>And while a high-ranking U.S. delegation headed to Israel Sunday to brief the Israelis on the talks, bridging the gap there won\\'t be that easy.</p><p>Aaron David Miller</p><p>Where you stand in life has a great deal to do with where you sit.</p><p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\\'s fierce reaction to the effort to reach an interim agreement reflects the realities of a small power with much less room to maneuver on a critical security issue than a great one.</p><p>And it reveals the sensitivities of an Israeli leader who\\'s far more invested politically in seeing a nuke-free Iran, far more suspicious of Iranian motives and far more worried about the consequences of a bad deal for Israel than a U.S. President who\\'s concerned more about what happens if there\\'s no deal and Israel or the United States slides toward military confrontation with the mullahs who rule Iran.</p><p>That gap between the United States and Israel is real. And it should neither be trivialized nor exaggerated. But short of a final deal in which Iran abandons its nuclear ambitions, it may not be bridgeable. These two allies will need to manage it as best they can. And here\\'s why.</p><p>Big and Small Powers</p><p>With non-predatory neighbors to its north and south and fish to its east and west, the United States enjoys a level of physical security unprecedented in the history of great and small powers. That gives America a margin for error that the small power simply cannot afford.</p><p>Indeed, Americans have a hard time internalizing what it\\'s like to be a small nation living on the knife\\'s edge, whose tiny physical size, isolation and sense of vulnerability exists alongside its power and strength.</p><p>I don\\'t think Iran wants nuclear weapons to launch a first strike against Israel. But it\\'s impossible to ignore, let alone trivialize, Israeli security concerns and vulnerabilities in this regard, particularly in the face of Iran\\'s rhetoric, regional ambitions and support for terrorism over the years.</p><p>Israel isn\\'t some hapless victim, a piece of driftwood bobbing about on a turbulent sea; it\\'s a dynamic nation (and a nuclear weapons state) with great military power with the capacity if need be to deal with Iran too. But that doesn\\'t take away from the reality that it\\'s a small country living in a dangerous neighborhood.</p><p>Netanyahu\\'s World View</p><p>All Israeli Prime Ministers are said to sleep with one eye open. Benjamin Netanyahu sleeps with two eyes open. No Israeli Prime Minister can afford to take Israel\\'s security for granted. And none does.</p><p>But ever since I\\'ve known him, the key to understanding this Prime Minister is that he\\'s immersed in the proposition that Israel\\'s very survival can\\'t be taken for granted either. All Israeli leaders function in a high threat environment. But in Netanyahu\\'s case, it defines his world and creates an us-against-them sensibility that extends to Israel\\'s adversaries and its friends too.</p><p>He has been deeply suspicious of American motives for many years and believes the United States doesn\\'t understand the Arabs or Israel\\'s security predicament. You live in Chevy Chase, he\\'s said to me on more than one occasion; we live in a dangerous neighborhood with little margin for error.</p><p>I never argued with him. What was the point? Unlike Israel, there is no existential threat to the United States from any external enemy largely because of where we are. But Israel\\'s history has been marked by a continuous series of threats -- large and small -- by virtue of where the Israelis are. However powerful they have become, that legacy endures. And combined with the dark history of the Jewish people culminating in the Nazi genocide, it has left an enduring mark.</p><p>The notion that Israelis fight the Arabs during the day and win and fight the Nazis at night and lose carries particular resonance with this Israeli Prime Minister. The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin never used Holocaust imagery to describe the contemporary threats to Israel\\'s security.</p><p>Ehud Barak refused to use Hitler analogies when discussing Iran. Netanyahu does, repeatedly. Iran is Nazi Germany; former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler and we\\'re in 1938 on the nuclear issue. It infuses his rhetoric and his world view. And while Rouhani has changed the tone and may be genuinely looking for an agreement, the charm offensive hasn\\'t dulled the acuteness of Netanyahu\\'s suspicions.</p><p>Consequences of Israeli-American Tensions</p><p>This world view poses enormous challenges for a U.S. administration, partly because it\\'s validated by Iran\\'s own past rhetoric and actions and because Iran has tried to hide suspected military aspects of its nuclear program. Leaving an angry, aggrieved Israel in the wake of an interim deal with Iran that is judged to be a bad deal carries tremendous risk and consequence.</p><p>First, the focus is now on an interim agreement -- a first step. That means that we won\\'t know the end state for at least six months. Time is both an enemy and an ally here. The step-by-step approach creates time to test intentions.</p><p>It also affords time for Iran to continue to advance aspects of its nuclear program and to develop a break-out capacity to dash for weapons. And they are going to be a rocky six months if Netanyahu concludes that the interim arrangements reached in Geneva work to Iran\\'s advantage.</p><p>Going right to the endgame would be ideal. But it\\'s just not feasible. There\\'s too much suspicion and mistrust. And neither Iran nor the United States are prepared for that. So there\\'s built in U.S.-Israeli tension inherent in the structure of the talks themselves.</p><p>Second, while the Prime Minister\\'s fierce reaction to events in Geneva is driven by genuine anger and concern, it\\'s also designed to begin to stir up opposition in Congress. And it won\\'t take much stirring.</p><p>There\\'s zero capacity in Congress to give Iran the benefit of the doubt on anything. And Congress is already inclined to adopt the Israeli view that what\\'s required now is more pressure on the mullahs rather than less, including additional sanctions.</p><p>The idea that the Obama administration would want to place itself in a position of defending a deal with Iran that Israel and much of Congress oppose -- and appear implicitly to be defending the Iranians in the process -- defies the laws of political gravity, particularly for a much weakened president.</p><p>To overcome these political downsides and go into battle mode, the administration would really have to have a compelling interim agreement that\\'s sound and defensible.</p><p>Third, the United States is measuring an agreement with Iran at this stage not against an ideal end state -- Iran capitulates and surrenders any hope of maintaining the capacity to enrich uranium, let alone make bombs. It\\'s evaluating success in terms of what\\'s practical and what will happen if no deal is reached, namely the slide toward the use of military force against Iran.</p><p>Israelis don\\'t want a war with Iran either; but they are much more comfortable with threatening military action and conditioned to accept the possibility that force may have to be used, even if the end state is an imperfect one and Iran sets about rebuilding a nuclear program. The key issue is putting time on the clock to delay Iran getting nukes -- preferably through diplomacy, but if necessary by force.</p><p>Fourth, an already problematic Israeli-Palestinian peace process is going to get a lot more complicated. Narrowing the gaps on borders, refugees and Jerusalem was always going to be tough; but now getting Netanyahu to make decisions will be almost impossible.</p><p>Israel-Palestinian peace process at risk</p><p>Whether the administration thought through the overlapping of a peace process with a nine-month timeline and a negotiation with Iran of six months now aligned to come to fruition right around the same time isn\\'t clear. But the coincidence of the timing couldn\\'t be worse.</p><p>The odds that this Prime Minister would make decisions on historic issues with the Palestinians before there was clarity on Iran\\'s nuclear program were always slim to none. For Netanyahu, the Palestinians are a long-term challenge; Iran is an imminent, acute problem. And a Netanyahu who believes the Americans aren\\'t taking him seriously on Iran is certain to be withholding when it comes to the peace process.</p><p>To satisfy Israeli requirements, an interim agreement would have to do at least three things: first, avoid doing anything that dismantles the sanctions regime and removes real pressure on Iran to cut the final deal; second, make it impossible for Iran to use the next six months to advance in a significant way any of the aspects of its nuclear program -- not just to freeze Iran\\'s program but to actually set it back significantly. And finally, not to do anything with regard to sanctions that can\\'t be reversed.</p><p>All of this may not be possible. But in the next 10 days before negotiations with Iran resume, everything should be done to try to make certain that Washington and Jerusalem understand one another and to ensure that there\\'s as much confidence and trust going forward as possible.</p><p>An orchestrated good cop/bad cop routine between allies could be helpful in negotiating with Iran. A rift that signals the United States and Israel are fundamentally out of step is not.</p><p>There are no happy or perfect endings here. At best, the choice is between an imperfect interim agreement that buys six months to determine whether Iran is prepared to give up its quest for a nuclear weapons capacity or no agreement and an inevitable slide toward military confrontation.</p><p>As of now the United States sees the advantage of the former; Netanyahu doesn\\'t. The United States has no stake in concluding an agreement with Iran that leaves Israel angry, aggrieved and vulnerable. So, the two sides will find a way to work this through. But for now, buckle your seat belts. We could be in for one bumpy ride.</p><p></p>"
50    },
51    {
52      "doc_id": "21",
53      "doc_html": "<h1>6 reasons Iran deal was good for America</h1><p>By Trita Parsi</p><p>updated 12:28 PM EST, Mon November 11, 2013</p><p>U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the foreign ministry in Abu Dhabi Monday to brief the UAE on talks with Iran.</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Trita Parsi: France scuttled a good Iran-U.S. deal negotiated by the U.S., accepted by others</p><p>He says deal offered Iran modest sanctions relief for big overhaul of its nuclear program</p><p>Parsi: It was a good deal for the U.S., for Israel, for human rights in Iran, to fight al Qaeda</p><p>Parsi: Deal would stop inevitable escalating march to a devastating war with Iran</p><p>Editor\\'s note: Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and author of \\\"A Single Roll of the Dice -- Obama\\'s Diplomacy with Iran\\\" (Yale University Press, 2012) and \\\"Treacherous Alliance -- The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S.\\\" (Yale University Press, 2007).</p><p>Diplomacy is never easy. Top diplomats of Iran, the United States and other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, spent three days debating a first, interim deal on Iran\\'s nuclear program. And an agreement was found: After 34 years of estrangement, Iran and the U.S. were finally on the same page.</p><p>Still, the deal fell through. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius showed up in Geneva, Switzerland, a day into the talks and adopted a hawkish line that guaranteed the failure of the discussions.</p><p>Trita Parsi</p><p>And much to the dismay of the other diplomats involved, Fabius broke protocol and announced both details of the talks and the failure to reach a deal before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had a chance to address the media. Fabius, echoing the objections of hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, argued that Iran would get too much in the proposed deal. But in reality Iran was only offered modest sanctions relief in return for some significant suspension of aspects of its nuclear program.</p><p>Here\\'s why the deal the United States negotiated, and France scuttled, would have been good for America.</p><p>1. Iran would not get a nuclear weapon</p><p>The most important aspect of the agreement with Iran that U.S. President Barack Obama is pursuing is that Tehran would not be able to build a nuclear weapon. If Tehran tries to cheat, it would be caught very early in that process and face consequences. By limiting Iran\\'s nuclear enrichment activities to below 5% enrichment, combined with the most intrusive inspections that exist -- the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty -- the deal means Iran could not amass the material to build a nuclear bomb. In short, Obama would achieve America\\'s main national security objective.</p><p>2. This would be a good deal for Israel</p><p>What is a \\'good deal\\' with Iran?</p><p>Even though Netanyahu would never say it publicly, he knows very well that this would be a good deal for Israel -- not only because it would prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, but because improved U.S.-Iran relations inevitably would lead to a softening of Iran\\'s position on Israel. This has already happened since Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected. When Iran\\'s strategic interest has dictated such a position on Israel, it has pursued that path in spite of its ideological inclinations to challenge Israel.</p><p>The long road to nuclear talks with Iran</p><p>Obama: Iran deal is possible</p><p>Don\\'t take it from me, take it from the former head of Israel\\'s intelligence services, Efraim Halevy : \\\"If the dynamism that leads to a resolution of the nuclear issue, leads to a thaw between Iran and the U.S., it\\'s very difficult for the Iranians to envisage an \\'American spring\\' at the same time they pursue a confrontation with Israel.\\\"</p><p>3. It would be good for human rights and democracy in Iran</p><p>Human rights defenders and pro-democracy activists in Iran have for years testified that tensions between Iran and United States -- with the risk of war and devastating economic sanctions -- have made their work all the more difficult. The situation created an Iran with military-security forces in charge. Everything was seen through the prism of a potential war with the United States . Political freedom and human rights became lesser priorities for Iranians when the primary concerns were to survive the economic malaise and avoid war.</p><p>Democracy simply does not flourish under the threat of war or under the burden of economic collapse. With the reduction of tensions as a result of this deal, the opportunity would rise once more for the defenders of democracy and human rights to push Iran\\'s political system toward greater freedom.</p><p>4. The destructive escalation train would be stopped</p><p>For the first time since 2005, key elements of the Iranian nuclear program would be frozen. This would be a significant achievement: Although the West has for years escalated its sanctions and put great pressure on the Iranian economy, Iran has at the same time expanded its nuclear program, inching closer toward a nuclear weapons capability -- a mutual escalation, with no solution in sight. Obama\\'s deal with Iran would put a stop to that. Negotiations could proceed without the nuclear program progressing at the same time.</p><p>5. It would advance the fight against al Qaeda</p><p>In spite of their enmity, some issues have found Iran and the United States on the same side, perhaps nowhere more than in the struggle against al Qaeda. Iran has been targeted by al Qaeda\\'s terrorism for decades. It is often said that the Salafi Sunni extremists in al Qaeda hate the Shiites in Iran more than the infidels in America. Yet the hostility between Iran and the United States has prevented them from collaborating against this common threat to the extent that they could and should. By opening the path to improved relations between the two states through the nuclear deal, they could claim common cause against this global threat and help stabilize the region.</p><p>6. There would be peace, not war</p><p>Last but not least, not only would Obama\\'s deal prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, it would also prevent a devastating war with Iran. Make no mistake: Although the U.S. military can handle another war, the U.S. economy cannot absorb its cost. Without this deal, a military confrontation would become all but certain and the American people would have to kiss the economic recovery goodbye.</p><p></p>"
54    },
55    {
56      "doc_id": "22",
57      "doc_html": "<h1>All in the (political) family</h1>\\n<p>By Dan Merica</p><p>updated 12:26 PM EST, Fri November 8, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>A new generation from well-known political families will show up on the 2014 ballot</p><p>From Bush to Carter to Cheney to Nunn, children and grandchildren are seeking office</p><p>\\\"You grow up around a business, you learn the ropes early,\\\" CNN contributor says</p><p>Accessibility to fund-raising networks and tough skin among benefits to such candidates</p><p>Washington -- The 2014 elections will continue what has become a staple in American politics: the survival of powerful political families.</p><p>Bush. Carter. Nunn. Udall. Cheney. These are familiar names from a previous generation -- but also for a new one.</p><p>When Liz Cheney announced her intention to become the next senator from Wyoming this year, she likely evoked voters\\' memories of her father, Dick Cheney, the former vice president.</p><p>The same is true for two politicians in Georgia. Both the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn and a grandson of former President Jimmy Carter will be on the 2014 ballot in the Peach State. Michelle Nunn is running for U.S. Senate, while state Sen. Jason Carter has launched a bid for governor -- jobs her father and his grandfather, respectively, once held.</p><p>\\\"For their constituents and the American public, those names are a proven quantity, and as time goes on, you see that Americans look back at the history of our political system, and things seem better in hindsight,\\\" said Dan Mahaffee of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress . \\\"It harkens back to a more collegial political era.\\\"</p><p>Candidates and family heritage</p><p>Cheney: Liz is the new generation of GOP</p><p>A look at Bush-Cheney era: \\'Days of Fire\\'</p><p>Was George W. Bush in danger?</p><p>All over the country, candidates with such familiar names are either running for re-election or jumping into races and using their families\\' vast networks to anchor nascent campaigns.</p><p>Take a look at the heritage of some of these candidates on the ballot in 2014:</p><p>• Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia is running for her state\\'s open U.S. Senate seat. Her father, Arch A. Moore Jr., was governor of West Virginia for 12 years.</p><p>• Sen. Mary Landrieu is running for re-election in Louisiana. Her father, \\\"Moon\\\" Landrieu, was once mayor of New Orleans and a brother, Mitch Landrieu, is now the city\\'s mayor.</p><p>• George P. Bush is running for Texas land commissioner. A member of one of America\\'s great political dynasties, he\\'s the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush.</p><p>• Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey is running for re-election. A member of one of the most dominant political families in the United States, Frelinghuysen can trace his roots back to four U.S. senators and Frederick Frelinghuysen, one of New Jersey\\'s delegates to the Continental Congress.</p><p>• Sen. Mark Pryor, who is running for re-election in Arkansas, is the son of former Sen. David Pryor.</p><p>• Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, the son of a former congressman, is running for re-election. And so is a cousin, Tom Udall of New Mexico, also a U.S. senator.</p><p>A \\'ready-made Rolodex\\'</p><p>\\\"You grow up around a business, you learn the ropes early,\\\" CNN contributor Paul Begala said. \\\"It is the same reason restaurants or hardware stores -- or junkyards -- have names like \\'Sanford and Son.\\' \\\"</p><p>Begala cites many benefits to running as the next in line in a political family, but two stand out: a thick skin and fund-raising.</p><p>\\\"A politician\\'s kid grows up hearing all kinds of awful things about Mom or Dad, and they learn that\\'s not the end of the world,\\\" he said. \\\"Toughness matters in politics.\\\"</p><p>Begala said that relying on relatives\\' fund-raising networks also is unbelievably helpful for these candidates. Being a Cheney in Wyoming, a Bush in Texas or a Landrieu in Louisiana will open many doors -- and wallets.</p><p>It is \\\"hard to estimate how much good President Bush 41\\'s network did for Bush 43,\\\" Begala said.</p><p>Mahaffee added, \\\"You are almost born with a ready-made Rolodex.\\\"</p><p>American dynasties from the early years on</p><p>The number of political families on the ballot in 2014 is nothing new. Since the outset of the United States, political families have dominated certain states, and many have risen to national prominence.</p><p>The Adamses, with the nation\\'s second president, John Adams, and sixth president, John Quincy Adams, were among the first political families. But certainly not the last.</p><p>The Republican Tafts have long dominated Ohio politics, boasting three U.S. senators, a president, a governor and countless local positions. The Democratic Kennedy family has dominated politics in New England -- with a president, three presidential candidates, three senators, multiple congressmen and dozens of local elected positions.</p><p>A 2012 study of the Kennedys\\' political dominance by the University of Minnesota found the family has logged more than 92 years in congressional service, a number that doesn\\'t even count Joseph P. Kennedy III\\'s recent term as a representative from Massachusetts.</p><p>Then there are the obvious political families: the Bushes and Clintons. Between 1980 and 2008, a member of one of these families was either president or vice president.</p><p>Bush and Clinton \\\"fatigue\\\" has even become a common term as speculation grows about former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both eyeing a run at the presidency in 2016.</p><p>So why do Americans, the same people who revolted against a monarchy in 1776, keep electing members of the same families?</p><p>Some political watchers said the continuity these families bring can be comforting to voters, but the public also can sour on candidates who see themselves as anointed successors to their families\\' political power.</p><p>Mahaffee, however, said the idea that voters are sick of political families is dispelled by the fact that so many of them exist. Do voters occasionally get sick of one family? Yes, he said. But on the whole, such a history is a good thing for candidates, he said.</p><p>\\\"It is helpful that you continue to have generations that bring political experience with them,\\\" Mahaffee said. \\\"They have more of a knowledge (of) what it takes to be a political leader.\\\"</p><p></p>"
58    },
59    {
60      "doc_id": "23",
61      "doc_html": "<h1>LGBT anti-discrimination bill going nowhere in the House</h1>\\n<p>By Deirdre Walsh</p><p>updated 4:56 PM EST, Thu November 7, 2013</p><p>Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, who spoke on the Senate floor for the first time in nearly two years on Monday after suffering a stroke, pushed for the Senate to pass the ENDA bill.</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Senate passes Employment Non Discrimination Act with help of 10 Republicans</p><p>House Speaker John Boehner has said he opposes other laws that already cover the issue</p><p>House congressional aides say they aren\\'t hearing from constituents on the issue</p><p>Democrats might try to force a vote in the House but know it probably won\\'t happen</p><p>Washington -- While the Senate passed legislation barring workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity with a significant bipartisan vote on Thursday, the bill faces major hurdles to even start moving through the GOP-led House, and there\\'s almost no chance it will come up for a vote this year.</p><p>House Speaker John Boehner opposes the Employment Non Discrimination Act, known as ENDA, and believes protections for employees already exist under other laws.</p><p>Senate passes LGBT anti-discrimination bill</p><p>\\\"The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,\\\" Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said this week.</p><p>And Rory Cooper, spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, told CNN \\\"the bill is currently not scheduled\\\" for consideration.</p><p>Instead, Cooper insisted the Senate should be doing other work.</p><p>\\\"I hope (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) soon addresses the dozens of House-passed bills that have been ignored in the Senate that create jobs, improve education and create opportunity while Americans struggle to find a good-paying job.\\\"</p><p>But Rep. Richard Hanna of New York, one of the five GOP co-sponsors of the House version ENDA, pointed to his party\\'s loss in the Virginia governor\\'s race on Tuesday as a reason why the House needs to consider the measure.</p><p>\\\"Certainly what we see in Virginia is a difficulty with women and minorities and that\\'s something the party needs to reconcile and look broadly and think about,\\\" Hanna told CNN on Thursday.</p><p>Hanna\\'s message to the GOP was \\\"we need to understand that standing on our own principles is part of this, but the world is a pluralistic place and we represent a broad cross section of Americans of different races, generations, sexual orientations, and everyone has rights.\\\"</p><p>Sutter: It\\'s \\'way past time\\' for gay rights law</p><p>The Republican National Committee found after last year\\'s loss in the presidential election that younger Americans, who voted disproportionately for Barack Obama, weigh their support for a political party based on its tolerance and inclusiveness, including on the issue of gay rights.</p><p>10 Republican Senators vote with Dems</p><p>Advocates of ENDA also point to national polls that show a majority of Republicans now support legislation protects gays and lesbians from job discrimination. On Thursday 10 GOP senators joined with Senate Democrats to pass the measure.</p><p>Several senior House Republican congressional aides acknowledge the political climate has shifted some since the House last considered ENDA in 2007, but they also believe most House GOP members would oppose it now.</p><p>They say members aren\\'t hearing much about it from their constituents, so there\\'s little pressure to vote on it this year.</p><p>Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, a five-term Republican whose district has been targeted regularly by Democrats, is another Republican who is pushing for a House vote.</p><p>Dent told CNN the party\\'s loss to Obama is a key reason why it should get behind the bill.</p><p>\\\"I do believe that we have to learn some lessons from the 2012 election, and to me this is one of them. This legislation, ENDA, is one way to reach out to the LGBT community in a way that is fair and reasonable and speaks to our shared values. I think we all agree we should not tolerate this type of discrimination in any form,\\\" Dent said.</p><p>Sexual orientation and ENDA: How we got here</p><p>Dent also said passing the measure \\\"would be an upside to the party, particularly with young voters.\\\"</p><p>Outside advocacy groups spent the past year targeting states with GOP Senators to secure votes to pass the bill in the Senate.</p><p>Little pressure on House GOP</p><p>But House districts were redrawn in 2010 to make them more solidly red or blue so there are fewer \\\"swing\\\" districts like those Dent and Hanna represent, reducing leverage for supporters.</p><p>\\\"As far as specific House races are concerned, I can\\'t see it being a main issue,\\\" one of the House GOP sources said in predicting that the issue \\\"will kind of fade by Friday\\\" without any real push by members for a vote.</p><p>Even gay rights advocates who sought to pressure GOP Senators aren\\'t sugar coating prospects in the House.</p><p>\\\"It\\'s an uphill climb. It\\'s Mount Kilimanjaro,\\\" Fred Sainz, vice president of communications at the Human Rights Campaign, told CNN.</p><p>The House Education and the Workforce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue, has yet to announce a hearing on the bill, and doesn\\'t plan any action on ENDA at this point, according to a spokeswoman for the panel.</p><p>One place where a House Republican could face blowback for lack of action is in upstate New York.</p><p>Second-term GOP Rep. Chris Gibson is running against an openly gay Democratic candidate, Sean Eldridge, who has worked as an advocate for same-sex marriage. Gibson recently signed on as a co-sponsor of the House ENDA bill.</p><p>Obamacare still a focus</p><p>But GOP aides believe that highlighting problems with the online rollout of Obamacare and focusing on economic issues should remain their top priorities, and say there is little pressure from GOP rank and file to move ENDA, because they largely oppose the bill.</p><p>Supporters believe the 2007 House vote, when 35 House Republicans backed the legislation, could be a marker of how many GOP members could vote for the bill now.</p><p>But of that group only a dozen still serve in the House.</p><p>Among those who supported that measure was 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin.</p><p>But that version of ENDA was drafted more narrowly and Ryan\\'s spokesman says the Congressman is opposed to the Senate bill at this point.</p><p>\\\"Congressman Ryan does not believe someone should be fired because of their sexual orientation. That said, any legislation to address this concern should be narrowly crafted to guard against unintended consequences,\\\" Kevin Seifert told CNN.</p><p>House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Boehner\\'s move to avoid a vote is part of a pattern, criticizing his decision to spend money backing a court challenge to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court overruled.</p><p>Fighting a losing battle in the House</p><p>Democrats might try to force a vote through a procedural maneuver but know it probably won\\'t happen.</p><p>Sainz told CNN the effort to pass the bill will take some time, but the Human Rights Campaign is working to get at least 25 of the 35 House Republicans they believe would vote for the bill to publicly endorse it.</p><p>He said ENDA should fit into the House Republican\\'s economic agenda since it promotes employees keeping their jobs.</p><p>Supporters are also looking for other ways to get it to the House floor.</p><p>One option is attaching the measure to next year\\'s defense authorization bill in the Senate and sending that to the House.</p><p>By tucking the measure into a must-pass bill that House Republicans support, any effort to oppose ENDA would mean adopting an amendment to strip it out. Advocates believe they could muster the votes to block that.</p><p>This strategy was used to move another contentious issue involving gay rights -- the repeal of the \\\"don\\'t ask, don\\'t tell\\\" policy barring service in the military.</p><p>Dent believes outside advocates need to do some legwork to educate House Republicans, many of whom didn\\'t serve in Congress the last time the issue came up for a vote.</p><p>But he notes this session of Congress doesn\\'t wrap up until the end of 2014 so \\\"they\\'ll be time over the next 14 to 15 months to make progress in the House.\\\"</p><p>Sainz said he is prepared for the challenge and predicts the same constituents who moved the Senate to act will do the same in the House.</p><p>\\\"There are gay people in every single member of Congress\\' district who we will mobilize,\\\" he said.</p><p></p>"
62    },
63    {
64      "doc_id": "24",
65      "doc_html": "<h1>How to get elected? Ask Christie</h1>\\n<p>By Ruben Navarrette</p><p>updated 1:28 PM EST, Wed November 6, 2013</p><p>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, won a second term in a traditionally blue state.</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Ruben Navarrette: Chris Christie won 60% of the vote in a blue state: GOP should take note</p><p>Christie also got 51% of Hispanic vote, he says, very unusual for a Repbulican</p><p>Navarrette says as a Latino voter, he finds Christie\\'s straight talk appealing</p><p>He says Christie flip-flopped on immigration, but Latinos care about bread-and-butter issues</p><p>San Diego -- Election week is the perfect time for Americans to think about what we want in a candidate and what we don\\'t.</p><p>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who handily won re-election this week with 60% of the vote, believes that he has the answers.</p><p>We should all pull up a chair and listen, but especially the GOP. It\\'s not every day that a Republican governor makes such inroads with the type of voters who tend not to vote Republican.</p><p>Ruben Navarrette Jr.</p><p>How\\'s this for a headline? According to CNN exit polls, at a time when Republicans are struggling to get as little as 35% of the Hispanic vote, Christie got 51% . How did that happen?</p><p>The man being touted as the new front-runner for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination provided a clue during an appearance Tuesday on CNN\\'s \\\"The Lead with Jake Tapper.\\\"</p><p>\\\"I think sometimes we forget that candidates matter,\\\" Christie said. \\\"It\\'s not just about a checklist of issues. It\\'s also about how a person presents themselves as a candidate, how they articulate their view on things and how they react to certain situations. People make judgments based on all those things.\\\"</p><p>Of course, he\\'s right. Reporters will spend the next few days scouring Christie\\'s record as governor and, before that, as U.S. attorney in New Jersey for a silver bullet that they will claim helped woo Latino voters. It\\'s the wrong thing to do. As Christie noted, voters don\\'t walk into the polling booth with a scorecard. But reporters will look over the record just the same.</p><p>They\\'ll center on immigration, even though polls have consistently showed that Latinos care more about bread-and-butter matters such as jobs, education, the economy and health care.</p><p>On immigration, with Christie, reporters will find a mixed bag. In April 2008, while serving as U.S. attorney, he used a speech at a church to take aim at the idea that just being in the country without permission is illegal.</p><p>Can Christie \\\"go national\\\"?</p><p>The morning after Election Day</p><p>Breaking down Election 2013 results</p><p>\\\" Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime ,\\\" the prosecutor said. \\\"The whole phrase of \\'illegal immigrant\\' connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime. ... Don\\'t let people make you believe that that\\'s a crime that the U.S. attorney\\'s office should be doing something about.\\\"</p><p>In July 2010, as governor, during an appearance on ABC\\'s \\\"This Week,\\\" Christie called on President Obama and Congress to \\\"put forward a common-sense pathway to citizenship for people.\\\" Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer had signed the restrictive Arizona immigration law just a few months earlier. Christie said that \\\"states are going to struggle all over the country with this problem\\\" until Washington passes a comprehensive immigration overhaul.</p><p>Yet, in dealing with another immigration issue in 2011, Christie said he would veto the Tuition Equality Act, a bill allowing students who have been in high school in New Jersey for three years, including undocumented immigrants, to pay in-state tuition at colleges and universities. He cited \\\"budget constraints\\\" but also insisted that public money should not go to \\\"people who haven\\'t followed the rules.\\\"</p><p>That same year, Christie, who was an outspoken supporter of former Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP battle for the 2012 presidential nomination, attacked Texas Gov. Rick Perry, one of Romney chief rivals, for signing a bill in the Lone Star State that allowed illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition.</p><p>But last month, in an apparent flip-flop and re-election year conversion, the governor has changed his mind. Now he supports the idea and says that he will try to get it through the legislature. He tried to claim that his previous opposition was about dollars and cents and strictly an issue of budget costs.</p><p>Nice try. But remember, Christie also said, in those remarks from 2011, that public money shouldn\\'t go to \\\"people who haven\\'t followed the rules.\\\" That reality hasn\\'t changed. Illegal immigrants are still not following the rules. Instead, Christie is changing the rules for his benefit.</p><p>What does all this mean to Latino voters? Not much.</p><p>When Tapper asked Christie how he would respond to critics who insist that the Republican\\'s success in the dependably blue state of New Jersey is a \\\"triumph of personality over policy,\\\" the governor scoffed and once again dismissed the suggestion that voters have a checklist of issues.</p><p>\\\"That\\'s not the way that people vote, in my experience,\\\" he said. \\\"I think that voting is much more visceral. People say, \\'Can I trust this person? Do they lead? Do they tell me the truth?\\' They look at the issues, too. But that analysis implies that people are robots and just check a list. They don\\'t do that.\\\"</p><p>Speaking as a Latino voter who has over the past several months taken a liking to Christie for his straight talk and courageous stand against teachers unions, I\\'ll second that.</p><p>I\\'m not looking for someone who agrees with me on all issues, because -- as Christie has noted -- the candidate could just be lying to get my vote. Or she might change her stance and take a position opposite mine once she gets elected.</p><p>I care about character and what\\'s in a person\\'s heart. I want someone who inspires me. I want to vote for candidates who know who they are, and they\\'re not willing to change for anyone -- including me.</p><p>In my book, a good leader has 10 essential qualities: empathy, vision, courage, integrity, independence, decisiveness, an eagerness to take risks, the ability to discern right and wrong, the willingness to be bold and thoughtful, and an abundance of common sense.</p><p>By the way, the last one is sometimes the hardest to come by.</p><p></p>"
66    },
67    {
68      "doc_id": "25",
69      "doc_html": "<h1>Can the right wing ever compromise?</h1><p>By Donna Brazile</p><p>updated 9:05 AM EST, Tue November 5, 2013</p><p>Budget conference members, from left, Sen. Jeff Sessions, Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Chris Van Hollen.</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Donna Brazile encouraged by bipartisan committee trying to hammer out a budget</p><p>Paul Ryan says he wants things to get back to normal; Brazile skeptical</p><p>Brazile: Ryan and Sessions both vetoed bill that ended the shutdown, both on committee</p><p>Brazile: Conservatives want all cuts and no revenue; will they really compromise?</p><p>A remarkable thing just happened in Congress. Republicans and Democrats sat down together to work out a budget. This hasn\\'t happened since 2009.</p><p>House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan -- Romney\\'s running mate, you\\'ll recall, and the hero of fiscal conservatives -- told Politico , \\\"Let\\'s understand what we\\'re doing here, we\\'re going back to regular order. ... This is how the founders envisioned the budget process. We want to get back to that.\\\"</p><p>Ryan\\'s comment is both encouraging and puzzling. Departure from the regular order of compromise through conference committee manifested itself in an iron gridlock that, in turn, has left 63% of the nation thinking our political system is in decline.</p><p>Donna Brazile</p><p>So although it\\'s encouraging that Ryan, a Republican leader from Wisconsin, is attempting to make the system work again, we should remember why Congress became so dysfunctional.</p><p>There have been fiscal crises before -- 17 shutdowns since 1976, now 18. There have been almost suicidal economic policies -- fights over tariffs, trade and taxes have been bread and butter issues since Colonial days. Admittedly, the disaster known as the sequester is something new.</p><p>I can\\'t recall a time when a trifecta of fiscal irresponsibility happened almost simultaneously.</p><p>One reason has been the Republicans determined effort, since the election of President Obama, to undermine the process of compromise. This is not a secret. The result has been to undermine the efficacy of government and the good standing of the Republican Party.</p><p>Food stamp recipients see cuts</p><p>Angus King: U.S. \\'built on compromise\\'</p><p>It may be that Republicans, following the principle of enlightened self-interest, have recognized that no one has all the answers and that compromise for the good of the country -- doing one\\'s sworn duty -- is what they were elected to Congress to do.</p><p>But I\\'m skeptical. Ryan, along with Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, voted against the bill that ended the shutdown and both \\\"ultra-conservatives\\\" are members of the conference committee, the committee that\\'s supposed to restore Congress to \\\"regular order.\\\"</p><p>Ryan \\\"in effect sided with the people who are using (brinkmanship) as a strategy to get their ends. I think that\\'s not a good sign,\\\" said Maryland Democrat Rep. Steny Hoyer, House Democratic whip.</p><p>The committee has a deadline: The bill to fund the government expires on January 15 and the debt ceiling -- and another looming default -- comes hard on its heels on February 17. \\\"Regular order\\\" must be restored, a compromise found, by the end of December.</p><p>The media, shocked that our reality isn\\'t a reality show, is beginning to understand the issue. Bob Schieffer, host of CBS\\'s \\\"Face the Nation,\\\" asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, \\\"...wouldn\\'t it be a good idea, maybe, to start re-engaging before early next year to try to lay some groundwork...?\\\"</p><p>McConnell practically dismissed the question -- he said the committee was going to come up with a proposal -- then returned to the conservative war cry of all cuts and no revenue. McConnell said, \\\"It seems to me, that\\'s the best way to go forward as we go into the discussions that we will have in January and February.\\\"</p><p>This, despite the fact that the deficit is shrinking , according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The sequester took teachers out of schools and police officers off their jobs, grounded Air Force planes, docked Navy ships and could cost up to 900,000 jobs in a year. The federal furloughs, according to Goldman Sachs, also slowed personal income growth. Not good for the economy or the country.</p><p>McConnell, apparently, isn\\'t expecting the \\\"regular order\\\" to be restored. But then, he was in charge of the final negotiations in 2011, leading Congress to the brink of defaulting on our debt and the first ever lowering of our nation\\'s credit rating.</p><p>McConnell said \\\"We\\'re not going to do this again in connection with the debt ceiling or with a government shutdown,\\\" in an interview published in the conservative National Review titled \\\"McConnell\\'s exit interview.\\\" Let\\'s hope there\\'s no hidden escape clause.</p><p>Escape clause or poison pill. McConnell has repeatedly called on President Obama for \\\"leadership,\\\" but when he spells out what that means, it comes down to the president abandoning his principles and mandate and paying the extortion demanded by ultraconservatives.</p><p>Meanwhile, this week millions of disabled elderly veterans and children will start to see their food stamps cut. Private charities across the nation are being overwhelmed with demands beyond their capacities. Yet sadly, Republicans want to make even more cuts. This is wrong. Whatever happened to \\\"We the people\\\"?</p><p>The middle ground in Congress has all but disappeared. The founders intended competing principles and interests to check excesses and create a balance in our politics that would benefit \\\"we the people.\\\" Gerrymandered districts and a hyped-up fight-night media offer a partial explanation of why we seem to have neither checks nor balances.</p><p>I wish with all my being that holding the government of the people as hostage, demanding political ransom, is dead. Maybe at the end of the 2014 election, it will be.</p><p>Until then, pray, but don\\'t hold your breath that we\\'ll return to any \\\"regular order.\\\"</p><p></p>"
70    },
71    {
72      "doc_id": "26",
73      "doc_html": "<h1>Don\\'t underestimate risks of government spying</h1>\\n<p>By Julian Zelizer</p><p>updated 6:34 AM EST, Tue November 5, 2013</p><p>Former intelligence worker Edward Snowden revealed himself as the source of documents outlining a massive effort by the NSA to track cell phone calls and monitor the e-mail and Internet traffic of virtually all Americans. He says he just wanted the public to know what the government was doing. \\\"Even if you\\'re not doing anything wrong, you\\'re being watched and recorded,\\\" he said. Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia after initially fleeing to Hong Kong. He has been charged with three felony counts, including violations of the U.S. Espionage Act, over the leaks.</p><p>Military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked the 7,000-page Pentagon Papers in 1971. The top-secret documents revealed that senior American leaders, including three presidents, knew the Vietnam War was an unwinnable, tragic quagmire. Further, they showed that the government had lied to Congress and the public about the progress of the war. Ellsberg surrendered to authorities and was charged as a spy. During his trial, the court learned that President Richard Nixon\\'s administration had embarked on a campaign to discredit Ellsberg, illegally wiretapping him and breaking into his psychiatrist\\'s office. All charges against him were dropped. Since then he has lived a relatively quiet life as a respected author and lecturer.</p><p>Starting in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service studied untreated syphilis in black men who thought they were getting free health care. The patients weren\\'t told of their affliction or sufficiently treated. Peter Buxtun, who worked for the Public Health Service, relayed information about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment to a reporter in 1972, which halted the 40-year study. His testimony at congressional hearings led to an overhaul of the Health, Education and Welfare rules concerning work with human subjects. A class-action lawsuit was settled out-of-court for $10 million, with the U.S. government promising free medical care to survivors and their families. Here, participants talk with a study coordinator.</p><p>In 2005, retired deputy FBI director Mark Felt revealed himself to be the whistle-blower \\\"Deep Throat\\\" in the Watergate scandal. He anonymously assisted Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward with many of their stories about the Nixon administration\\'s cover-up after the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The stories sparked a congressional investigation that eventually led to President Nixon\\'s resignation in 1974. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage. Felt was convicted on unrelated conspiracy charges in 1980 and eventually pardoned by President Ronald Reagan before slipping into obscurity for the next quarter-century. He died in 2008 at age 95.</p><p>Mordechai Vanunu , who worked as a technician at Israel\\'s nuclear research facility, leaked information to a British newspaper and led nuclear arms analysts to conclude that Israel possessed a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its weapons program. An Israeli court convicted Vanunu in 1986 after Israeli intelligence agents captured him in Italy. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Since his release in 2004, he has been arrested on a number of occasions for violating terms of his parole.</p><p>President Ronald Reagan addresses the media in 1987, months after the disclosure of the Iran-Contra affair . A secret operation carried out by an American military officer used proceeds from weapons sales to Iran to fund the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua and attempted to secure the release of U.S. hostages held by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Mehdi Hashemi, an officer of Iran\\'s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, leaked evidence of the deal to a Lebanese newspaper in 1986. Reagan\\'s closest aides maintain he did not fully know, and only reluctantly came to accept, the circumstances of the operation.</p><p>Tobacco industry executive Jeffrey Wigand issued a memo to his company in 1992 about his concerns regarding tobacco additives. He was fired in March 1993 and subsequently contacted by \\\"60 Minutes\\\" and persuaded to tell his story on CBS. He claimed that Brown & Williamson knowingly used additives that were carcinogenic and addictive and spent millions covering it up. He also testified in a landmark case in Mississippi that resulted in a $246 billion settlement from the tobacco industry. Wigand has received public recognition for his actions and continues to crusade against Big Tobacco. He was portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 1999 film \\\" The Insider .\\\"</p><p>For 10 years, Frederic Whitehurst complained mostly in vain about practices at the FBI\\'s world-renowned crime lab, where he worked. His efforts eventually led to a 1997 investigation that found lab agents produced inaccurate and scientifically flawed testimony in major cases, including the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings. The Justice Department recommended major reforms but also criticized Whitehurst for \\\"overstated and incendiary\\\" allegations. He also faced disciplinary action for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into how some of his allegations were leaked to a magazine. After a yearlong paid suspension he left the bureau in 1998 with a settlement worth more than $1.16 million.</p><p>FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley accused the bureau of hindering efforts to investigate a suspected terrorist that could have disrupted plans for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. In 2002 she fired off a 13-page letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller and flew to Washington to hand-deliver copies to two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and meet with committee staffers. The letter accused the bureau of deliberately undermining requests to look into Zacarias Moussaoui , the only person convicted in the United States of playing a role in the attacks. She testified in front of Congress and the 9/11 Commission about the FBI\\'s mishandling of information. Rowley was selected as one of Time magazine\\'s People of the Year in 2002 , along with whistle-blowers Sherron Watkins of Enron and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom.</p><p>Sherron Watkins, a former vice president at Enron, sent an anonymous letter to founder Kenneth Lay in 2001 warning him the company had accounting irregularities. The memo eventually reached the public and she later testified before Congress about her concerns and the company\\'s wrongdoings. More than 4,000 Enron employees lost their jobs, and many also lost their life savings, when the energy giant declared bankruptcy in 2001. Investors lost billions of dollars. An investigation in 2002 found that Enron executives reaped millions of dollars from off-the-books partnerships and violated basic rules of accounting and ethics. Many were sentenced to prison for their roles in the Enron scandal .</p><p>Cynthia Cooper and her team of auditors uncovered massive fraud at WorldCom in 2002. They found that the long-distance telephone provider had used $3.8 billion in questionable accounting entries to inflate earnings over the past five quarters. By the end of 2003, the total fraud was estimated to be $11 billion. The company filed for bankruptcy protection and five executives ended up in prison. Cooper started her own consulting firm and told her story in the book \\\"Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower.\\\"</p><p>In 2003, federal air marshal Robert MacLean anonymously tipped off an MSNBC reporter that because of budget concerns, the TSA was temporarily suspending missions that would require marshals to stay in hotels just days after they were briefed about a new \\\"potential plot\\\" to hijack U.S. airliners. The news caused an immediate uproar on Capitol Hill and the TSA retreated, withdrawing the scheduling cuts before they went into effect. MacLean was later investigated and fired for the unauthorized disclosure of \\\"sensitive security information.\\\"</p><p>Joe Darby is the whistle-blower behind the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq. He says he asked Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. for photos from their travels so he could share them with family. Instead, he was given photos of prisoner abuse. Darby eventually alerted the U.S. military command, triggering an investigation and global outrage when the scandal came to light in 2004. Graner was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the abuse. He was released in 2011 after serving 6½ years of his sentence. The military and members of Darby\\'s own family ostracized him, calling him a traitor. Eventually he and his wife had to enter protective custody.</p><p>The New York Times reported in 2005 that in the months after the September 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the U.S. National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court warrant on people in the United States, including American citizens, suspected of communicating with al Qaeda members overseas. The Bush administration staunchly defended the controversial surveillance program. Russ Tice, an NSA insider, came forward as one of the anonymous sources used by the Times. He said he was concerned about alleged abuses and a lack of oversight. Here, President Bush participates in a conversation about the Patriot Act in Buffalo, New York, in April 2004.</p><p>Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was convicted July 30 of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos to WikiLeaks, and the counts against him included violations of the Espionage Act. He was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges but acquitted of the most serious charge -- aiding the enemy. Manning is set to speak in his defense when he takes the stand during the sentencing phase of his court-martial on Wednesday, August 14. He could face up to 90 years in prison if the judge imposes the maximum sentence.</p><p>HIDE CAPTION</p><p></p>"
74    },
75    {
76      "doc_id": "27",
77      "doc_html": "<h1>Does Obama still have faith in government?</h1><p>By Gloria Borger</p><p>updated 11:49 AM EDT, Tue October 29, 2013</p><p>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</p><p>Gloria Borger says President Barack Obama has been a believer in high-tech government</p><p>She says the Obamacare website woes and NSA spy practices have to shake his faith</p><p>Borger: Shouldn\\'t White House have taken control of the signature health care initiative?</p><p>President may now be among 80% of Americans with little faith in government, she says</p><p>Irony is a part of life, the cliché goes. And right now, President Barack Obama is living the part, in a big way: He\\'s the civil libertarian defending an activist drone program. He\\'s the liberal with a spy agency caught eavesdropping on the private conversations of friendly leaders. And he\\'s the high-tech health care reformer whose website got stuck at Go.</p><p>And so the ultimate irony may be this -- a President who extols the virtues of government has now been sucked into the big government vortex, experiencing (up close and personal, as they say) what it feels like to lose control to the bureaucrats. The ones who are afraid to deliver bad news, not to mention those who don\\'t deliver the news at all. (As in, \\\"the website crashed.\\\") And the surveillance chiefs who, um, didn\\'t initially volunteer that they\\'re spying on the private phone lines of America\\'s best friends.</p><p>Maybe the President needs to figure out some new communications tools to make himself clear. (As in, \\\"Angela Merkel\\'s cell is not just another data point.\\\")</p><p>Gloria Borger</p><p>Obama, we\\'re told, is frustrated and angered by the pathetic rollout of his signature legislative achievement. He\\'s also clearly re-examining how the National Security Agency decides to target friendly leaders, what we get from it and why we need it at all.</p><p>A couple of ex-intelligence officials tell me they\\'re not shocked gambling was going on in Casablanca. (\\\"Our job is to know things,\\\" says one.) Whether the President should have known about the monitoring of these specific heads of state is another matter entirely -- and best left to intelligence aficionados. I\\'ve asked -- and gotten answers on both sides of the argument.</p><p>But here are the larger questions that play into both the website fiasco and the NSA issues: How can a President take control of his own government? How can he make sure he knows what he needs to know? And as the pro-government cheerleader, doesn\\'t he have a special responsibility to make sure it delivers, especially when his legacy hangs in the balance?</p><p>The problem is it\\'s never easy to untangle a bureaucratic mess. \\\"So you\\'re the President, you\\'re angry and you want to know how all of this happened,\\\" says a former senior administration official. \\\"And the truth is, even you may not be able to figure it out. You just won\\'t have enough time left in office.\\\"</p><p>Stunning as that sounds, it\\'s probably accurate. Presidents are often isolated, and always the first among equals. So it seems to me that especially in the White House one of the principal jobs of an executive is to understand the incentive subordinates have to conceal information selectively.</p><p>People may report facts and then spin them. Bad news is not a good thing to deliver to presidents. Some are protective of the office and the President; giving the President plausible deniability of any problem is often the easiest and safest route. Or, as one former White House hand told me, \\\"People just don\\'t want to upset the boss, or get him blamed for anything.\\\"</p><p>All of which a President should know going into the Oval Office. If the reason the President did not know about the epic website issues is because the problems were hidden from the ground up, how about this solution: Establish an atmosphere, at all levels, in which truth telling is rewarded, not punished.</p><p>If Obama was surprised at the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, then on some level he failed one of the principal tests: Get the truth out of people, even if they know you are not going to like it.</p><p>Yes, this is government and humans are humans. But Obamacare has been the signature legislative achievement of this presidency. Everyone knew how complex this would be to get going, at every level.</p><p>So here\\'s a question: Why wasn\\'t the A-team led out of the White House, with a daily update to the president? Obama the campaigner was incomparably good at establishing metrics and using information technology to assess the extent to which those metrics were being hit. What happened here?</p><p>What seems to have happened was what often happens: The work got delegated to the bureaucrats somewhere else -- HHS? CMS? -- and, as a result, it got bogged down, delayed and muddled. Mistakes went either hidden or unrecognized. If folks down the food chain knew, they were keeping it from their bosses. After all, no reward in telling the truth.</p><p>The big question now is whether these problems are evidence of a huge management failure. \\\"One of the things you find after working in government is that, under tremendous pressure, organizations that are supposed to produce accurate information, often don\\'t,\\\" says a former senior administration official (think Benghazi). \\\"And you can only rely on what people are telling you.\\\"</p><p>Or not telling you, as in the case of Merkel\\'s cell phone. If the President and senior officials were not told about the wide range of the program, who thought that secrecy was a good idea?</p><p>Does a President have to play a game of Twenty Questions with his own people to figure things out? Or, conversely, as some intelligence officials claim, if the President did know something -- some giblet -- why not more? It\\'s not as if Obama is a passive examiner of intelligence; quite the contrary. So what gives here?</p><p>Consider this: You\\'re President Obama. You believe in the affirmative use of government. You\\'re trying to govern a country that has lost confidence in the ability of that government to execute anything. And now you discover the website of your prized legislative achievement is a disaster. And the spies were tapping a good ally\\'s cell phone, for no immediately obvious reason.</p><p>The final irony may be this: Four out of five Americans have little or no trust in their government to do anything right. And now Obama probably feels the same way.</p><p></p>"
78    },
79    {
80      "doc_id": "28",
81      "doc_html": "<h1>A Face-Off Outside Dallas in the Escalating Battle Over Texas’ Gun Culture</h1>\\n<p>Open Carry Texas members photographed Saturday in the parking lot of a Dallas-area restaurant.</p><p>The scene unfolded near AT&T Stadium in the suburb of Arlington about 30 minutes after three women associated with the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America met inside the Blue Mesa Grill.</p><p>“I was terrified,” said the woman who helped coordinate the meeting and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she said she feared for her safety. “They didn’t want to talk. They wanted to display force.”</p><p>The armed group of men, women and children was made up of members of a gun rights organization called Open Carry Texas , and they stayed in the parking lot about 10 or 15 minutes to protest the Moms Demand Action meeting and then left.</p><p>The long-distance face-off — word of which spread on the Internet on Facebook and blogs — was the latest skirmish in a battle that has been intensifying over the limits and freedoms of the Texas gun culture. Gun rights advocates have been gathering in public places with their firearms to try to convince people that the carrying of unconcealed guns in broad daylight should be no cause for alarm. But such displays do indeed frighten many, even in a gun-friendly state like Texas, and the so-called open-carry gatherings have grown bigger, bolder and more problematic for the police and city officials.</p><p>Leaders of Open Carry Texas disputed any suggestion that they were intimidating the women. They said their members stayed far away from the restaurant, posed for a group picture and left without incident. They said the gathering was peaceful and legal. Texans are allowed to legally and openly carry what are known as long guns, including shotguns and rifles, in public.</p><p>“This is how Moms Demand Action works,” said C. J. Grisham, 39, the president and founder of Open Carry Texas. “They don’t want guns anywhere in the public square, and they’ve made that very clear. No matter what we do, they’re going to label us intimidating. It doesn’t matter how we carry, where we carry.”</p><p>Police officers arrived at the location, but made no arrests. “There were no issues that we are aware of,” said an Arlington Police Department spokeswoman, Tiara Ellis Richard. “Texas law does not prohibit the carrying of long guns.”</p><p>Open Carry Texas encourages its members to walk around their neighborhoods and towns carrying their weapons out in the open. The Dallas-area members learned where the mothers’ group was meeting — by pretending to be interested in their activities, the woman who coordinated the meeting said — and made it a stop on their weekly walk on Saturday. At a gun rights rally at the Alamo in San Antonio last month, Moms Demand Action held a counterrally nearby and, gun advocates said, sent their supporters into the crowd to take pictures. “They crashed our Alamo event,” Mr. Grisham said. “Let’s crash their event.”</p><p>Leaders of Moms Demand Action — a national group that formed after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and modeled itself after Mothers Against Drunk Driving — said the women inside as well as restaurant customers were frightened by the armed group. “Sadly, these bullies are attempting to use guns to intimidate moms and children and to infringe on our constitutional right to free speech,” the group’s founder, Shannon Watts, said Sunday in a statement.</p><p>The carrying of a concealed handgun in public in Texas requires a state-issued permit, and those holding such licenses are prohibited from displaying their handguns openly and unconcealed. But the open carrying of a rifle in public is largely unregulated and requires no license. In Texas, in other words, you are prohibited from walking down the street with a small revolver in a holster on your hip but entitled to be out in public with a large shotgun slung over your shoulder. Gun rights’ groups are pushing to change the law to allow the open carrying of handguns, and using their freedom to carry rifles as part of their campaign.</p><p>The woman at the Arlington restaurant — a mother and a member of the local chapter — expressed dismay that the gathering outside the restaurant was permitted by Texas law. “They’re walking around with killing machines strapped to their backs in a suburban area,” she said.</p>"
82    },
83    {
84      "doc_id": "29",
85      "doc_html": "<h1>After Near Miss on Iran, Kerry Says Diplomacy Is Still the Right Path</h1>\\n<p>Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images</p><p>Secretary of State John Kerry last week in Geneva, where negotiations ended without a deal on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.</p><p>By MARK LANDLER</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Secretary of State John Kerry came up a few disputed words short of closing a landmark nuclear deal with Iran on Sunday in Geneva. Now he is defending the diplomacy that led to that near miss against a rising chorus of critics at home and abroad.</p><p>On Monday, in this Persian Gulf emirate deeply suspicious of a nuclear Iran, Mr. Kerry laid out his fullest argument yet.</p><p>“Having the negotiation does not mean giving up anything,” he declared at a news conference after meeting top officials of the United Arab Emirates. “It means you will put to the test what is possible and what is needed, and whether or not Iran is prepared to do what is necessary to prove that its program can only be a peaceful program.”</p><p>Mr. Kerry promised America’s allies in the Middle East that a nuclear accord would not put their security at risk, and he pleaded with critics of a deal, most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, not to try to scuttle it before the details are even hammered out.</p><p>“The time to oppose it is when you see what it is,” he said, “not to oppose the effort to find out what is possible.”</p><p>But with the prospect of a deal suddenly more real than it has been for a decade, Mr. Kerry is having to fend off those who want to pre-empt it. He is insisting to allies that the United States will drive a hard bargain with the Iranians and doing his best to dispel rumors.</p><p>The latest round of talks failed , he said, not because of dissent from France, as has been reported, but because the Iranians rejected an offer put on the table by the French, along with the United States, Britain, China, Germany and Russia. “The French signed off on it; we signed off on it,” Mr. Kerry said. “There was unity, but Iran couldn’t take it.”</p><p>He offered familiar arguments as well: Without diplomacy, he said, Iran is much more likely to obtain a nuclear bomb, which would set off an arms race in the Middle East and leave everyone less secure. He even raised his own service in Vietnam as a reminder of war’s futility.</p><p>Still, the forces arrayed against a deal are diverse and potent: Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim states, as well as a sizable contingent of Iran hawks in Congress. Mr. Netanyahu, who warned that Geneva was shaping up as a “deal of the century” for Iran, is calling on other leaders to rally opposition. An Israeli minister, Naftali Bennett, is mobilizing Jewish groups in the United States to try to block it.</p><p>On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry is to testify behind closed doors before the Senate Banking Committee to urge senators not to move ahead with a new, tougher set of sanctions on Iran. But powerful Democrats, like Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, have already called for the bill to be passed.</p><p>A 10-day pause before the next round of talks is an added danger, giving opponents time to marshal their ammunition and stoke enough doubt about a deal that the United States and its partners could have less flexibility to work out differences the next time.</p><p>The deep qualms of America’s allies in the Middle East are rooted in three things, said Robert M. Danin , a former State Department official who worked in the region: genuine fear of Iran, frustration that the United States has not consulted them adequately, and a more generalized doubt that Washington can be counted on to safeguard their interests.</p><p>“Put simply, they worry that we are fair-weather friends who can’t be depended on to cover their backs,” said Mr. Danin, who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.</p><p>The easiest remedy would be to build up America’s military presence in the Persian Gulf, something the Obama administration did in its first term. But with budget pressures and President Obama’s avowed desire to shift America’s foreign policy focus to Asia, that is less realistic this time. While Mr. Kerry spoke Monday about protecting America’s friends here, he did not mention aircraft carriers or Patriot missile batteries.</p><p>Failing that, Mr. Danin said, there were other steps the United States could still take, including back-channel communications with allies and highly visible diplomatic gestures. After negotiating past midnight on Sunday in Geneva, Mr. Kerry flew six and a half hours to have dinner with the crown prince of the Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed. Mr. Kerry’s chief negotiator, Wendy R. Sherman, went straight to Jerusalem to brief officials and journalists about the negotiations.</p><p>Standing next to Mr. Kerry in Abu Dhabi, the Emirati foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed, said he was satisfied with the level of consultation with the United States on Iran. He offered Mr. Kerry polite encouragement to keep trying for a deal, though he left little doubt he would oppose any agreement that would give Iran the right to enrich uranium.</p><p>Citing the nuclear agreement the United Arab Emirates has with the United States as a model for other countries in the region, the foreign minister said, “We have accepted not to enrich.”</p><p>Negotiations in Geneva faltered in large part over Iran’s push for language that would give it a formal right to enrichment, according to Western diplomats. But given that Iran already has 19,000 centrifuges, many experts and former administration officials say that such an accommodation will inevitably have to be part of a final agreement.</p><p>Persuading Israel, Saudi Arabia and members of Congress to go along with that, analysts say, will require a lobbying campaign far more intense than the one Mr. Kerry is now waging. To succeed, some said, the administration will need to bring in a bigger gun.</p><p>“President Obama himself will have to step up and lead this effort,” said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran expert at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy. “U.S. assurance will have to come from the very top.”</p>"
86    },
87    {
88      "doc_id": "30",
89      "doc_html": "<h1>Twitter List: Reporters and Editors</h1><p>The official, Henry Chao, made the statement Nov. 1 to investigators for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Representative Darrell Issa of California.</p><p>Mr. Issa, a Republican and a fierce critic of the 2010 health care law , released excerpts from the interview late Monday. Mr. Chao and other administration officials are scheduled to testify Wednesday at a committee hearing on technical problems with the website, HealthCare.gov, that have frustrated millions of Americans trying to use it.</p><p>In the interview, Mr. Chao said he had not seen a Sept. 3 memorandum describing potential security risks in the online insurance marketplace. The memo, from Tony Trenkle, the chief information officer at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted six security problems, two of which were described as posing high risks.</p><p>Mr. Chao, the deputy chief information officer at the Medicare agency, said he was surprised he had not been informed of the findings, based on tests by the Mitre Corporation, a contractor responsible for assessing the website’s security controls. The controls help prevent unauthorized access and identity theft.</p><p>On Sept. 27, Mr. Chao and another official sent a memo to the head of the agency recommending that the website go live on Oct. 1, even though security testing was “only partly completed.” At that time, he said, he was not aware of the test findings that indicated possible risks to security.</p><p>In the interview, Mr. Chao said that government documents and his recollection suggested “a failure to communicate” within the agency, and that it was “disturbing” that he had not been told of the potential security risks.</p><p>“I’m surprised,” he said when he was shown the Sept. 3 memo.</p><p>The White House had no immediate comment. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has told Congress that consumers need not worry about the security of their personal information because the government runs continual security scans on the site.</p><p>Jennifer Hoffman, a spokeswoman for Democrats on the oversight committee, said Mr. Issa’s staff had “basically sandbagged this witness with a document he had never seen before” and then tried to scare the public by exaggerating its significance.</p>"
90    },
91    {
92      "doc_id": "31",
93      "doc_html": "<h1>Cliff Owen/Associated Press</h1><p>Mark R. Herring</p><p>On Monday, after the discovery of a voting machine in Richmond that apparently had not been counted, Mr. Herring retook the lead by 117 votes in a race with 2.2 million ballots cast.</p><p>The final results , almost certainly headed to a recount that could take until late December, will determine if Democrats made a clean sweep of statewide offices after claiming the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s races last week, or a Republican will fill the job that has often been a steppingstone to the governor’s office.</p><p>The count has fluctuated as local election boards review the ballots first reported after the polls closed Nov. 5, as well as provisional ballots sealed in green envelopes. Local city and county boards have until midnight Tuesday to certify their results.</p><p>The Richmond electoral board reviewed its results on Monday in a handful of precincts after a request by Republicans, who were suspicious that reported turnout in the Democratic-leaning city was higher than historic trends.</p><p>As officials reviewed tape from individual voting machines, lawyers from both parties looked on and journalists posted the results on Twitter machine by machine. The initial outcome was disappointing to Republicans. An unofficial count by David Wasserman, an editor with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report , gave Mr. Herring a gain of 116 votes in Precinct 501, where one voting machine apparently had not been counted on Election Day.</p><p>“As the canvass has progressed since Election Day and we get an increasingly accurate picture of the results, Mark Herring’s share of the vote has grown steadily, and he has now overtaken Senator Obenshain,” said Kevin O’Holleran, a spokesman for Mr. Herring.</p><p>A spokesman for the Obenshain campaign, Paul Logan, expressed confidence that it would ultimately prevail. “The race is extremely close,” Mr. Logan said. “We’re going to wait until the State Board of Elections finishes its tabulations and make sure that every legitimate vote is counted. The process is ongoing.”</p><p>Virginia election law allows the loser in a statewide race to request a recount if the margin is 1 percent or less. Mr. Obenshain and Mr. Herring, both state senators, remained in a virtual statistical tie, with 49.89 percent for the Democrat and 49.88 for the Republican, according to the state election board.</p><p>A recount would not begin until after the election board meets to certify the results on Nov. 25.</p><p>In 2005, Bob McDonnell, now the governor, won the attorney general’s race over his Democratic challenger, R. Creigh Deeds, by 360 votes. Mr. McDonnell’s margin grew by only 37 votes in the recount. The fact that recounts do not usually produce unexpected results if the initial gap is in the hundreds explains why both campaigns have been fighting furiously at the local level to make sure every vote is counted.</p><p>On Monday, Mr. Obenshain personally called individual voters who had cast provisional ballots in Fairfax County, in the populous Washington suburbs, urging them to contact the local election board to be sure their vote is accepted. The board said it was reviewing 493 provisional ballots cast by people who were not on the electoral rolls or did not have proper ID. It had accepted about half of those as of Monday night, Mr. O’Holleran said.</p><p>He added that Mr. Herring expected to win the provisional votes by a similar margin, 60-40, by which he already leads Mr. Obenshain in the heavily Democratic county.</p>"
94    },
95    {
96      "doc_id": "32",
97      "doc_html": "<h1>Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Collective Bargaining Law</h1><p>By STEVEN YACCINO</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments on the constitutionality of a 2011 law that all but eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees.</p><p>The law, which prompted large protests and thrust the Republican administration of Gov. Scott Walker into the national spotlight, has divided the state along partisan lines for more than two years. The latest battle has centered largely on a broad legal question: Can state lawmakers so significantly curtail collective bargaining that union membership is made less desirable?</p><p>“I don’t believe the two ships pass in the night,” J. B. Van Hollen, the attorney general of Wisconsin, said when asked by a judge about the dueling legal theories. “I believe they collide.”</p><p>Mr. Van Hollen argued that group bargaining was not a constitutional guarantee but rather a “benefit” permitted by lawmakers. He added that he believed state officials had a “bigger ship” and would win in the end.</p><p>The law, which led to a failed attempt to remove Mr. Walker from office last year, has been challenged by a teachers union in Madison and by a labor group representing employees of the city of Milwaukee. Both plaintiffs contend that the measure violates freedom of association rights and equal protection of the law by subjecting unionized public employees to burdens not faced by their nonunion colleagues.</p><p>“If you are an employee and you choose to associate in this activity, you will be penalized,” said Lester A. Pines, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs, Madison Teachers Inc. The law, he said, essentially forces public employees to “walk away from their associational choice.”</p><p>Wisconsin’s Republican-majority legislature drew national attention when it passed the law during Mr. Walker’s first year in office, drawing tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol building and leading more than a dozen Senate Democrats to leave the state to delay a vote on the bill.</p><p>Although the measure exempted police officers and firefighters, it limited collective bargaining for teachers and most local government workers so that only wages could be negotiated, omitting other matters, such as vacation days and sick leave, that had long been part of bargaining agreements. It also required annual recertification elections for bargaining representatives and prohibited municipal employers from deducting union dues from employee paychecks.</p><p>Amid the uproar, opponents collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to force a recall election in June 2012. Governor Walker overcame that with 53 percent of the vote.</p><p>Wisconsin’s highest court was asked early on to determine whether the measure had been enacted illegally. In 2011, it disagreed with a lower court that had found that the legislature had rushed it through and violated the state’s open-meetings requirement. The justices voted 4 to 3, along what many see as the court’s conservative-liberal divide.</p><p>Those same justices will now weigh the law on its merits after a county judge struck down some of its provisions in September 2012. The judge, Juan B. Colás of Dane County Circuit Court, overturned aspects of the law that applied to local government and school district workers, saying they infringed on state and federal constitutional protections. State government workers were not included in the legal challenge.</p><p>On Monday, lawyers for the state and the unions also disagreed on whether the law infringed on local governments’ authority to set the terms of their own labor agreements.</p><p>“It all comes down to the ability of a locality to control its own local affairs,” said M. Nicol Padway, who represented Public Employees Local 61, the Milwaukee city employees union, dismissing the state’s arguments that collective bargaining with municipalities was still a statewide concern.</p><p>In his closing remarks, Mr. Van Hollen, the attorney general, countered that the more expenditures cities have, the less money is available for them to spend on projects that benefit all of Wisconsin.</p><p>Tom Sheehan, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, said there was no time frame for the justices to make their final decision.</p>"
98    },
99    {
100      "doc_id": "33",
101      "doc_html": "<h1>Twitter List: Reporters and Editors</h1><p>Other German executives, and some politicians, are beginning to talk of segmenting the Internet, so that they are not reliant on large American firms that by contract or court order allow United States intelligence agencies to delve into their data about phone and Internet usage. Europeans are demanding that any new trade accord include data-privacy protections that the United States is eager to avoid.</p><p>Almost never before has a spying scandal — in this case the revelation of the monitoring of the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — resulted in such a concrete, commercial backlash. Now it is also driving a debate inside the American government about whether the United States, which has long spied on allies even while nurturing them as partners, may have to change its approach.</p><p>“What’s more important?” Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the N.S.A., asked during an interview last month, before the Merkel revelations. “Partnering with countries may be more important than collecting on them,” he said, especially when it comes to protecting against cyberthreats to the computer networks of the world’s largest economies.</p><p>So far the Obama administration has refused to talk publicly about that choice, other than to provide Germany with assurances that now, and in the future, Ms. Merkel’s cellphone conversations will be safe. In the past two weeks, two pairs of senior German officials have visited Washington trying to negotiate a new accord on intelligence sharing that would set ground rules as their government faces its own choice between gently pushing back a protector that has patently played a double game for years, or asserting its power in ways unknown since 1945.</p><p>John C. Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany, said he “simply cannot imagine” how the United States could target Germans that way “and not end up with egg all over their face.”</p><p>“It was unbelievably stupid, for no gain,” he said.</p><p>Over the weekend Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, told the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel that “there should be a wholesale housecleaning” of the American intelligence community, and, echoing Mr. Kornblum, said that General Alexander “should resign, or be fired.”</p><p>The White House has backed General Alexander, who is scheduled to retire early next year, but even some of President Obama ’s advisers have begun questioning the judgment of the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr. , who is supposed to review the costs and benefits of these operations, and some officials, saying they are speaking for themselves, have suggested he should leave around the time General Alexander does.</p><p>“The only way the president is going to get a fresh start with the allies,” one of his advisers said last week, “is to present them with a new team.”</p><p>Germany is now toughening its demands that the United States respect all domestic and international laws — code words for ceasing the surveillance on German soil amid rising anger at the United States. Veteran observers of relations between the two nations suspect that over time the anger will abate, as it has in past spy scandals. But that may not prove to be as easy as the officials hope. Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who worked on European security issues for Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush, noted recently “the broad drifting away” between Europe and the United States.</p><p>For its part, Germany has amassed a different kind of power as Europe’s foremost economy. And, as Berlin’s bridling at United States Treasury criticism of its economic policy showed last week, the country is resolute in defending its financial moves.</p><p>In addition to power shifts that require adjustments by both countries, each is experiencing a febrile moment politically and governmentally. The United States appears paralyzed in many ways, while in Germany, the conservative Ms. Merkel is negotiating a new government with the center-left Social Democrats.</p><p>The attempt to rein in American activity is turning out to be harder than German officials hoped. The early talk that Germany would get the status accorded to Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — just about full sharing of data, and no-spy agreements — has given way to a much more hardheaded discussion.</p><p>Even German officials concede that a full-fledged accord is unlikely — in part because it would require congressional approval — and that negotiations are more likely to yield a memorandum of understanding.</p><p>The United States has issued no public exemption from listening in on those in the German political, diplomatic or intelligence hierarchies other than Ms. Merkel.</p><p>“The reluctance is that you never know what you may need, in a month, or a year, or 10 years,” one American intelligence official said.</p><p>Alison Smale reported from Berlin, and David E. Sanger from Washington.</p>"
102    },
103    {
104      "doc_id": "34",
105      "doc_html": "<h1>Insurers Press for Way Around Healthcare.gov</h1><p>Specialists say software engineers now have a clear set of priorities and are steadily crossing items off a three-tier list for repairs</p><p>By REED ABELSON , SHARON LaFRANIERE and SUSANNE CRAIG</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>Some major health insurers are so worried about the Obama administration’s ability to fix its troubled health care website that they are pushing the government to create a shortcut that would allow them to enroll people entitled to subsidies directly rather than through the federal system.</p><p>The idea is only one of several being discussed in a frantic effort to find a way around the technological problems that teams of experts are urgently trying to resolve.</p><p>So far, the administration has resisted the idea, partly because of concerns about giving insurance companies access to personal data. People familiar with the matter said no such modifications are planned, and even some insurers are not holding out much hope.</p><p>But senior White House officials said the administration was open to ways in which insurers could handle more enrollments and had stepped up efforts to make that possible because of the technical problems with the site.</p><p>“It was something we were always doing,” one official said, but it is “of additional value now.”</p><p>In a statement, Chris Jennings, a senior health care adviser to President Obama, said the administration was “continuing to pursue additional avenues by which people can enroll, such as direct enrollment through insurance companies, that will help meet pent-up demand.”</p><p>In proposing the idea, the insurers said a bypass giving them direct access to the federal platform that determines a consumer’s eligibility for a subsidy would alleviate the traffic on the website, healthcare.gov, and provide more breathing room to fix complicated technical problems that threaten to persist beyond a crucial, self-imposed Dec. 1 deadline.</p><p>But even if such a shortcut could be designed, federal officials are concerned about protecting personal data, such as confidential financial and tax information and immigration status. The security and privacy issues are likely to overshadow any possible compromise, according to people briefed on the discussions.</p><p>A more likely solution is for consumers to be able to work directly with an insurer to estimate their qualifications for a subsidy, leaving federal verification to a later date, some insurers said. Insurance executives declined to speak on the record because of company policies and concerns about alienating political officials.</p><p>Time is running out. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, has promised to have the website’s technical problems largely solved by the end of the month. But inside the White House, there is increasing anxiety that the troubled rollout of the health care site could imperil the remainder of Mr. Obama’s presidency.</p><p>Aside from the direct enrollment option, insurers and federal officials are examining other ways in the coming weeks to sign up the millions of Americans looking for health insurance. However, none of the options represent a quick fix. One idea being considered would allow people to enroll before the paperwork is completed. At the extreme, despite strong resistance from the insurance industry, there is even talk of extending the deadline for obtaining insurance on the exchanges by months.</p><p>Consumers must now enroll by Dec. 15 for insurance coverage that would begin Jan. 1. The open enrollment period is to end on March 31. The main stumbling block for some consumers is the need to determine their eligibility for subsidies, and the amount. Insurance companies can now only estimate the amount for them. It is up the government to verify eligibility, using personal financial information from tax returns and the like.</p><p>“The question is, can they create a separate direct pathway so consumers can get that information on their subsidies?” asked one industry official. “If they don’t have Healthcare?.gov up and running by the end of the month, direct enrollment is critical.”</p><p>The other option, allowing consumers to obtain their own estimates, seems more palatable. It is unclear whether that proposal is possible. Insurers are worried that they will have offered coverage to individuals whose actual subsidies are less than they have estimated, potentially leaving the insurers or the people themselves financially exposed.</p>"
106    },
107    {
108      "doc_id": "35",
109      "doc_html": "<h1>A New Firm Sets Out to Secure Women’s Votes for a Vulnerable G.O.P.</h1><p>Gabriella Demczuk</p><p>From left, Christine Matthews, Katie Packer Gage and Ashley O’Connor on Monday in Alexandria, Va. The three are starting a firm to aid Republican candidates.</p><p>By JONATHAN MARTIN</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>WASHINGTON — After months of deliberating over how to better appeal to Hispanic and other minority voters, some Republicans believe their party is overlooking another dire demographic challenge: women.</p><p>One year after President Obama carried female voters by an 11 percentage point margin in his re-election, Republican officials are again grappling with another competitive race lost in large part because of women.</p><p>In the Virginia governor’s race last week, Terry McAuliffe defeated Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the state attorney general, by only 2.5 percent, but won by nine percentage points among women. The Republicans’ challenge is even more acute with unmarried women: Mr. Obama won this often younger voting block by 36 percent.</p><p>Mr. McAuliffe — who blitzed Mr. Cuccinelli with a multimillion-dollar barrage of negative ads on abortion, contraception and divorce — carried single women by a staggering 42 percentage points.</p><p>“There were something like 53 million unmarried women eligible to vote in 2012, but on campaigns you don’t hear a specific strategy discussed of ‘How are we going to reach unmarried women?’ ” said Katie Packer Gage, who served as deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012.</p><p>Given Democrats’ repeated and successful efforts to portray Republicans as hostile to women, Ms. Gage and two other consultants are starting a political strategy firm to help the party’s candidates better tailor their messages to women.</p><p>Ms. Gage, Ashley O’Connor and Christine Matthews this week are opening what appears to be the first Republican firm aimed specially at wooing female voters. They are calling it Burning Glass Consulting — a reference to what they see as the need for a focus on appealing to women that is so laserlike that it can burn glass.</p><p>“We want to get smarter about how we communicate the Republican message specifically to women,” said Ms. Gage. “Certainly there are challenges with other demographic groups, but women represent 53 percent of the electorate.”</p><p>The three strategists will undertake public opinion research, TV ads and general consulting for Republican candidates about how to better reach that majority.</p><p>The idea for the firm came about when Ms. Gage and Ms. O’Connor worked together on the Romney campaign. The pair would find themselves among just a few women at meetings of about a dozen staff members. “We started to see things we felt weren’t being accomplished,” Ms. Gage said, citing Mr. Romney’s message and tone.</p><p>After the campaign they discussed their frustrations with Ms. Matthews, a pollster, and decided to create a new approach to both voter research and the campaign ads that are derived from such polling and focus groups.</p><p>Ms. Matthews said that instead of commissioning a single poll or focus group among women, she was seeking “longer-term engagement” with a group of women, creating a relationship with them over a period of time to better assess what shapes their political views.</p><p>Democrats dismiss such tactics, asserting that a consulting firm cannot change the core challenge, that Republicans have difficulties with female voters because of their party’s policies and language. Democrats refer to the Republicans’ approach as the “war on women.”</p><p>“The lesson for candidates in 2014 is unmistakable: Dismiss and demean women at your peril,” Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said last week after the Virginia race.</p><p>What is unmistakable is that Democrats think that in depicting Republicans as hostile to women, they have found a winning message.</p><p>In Kentucky, home to perhaps the highest-profile Senate race next year, Democrats recruited Alison Lundergan Grimes, 34, the secretary of state, to run against Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and are already taking after him on gender-related issues.</p><p>And, if Republicans nominate a man in Georgia, Democrats will surely do the same there, where they wooed Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, to run for an open Senate seat.</p>"
110    },
111    {
112      "doc_id": "36",
113      "doc_html": "<h1>‘Super PAC’ Gets Early Start on Pushing for a 2016 Clinton Campaign</h1><p>Drew Angerer</p><p>A group of supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton had Ready for Hillary T-shirts stacked up and ready to go as early as July.</p><p>By AMY CHOZICK</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>In the 2008 presidential primary campaign, Mitch Stewart devoted himself to defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton , overcoming the advantages of a well-funded Democratic front-runner through grass-roots organizing, and propelling Barack Obama to victory.</p><p>On Tuesday, Mr. Stewart and a dozen or so other political operatives and 170 donors will gather in New York to plot how to help Mrs. Clinton win in 2016. The meeting is the first national finance council strategy meeting of Ready for Hillary , a “ super PAC ” devoted to building a network to support Mrs. Clinton’s potential presidential ambitions.</p><p>“We’re coming up with plans on how to engage emerging constituencies that will be incredibly important if there’s a primary and in a general — whether that’s women, African-Americans, Latinos, L.G.B.T.,” said Mr. Stewart, who went on to run Mr. Obama’s battleground-state strategy in 2012.</p><p>The all-day meeting at the Parker Meridien hotel will be closed to the news media, but a preview of the day, with panel discussions like “What America Will Look Like in 2016,” about changing demographics, and “Building the Resources to Win,” about developing a campaign infrastructure, provided an early look into what supporters consider Mrs. Clinton’s strengths and potential pitfalls in 2016.</p><p>Mrs. Clinton has never had a problem raising money from deep-pocketed donors, but her 2008 campaign lacked the grass-roots enthusiasm and modest Internet donations that buoyed Mr. Obama. Ready for Hillary hopes to build that kind of support.</p><p>A grass-roots super PAC may seem an oxymoron: such groups can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political races as long as they do not coordinate with a candidate. But rather than invest in expensive television ads, Ready for Hillary puts all of its donations into building its email list of supporters.</p><p>For every $25,0000 the group raises, it cuts a payment to Rising Tide Interactive, a firm that helps build online lists of supporters. A social media tool on the website will allow supporters to work together to organize to plan rallies and small-dollar fund-raising events. With no candidate and over a year before a potential campaign, Ready for Hillary has roughly a million names on its email list, about half the size of the Hillary for President campaign list at the time Mrs. Clinton suspended her campaign in 2008.</p><p>“It’s not our job to be a campaign and it’s not our job to make decisions to tie any potential candidate’s hands,” said Craig T. Smith, an aide in the administration of President Bill Clinton and senior adviser to Ready for Hillary. “The goal is to build a list.”</p><p>The strategy is an acknowledgment of mistakes made by Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign, but also a recognition that she cannot simply run as the establishment candidate with inside-the-Beltway support without also inspiring young and minority voters who largely favored Mr. Obama in 2008. Mr. Stewart helped Mr. Obama pick up delegates in small but important caucus states and turn states like Arizona, New Mexico and Virginia into battlegrounds by tapping into changing demographics.</p><p>A lineup of longtime Clinton backers and aides will attend Tuesday’s meeting, including Susie Tompkins Buell of San Francisco; Ann Lewis, a former adviser to both Clintons; Jennifer M. Granholm, the former governor of Michigan; and Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist. Along with Ms. Sefl, two young Ready for Hillary volunteers, Taj Magruder, 23, of Philadelphia, and Haley Adams, a student at Yale, will open the event, signaling that the Clinton world intends to bring in fresh voices, even if it means edging some loyal aides out.</p><p>The event signals a turning point for Ready for Hillary. The group, registered just before Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in February by young staff members who worked in junior roles on her 2008 campaign, was largely viewed as a makeshift organization that sold Hillary Clinton buttons and iPhone cases online.</p><p>Some longtime supporters had worried that the group emerged too soon and that if it were not well run, it could hurt Mrs. Clinton’s prospects, even though she is not involved or in contact with its organizers. But veteran aides like Mr. Smith, Ms. Sefl and Harold Ickes, a former deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House, are now signed on as advisers. In recent months, the group has held events in several cities from San Francisco to Houston and has become among the dominant — if not best financed — political action committees on the Democratic side.</p>"
114    },
115    {
116      "doc_id": "37",
117      "doc_html": "<h1>Michelle Obama Edges Into a Policy Role on Higher Education</h1><p>Stephen Crowley</p><p>Michelle Obama at a Veterans Day observance at Arlington National Cemetery. Her best-known initiatives to date have focused on good eating habits.</p><p>By JENNIFER STEINHAUER</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama, after nearly five years of evangelizing exercise and good eating habits, will begin a new initiative on Tuesday that seeks to increase the number of low-income students who pursue a college degree. The goals of the program reflect the first lady’s own life and will immerse her more directly in her husband’s policies.</p><p>Twitter List: Reporters and Editors</p><p>“I’m here today because I want you to know that my story can be your story,” Mrs. Obama is to tell students at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington on Tuesday, according to an advance text of her remarks. “The details might be a little different, but so many of the challenges and triumphs will be just the same.”</p><p>The first lady will add that whether students want to be doctors, teachers, mechanics or software designers, “you have got to do whatever it takes to continue your education after high school — whether that’s going to a community college, or getting a technical certificate, or completing a training opportunity, or heading off to a four-year college.”</p><p>Aides in Mrs. Obama’s office said she would visit other schools around the country and use social media to appeal to students, conveying the message that higher education is a door to a wider world. Mrs. Obama, the daughter of a pump worker at the City of Chicago Waterworks, graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School.</p><p>Many of Mrs. Obama’s supporters have been eager to see her use her résumé — before coming to Washington, she was an associate at the Sidley Austin law firm and a health care executive in Chicago — and her role as the first black first lady to expand her agenda. While she has also worked to help military families, her best-known initiative promotes healthy eating.</p><p>Some of her most widely publicized appearances — dancing at middle schools , doing push-ups on daytime television and promoting the arts in a video message at the Oscars — have made her popular and accessible. But she has also been derided by critics who hoped she would use her historic position to move more deeply into policy.</p><p>Others argue that Mrs. Obama has had to move cautiously and avoid taking on causes that might be seen as controversial or as beneficial only to certain segments of the population.</p><p>“She just could not have done this four years ago,” said Catherine Allgor, a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside, who has written books about first ladies. “If she came out of the gate with something much more tied to policy, she would have been shot down. Just look at the reaction to her suggestions that people eat salad.”</p><p>Dr. Allgor was referring to critics who say that Mrs. Obama’s push for people to eat better amounts to hectoring from a nanny state.</p><p>In her new project, Mrs. Obama will work with the Education Department to help further President Obama’s initiative to vault the United States from 12th to first in the world in the percentage of college graduates by 2020.</p><p>“When the year 2020 rolls around, nearly two-thirds of all jobs in this country are going to require some form of training beyond high school,” Mrs. Obama is to say in her speech on Tuesday. “You all are going to need some form of higher education in order to build a good career for yourselves and be able to provide for your family.”</p><p>According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 52 percent of 2011 high school graduates from low-income families enrolled in college immediately after high school, a figure 30 percentage points lower than the rate for students from high-income families.</p><p>Mrs. Obama had hinted in recent months that she wanted to expand her youth-focused agenda into education. “As we looked at the second term and what she was interested in, it was clear speaking to young people is so important to her,” said Tina Tchen, Mrs. Obama’s chief of staff.</p><p>Low-income students apply to, attend and finish college at far lower rates than their higher-income counterparts. Current research shows that even among low-income students with high test scores and grades, few apply to the most selective American colleges.</p><p>“I think this will have tremendous dividends around the country,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. “She has a personal passion and authority on this because this is her story. This is her life. This is who she is.”</p><p>Mrs. Obama grew up on the South Side of Chicago but attended an academic magnet high school across town. In the past year in Chicago, she has led an exercise session with hundreds of city children and addressed 60 teenagers at the Urban Alliance, a group that offers professional job training and internships for underserved youth.</p><p>In each case, she emphasized that she and her brother, who also graduated from Princeton, came from the same place as the children and teenagers she was speaking to, and that college was the key to their success. One teenage girl who had been reluctant to apply to college came to the Urban Alliance after Mrs. Obama had spoken to her, recalled Sandra Abrevaya, the executive director of the organization. The young woman is now at the end of her first semester at Harry S. Truman College in Chicago.</p><p>Although the education initiative will bring Mrs. Obama a step closer to the West Wing, her staff said she would be more focused on young people than on policy, underscoring the practical limits of her power.</p><p>“The job of the first lady is both smaller and larger than the usual kind of career,” said Dr. Allgor, the University of California professor. “You don’t have a position or a paycheck. Yet we have this ironic development that we live in a time when women who occupy this office are more knowledgeable than ever about policy, yet we demand that they pull themselves away from that.”</p><p>A version of this article appears in print on November 12, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Michelle Obama Edges Into a Policy Role on Higher Education.</p><p></p>"
118    },
119    {
120      "doc_id": "38",
121      "doc_html": "<h1>Problems With Federal Health Portal Also Stymie Medicaid Enrollment</h1><p>Mark Wilson/Getty Images</p><p>By ROBERT PEAR</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>WASHINGTON — Problems with the federal health insurance website have prevented tens of thousands of low-income people from signing up for Medicaid even though they are eligible, federal and state officials say, undermining one of the chief goals of the 2010 health care law .</p><p>Multimedia</p><p>Twitter List: Reporters and Editors</p><p>The website, HealthCare.gov, is primarily seen as a place to buy private insurance with federal subsidies, but it is also a gateway to Medicaid, which generally provides more benefits at less cost to consumers.</p><p>That door has been closed for the last six weeks, with the federal government unable to transfer its files to state Medicaid programs as it is supposed to do.</p><p>The delays are affecting people in 36 states that rely on the federal exchange, regardless of whether those states are expanding eligibility for Medicaid as authorized by the health care law. About half of all states have chosen to do so.</p><p>Obama administration officials once envisioned a seamless application process in which consumers would use a single form to apply for Medicaid, tax credits and the Children’s Health Insurance Program , and most eligibility decisions would be made instantaneously. Under rules issued last year by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, an exchange must transfer information to Medicaid “promptly and without undue delay,” using a “secure electronic interface.”</p><p>The administration is not meeting its own standards.</p><p>Marilyn B. Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who oversaw the creation of the troubled federal website, said she decided in September to delay the Medicaid transfers so technicians could “spend more time concentrating on the application process” and other priorities.</p><p>The White House has not released enrollment data, but some states running their own exchanges, like Kentucky, Minnesota and Washington, say more people have signed up for Medicaid than for private insurance.</p><p>The Obama administration has adopted what it calls a “no wrong door” policy: If a person files an application with the exchange for private insurance but appears to be eligible for Medicaid, the exchange will automatically transfer the full application to the state Medicaid agency, and vice versa.</p><p>“We have not seen much progress on the flow of data from the federal marketplace to the state,” said Monica H. Coury, assistant director of the Medicaid program in Arizona. “After a person is assessed as potentially eligible for Medicaid, the application just sits there in the federal marketplace. If you need insurance because you have a serious medical condition, that delay could be harmful.”</p><p>People going to an exchange do not necessarily know if they are eligible for Medicaid or for tax credits to subsidize the purchase of private insurance on the exchange. Ms. Sebelius has said repeatedly that “the marketplace will provide consumers and small businesses one-stop shopping for health insurance.”</p><p>In fact, many consumers will need to make more than one stop. If the exchange finds them potentially eligible for Medicaid, it may be faster for them to file separate applications with a state Medicaid office than to wait for the federal government to transfer their files to the state.</p><p>Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican, said the delay was “further evidence that Obamacare is not ready for implementation.”</p><p>Matt D. Salo, the executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, which represents state officials, said, “This is not a catastrophe, but it sends a confusing message to consumers.”</p><p>“You go to HealthCare.gov and spend 45 minutes or more to set up an account,” Mr. Salo said. “Then you’re told that you’re eligible for Medicaid but can’t get it. You have to start all over again with the state Medicaid agency.”</p><p>Some people seeking insurance on the exchanges are already eligible for Medicaid but are not enrolled. They may be shopping for insurance because they have heard about the exchanges through news reports or because they are aware of the requirement that most Americans carry insurance starting next year.</p><p>Coverage through the exchanges begins on Jan. 1, but people eligible for Medicaid under current rules could get coverage now if the federal government transferred their applications to state Medicaid programs.</p>"
122    },
123    {
124      "doc_id": "39",
125      "doc_html": "<h1>Saying a Chapter of War Is Ending, Obama Vows Aid for Veterans</h1>\\n<p>Obama Speaks on Veterans Day: The president delivers remarks at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.</p><p>By MICHAEL D. SHEAR</p><p>Published: November 11, 2013</p><p>WASHINGTON — President Obama pledged Monday that Americans “will never forget” the sacrifices made by the country’s military veterans, and promised that his administration would continue pushing for money to support the men and women home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p><p>Enlarge This Image</p><p>Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times</p><p>At Arlington National Cemetery, Paula Davis sat at the grave of her son, Pfc. Justin Ray Davis, who died serving in Afghanistan.</p><p>Stephen Crowley/The New York Times</p><p>Veterans paid tribute.</p><p>Enlarge This Image</p><p>Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times</p><p>In Washington, Joshua Terry, 8, left, and Wyatt Harris, 10, stood guard at the African American Civil War Memorial.</p><p>Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day after placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, Mr. Obama declared that the nation’s most recent “chapter of war is coming to an end.” But he said that Americans must not let the service of the military fade from memory.</p><p>“By this time next year, the transition to Afghan-led security will be nearly complete,” he said. “The longest war in American history will end.”</p><p>But he said that “there’s a risk that the devoted service of our veterans could fade from the forefront of our minds,” and added that “our time of service to our newest veterans has just begun.”</p><p>In his first Veterans Day remarks as president in 2009, Mr. Obama faced a very different situation in Afghanistan, where top military officials were pressing for an American troop escalation to confront a surging enemy. Three weeks later, Mr. Obama announced that he was sending an additional 30,000 troops to the country, bringing the total number of American forces in Afghanistan to more than 100,000.</p><p>“For our troops, it is another day in harm’s way,” Mr. Obama said on Veterans Day in 2009. “For their families, it is another day to feel the absence of a loved one and the concern for their safety.”</p><p>On Monday, the president said that in the coming months the number of American troops in Afghanistan will go down to 34,000, and that in a year’s time Afghan forces will have largely taken over the responsibility of securing their country.</p><p>“We will never forget the profound sacrifices that are made in our name,” Mr. Obama said, pledging that the returning troops will be the “best cared for, best treated, best respected veterans in the world.”</p><p>The president hailed veterans of previous wars and the history of American sacrifice in places like Lexington, Gettysburg, Korea, Vietnam and the beaches of Europe.</p><p>“We join as one people to honor a debt we can never fully repay,” he said. “There are those who stand apart. They step up, they raise their hands, they take the oath, they put on the uniform and they put their lives on the line.”</p><p>Mr. Obama singled out Richard Overton, an Army veteran who is now 107 years old. Mr. Overton attended the Arlington ceremony, listening as the president described his service in World War II and his return home.</p><p></p>"
126    },
127    {
128      "doc_id": "40",
129      "doc_html": "<h1>Sunday Breakfast Menu, Nov. 10</h1><p>By JADA F. SMITH</p><p>Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey handily won re-election on Tuesday, and will continue his victory lap with an appearance on four of this week’s Sunday shows. Some Republicans are looking to the governor as the future of their party, especially after such a strong win in a Democratic state.</p><p>Governor Christie will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “Fox News Sunday,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and ABC’s “This Week.” Viewers can expect to hear what his plans are for his second term, and his thoughts on the current state of the Republican Party. He may also hint at his plans for the 2016 presidential election.</p><p>Senator Robert J. Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will also be on “This Week” to discuss the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas will appear on the show as well.</p><p>Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary and Central Intelligence Agency director, will be on “Face the Nation” after Mr. Christie, giving his take on whether the Pentagon or the C.I.A. should oversee the drone program.</p><p>CNN’s “State of the Union” will feature a one-on-one with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, as he discusses the breakthrough on nuclear talks with Iran and the “60 minutes” report on the Benghazi attack that it was forced to admit was wrong. Later, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida and the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, will speak up about the problems with the federal health care website Healthcare.gov as her party members continue to put pressure on President Obama. Then, after a major gubernatorial loss in Virginia alongside a big win in New Jersey, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, will be on to assure his base that the party knows what it’s doing as they look to 2014 and 2016.</p><p>Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, will talk about the recent plagiarism allegations against him on Univision’s “Al Punto.” Representative David G. Valadao, Republican of California, will discuss his plan to revive the immigration debate in his party and to get more of his colleagues on board with reformation. Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, a presidential candidate in Honduras, will be on the show as well. She will sit down for an in-depth interview on her campaign promises and the role her husband, the former president of Honduras, would have, if any, in her potential administration.</p><p>C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” will feature an interview with Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, about Congress’s inquiry into the health care law and the future role of the Tea Party following Tuesday’s elections.</p><p></p>"
130    },
131    {
132      "doc_id": "41",
133      "doc_html": "<h1>‘60 Minutes’ Airs Apology on Benghazi</h1><p>By Sofia Perpetua</p><p>CBS Apologizes for Benghazi Report: Accounts differ from a man interviewed by “60 Minutes” who said he was at the U.S. mission the night of the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.</p><p>By BRIAN STELTER and BILL CARTER</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>Lara Logan was scheduled to deliver a report on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” about disabled veterans who climb mountains. Instead, she appeared in front of the newsmagazine’s trademark black backdrop and issued an apology.</p><p>Add to Portfolio</p><p>CBS</p><p>CBS said it was “a mistake” to broadcast statements by Dylan Davies, a security contractor.</p><p>Ms. Logan said that Dylan Davies, one of the main sources for a two-week-old piece about the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, had misled the program’s staff when he gave an account of rushing to the compound the night the attack took place. “It was a mistake to include him in our report. For that, we are very sorry,” Ms. Logan said.</p><p>The apology lasted only 90 seconds and revealed nothing new about why CBS had trusted Mr. Davies, who appeared on the program under the pseudonym Morgan Jones. Off-camera, CBS executives were left to wonder how viewers would react to the exceptionally rare correction.</p><p>While veteran television journalists spent the weekend debating whether the now-discredited Benghazi report would cause long-term damage to the esteemed newsmagazine’s brand, some media critics joined the liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America in calling for CBS to initiate an independent investigation of missteps in the reporting process.</p><p>But the CBS News chairman, Jeff Fager, who is also the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” has not ordered an investigation, and on Sunday a spokesman indicated that the program was going to let its televised apology be its last word on the issue.</p><p>However, the apology was deemed inadequate by a wide range of commentators on Sunday night. Craig Silverman, of the correction blog Regret the Error, predicted that it would not “take the heat off CBS News.”</p><p>“Aside from the fact that it struck a very passive tone and pushed the responsibility onto the source, Dylan Davies, it said nothing about how the show failed to properly vet the story of an admitted liar,” Mr. Silverman said in an email. “There are basic questions left unanswered about how the program checked out what Davies told them, and where this process failed.”</p><p>“In the short term, this will confirm the worst suspicions of people who don’t trust CBS News,” said Paul Friedman, CBS’s executive vice president for news until 2011. “In the long term, a lot will depend on how tough and transparent CBS can be in finding out how this happened — especially when there were not the kind of tight deadline pressures that sometimes result in errors.”</p><p>Ms. Logan has said that a year of reporting informed the Oct. 27 piece, which was Mr. Davies’s first interview. Some of Ms. Logan’s conclusions still hold up to scrutiny — for example, that “contrary to the White House’s public statements, which were still being made a full week later, it’s now well established that the Americans were attacked by Al Qaeda in a well-planned assault.”</p><p>But enough doubts have been sown about Mr. Davies’ account of being an eyewitness that CBS apologized on Friday, scrubbed the report from its site (and the “60 Minutes” Twitter feed) and prepared Ms. Logan’s on-camera statement Sunday. (Mr. Davies’s account included him hitting an Al Qaeda fighter in the face with the butt of a rifle and seeing the dead ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, at a hospital.)</p><p>Parallels have been drawn between this case and CBS’s flawed 2004 report on President George W. Bush’s time in the National Guard. Each time, the news division adopted a defensive crouch when advocates first started to question the stories. But the political backdrop has changed significantly this time. In 2004, there were accusations of “liberal bias” and unrelenting coverage of the controversy on conservative websites, driven by the right’s long animus toward Dan Rather, the correspondent on the Bush report, and the implication that he was trying to hurt the president’s re-election chances.</p><p>This time, conservatives initially trumpeted the “60 Minutes” report: the morning after it was broadcast, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Fox News that he planned to block all administration nominations until Congress was granted access to all of the survivors of the attack. (On Sunday, Mr. Graham stood by his threat despite CBS’s retraction.) At the same time, questions about Mr. Davies and his account were immediately raised, by both liberal activists and independent reporters.</p>"
134    },
135    {
136      "doc_id": "42",
137      "doc_html": "<h1>Iran Balked at Language of Draft Nuclear Deal, Western Diplomats Say</h1><p>Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images</p><p>The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran in Geneva.</p><p>By MICHAEL R. GORDON , MARK LANDLER and JODI RUDOREN</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>GENEVA — As Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers from other world powers sought to work out an interim agreement to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian government’s insistence on formal recognition of its “right” to enrich uranium emerged as a major obstacle, diplomats said Sunday.</p><p>Multimedia</p><p>Enlarge This Image</p><p>Jason Reed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images</p><p>John Kerry being greeted by Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, United Arab Emirates foreign minister, in Abu Dhabi, where he flew after nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva foundered over Tehran’s insistence on formal recognition of its right to enrich uranium.</p><p>In long hours of closed-door discussions, Western and Iranian negotiators haggled over the language of a possible agreement. Toward the end of a marathon session, some diplomats believed that only a handful of words appeared to separate the two sides.</p><p>But the dispute over enrichment rights, among other differences, meant that the talks ended not with the breakthrough that many had hoped for, but with only a promise that lower-level negotiators would meet here in 10 days for more discussions.</p><p>Many reports have ascribed the failure of the talks to France’s insistence that any agreement put tight restrictions on a heavy-water plant that Iran is building, which can produce plutonium.</p><p>But while France took a harder line than its partners on some issues, a senior American official said it was the Iranian delegation that balked at completing an interim agreement, saying that it had to engage in additional consultations in Tehran before proceeding further.</p><p>A senior American official who briefed Israeli reporters and experts in Jerusalem on Sunday said that the six world powers in the talks had approved a working document and presented it to the Iranians, according to Herb Keinon of The Jerusalem Post, who attended the briefing.</p><p>“It was too tough for them,” Mr. Keinon quoted the American official as saying of the Iranians. “They have to go back home, talk to their government and come back.”</p><p>The failure to achieve a breakthrough in Geneva followed a week in which the Iranians had raised the expectations of a possible one, perhaps calculating that this would add to the pressure on Western nations to make concessions.</p><p>Both Mr. Kerry and his Iranian counterpart sought to put the best face on the deflating outcome.</p><p>“We are all on the same wavelength, and that gives us the impetus to go forward when we meet again,” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, told reporters after the talks ended.</p><p>Mr. Kerry had a similar message: “There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than we were when we came, and that with good work and good faith over the course of the next weeks, we can in fact secure our goal.”</p><p>Still, the failure to conclude an accord gave an opening for critics in Congress, who have vowed to push for tougher sanctions, and in Israel and the conservative Arab Persian Gulf monarchies to mobilize opposition to an agreement.</p><p>Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, accused the Obama administration of “dealing away our leverage” in an appearance on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”</p><p>Speaking to a large gathering of American Jewish leaders on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned that his country would not be the only target of an Iranian nuclear weapon. “Coming to a theater near you — you want that?” Mr. Netanyahu asked. “Well, do something about that!”</p><p>Defending his negotiating strategy, Mr. Kerry insisted Sunday that the agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program that he was seeking would be in Israel’s interest. “We are not blind, and I don’t think we are stupid,” Mr. Kerry said on “Meet the Press.”</p><p>“I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe,” he added, “and particularly of our allies, like Israel and the gulf states, and others in the region.”</p><p>At the heart of the debate is the Obama administration’s two-part strategy, which calls for an interim agreement to temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear efforts for six months so that diplomats have time to try to negotiate a more comprehensive accord.</p>"
138    },
139    {
140      "doc_id": "43",
141      "doc_html": "<h1>Textbooks Reassess Kennedy, Putting Camelot Under Siege</h1>\\n<p>Drew Angerer</p><p>Since the 1980s, historians have concentrated on leaders’ failings, as well as their successes.</p><p>By ADAM CLYMER</p><p>WASHINGTON — The President John F. Kennedy students learn about today is not their grandparents’ J.F.K.</p><p>Multimedia</p><p>Twitter List: Reporters and Editors</p><p>In a high school textbook written by John M. Blum in 1968, Kennedy was a tragic hero, cut down too soon in a transformative presidency, who in his mere 1,000 days in office “revived the idea of America as a young, questing, progressive land, facing the future with confidence and hope.”</p><p>By the mid-’80s, that heady excitement was a distant memory, and Kennedy a diminished one. A textbook written in 1987 by James A. Henretta and several colleagues complained of gauzy “mythologizing” about his tenure and said the high hopes he generated produced only “rather meager legislative accomplishments.”</p><p>The first — and for many the last — in-depth lesson that American students learn about the 35th president comes from high school textbooks. And on the eve of the anniversary of his assassination 50 years ago, a review of more than two dozen written since then shows that the portrayal of him has fallen sharply over the years.</p><p>In general, the picture has evolved from a charismatic young president who inspired youths around the world to a deeply flawed one whose oratory outstripped his accomplishments. Averting war in the Cuban missile crisis got less attention and respect. Legislative setbacks and a deepening commitment in Vietnam got more. The Kennedy-era glamour seemed more image than reality.</p><p>For example, a 1975 high school text by Clarence Ver Steeg and Richard Hofstadter said that in his handling of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, “Kennedy’s true nature as a statesman became fully apparent.” In “A People and a Nation,” they said his 1963 limited nuclear test ban treaty “was the greatest single step toward peace since the beginning of the Cold War.”</p><p>On civil rights, they said, his administration “did not receive congressional cooperation.” Even so, they wrote, inaccurately, “buses, hotels, motels and restaurants were largely desegregated” in his presidency. Most of those changes came when the Civil Rights Act was signed by his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964.</p><p>Using the same title in 1982, Mary Beth Norton and several others took a very different approach in a college textbook widely used today in Advanced Placement courses.</p><p>They said he “pursued civil rights with a notable lack of vigor.” They blamed him for the missile crisis, saying Cuban-Soviet fears of invasion were stoked by the 1961 Bay of Pigs landing and other United States moves against Cuba. They said Kennedy’s real legacy was “a huge military expansion that helped goad the Russians into an accelerated arms race.”</p><p>In 2009, Joyce Appleby’s “American Journey” said of the missile crisis: “While it seemed like a victory at the time, it left a Communist government intact just miles from the U.S. coastline. The humiliation of giving in also prompted the Soviets to begin the largest peacetime military buildup in history.”</p><p>There are a variety of reasons for the shift. First of all, the dazzle of the handsome young president and the assassination in Dallas elevated Kennedy to a heroic level impossible to maintain.</p><p>Another is that new writers and editors added different perspectives. In particular, the Vietnam generation began writing and editing, and Kennedy’s role in the war began to matter more. Also, his extramarital affairs became known, providing fodder for criticism. And the release of White House tapes, beginning in 1984, showed a coldly pragmatic politician, not the idealist on issues like civil rights whom people had heard about or imagined.</p><p>Finally, the ’80s saw a shift in textbook historiography. Gilbert Sewall, the director of the American Textbook Council , a nonprofit organization that reviews educational materials, said the older approach concentrated on successes in American history. In the ’80s, he said, that was replaced by a “revisionist” approach that not only focused on injustices like the mistreatment of Indians but also highlighted flaws of those previously treated as heroic, like slaveholding among the founding fathers. “The Norton book brought this revisionism into a bright light,” he said.</p>"
142    },
143    {
144      "doc_id": "44",
145      "doc_html": "<h1>For 2014, G.O.P.’s Challenges Stem From Within</h1><p>Jeff Swensen for The New York Times</p><p>Art Halvorson, a Pennsylvania Republican, is challenging an incumbent from his party for a House seat. “I’ve got to show leadership’s what’s important,” he said.</p><p>By JONATHAN WEISMAN</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>BEDFORD, Pa. — Art Halvorson makes for an unlikely Republican primary challenger to a six-term incumbent like Representative Bill Shuster. He is a newcomer to this quiet corner of south-central Pennsylvania who retired here after a long Coast Guard career.</p><p>Bradley Byrne, a former state senator, beat a rival backed by the Tea Party in a special House election in Alabama last Tuesday.</p><p>But in the throw-out-the-bums anger percolating in the election cycle now underway, Mr. Halvorson, 58, believes he might have a shot to displace a name that has occupied this House seat since Mr. Shuster’s father won it in 1972. After two House elections dominated by the small-government philosophy of the Tea Party , 2014 may be driven by a less ideological but more emotional sentiment: clean house.</p><p>“People don’t remember a time before the Shusters,” Mr. Halvorson said. “They created an aristocracy, and people are so accustomed to that’s the way politics is done around here, they don’t see how he can be toppled. I’ve got to show leadership’s what’s important, not seniority, and longevity is not leadership.”</p><p>The outcome of this and at least 17 other primaries next year may have a negligible impact on Republican control of the House. Few would suggest that Pennsylvania’s Ninth Congressional District is in danger of slipping into Democratic hands. But in the heated battle over the ideological future of the Republican Party , races like this one could alter the complexion of the Republican caucus in the House — and Washington’s ability to govern in President Obama’s final years in office.</p><p>“That’s the narrative everybody wants to know: What’s the Republican Party going to look like after Ted Cruz Tea Party people get done with it?” Mr. Halvorson asked, eschewing the Tea Party label even as he adopts many of its campaign tropes. “Who’s going to have the ascendancy?”</p><p>From Tennessee to Michigan to Oregon, House Republicans are facing an onslaught of primary challenges. But unlike the last two election cycles, there is almost no ideological pattern to the contests.</p><p>Representatives Justin Amash and Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan and Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee — all Tea Party lawmakers in good standing — are threatened by potential challengers backed by business groups and their more traditional Republican allies. Those challenges are not so much from the party’s left but more from a new breed of candidates hoping to “professionalize” a House Republican caucus whose image has been battered by the turmoil in Washington.</p><p>Even the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, has drawn a credible challenger from the party’s right, Dennis Linthicum, the chairman of the Klamath County Board of Commissioners .</p><p>“Somebody has to get serious about looking at spending, the growth of government, the regulatory aspects that discourage business and risk-taking,” said Mr. Linthicum, who called Mr. Walden a “statist” who “would prefer to keep government in the size, shape and fashion in which it currently exists.”</p><p>How such contests resolve themselves could leave the House Republican caucus either more uncompromisingly conservative in 2015 or more committed to governance and compromise.</p><p>“It’s an offshoot of the decline in competitive districts because of redistricting,” said David Wasserman, a House analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “There are fewer fights to pick with the other party, so there are going to be more fights within your party.”</p><p>In some sense, the fight for the heart of the House Republican caucus began last Tuesday in Alabama, when Bradley Byrne, a business-backed former state senator, fought off a Tea Party-supported firebrand to win a special House election in Mobile.</p><p>In Tennessee, Mr. DesJarlais has maintained his Tea Party bona fides since the 2010 wave swept him into Congress. But the taint of scandal has followed him since divorce records exposed accusations of violent behavior as well as a telephone transcript indicating that as a practicing doctor he had an affair with a patient and encouraged her to get an abortion. Another former patient emerged last year to say that she, too, had had an affair with Mr. DesJarlais and had smoked marijuana with him.</p><p>The hits have kept coming since then, and State Senator Jim Tracy is now considered the favorite in the primary fight in August.</p><p>In Michigan, business-backed candidates are challenging Mr. Amash and Mr. Bentivolio, two black sheep of the House Republican conference. Mr. Amash has electrified the libertarian wing of the Republican Party with his crusade against domestic spying, his willingness to challenge his party’s defense hawks and his opposition to even the most austere budget plans of his leadership, which he invariably condemns as timid taps at the Big Government edifice.</p>"
146    },
147    {
148      "doc_id": "45",
149      "doc_html": "<h1>Health Website Tests a Tycoon and Tinkerer</h1><p>Larry Downing/Reuters</p><p>By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>WASHINGTON — Jeffrey D. Zients, a multimillionaire entrepreneur and management consultant, joined the Obama White House in 2009 with a mandate to streamline the federal bureaucracy. A year later, he issued a prescient warning.</p><p>The government “largely has missed out” on the information technology revolution, Mr. Zients said in a 2010 internal memo. “I.T. projects too often cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than they should, take years longer than necessary to deploy and deliver technologies that are obsolete by the time they are completed,” he wrote.</p><p>These days, Mr. Zients is witnessing that ineptitude up close as the emergency fix-it man charged with righting HealthCare.gov, the bungled online marketplace for medical insurance. He is to become President Obama’s top economic adviser in January , but first he is leading the so-called tech surge to haul HealthCare.gov into the 21st century. Ignoring friends who told him not to get mixed up in the website fiasco, Mr. Zients (pronounced ZYE-ents) promises it will run “smoothly for the vast majority of users” by the end of November — a schedule considered highly optimistic.</p><p>Mr. Obama’s reputation, and the electoral fortunes of Democrats, could hinge on the work of Mr. Zients, a man who has no hands-on technology experience — although he has advised health care companies on business practices. In the universe of experts who might have been called in for rescue work, Democrats close to the administration say, there were others perhaps more qualified than Mr. Zients, but he was the best of those Mr. Obama and an insular White House were comfortable with.</p><p>In an interview, Denis R. McDonough, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, called Mr. Zients a “force multiplier” who will deliver what he promises. He said the president had given Mr. Zients the same instructions he had given White House staff: “Get this fixed.”</p><p>Mr. Zients, who will turn 47 on Tuesday, made a fortune reported to be close to $200 million building two consultancies and taking them public. His wife, Mary, is from a prominent South African mining family — Nelson Mandela attended their wedding — and they live with their four children in Northwest Washington, where an Aston Martin is in the garage. A onetime high school wrestler at the capital’s elite St. Albans School, he is often described as ultracompetitive.</p><p>Now he works without pay “on a full-time, trust me, around-the-clock basis,” he told reporters in a conference call on Friday. Mr. Zients shuttles between a health care command center in suburban Herndon, Va., the White House and an office near the coffee machines on the third floor of the hulking Department of Health and Human Services building here, overseeing an effort that includes dozens of tech experts. They include Todd Park, the White House chief technology officer, who is under subpoena by House Republicans to testify at a hearing this week, and Michael Dickerson, an engineer on leave from Google who lists “herding cats” as a skill on his LinkedIn profile.</p><p>Administration officials say Mr. Zients, who declined to be interviewed, has intensified the pace at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for the website. He began work on Oct. 21, the same day Mr. Obama declared that “nobody is madder than me” about the site’s failures, and quickly set about drafting a “punch list” of problems to fix. It is updated daily.</p><p>Among other immediate changes, Mr. Zients recommended that the agency hire a general contractor to coordinate repairs, started daily telephone news briefings and instituted at the command center morning and evening “stand up meetings,” so named because each tech team member, in a military-style exercise in accountability, must stand while delivering a progress report.</p><p>Mr. Zients told reporters on Friday that the site was getting “better each week” but “remains very slow and sporadic for many users.” He said response times — how long users wait for a page to load — now average less than one second, down from eight seconds. The error rate — how often system failures prevent users from advancing to the next page — is 2 percent, down from 6 percent, Mr. Zients said.</p><p>“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” he said, still promising that he would meet his Nov. 30 deadline.</p><p>Even his supporters remain skeptical. “To try to come in, in six weeks, and sort something like this out — I just have a lot of sympathy for him,” said Joshua B. Bolten, a friend of Mr. Zients and a chief of staff to President George W. Bush.</p>"
150    },
151    {
152      "doc_id": "46",
153      "doc_html": "<h1>Talk of Penalty Is Missing in Ads for Health Care</h1><p>Nathaniel Brooks</p><p>At the New York State exchange’s customer service center, an operator signaling for help from a supervisor.</p><p>By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>New York’s health exchange slogan is “Today’s the Day.” Minnesota has enlisted Paul Bunyan . Oregon held a music contest, and California stresses the “peace of mind” that will come with insurance.</p><p>The state and federal health insurance exchanges are using all manner of humor and happy talk to sell the Affordable Care Act’s products. But the one part of the new system that they are not quick to trumpet is the financial penalty that Americans will face if they fail to buy insurance.</p><p>On state exchange websites, mention of the penalty is typically tucked away under “frequently asked questions,” if it appears at all. Television and print ads usually skip the issue, and operators of exchange telephone banks are instructed to discuss it only if asked. The federal website, now infamous for its glitches, mentions the penalty but also calls it a fee, or an Individual Shared Responsibility Payment.</p><p>The euphemisms and avoidance of any discussion of the penalty are no accident, both supporters and critics of the law say. While the mandate for all Americans to buy health insurance — with a penalty if they do not — was the linchpin of the Supreme Court decision upholding the law, and is considered the key to its success, poll after poll has found that it is also the least popular part of the program.</p><p>State exchange operators say that they are not trying to hide the penalty, but that their market research has taught them that, at least in the initial phase, consumers will be more receptive to soothing messages and appeals to their sense of collective responsibility than to threats of punishment.</p><p>“We feel that the carrot is better than the stick,” said Larry Hicks, a spokesman for Covered California . “This is a new endeavor. We want people to come in and test our wares.”</p><p>But there is also the dirty little secret of the penalty: It is a bit of a chimera, because the federal government cannot use its usual tools like fines, liens or criminal prosecutions to punish people who do not pay it. The penalty is supposed to be reported and paid with the income tax returns of those who do not buy insurance, but the government has not said how it will collect from those who owe it but do not pay it, though the law allows it to deduct from any income tax refunds.</p><p>“It might be that they want to be positive,” said Michael Cannon , director of health policy studies at the conservative Cato Institute. “But it’s also the case that an informed customer is not their best customer.”</p><p>And for many healthy middle-class people, a side-by-side comparison might suggest that it would be more cost-effective to pay the penalty than to buy insurance.</p><p>In 2014, a family with two adults and two or more children, for example, would pay $285 or 1 percent of the family’s income over the $20,300 filing threshold, whichever is greater; those jump to $2,085 or 2.5 percent by 2016 and rise with inflation after that.</p><p>For instance, a family of four making $59,000 a year could face a choice between a $387 penalty the first year or, in a typical “silver” or midpriced policy offered on the California exchange, a premium of nearly $4,800 after the federal subsidy, with a $4,000 deductible, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation subsidy calculator . There is variation from plan to plan, but the deductible typically would not apply to doctor visits, preventive care, lab tests or generic drugs, although some regular co-payments would apply.</p><p>“Are they going to buy it?” said Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a health care industry consultant in Alexandria, Va. “I don’t mean this as an attack on Obamacare. I think it’s a difficult political problem.”</p><p>The federal website, which serves residents of 36 states, appears to acknowledge this problem in a not-quite-threatening way : “If someone who can afford health insurance doesn’t have coverage in 2014, they may have to pay a fee. They also have to pay for all of their health care.”</p><p>The penalty, despite its unpopularity, is the glue that holds the Affordable Care Act together. Unless people are forced to buy insurance, health policy experts say, young and healthy people may stay away, leaving only the more expensive patients in the plans, which will quickly drive up premiums. And it was the penalty that the United States Supreme Court relied on to uphold the individual mandate, reasoning that it was a legal use of Congress’s taxing authority.</p><p>The sotto-voce treatment of the penalty resembles the strategy Massachusetts used when it set up its universal health insurance program several years ago. It took a sales approach at first, using the Red Sox in its campaign to appeal to men, who tend to be a little more resentful of being pushed into something, said Jon Kingsdale, the executive director for the first four years.</p><p>In November 2007, with barely two months left to sign up, his state began emphasizing the penalty, and volume soared, he said. “That was very effective as a call to action,” Mr. Kingsdale said.</p><p>Directors of state exchanges said that as happened in Massachusetts, a new phase of advertising that incorporates the penalty may kick in as the sign-up deadline approaches. Last month, the Obama administration said people who signed up for coverage by March 31 would avoid the penalty; previously the date was Feb. 15.</p>"
154    },
155    {
156      "doc_id": "47",
157      "doc_html": "<h1>Conservative Republicans Recoil at the Notion That Christie Is the Party’s Savior</h1><p>Richard Perry</p><p>Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey after his re-election last week. He has polarized Republicans.</p><p>By JONATHAN MARTIN</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>Time magazine splashed Chris Christie ’s profile on its latest cover. High-profile Republicans, including the only female Hispanic governor in the nation, are urging him to run for president. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program seems to be anointing him the savior of the Republican Party .</p><p>Everyone, it seems, is celebrating the ascent of Mr. Christie, the governor of New Jersey. Except people like Scott Hofstra.</p><p>“We’re so frustrated with all this Christie talk we can’t see straight,” said Mr. Hofstra, who is active in the Tea Party movement and lives in Vine Grove, Ky. He and his friends were especially furious when the governor, on television last week, described himself as “a conservative,” given his recent expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, among other positions.</p><p>“He’s no more conservative than Harry Reid,” Mr. Hofstra said, referring to the Senate majority leader, a Democrat.</p><p>Mr. Christie’s landslide victory in New Jersey was just days ago, but the conversation about him is moving swiftly beyond the borders of his state. Three years before the presidential election, a governor who was almost a complete unknown until he became a YouTube sensation in 2010 has become not only a political celebrity but also a deeply polarizing force within his party.</p><p>To many in the conservative movement, Mr. Christie represents the kind of candidate the Republican establishment has foisted on the base in recent presidential elections — a media darling whose calling card is that elusive quality of electability and whose adherence to the party’s principles is suspect.</p><p>The more the news media and the establishment cheer on Mr. Christie, the more grass-roots activists — especially members of the Tea Party — resent it. Mr. Christie appeared this weekend on four of the Sunday morning talk shows. Chuck Henderson, a Tea Party activist from Manhattan, Kan., nearly shouted into the phone when asked by a reporter about the idea of Mr. Christie as a presidential candidate.</p><p>“He won his re-election, bully for him, but for him to make the jump up the next rung of the ladder, well, he’s not going to find any support from the people I mix with,” Mr. Henderson said.</p><p>A national poll conducted in September by Quinnipiac University underscored the pattern: While 46 percent of self-described moderates have a positive view of Mr. Christie and only 15 percent have a negative view, among conservatives, 33 percent view him favorably and 25 percent have an unfavorable impression.</p><p>Those around Mr. Christie are aware of the unease among conservatives and are beginning to emphasize his positions on issues like abortion — he is opposed to it, except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother — and state spending to try to blunt those concerns.</p><p>The governor’s standing among conservatives is important because Iowa and South Carolina, two of the first three states in the Republican presidential nominating contest, are dominated by ideology-driven activists. In addition, grass-roots activists are providing much of the passion and energy for the Republican party right now.</p><p>In an interview last week, Mr. Christie said if conservatives had questions about his principles, they ought to examine his record.</p><p>“Watch me govern,” he said. “I’ve cut taxes, cut spending, reformed pensions and benefits. Believe me, if Washington were able to do that, they’d have a parade for them. My record is my record. I’m proud of it. And it is a conservative record, governing as a conservative in a blue state.”</p><p>But Mr. Christie’s record can be read a number of ways. Some conservatives have already raised questions about his actions on gun control: He vetoed several bills last summer, including one that would ban the .50-caliber Barrett rifle, but has approved others, such as a measure that requires the police to provide the state with more information about guns used in crimes. And while he has made known his opposition to same-sex marriage , he abandoned an appeal of a court decision that legalized it in his state. During his re-election campaign, he also suggested he may support providing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.</p><p>With a civil war underway inside the Republican Party, what conservatives fear most is that Mr. Christie’s nomination would effectively mean that the party establishment had won the internal struggle — and that Mr. Christie’s force of personality trumped ideas.</p><p>Asked in an interview whether Mr. Christie could unite the party’s factions, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, responded flatly: “No. I don’t think Chris Christie has any interest in bridging that divide because he’ll run as an aggressive, Northeastern moderate who can get something done. I don’t see him using conservative language. He might be able to get nominated, but it will be running as a personality leader, not a movement leader.”</p>"
158    },
159    {
160      "doc_id": "48",
161      "doc_html": "<h1>Supreme Court to Take Up Challenges to Union Practices</h1>\\n<p>By STEVEN GREENHOUSE</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>Labor leaders and businesses are closely watching a Supreme Court case to be argued this Wednesday that involves a popular strategy used by unions to successfully organize hundreds of thousands of workers.</p><p>Bethany Khan</p><p>Culinary Union workers marched outside the Palace Station Casino in Las Vegas last year.</p><p>That strategy — widely deployed by the Service Employees International Union and the Unite Here hotel workers union — involves pressuring an employer into signing a so-called neutrality agreement in which the employer promises not to oppose a unionization drive. By some estimates, more than half of the recent successful unionization campaigns involve such agreements, which sometimes allow union organizers onto company property to talk with workers.</p><p>Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor law at Harvard Law School, said the case before the Supreme Court was potentially “the most significant labor case in a generation.”</p><p>Professor Sachs said that if the court ruled against labor, it could significantly hobble efforts by private sector unions to organize workers. He added that the other big labor case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this session could have a significant impact on public sector unions. In that case, a home-care worker has asked the court to rule that the state of Illinois violated her First Amendment rights by requiring her to pay “fair share” fees, much like dues, to a union she did not support.</p><p>In the case being argued on Wednesday, Unite Here Local 355 vs. Mulhall , an employee of Mardi Gras Gaming in Florida sued Unite Here, asserting that its neutrality agreement with the company was illegal. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled in his favor, finding that the agreement was a “thing of value” that federal labor law bars employers from giving to any union or union official.</p><p>Unite Here appealed, urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Eleventh Circuit and instead embrace rulings of the Third and Fourth Circuits, which have held that such agreements were not illegal things of value.</p><p>Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, which filed a supporting brief with the Supreme Court, applauded the Eleventh Circuit and denounced neutrality agreements, asserting that they are the type of improper “thing of value” that employers are prohibited from giving to unions.</p><p>“A lot of small employers don’t have the resources to fight back if they’re the subject of a union campaign to get them to sign a neutrality agreement,” she said. “We are concerned that neutrality agreements are nothing more than extortion. The way they’re being used by unions, the unions say, ‘We promise not to trash your reputation or do X, Y, Z, if you sign this agreement.\\' ”</p><p>The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which helped the Mardi Gras employee, Martin Mulhall, bring the case, said another prevalent union tactic — in which unions get employers to agree to use “card check” rather than a secret ballot election to determine whether a majority of workers want a union — should also be considered an illegal thing of value. With card check, union organizers ask workers to sign cards saying they support a union and if a majority of workers sign them, the union presents the cards to the employer so the employer will recognize the union.</p><p>As part of its neutrality agreement, Mardi Gras Gaming agreed to permit card check. In exchange Unite Here pledged to back a casino gambling ballot initiative, spending more than $100,000 on the effort, and not to picket or strike Mardi Gras during its unionization drive.</p><p>Craig Becker, general counsel of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said the Right to Work group’s legal theory to bar such agreements “would criminalize a large swath of ordinary, voluntary labor-management relations.”</p><p>“Under their theory,” Mr. Becker said, “parties cannot agree to this, the employer can’t give it unilaterally and the union can’t even ask for it. The implications are really sweeping.”</p>"
162    },
163    {
164      "doc_id": "49",
165      "doc_html": "<h1>Texas and 5 Other States Resist Processing Benefits for Gay Couples</h1><p>Ben Sklar</p><p>Judith Chedville, a Texas Army National Guard officer, with her wife, Alicia Butler, and their daughter, Jordan.</p><p>By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>On the morning of Sept. 3, the first day the Pentagon said they could, Alicia Butler and her wife, Judith Chedville, who is a Texas Army National Guard officer, went to Austin’s Camp Mabry so Ms. Butler could get a military spouse identification card and register for the same federal marriage benefits provided to wives and husbands of heterosexual service members.</p><p>The two women handed a sheaf of official papers, including their 2008 California marriage license, to a clerk who glanced at the documents and declared, “It’s one of those.” She then called over her boss, who told the couple that they would have to travel to a federal military base like Fort Hood, 70 miles to the north, to get the ID, Ms. Butler recalled.</p><p>The reason: Texas is one of six states refusing to comply with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ’s order that gay spouses of National Guard members be given the same federal marriage benefits as heterosexual spouses. Mr. Hagel’s decree, which applies to all branches of the military, followed the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act that had prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages .</p><p>While a majority of states ban same-sex marriages, most are not fighting the new policy. But Pentagon officials say that in addition to Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia have balked. Each has cited a conflict with state laws that do not recognize same-sex marriages. (A West Virginia official said, however, that the state intended to follow the directive.) While the president has the power to call National Guard units into federal service — and nearly all Guard funding comes from the federal government — the states say the units are state agencies that must abide by state laws.</p><p>Requiring same-sex Guard spouses to go to federally owned bases “protects the integrity of our state Constitution and sends a message to the federal government that they cannot simply ignore our laws or the will of the people,” Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma said last week.</p><p>But the six states are violating federal law, Mr. Hagel told an audience recently. “It causes division among the ranks, and it furthers prejudice,” he said. Mr. Hagel has demanded full compliance, but Pentagon officials have not said what steps they would take with states that do not fall in line.</p><p>Though the government does not keep official figures on same-sex marriages in the military, the American Military Partner Association , which advocates for gay service members, estimates that the number could be 1,000 or more of the nearly half-million National Guard members nationwide, said Chris Rowzee, a spokeswoman for the group.</p><p>The military grants a range of significant benefits to the spouses of active-duty guardsmen, including the right to enroll in the military’s health insurance program and to obtain a higher monthly housing allowance. Spouse IDs allow unescorted access to bases with their lower-priced commissaries.</p><p>Officials in the six states say they are not preventing same-sex spouses from getting benefits, because those couples can register and receive IDs through federal bases. But those officials conceded that many couples would have to travel hours round trip to the nearest federal installation. Advocates for gay service members, though, fear that some benefits offered on bases, like support services for relatives of deployed service members, could still be blocked.</p><p>Moreover, gay spouses say that in an age that saw the scrapping of the military’s ban on openly gay service members, it is discriminatory — and humiliating — to have to jump through extra hoops to receive benefits.</p><p>Ms. Butler, a plaintiffs’ lawyer in Austin, has had to navigate other tricky legal rules during her relationship with Ms. Chedville, who is now a first lieutenant in the Texas Army National Guard and works as a civilian nurse in Austin.</p><p>After they started dating, Ms. Chedville deployed to Iraq in 2003 to help repair air bases, but the women had to keep quiet about their relationship because the ban, known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” was still law. Five years later, they went to California to get married before a state referendum, Proposition 8 , banned same-sex marriages. (Proposition 8 was later overturned.)</p><p>Ms. Butler is critical of state officials who say they are causing only a minor inconvenience because all the same-sex spouses have to do is travel to a federal base. The reasoning behind that notion, she said, was similar to that of the Southern states that once required separate — but what state officials then insisted were “equal” — water fountains and bathrooms.</p><p>“Sometimes it’s about the indignities you make people go through,” Ms. Butler said. “It’s a petty way to score political points.”</p><p>Aides to Gov. Rick Perry , who is not running for re-election but has not ruled out another presidential bid in 2016, told the commander of the Texas Military Forces (the state’s National Guard) that his “is a state agency and as such is obligated to adhere to the Texas Constitution and the laws of this state, which clearly define marriage as being between one man and one woman,” said Josh Havens, a Perry spokesman.</p><p>The state Guard commander, Maj. Gen. John F. Nichols, “wants to support all his soldiers and treat them all equally and fairly, but he cannot break state law,” said his spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Joanne MacGregor, who serves in the Texas Army National Guard. She said at least 20 federal installations in Texas were processing the benefits, while Camp Mabry and four other Guard bases on state property were not.</p><p>General Nichols has asked the state attorney general, Greg Abbott, to issue an opinion on whether there is a way to adhere to Mr. Hagel’s demand. Mr. Abbott, a Republican vying to succeed Mr. Perry next year, may not issue an opinion for some months. According to early polls, Mr. Abbott’s toughest challenge next year is likely to be in the general election against State Senator Wendy Davis, a Democrat who has supported equal treatment of gay people in the workplace.</p><p>If Mr. Abbott rules that state officials are allowed to issue IDs to same-sex Guard couples, would Mr. Perry let General Nichols proceed? Mr. Havens, the Perry spokesman, said they would “cross that bridge” later.</p>"
166    },
167    {
168      "doc_id": "50",
169      "doc_html": "<h1>Graham Sticks With Threat to Block Nominees</h1><p>By EMMARIE HUETTEMAN</p><p>Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday stood by his threat to block all nominations by the Obama administration until Congress was granted access to all the survivors of the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, even as the news report on which Republicans based their latest demands was being retracted.</p><p>Mr. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on the CNN program “State of the Union” that he would not back away from his threat because he had been asking to talk to the witnesses of the attack on Sept. 11, 2012, for a long time without success.</p><p>“I’ve been trying for a year to get the interviews without holds, and you just can’t allow something this bad and this big of a national security failure for the administration to investigate itself,” he said.</p><p>CBS News plans to broadcast a rare correction Sunday to a recent “60 Minutes” program in which a security officer, Dylan Davies, recounted being at the mission on the night of the attack. It was later uncovered that his account on CBS News and in a newly published book differed from what he had told the F.B.I., casting doubt on his credibility.</p><p>After the “60 Minutes” report was broadcast, seeming to support claims that the mission was not adequately secured and that the attack was the result of a terrorist plot, some Republican senators renewed calls for the Obama administration to make survivors of the attack available to congressional investigators. Mr. Graham vowed to hold up President Obama’s nominations until the administration complied, citing the CBS News report to substantiate his demands.</p><p>Mr. Graham said he had not known of Mr. Davies until the “60 Minutes” report came out.</p><p>When asked how many witnesses would satisfy his request — with one having already testified in a closed hearing with members of the House and three former security officers set to testify next week, according to CNN — Mr. Graham said he wanted to question all five survivors, plus the Central Intelligence Agency officials with knowledge of what happened in Benghazi. He estimated that the total would be no more than 30 people.</p><p>“The State Department has thus far refused to allow anybody in Congress to talk to these five,” he said. “And we’re going to talk to them because they possess the best information about what happened at Benghazi, more than you and I know, and I want to find out what they know.”</p><p>The attack has been the subject of outrage among congressional Republicans, many of whom have accused the administration of failing to secure the diplomatic compound and of misleading the public about whether the attack had arisen spontaneously from a protest or from a planned terrorist effort. State Department officials, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton , have testified before Congress, and an independent inquiry determined there were serious security failures .</p><p>Mr. Davies — who gave his public account under the pseudonym Morgan Jones — told CBS News that on the night of the attack, he visited the hospital where he saw the body of J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador who was killed, as well as the compound, where he fought off an attacker.</p><p>But that version of events contradicted his account to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in which he said he did not arrive on the scene until the next morning, which matched the incident report completed by his security firm. Faced with that revelation, CBS News said that Mr. Davies had misled the network and that it would issue a retraction on Sunday night.</p><p></p>"
170    },
171    {
172      "doc_id": "51",
173      "doc_html": "<h1>Harbingers of the 2016 U.S. Election</h1><p>By ALBERT R. HUNT</p><p>Published: November 10, 2013</p><p>WASHINGTON — The takeaways from last week’s elections are about a man and a state.</p><p>The man, Chris Christie , was overwhelmingly re-elected governor of New Jersey, bringing cheer to Republicans. The state is Virginia, which is inching toward becoming a Democratic-leaning outpost. With both, there are caveats.</p><p>Mr. Christie was a big winner; some consider him a clear favorite for the 2016 presidential nomination and even the de facto leader of his besieged and divided party.</p><p>The recently published, headline-grabbing book on the 2012 election, “Double Down: Game Change 2012,” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, provides an insightful critique of the 51-year-old New Jersey Republican. He is smart, tough, empathetic, confident and arrogant. Wall Street billionaires, many of whom don’t give a whit about cultural or social issues, melt into a drooling man-crush around the take-no-prisoners Mr. Christie.</p><p>There also are yellow lights. Mitt Romney’s camp leaked the information they gathered while vetting Mr. Christie as a possible running mate on the Republican presidential ticket in 2012. It allegedly contained questionable billing, dubious relationships and dealings, and temperamental concerns. “If Christie had been in the nomination fight against us we would have destroyed him,” Mr. Romney’s advisers concluded, according to the authors.</p><p>Then there’s the question of how the brash, in-your-face Jersey style will play in the Midwest or the South. Conservative Republicans question Mr. Christie’s bona fides on immigration, climate change and guns, and they resent his failure to hate President Obama. Tax activist Grover Norquist predicts a softness on gun control will be especially troublesome for Christie.</p><p>As Mr. Christie tries to assuage conservatives who form the base of the party, he risks losing his calling card: straight-talking authenticity.</p><p>Still, even though the old-line Republican establishment may be in eclipse, it has been a long time since they had a candidate as formidable this early.</p><p>Many Republicans say they lost the Virginia gubernatorial race because their candidate, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, was flawed. True, but the Democratic victor, Terry McAuliffe , is from New York, has been a wheeler-dealer in money and politics for decades, and has failed to deliver on a promise he made that a company he controlled would create jobs in Virginia.</p><p>More instructive, if somewhat muddled, are the Election Day exit polls. The electorate was 72 percent white, down from 78 percent four years earlier. Even if the black turnout was slightly exaggerated, the demographics of Virginia are changing. That’s bad for Republicans.</p><p>Young voters represented 13 percent of the electorate this time, up from 10 percent four years ago. Mr. McAuliffe won this group by five points, much less than Mr. Obama’s 25-point margin in the presidential contest. A third-party, libertarian candidate did best with this demographic, getting 15 percent; he espoused tolerance and keeping the government out of people’s personal lives — views many Republicans reject.</p><p>The exit polls also cast doubt on Republicans’ claims that they almost won the race because of the unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act. By a slight margin, Obamacare was viewed negatively by voters this year, a result that is virtually unchanged from 2012 exit polls in the state.</p><p>Geoff Garin, a McAuliffe campaign poll-taker, said the controversial measure actually helped his candidate. “ Medicaid expansion is part of Obamacare, and Cuccinelli’s opposition to that was an important part of the appeal to voters we targeted,” he said.</p><p>All things being equal, though they probably won’t be, color Virginia slightly blue going into 2016.</p><p>There’s no cause for cockiness. Democrats expected to do better with white, working-class Virginians based on the idea that race may have played a role in Mr. Obama’s miserable showing with that group. Yet white, working-class men voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Cuccinelli; southwest Virginia, a stronghold of these voters, went as decisively Republican as last time.</p><p>“We have a lot of work to start getting votes of working-class whites,” Mr. Garin said.</p>"
174    },
175    {
176      "doc_id": "52",
177      "doc_html": "<h1>Sam Brownback of Kansas says it is easier to build consensus at the state level than it is at the federal level.</h1>\\n<p>But something different is taking place in statehouses.</p><p>At a time when Mr. Obama and members of Congress are mired in partisanship and gridlock, many governors — including Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican who was re-elected by an overwhelming margin on Tuesday, and the chief executives of such states as Arkansas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Ohio — are showing that it is possible to be successful in elected office, even in this era.</p><p>These governors are, at least by comparison to lawmakers in Washington, capable and popular leaders, pushing through major legislation and trying to figure out ways, with mixed success, to avoid the partisan wrangling that has come to symbolize Washington.</p><p>Part of this is cyclical. As a rule, governors look bad during an economic downturn, as they are identified with spending cuts or tax increases to balance budgets, and are bold and in command during an economic rebound. And some governors are certainly struggling, be it Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican who failed to get his Legislature to back him on expanding Medicaid coverage, or Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, a Democrat who is widely unpopular after a failed effort to change pension laws there.</p><p>Yet the contrast these days appears as strong as any in memory, reflecting not only the breakdown in Washington but also a particularly activist class of governors, often empowered by having a legislature controlled by a single party as they enact the kind of crisp agenda that has eluded both parties in Washington.</p><p>“Right now, governors are the most popular political players in the country, mainly because of the dysfunction in Washington and because the public perceives governors as being bipartisan, pragmatic and able to work things out,” said Bill Richardson , a former governor of New Mexico and Democratic candidate for president in 2008. “Governors are the hot political items right now.”</p><p>The difference is reflected in polling. In the latest CBS News poll, 85 percent of respondents expressed disapproval of the performance of Congress, and 49 percent expressed disapproval of Mr. Obama. By contrast, less than a third of respondents in a variety of state polls said they disapproved of the performance of governors like Mr. Christie; Jerry Brown of California, a Democrat; Bill Haslam of Tennessee, a Republican; and Mike Beebe of Arkansas, a Democrat.</p><p>Many governors said they were intent on making certain that their political parties were not defined entirely by their compatriots in the nation’s capital. Mr. Christie, who will take over leadership of the Republican Governors Association this month, said in an interview that it was especially imperative that Republicans not be defined by their deeply unpopular congressional wing.</p><p>“We all talk about the fact that we’re actually accomplishing things and the people in Washington, D.C., are frustrating people,” said Mr. Christie, recounting his conversations with other Republican governors. “We need to be out there talking about our successes to help to build the brand of our party nationally beyond the capitals and have it replace the Washington, D.C., brand.”</p><p>The disparity could have implications for the 2016 presidential race. It suggests some of the challenges that Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state, could face should she end up running against a governor like Mr. Christie. Historically, governors have tended to be much more successful presidential candidates, even at moments when animosity toward Washington has not been at this level.</p><p>Governors, of course, have always loved to beat up on Congress — drawing arguably self-serving, chest-thumping comparisons — and rarely more than these days. “When you look at D.C. now, a member will write a letter, call for a hearing and they’ll call that a day,” said Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri, a Democrat.</p><p>Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who served more than 20 years in Congress, ticked off a list of what he viewed as his main accomplishments as governor: pulling the state out of a deep deficit, investing in road building without federal assistance and overseeing a significant increase in employment.</p><p>“What’s not to like, right?” Mr. Kasich said. “And they can’t even pass a highway bill there.”</p><p>Mr. Brown, who has been widely praised for pushing through laws on education, taxes and the environment in California, said in an interview that in all 50 states, “there is more dynamism and more openness and more capacity to deal with change, to deal with problems.”</p><p>Even before the advent of this era of sharp partisanship, governors have proved to be more successful in getting programs passed. Thad Kousser , an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author of “ The Power of American Governors ,” estimated that governors won approval of more than half of their initiatives, compared with 45 percent for presidents.</p><p>“Governors have the latitude to make their own policy in their own state,” Professor Kousser said. “They don’t have to go back to Washington, D.C., and toe their party line on these issues. If they want to conduct immigration, they conduct immigration. If they want to stay away from gay rights, they can do that.”</p><p>Governors and analysts pointed to a host of reasons state executives are faring better than members of Congress. For one thing, they are forced to work more closely with their legislatures, if only because of the close confinement of the states and capitals, said Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, a Republican. “The lack of relationship building, the lack of conversation, the lack of problem solving — people are tired of that,” she said.</p><p>Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, said the constraints and powers of governors can prompt them to act responsibly and, in theory, enhance their own leadership credentials.</p><p>“Most states require a balanced budget and forbid the state to take on debt,” he said. “That eliminates some of the pitfalls and the problems in the federal government.”</p>"
178    },
179    {
180      "doc_id": "53",
181      "doc_html": "<h1>Video raises more concerns over ObamaCare \\'navigators\\' in wake of ACORN connection</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>Reports continue to roll out about problems with ObamaCare \\\"navigators\\\" -- who are supposed to help people sign up for health care coverage -- after a group formed from the ruins of ACORN announced earlier this year it was getting in on the sign-up effort. </p><p>The United Labor Unions Council Local 100, a New Orleans-based nonprofit, said in September it would take part in a multi-state \\\"navigator\\\" drive to help people enroll in President Obama\\'s health care plan . The labor council was established by ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his larger group was broken up amid scandal in 2009. </p><p>Now, the conservative activist who played a big role in dismantling ACORN is out with a new video that appears to depict ObamaCare navigators encouraging applicants to fib on their applications. </p><p>The newly released videos from James O\\'Keefe\\'s Project Veritas are similar to past sting operations his group has conducted, including against ACORN. Using hidden-camera footage, the latest show actors posing as ObamaCare applicants -- and unsuspecting navigators giving questionable advice. </p><p>In one, workers with a community center in Irving, Texas, are shown telling one actor that he shouldn\\'t reveal anything about smoking, because it could jack up his premiums. </p><p>\\\"You lie, because your premiums will be higher,\\\" one says. </p><p>Another chimes in, \\\"Don\\'t tell them that.\\\" </p><p>In another video, from a National Urban League office in Dallas, an actor is told not to declare income he has earned on the side because it could cause problems with the government. </p><p>\\\"Don\\'t get yourself in trouble by declaring it now,\\\" one worker says. </p><p>\\\"Yeah, it didn\\'t happen,\\\" another says. </p><p>O\\'Keefe\\'s group says it will release more videos of its \\\"ObamaCare investigations\\\" in the coming weeks that will show fraud and abuse in the system. </p><p>\\\"This investigation shows just how vulnerable Obamacare is to fraud,\\\" O\\'Keefe said in a statement.</p>"
182    },
183    {
184      "doc_id": "55",
185      "doc_html": "<h1>Senators press for independent probe of HealthCare.gov bungle</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>Senators are calling on two independent government watchdogs to launch a \\\"thorough investigation\\\" into the failed launch of the ObamaCare website, as officials scramble to correct the problems by the end of the month. </p><p>The lawmaker leading the charge for the new probe is North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan, one of several Democrats up for re-election next year who has been sharply critical of the HealthCare.gov launch. Hagan is circulating a draft letter, obtained by Fox News, that urges the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services to dig deep into what went wrong. </p><p>\\\"These problems are simply unacceptable, and Americans deserve answers and swift solutions,\\\" the letter states. \\\"Taxpayers are owed a full and transparent accounting of how the vendors contracted to build the site failed to launch it successfully. We strongly urge to you undertake a complete, thorough investigation to determine the causes of the design and implementation failures of healthcare.gov.\\\" </p><p>The letter poses a series of specific questions, including whether payments were withheld to any of the 55 contractors hired to build the site. The letter asks how projected costs have grown, and what the additional cost to taxpayers will be from bringing on contractors to fix the broken site.</p><p>Further, the letter asks why the contract was only opened up to a limited pool of contractors who originally bid on a 2007 contract. </p><p>The letter could get signatures from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Democrats like Hagan claim to still support the law\\'s intentions, but have been highly critical of the administration over the launch. </p><p>Several moderate Democrats facing re-election next year have backed calls to extend the end-of-March deadline for individuals to obtain insurance coverage, citing problems with the main exchange site. The Obama administration so far has urged patience, claiming they plan to have the site fully functional by the end of November -- and has announced no plans to extend the March 31, 2014, deadline . </p><p>The Hagan letter states that once the site is up and running, \\\"we expect that millions of people, for the first time, will not have to worry whether they can see a doctor because of a pre-existing condition, and other important market reforms will protect the insured from the prospect of unaffordable medical bills. </p><p>\\\"In the meantime, it is critical that we understand how and why the mechanism for reaching that goal -- healthcare.gov -- failed to launch as required on October 1, 2013.\\\" </p><p>Meanwhile, emerging reports about the meager enrollments figures to date are fueling calls to delay the sign-up deadline. </p><p>According to an insurance industry report, fewer than 50,000 Americans have so far bought a private health care plan on the ObamaCare site, far short of the half-million enrollees the administration wanted the first month. </p><p>The Department of Health and Human Services, though, said officials could not confirm the numbers. </p><p>\\\"We have always anticipated that initial enrollment numbers would be low and increase over time,\\\" said agency spokeswoman Joanne Peters. \\\"And, as we have said, the problems with the website will cause the numbers to be lower than initially anticipated.\\\" </p><p>Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said the numbers build the case for delaying the law.   </p><p>\\\"Whether it\\'s higher costs, fewer choices or simply website glitches, it\\'s becoming more clear with each passing day that this law isn\\'t ready for prime time and should be delayed,\\\" he said in a statement.</p>"
186    },
187    {
188      "doc_id": "56",
189      "doc_html": "<h1>Obama nominating Treasury official to run the Commodity Futures Trading Commission</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>President Barack Obama is nominating a top Treasury Department official to run the independent agency that regulates the futures and options market.</p><p>The White House says Obama will announce the nomination of Timothy Massad to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday. For the past three years, Massad has overseen the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bank rescue plan known as TARP.</p><p>Obama is expected to use Massad\\'s nominating ceremony to call on Congress to fully fund the CFTC, one of the smallest and most thinly funded U.S. agencies. Obama\\'s 2010 financial overhaul law gave the agency the task of laying down rules for oversight of derivatives, the complex instruments traded in a $700 trillion worldwide market that has been unregulated.</p><p>The agency has now completed 43 of the 60 rules it was charged with putting into motion under the overhaul law. That compares with 35 final rules out of 95 for the Securities and Exchange Commission and a total 43 final rules of 135 for the federal bank regulators: the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.</p><p>For the CFTC, some of the thorniest and most critical rules are among those that remain. They include the so-called Volcker Rule, which would prohibit banks from trading for their own profit. Its latest version includes an exemption for banks to make such trades when they are used to offset other risks taken. Adoption of the rule has been delayed largely because of Wall Street banks\\' objections and the need to get a handful of federal agencies, including the CFTC, to agree on its final form.</p><p>If confirmed by the Senate, Massad would succeed Gary Gensler, whose term ends in January.</p><p>Under Gensler, the CFTC wrote new rules to bring derivatives under government supervision for the first time. The complex investments, traded in a secretive, $700 trillion global market, were blamed as the accelerant on the fire that ignited the 2008 financial crisis.</p><p>The value of derivatives is based on a commodity or security, such as oil, interest rates or currencies. They are often used to protect businesses that produce or use the commodities, such as farmers or airlines, against future price fluctuations. But they also are used by financial firms to make speculative bets.</p>"
190    },
191    {
192      "doc_id": "57",
193      "doc_html": "<h1>GOP Arizona Sen.John McCain talks at a press conference in Cairo, Egypt.</h1><p>Politicians, operatives, White House officials, members of Congress—along with some snark artists—are debating, attacking, defending and kibitzing around the clock on Twitter. It’s a nonstop forum that is helping shape the political conversation.  In this daily feature, @laurenashburn picks some of the best – and worst – political tweets you may have missed.</p><p>Sometimes Twitter just gets it plain wrong.</p><p>John McCain told the Arizona Republic over the weekend that a lot of people want him to run for the White House.</p><p>“Particularly since the shutdown, I’ve had a spate of e-mails and letters and phone calls saying, ‘Run for president again,’\\\" he said.</p><p>That statement was enough to set the Twitterverse on fire from people who’d rather not watch that race.</p><p>Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (breathe) ha ha ha ha ha @hotairblog : #McCain : People are begging me to run for president again http://t.co/z7DL6vja87</p><p>— Brad Thor (@BradThor) November 11, 2013</p><p>Begging him to run? Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Let’s go back to the original interview – which was longer than 140 characters. Immediately after McCain says people are emailing and asking him to run for president, he says this to the Republic:</p><p>“As you know, I’m seriously thinking about running for re-election to the Senate. But I think, in the words of the late Morris K. Udall, as far as my presidential ambitions are concerned, ‘The people have spoken — the bastards.’”</p><p>See what happened here? He has no intention of running for president – although the jury is still out on holding onto his Senate seat for another term. </p><p>John McCain was kidding! In the words of the inimitable Foghorn Leghorn :  “That\\'s a joke, I say that\\'s a joke son, dontcha get it?”</p><p>***</p><p>Chris Christie made the Sunday show rounds talking about his New Jersey victory, and deflecting rampant speculation that he’s a 2016 contender.</p><p>He did, however, make a joke about how no one should “give a darn” about what strategists for Mitt Romney’s campaign had to say about him as a potential running mate.</p><p>Except, according to a Yahoo news story by Chris Moody, he did use some of Romney’s top guys to help advise his campaign to the tune of $46,007.29. Moody’s colleague, Yahoo News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Olivier Knox, tweeted the news.</p><p>So Chris Christie gives 46,007.29 darns (+251 in transportation/parking) about advice from Romney alums http://t.co/WMOnzOQs0h</p><p>— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) November 11, 2013</p><p>That’s the problem with shooting from the hip, Guv. Might wanna get that in check for 2016.</p><p>***</p><p>In a bizarre mix of drugs and politics, Democratic strategist James Carville just had to go there.</p><p>On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he had some advice for the president on his flagging poll numbers.</p><p>“I think the best thing he can do is take a toke on the mayor of Toronto’s crack pipe, because his numbers are about 48.”</p><p>Carville telling Obama to smoke crack on national TV. Alrighty then.</p><p>Politico inhaled the story, and it took off online with more than one person wondering what James was on.</p><p>Carville must be on crack too? James Carville to President Obama: Try crack pipe. http://t.co/OW83CEyFVN via @POLITICO</p><p>— Chuck Nellis (@ChuckNellis) November 11, 2013</p><p>***</p><p>The biggest bullying story in America has had a boomerang effect for a New York Times political reporter.</p><p>Jonathan Martin happens to share the same name as the Miami Dolphins lineman who left the team after a barrage of nasty and racist taunts from a teammate Richie Incognito.</p><p>This prompted some easily confused tweeters to start tossing hate-bombs at the journalist.</p><p>The NYT Martin, summoning his courage, retweeted this one:</p><p>RT @danwiggins88 : @jmartNYT You\\'re soft...you\\'re 6\\'5 312 pounds you aren\\'t getting bullied grow up</p><p>— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) November 6, 2013</p><p>The sports blog, Deadspin, rounded up the worst offenders prompting fellow Timesman to reveal a state secret. </p><p>I personally have bullied @jmartNYT in the newsroom. He\\'s a brawny guy, but he cries so easily. http://t.co/XMAVVoRcUj</p><p>— MattBai (@MattBai) November 11, 2013</p><p>We hope he keeps some Kleenex around.</p>"
194    },
195    {
196      "doc_id": "58",
197      "doc_html": "<h1>Medicaid signups grow despite ObamaCare issues</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>The underdog of government health care programs is emerging as the rare early success story of President Barack Obama\\'s technologically challenged health overhaul.</p><p>Often dismissed, Medicaid has signed up 444,000 people in 10 states in the six weeks since open enrollment began, according to Avalere Health, a market analysis firm that compiled data from those states. Twenty-five states are expanding their Medicaid programs, but data for all of them was not available.</p><p>Meanwhile, private plans offered through troublesome online markets are expected to have enrolled a much smaller number of people.</p><p>The Obama administration plans to release October enrollment statistics this week, but publicly available figures already provide a contrast between a robust start for Medicaid expansion and lukewarm early signups for new, government-subsidized private plans offered separately under the law.</p><p>\\\"Medicaid is exceeding expectations in most places,\\\" said Dan Mendelson, Avalere\\'s president. \\\"It is definitely a bright picture in states that have chosen to expand.\\\"</p><p>A big reason for the disparity: In 36 states, the new private plans are being offered through a malfunctioning federal website that continues to confound potential customers. And state-run websites have not been uniformly glitch-free.</p><p>Obama\\'s health care law melded two approaches to advance its goal of broader insurance coverage. Middle-class people with no access to job-based coverage are offered subsidized private plans, while low-income people are steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states accepting it.</p><p>Starting Jan. 1, the law expands Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level — $15,856 for an individual or $32,499 for a family of four. The Supreme Court gave states the right to opt out of the expansion, which is fully financed by Washington for the first three years, gradually phasing down to a 90 percent federal share.</p><p>At present, 25 states and the District of Columbia have accepted the Medicaid expansion, which is strongly supported by state hospital associations, medical groups and advocates for the poor. Its main beneficiaries are expected to be low-income adults with no children living at home.</p><p>\\\"This is a group of states that\\'s very committed to aggressive expansion and enrollment,\\\" said Matt Salo, executive director of the nonpartisan National Association of Medicaid Directors.</p><p>The White House is promoting the Medicaid expansion. In a visit to Louisiana last week, Obama chided Republican leaders in the states who have turned thumbs down so far. In the audience was GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was not swayed.</p><p>If the expansion is seen as a success, that could motivate its supporters in states like Virginia, which just elected Democrat Terry McAuliffe to replace a GOP governor reluctant to widen the scope of government. Another key state is Florida, where GOP Gov. Rick Scott abandoned expansion efforts after hitting stiff opposition in the legislature. An estimated 1.3 million Floridians could potentially qualify.</p><p>Avalere\\'s statistic of at least 444,000 new Medicaid enrollees comes from 10 of the 25 states that accepted the expansion, so it only represents a partial count. Those numbers may also include some individuals eligible for Medicaid under current rules.</p><p>In Colorado, Medicaid applications in October were six to nine times what they were the month before, said Sue Birch, who heads the state\\'s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.</p><p>A yearslong effort to reach eligible residents apparently succeeded in generating the increased demand. The state has installed self-service kiosks in community clinics, hospitals and libraries to sign people up. And a year ago, nurses statewide agreed to help by promoting Medicaid to low-income uninsured patients.</p><p>\\\"We said to our nurses: \\'OK, you\\'re our bounty hunters. You go find our patients,\\'\\\" Birch said.</p><p>Some states have used food stamp rolls to find people who might also be eligible for expanded Medicaid. Income verification forms used for food stamps require frequent recertification, so that means the program\\'s beneficiaries are Medicaid-ready.</p><p>\\\"Medicaid has been around for 40 years,\\\" said Judy Solomon, an expert on the program with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income people. \\\"In most states there\\'s a system for determining eligibility that kind of lives with the other public programs. We know already that there are people there who we can ask to raise their hands.\\\"</p><p>The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 9 million people will gain coverage through expanded Medicaid next year, with another 7 million signing up for private coverage through the online markets that are getting off to a slow start.</p><p>Medicaid pays doctors less than Medicare, and much less than private insurance, fostering an impression that having a Medicaid card is no better than being uninsured, and maybe even worse. But a recent scientific study debunked that notion, finding that having Medicaid virtually eliminates the risk of catastrophic medical expenses due to a serious accident or the sudden onset of a life-threatening illness. It also found improved mental health, though not much difference in physical conditions such as high blood pressure.</p>"
198    },
199    {
200      "doc_id": "59",
201      "doc_html": "<h1>Report: Fewer than 50,000 have signed up for insurance on ObamaCare site</h1>\\n<p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>Fewer than 50,000 Americans have thus far bought a health-care plan on the problem-plagued ObamaCare website according to an insurance industry report, representing only a fraction of the half-million enrollees the administration apparently wanted the first month.</p><p>The number was reported first Monday by The Wall Street and confirmed by Fox News, which was told the final reporting day was Nov. 3.</p><p>The Department of Health and Human Services issued a prompt response, saying officials could not confirm the numbers.</p><p>“We have always anticipated that initial enrollment numbers would be low and increase over time,” said agency spokeswoman Joanne Peters. “And, as we have said, the problems with the website will cause the numbers to be lower than initially anticipated.\\\"</p><p>Healthcare.gov went live Oct. 1 and was immediately plagued with such problems as slow response time, volume-induced crashes and supplying incorrect information.</p><p>Official have since called in private technical experts and have taken the site off line in non-peak hours to perform maintenance and improve the situation.</p><p>The federal site handles insurance enrollment for 36 states without their own sites.</p><p>The administration has set a goal of signing up seven million Americans for insurance by next March, when open enrollment ends.</p><p>The Journal reported the number of enrollees thus far could be as low as 40,000 and  that the administration’s goal of 500,000 enrollees in October is based on an internal memo cited last week by Michigan Republican Rep. Dave Camp.</p><p>The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch said in a statement the low numbers are not surprising because of the website\\'s problems. </p><p>\\\"Whether it\\'s higher costs, fewer choices or simply website glitches, it\\'s becoming more clear with each passing day that this law isn\\'t ready for prime time and should be delayed,\\\" Hatch said.</p>"
202    },
203    {
204      "doc_id": "60",
205      "doc_html": "<h1>Senator Elizabeth Warren departs after the Senate passed a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.</h1><p>Chris Christie for president? That is so last week.</p><p>Elizabeth Warren for president? Now you’re talking!</p><p>How long will this boomlet last? Well, we in the press have more than two years to kill until the Iowa caucuses. And the MSM have long had a soft spot for Warren.</p><p>As for Christie, who seemed unusually subdued during his Sunday show blitz, all that media love isn’t helping him with the party’s insurgent wing. And they’re not staying quiet about the governor, as we see in this Jonathan Martin piece in the New York Times :</p><p>“To many in the conservative movement, Mr. Christie represents the kind of candidate the Republican establishment has foisted on the base in recent presidential elections — a media darling whose calling card is that elusive quality of electability and whose adherence to the party’s principles is suspect.</p><p>“The more the news media and the establishment cheer on Mr. Christie, the more grass-roots activists — especially members of the Tea Party — resent it.” </p><p>The problem for the political press is that all the action is on the Republican side, with Hillary widely seen as having frozen the field—thus depriving us of our constitutional right for two open presidential contests when there is no incumbent running.</p><p>What to do? Gin up a new challenger!</p><p>In recent weeks we’ve seen a little buzz for Howard Dean. But since he’s not likely to run again, the pundits need a recognizable name to bandy about.</p><p>Now you might think that Elizabeth Warren, as a freshman senator, is a long shot, except that Barack Obama was also a freshman senator.</p><p>You might think she’d have to exhibit some interest in running before the 2016 chatter starts. But why wait for that? We’re the media! We can draft people!</p><p>Thus, the New Republic does an Elizabeth piece and it quickly ricochets to the banner headline on the Huffington Post.</p><p>And since it’s an explicit downgrading of Hillary, Noam Scheiber’s story has all the buzzworthy elements:</p><p>“It’s hard to look at the Democratic Party these days and not feel as if all the energy is behind Warren. Before she was even elected, her fund-raising e-mails would net the party more cash than any Democrat’s besides Obama or Hillary Clinton…</p><p>“And then there’s the way Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses so perfectly align with the passions of the moment. ‘There’s very much a wait-and-see approach to Hillary among progressives,’ says Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. ‘I think it’s mutually exclusive to be a real hero for reform and accountability and to have a [fund-raising] strategy that relies on Wall Street.’…</p><p>“Warren would also benefit from the resentments of party elders. Because the Clintons have always placed a premium on loyalty, there is a generation of donors, fund-raisers, and activists who supported other candidates in 1992, or who were simply late to support the Clintons, and were largely frozen out as a result.”</p><p>Scheiber does better in analyzing why Hillary doesn’t make many liberal hearts beat faster than he does in building a case for Warren. Although such a primary would be entertaining: </p><p>“As in 2008, Greater Hillaryland, if not the Clinton campaign itself, would quietly work to disqualify Warren as a crazed, countercultural liberal.”</p><p>But after all that, Scheiber is candid enough to admit that “Warren would probably lose.”</p><p>Right. </p><p>“She remains a work in progress as a politician. She is still pedestrian in front of a crowd despite her strengths as a questioner and debater, and her Senate campaign last year was bumpier than it should have been.”</p><p>Also, she’d have no foreign policy experience running against a former secretary of State.</p><p>Of course, many pols run for president to raise their profile, knowing full well they won’t win. But I’ve seen no evidence that Elizabeth Warren falls into that category.</p><p>I was critical of the New York Times for not running President Obama’s semi-apology on health care on the front page, during a week when the paper ran a couple of upbeat stories on ObamaCare.</p><p>The buildup to the president saying he was sorry to the millions who have lost their policies was enormous before Obama sat down with Chuck Todd.</p><p>And on the day that Executive Editor Jill Abramson stuck that story inside, she fronted a piece about new administration rules requiring insurers to cover mental health the same way as physical illness.</p><p>As Capital New York asks, “What was the reasoning behind the Times\\' treatment of Obama\\'s apology?\\\"</p><p>\\\"\\'The mental health story was ours exclusively and affects millions of people,’ executive editor Jill Abramson told Capital in a statement given to us through a spokesperson. ‘The Obama story was an “everyone has it” story,’ Abramson said, though she allowed that it is \\\"an important development in the ongoing controversy over the messy rollout of the HCA, which we cover very aggressively.”</p><p>But sometimes a story that everyone has is the day’s most important story; and there’s nothing to stop a newspaper from offering a smart analytical take with plenty of reaction. </p>"
206    },
207    {
208      "doc_id": "61",
209      "doc_html": "<h1>Justice Scalia says he \\'fits right in\\' in Texas</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>AUSTIN, Texas –  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Monday that if he weren\\'t a Virginian he\\'d \\\"probably want to be a Texan.\\\"</p><p>Swearing in new Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht before a packed state House chamber, Scalia said, \\\"I do fit right in here.\\\" That came in response to Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who suggested in an address moments earlier that Texas and its fiercely conservative politics suited Scalia.</p><p>\\\"We welcome you to Texas, sir,\\\" Perry told Scalia to applause. \\\"You would fit right in.\\\"</p><p>Scalia was appointed to the nation\\'s highest court in 1986, which makes him the longest-serving justice currently on the court. He now has come to Texas to administer the oath of office to the state\\'s last three Supreme Court chief justices but joked that Hecht has been on the court since 1988 before assuming his new role.</p><p>\\\"Judge Hecht has been on this court for 25 years and already he\\'s chief justice,\\\" Scalia quipped. \\\"I\\'ve been on mine 27 with nothing to show for it.\\\"</p><p>Scalia oversees the U.S. Fifth Circuit which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. He also swore in new Justice Jeff Brown who fills Hecht\\'s old slot and becomes the fourth one-time state Supreme Court law clerk to later serve on the court.</p><p>Hecht replaces Wallace Jefferson, who resigned last month to join a private law firm in Austin.</p><p>Perry, who has been in office since 2000, appointed Brown and named Hecht to his new post. The governor now has chosen six of the nine justices on the Texas Supreme Court, the state\\'s highest civil court.</p><p>Addressing hundreds of judges, state officials and top attorneys in the House chamber Perry said: \\\"Today we can say, as we can every day in Texas, that God is good.\\\"</p><p>Next year, Hecht is poised to surpass the late Joe Greenhill, who served on the court 25 years — 10 of those as chief justice — as the longest-serving justice on the state Supreme Court.</p><p>Hecht promised Monday to continue Jefferson\\'s efforts to better ensure that all Texans have access to the court system regardless of economic background saying \\\"this is not a matter of politics, liberal or conservative, it is about good government.\\\"</p><p>\\\"I do not regard the position to which Governor Perry has appointed me as a career capstone,\\\" Hecht said, \\\"certainly not a headstone, but as a cornerstone for the work that lies ahead.\\\"</p>"
210    },
211    {
212      "doc_id": "62",
213      "doc_html": "<h1>Wisconsin Supreme Court hears arguments on union plan</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>MADISON, Wis. –  Labor attorneys pushed the state Supreme Court on Monday to strike down portions of Republican Gov. Scott Walker\\'s public union restrictions, arguing the prohibitions are designed to force school district and municipal workers to abandon their unions.</p><p>The court\\'s decision could bring to an end one of the last unresolved legal challenges to the contentious restrictions that stripped almost all public workers of nearly all their union rights. Union supporters face an uphill fight, though, because conservative justices control the court.</p><p>Lester Pines, an attorney for a Madison teachers union, pressed ahead during oral arguments Monday, telling the justices that Walker\\'s restrictions penalize local public workers who exercise their constitutional right to freely associate with a union. Their organizations can\\'t collectively bargain for anything beyond base wage increases based on inflation or automatically withdraw dues from members\\' paychecks and must hold annual elections to see if their members want them to continue representing them, Pines said. The measures are designed to be so onerous that people simply quit their unions, he said.</p><p>\\\"This isn\\'t benign,\\\" Pines said. \\\"These provisions are designed to make it impossible for people to exercise their associative rights.\\\"</p><p>Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, appeared in person to argue for the Walker administration. He said constitutionality isn\\'t an issue because collective bargaining is a benefit granted through state statutes. He maintained union members are still free to associate with one another and ask their employers for higher wages and other benefits. The restrictions simply mean they can\\'t force their employers to listen.</p><p>\\\"It is not a constitutional violation to limit the scope of collective bargaining,\\\" Van Hollen told the justices.</p><p>The case centers on a lawsuit a Madison teachers union and a Milwaukee public workers union filed in 2011 challenging the restrictions. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled last year the restrictions unfairly burden school district and municipal union members by infringing on their constitutional rights to free speech, association and equal protection.</p><p>Colas\\' ruling didn\\'t affect state workers but it was unclear how broadly it applied to local public unions. Insisting the ruling applied only to Madison teachers and Milwaukee public workers, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission continued to prepare for certification elections for hundreds of school district worker unions that had been set for this month.</p><p>Six unions not involved in the case asked Colas to find WERC in contempt of court. Colas granted the request in October, declaring his ruling meant no one could enforce the restrictions against any local public union. WERC stopped preparing for the elections pending the Supreme Court ruling.</p><p>State attorneys also tried to persuade the justices Monday to stay the contempt finding, arguing delaying the certification elections creates more uncertainty. Tamara Packard, another attorney for the Madison teachers, countered Colas properly issued the order; without it, she said, unions would have had to spend resources campaigning for unconstitutional elections.</p><p>The justices grilled both sides\\' attorneys for hours.</p><p>The conservative bloc appeared skeptical about the contempt order; Justice Michael Gableman mused WERC might have been prudent to continue election preparations given all the legal questions surrounding the restrictions and pointed out the state would have to spend resources setting up the elections as well so it\\'s unclear which side would suffer greater harm.</p><p>Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, one of the court\\'s two liberal-leaning justices, questioned whether granting the stay would mean unions that haven\\'t filed notice with WERC that want to hold elections in November would be immediately de-certified.</p><p>\\\"It looks as if WERC would say too bad, so sad, you\\'re out of luck,\\\" she said.</p><p>It\\'s unclear when the court might rule on merits of the case or the stay request. The justices face no deadline for issuing a decision.</p><p>A federal appeals court panel has upheld the restrictions, as did a federal judge in Madison in a separate challenge. Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson last month dismissed a Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association lawsuit challenging the restrictions.</p>"
214    },
215    {
216      "doc_id": "63",
217      "doc_html": "<h1>Gov. Fallin: ObamaCare website woes could hurt hundreds of high-risk patients in Oklahoma</h1>\\n<p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>Oklahoma Republican Gov. Mary Fallin told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Monday she is concerned about how the problems plaguing the ObamaCare website will impact hundreds of high-risk patients in her state, saying “something needs to be done.”</p><p>“We have over 850 Oklahomans that are in that risk pool that are at risk of losing their insurance and they’re the ones who need the health insurance coverage the worst because they’re the sickest,” Fallin said on “On the Record.”</p><p>Fallin said many of these patients may lose their insurance on Dec. 31 because they are unable to access the ObamaCare exchanges, and urged the Obama administration and Congress to come up with a solution before it is too late.</p><p>“It is the people who don’t need to be squeezed because they’re already ill and needing health care coverage right now and it’s just a very unfortunate circumstance.” Fallin said. “So, my hope is that Congress and the administration will do something about this. Time’s running out.”</p>"
218    },
219    {
220      "doc_id": "64",
221      "doc_html": "<h1>Republicans shift to chipping away at ObamaCare with vote this week on keeping health plans</h1><p>Published November 12, 2013</p><p>After failing to derail ObamaCare during the partial government shutdown, congressional Republicans have found new life in attacking President Obama’s signature health care law.</p><p>With Congress returning on Tuesday from the long holiday weekend, the battle shifts to a House Republican-backed bill that would allow Americans to keep their health plans.</p><p>The House Energy and Commerce Committee bill capitalizes on Obama’s apology last week for earlier mistakenly assuring the public that they could stay on their health insurance if they liked it.</p><p>A vote is scheduled for Friday and coincides with escalating attacks on the failed rollout last month of the ObamaCare website, which gave members in both chambers new lines of attack -- including the previously tricky strategy of trying to chip away at the law.</p><p>Although Democrats roundly opposed that approach during the shutdown stalemate, now some moderate Democrats have come around.</p><p>Republicans have attacked practically every aspect and person connected to the website failures -- from contractors who helped build the site to suggesting the site’s technical problems are just “the tip of the iceberg.”</p><p>The centerpiece of the attack has so far has been pressing Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius into testifying earlier this month before a House committee.</p><p>Energy committee Chairman Fred Upton now appears to have seized on the Obama apology asa way to garner Democratic support for chamber’s bill.</p><p>“Actions speak louder than words,” the Michigan Republican said. “If the president is serious about offering relief to Americans whose health plans are being canceled, then he should strongly support the Keep Your Health Plan Act. … The president ought to embrace the bipartisan call for legislative action.”</p><p>The Republican-controlled House has also proposed legislation to delay mandating that Americans get insurance, just as the president delayed the employer mandate, and to verify that low-income people getting federal subsidies to pay for the insurance indeed qualify for them.</p><p>Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Pitts, who earlier this year sponsored a failed attempt to rework ObamaCare, recently told The Hill that his colleagues “regret” that decision -- evidence Republicans are moving away from their do-or-die approach to the law.</p><p>Pitts told the newspaper that fellow House Republicans appear to be “shifting toward targeted fixes, if you want to call it that.”</p><p>Republicans strategists insist that harping on ObamaCare straight through the 2016 presidential election cycle is a winning strategy -- pointing to the recent Virginia governor’s race in which Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli lost but managed to close a double-digit lead by hammering away at the law in the closing weeks of the campaign.</p><p>Some Democrats are also trying also trying to change the law -- particularly senators seeking re-election next year in conservative-leaning states.</p><p>Among them are Mark Begich, of Alaska, Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, and Kay Hagan, of North Carolina, who are also facing conservative groups vowing to spend millions to show voters their early support for ObamaCare.</p><p>Landrieu,in fact, introduced a bill last week similar to the House one that would allow Americans to keep their existing health plans.</p><p>“When we passed the Affordable Care Act, we did so with the intention that if you liked your health plan, you could keep it,” she said. “A promise was made and this legislation will ensure that this promise is kept.  I have said repeatedly that the … act isn\\'t perfect, and I am willing to work with anyone who wants to improve it and implement it correctly.”</p>"
222    },
223    {
224      "doc_id": "65",
225      "doc_html": "<h1>Military members, veterans missing out on key ObamaCare provision</h1>\\n<p>Published November 11, 2013</p><p>One of the most touted benefits of President Obama’s health care overhaul law is the provision allows parents to keep their adult children on their health insurance until age 26.</p><p>However, Trace Gallagher reported on “The Kelly File” Monday, this benefit is not being extended to a significant group of Americans: members of the U.S. military.</p><p>TRICARE, the Department of Defense program that provides health coverage to active duty and retired military members and their families, only covers young adult dependents up until age 21 , or age 23 if they are enrolled full-time in college.</p><p>TRICARE recipients can then purchase a plan for their young adult dependents, according to their website.</p><p>Air Force veteran Eddie Grooms said he was disappointed to learn he could not add his 21-year-old daughter to his insurance provided by the military, as he thought he had been promised under the health care overhaul.</p><p>“It’d be nice if they leveled with everybody and let them know so that people could make plans, because this is going to hit all, I mean it’s going to hit thousands of retirees over time,” Grooms said.</p><p>Jessie Jane Duff of Concerned Veterans for America told Megyn Kelly the reason the benefit has not been extended to military members is the rates under TRICARE are very low because they are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.</p><p>She said “unfortunately” this means adult children cannot be covered, saying there has to be some “give and take” for the reduced rates.</p><p>“We’ve been very fortunate because legislation was passed that exempted TRICARE from a lot of the ObamaCare standings, so that actually has benefited veterans to keep the rates that they’ve had,” Duff said.</p>"
226    },
227    {
228      "doc_id": "66",
229      "doc_html": "<h1>Top official for ObamaCare exchanges calls withheld security concerns \\'disturbing\\'</h1>\\n<p>Published November 11, 2013</p><p>The top operational officer for the problem-plagued ObamaCare exchanges said in testimony before a House committee he found it “disturbing” that he was never made aware of significant security issues with the exchanges before they launched.</p><p>Henry Chao, the Deputy Chief Information Officer and Deputy Director of the Office of Information Services at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said in an interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee Nov. 1 that he was never given a Sept. 3, 2013 memo that detailed six security problems, including two designated as “open high findings.”</p><p>The committee released the interview Monday as part of its investigation into the problems with Healthcare.gov.</p><p>The committee said in a press release Chao expressed disbelief when he was first shown the memo, which was authored by CMS Chief Information Officer Tony Trenkle.</p><p>He told the committee he was surprised the CMS’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) allowed him to tell CMS Director Marilyn Tavvener in a Sept. 27 letter that the website was ready for launch without showing him the security memo.</p><p>“Well, why I\\'m surprised is that the CISO had me do this, file this process [September 27 memo to Tavenner] but don\\'t copy me on the...letter,” Chao said in the interview. “I mean, wouldn\\'t you be surprised if you were me?”</p><p>Chao told committee members he takes the security of the health care website very seriously, and is troubled by the revelation.</p><p>“It is disturbing,” Chao said. “I mean, I don\\'t deny that this is…”</p><p>Chao is scheduled to testify at a hearing before the House committee Wednesday.</p>"
230    },
231    {
232      "doc_id": "67",
233      "doc_html": "<h1>Krauthammer: ObamaCare \\'One deception after another\\'</h1><p>Published November 11, 2013</p><p>Charles Krauthammer accused President Obama of “one deception after another” over ObamaCare Monday on \\\"Special Report With Bret Baier.\\\"</p><p>Referring to President Obama’s interview with NBC News in which the president apologized to those losing their health care due to the Affordable Care Act, saying the law was not appropriately crafted, Krauthammer said, \\\"All you had to do to craft the law appropriately was to have a line that would say anybody who has insurance and likes it will keep it.\\\"</p><p>Instead, the syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor added, “The crafting was done precisely to throw people off insurance and the president said exactly the opposite. </p><p>\\\"This is one deception after another.\\\"</p>"
234    },
235    {
236      "doc_id": "68",
237      "doc_html": "<h1>President Obama speaks at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa.</h1>\\n<p>A sympathetic visitor to the far-left website DemocraticUnderground.com posted a direct plea to President Obama this weekend: “Mr. President, could you please avoid throwing the RWNJ’s [right-wing nut-jobs] any more red meat about government incompetence and being too big and inefficient?”</p><p>Prompting the backlash was a set of remarks the president made in his broad-ranging interview last Thursday with NBC News chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd. The most attention-grabbing aspect of the interview was Obama’s qualified apology to Americans who liked their health insurance plans but who, contrary to the president’s repeated pledges over the last three years, have not been able to keep them.</p><p>Less noticed was the president’s explanation to Todd about why the ObamaCare website, HealthCare.gov, has proved so unworkable in its first two months of operation. Obama cited the procurement rules the federal government is required to follow when contracting for services like those involved in the ObamaCare rollout.</p><p>“When we buy I.T. services generally, it is so bureaucratic and so cumbersome that a whole bunch of it doesn\\'t work or it ends up being way over cost. And yeah, in some ways, I should have anticipated that,” the president told Todd. “And I actually think that once we get this, this particular website fixed, there are going to be some lessons learned that we can apply to the federal government, generally.”</p><p>The irony is that modern American politics has no greater champion of the efficacy, and value, of the federal government. And never has the president been more vocal on the subject than in the wake of last month’s shutdown of the federal government, which he considered a crystalline opportunity to drive the point home.</p><p>“We hear all the time about how government is the problem,” Obama said in an October 17 East Room statement, after the shutdown ended. “I think the American people during this shutdown had a chance to get some idea of all the things, large and small, that government does that make a difference in people\\'s lives.”</p><p>Conservatives responded to the Todd interview with incredulity. “You don\\'t expect the president of the United States to say that ‘The problem is this bureaucracy that I\\'ve been building up all of these years?’” asked Arthur C. Brooks, a trained economist and head of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.</p><p>“I think that he is grasping at ways to explain in technical terms what was fundamentally an ideological problem, and a leadership problem. The truth of the matter is the government is trying to do something the government is ill-suited to do…And that his leadership was largely to blame at virtually every step of the way.”</p><p>Supporters of the president saw his critics drawing unsound inferences from the troubled rollout of ObamaCare, extrapolating from the website’s problems a much more serious malady for the Affordable Care Act.</p><p>“I think lots of conservatives and lots of Republicans who are opponents of ObamaCare,” said Fox News contributor Juan Williams, “would love to just say, ‘Well, look, they didn’t do [the website] well; that means that the IRS won\\'t be able to enforce it well. That means that the Department of Human Services won\\'t be able to monitor it well, that it\\'s all going to crash down.’ But again, I think that is at this point not based in logic so much as wishful thinking….No one would say that the Defense Department isn’t doing a good job – and they have big procurement problems.”</p><p>At a briefing for reporters last month, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked if the roll out of ObamaCare has not demonstrated the limited capabilities of Uncle Sam. “Doesn\\'t the private sector do this better than government does?” asked Peter Alexander of NBC News.</p><p>Carney emphasized that ObamaCare builds on, rather than seeks to supplant, the private sector. “The fact is,” said Carney with a chuckle, “we have experts from the private sector as well as from government and academia working on this problem, or the problems, with the website.”</p>"
238    },
239    {
240      "doc_id": "69",
241      "doc_html": "<h1>Is there any solution to ObamaCare chaos?</h1>\\n<p>The administration is desperately searching for a way to help thosewhose health insurance policies were cancelled due to the launch of ObamaCare. But how do you unravel the chaos created by four million cancellations at the same time you’re trying to sign up seven million uninsured?</p><p>\\\"Well, all of a sudden, the interest in delaying or putting off ObamaCare has become bipartisan,\\\" says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis. \\\"You have Democrats and Republicans - everybody knows we\\'re not ready to do this.\\\"</p><p>Lawmakers have suggested several options -- extend the enrollment period, delay the individual mandate for a year or delay the entire law for a year.</p><p>Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center says, \\\"take another year, everybody ... catch their breath, let them stay in the old plans and we can continue to fight about this in 2014.”</p><p>But Bob Rusboldt of The Independent Insurance Agents And Brokers Of America, adds an important condition.</p><p>\\\"If you delay the individual mandate, you must delay the mandated new coverages that begin on January 1, 2014. You can\\'t mandate all of these new benefits and not have those healthy young people come in the system to help pay for those benefits.\\\"</p><p>Bob Laszewski,President of Health Policy and Associates,adds, \\\"the ObamaCare program cannot sustain itself if we don\\'t get lots and lots of healthy people signing up. And if the administration just suspends the mandate,they\\'re guaranteeing that they\\'ve got a financial catastrophe.\\\"</p><p>That’s because the program needs healthy people to pay more to cover the costs of those who are older and sicker.</p><p>The main focus of fixes would be to help those the president acknowledges were hurt when their current policies were cancelled, now more than four million and growing.</p><p>But undoing the damage that\\'s been done will be difficult for insurance companies, Laszewski says.</p><p>\\\"They have put all the cancellations through and eliminated those policies the way they were required to do by law. You can’t just hit the reset button here. It will take many months for the insurance industry to be able to reinstate those policies.\\\"</p><p>He says it would take about six months to reinstate policies that fall under the authority of the state insurance commissioners, not the federal government.</p><p>One official floated an even grander idea -- give higher subsidies to reduce the sticker shock many have experienced. But, like other options, that would have to go to Congress.</p><p>Even if subsidies were raised, the problem now is that the website isn\\'t working well enough for people to find out what they might be.</p><p>And, of course, the president would have to go back on yet another pledge-- that ObamaCare would not raise the deficit by a penny.</p><p>Given all the confusion, one stalwart supporter of the law, Ron Pollock of Families USA, limited his advice to one point.</p><p>\\\"The most important thing for the president to do,” he said, “is to make sure that the website works so that people can actually go online and find other plans that are going to be helpful.\\\"</p>"
242    },
243    {
244      "doc_id": "70",
245      "doc_html": "<h1>Plane crash kills son of Oklahoma Sen. Inhofe</h1><p>Published November 11, 2013</p><p>Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe’s son, Perry Inhofe, a Tulsa orthopedic surgeon, died Sunday in a plane crash, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel confirmed late Monday.</p><p>\\\"I was deeply saddened to learn that Senator Jim Inhofe\\'s son Perry was killed in a plane crash this weekend,\\\" Hagel said  \\\"My thoughts and prayers are with Jim and Kay and their family as they mourn this terrible loss.\\\"</p><p>The younger Inhofe, 52, reportedly crashed near Owasso, Okla., a northern suburb of Tulsa.</p><p>The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said it was waiting for the medical examiner to identify the crash victim. Neither Senator Inhofe nor his office have released any statement about the crash.</p><p>The Tulsa International Airport said the pilot of the twin-engine plane issued an alert at 3:45 p.m. Sunday asking for immediate assistance, then crashed five miles north of the airport in a wooded area.</p><p>Inhofe’s plane had left Salina, Kansas and was making the 43-minute flight to Tulsa when the accident occurred, according to FlightAware.com.</p><p>Justin Allison of Tulsa, who was flying a plane minutes behind the one that crashed,  told Tulsa World he heard air traffic controllers report that a plane in front of him had experienced engine failure.</p><p>“I couldn’t hear the pilot, but I heard the tower declare an emergency for him,” Allison said. “Which is a red-flag raiser, because usually the pilot will declare the emergency. It makes you wonder what was going on in that cabin.”</p><p>Jake Bray told the Tulsa World newspaper that he saw the crash from about 400 yards away, saying one propeller appeared to be out before \\\"it started spiraling out of control and it hit the ground.\\\"</p><p>According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Perry Inhofe was a licensed pilot and flight instructor.</p><p>His father, a Republican senator, is also an avid pilot with more than 11,000 flight hours. Inhofe is a U.S. Army veteran and is the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.</p><p>Perry Inhofe was one of four children of Oklahoma\\'s senior U.S. senator. He earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1984 and graduated from medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, according to the clinic\\'s website. Telephone messages left Monday at Inhofe\\'s clinic weren\\'t immediately returned.</p><p>The married father lived in Tulsa.</p><p>In an interview earlier this year with General Aviation News, Sen. Inhofe said he taught his son Perry to fly in the family\\'s 1954 Grumman Tiger and that the tradition was passed on to Perry Inhofe\\'s 16-year-old son, Cole, who made his first landing in September at an air show in Wisconsin.</p><p>A tail number provided by the National Transportation and Safety Board shows that the plane Perry Inhofe was flying Sunday was a 1974 Mitsubishi MU-2B-25, a fixed-wing, multi-engine aircraft. The same model has come under increased scrutiny in recent years from the FAA after statistics showed a rising rate of accidents involving the plane. As a result, the agency developed a new comprehensive standardized pilot training program for the aircraft in 2008.</p><p>Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said in a statement Monday night that he extends \\\"sincere condolences\\\" to Sen. Inhofe, his wife and the rest of the family.</p><p>\\\"There is no greater heartbreak for a parent than the loss of a child,\\\" he said.</p>"
246    },
247    {
248      "doc_id": "71",
249      "doc_html": "<h1>\\'I still have a fighting chance’: Wounded warriors share stories of survival, recovery</h1><p>Sgt. First Class Michael Schlitz lost both his hands and suffered burns over 85 percent of his body after his unit was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2007. </p><p>His life didn\\'t flash before his eyes that day, he said, but \\\"I was coming to terms with the fact that this was where I was going to die.\\\" </p><p>Schlitz survived. And after an anguishing series of surgeries, Schlitz is today a motivational speaker for other wounded warriors. </p><p>On this Veterans Day, Schlitz\\' account is just one of many inspiring stories that wounded veterans have to tell. Three warriors who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan told their stories in detail last week during the Wounded Warrior Experience , an annual panel discussion held at the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., and hosted by American\\'s Veterans Center and the Military Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation. </p><p>Schlitz, who spoke at the event, described how he was thrown from his humvee after the propane-filled explosive device ripped through its floor, setting everything on fire. Schlitz was left face down on the side of the road, on fire. </p><p>\\\"Before I knew it I felt that fire extinguisher coming over my body. Two things came over me at that precise moment. One, the physical relief, an absolute cooling sensation, putting away that heat and the emotional aspect of \\'hey I\\'m being saved, maybe [I] won\\'t die here. I still have a fighting chance\\'.\\\" </p><p>His progression to becoming a motivational speaker for other wounded warriors is just one of the inspiring feats these men have accomplished. </p><p>\\\"The first four months, the first 30 surgeries, I really don\\'t have any recollection of it,\\\" Schlitz said. \\\"Coming out of it, they took skin from the bottom of the feet, they took it from every area they could give it and slowly piecemealed it together.\\\" </p><p>Schlitz said that he lost nearly a third of his body weight while he was in the hospital. Much of that weight, he said, was burned away in the attack. </p><p>After being released from the hospital, Schlitz said the idea of suicide overwhelmed him and that he\\'d thought of a million ways to kill himself. But there were two major turning points for Schlitz. </p><p>First, he said, was getting his prosthetic arms and gaining back independence. \\\"I kept pushing through the rehab and one day I finally got that first prosthetic and that night I got to go home and feed myself. Just that little bit of independence, that little bit of freedom was enough to say, \\'Okay, I have a fighting chance again.\\'\\\"  </p><p>Schlitz said it was also very therapeutic to travel back to the site of the attack on three separate occasions, eventually serving as a military mentor for wounded soldiers in theater. </p><p>But for many returning vets, the pain and suffering is mostly psychological -- namely post-traumatic stress that leads to thoughts of suicide. </p><p>Marine Staff Sgt Jeremiah Workman suffered from severe PTS after serving in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. He received the Navy Cross for his valor -- after he ran repeatedly into the line of enemy fire to save Marines trapped by insurgents. </p><p>\\\"I would drink a case of beer at night to go to sleep,\\\" Workman said. \\\"I was on no medication, seen no doctors. I just thought maybe this is normal.\\\" </p><p>He said Marines are trained to bury the pain \\\"and suck it up and carry on with mission.\\\" But Workman had continuous nightmares about the three Marines he lost in the firefight. His drinking became so bad he lost his dream job as a drill instructor. And after an attempted suicide, his father-in-law finally confronted him. Workman said when he went to pick up his father-in-law at the airport he couldn\\'t fit his suitcase in the trunk because it was filled with empty beer and liquor bottles. That\\'s when they had a talk that helped Workman get back onto his feet. </p><p>Ironically, one of Workman\\'s setbacks came when he was informed, two years after the incident, that he had been selected to receive the Navy Cross, the military\\'s second highest award for valor. </p><p>\\\"Tears came down my face,\\\" Workman said.  \\\"I thought to myself, \\'I don\\'t need this.  I don\\'t want this.\\' I didn\\'t know what to do.\\\" </p><p>For a while, Workman refused to even wear the medal. He said it brought him back to a place he didn\\'t want to remember. It wasn\\'t until his senior Marine leaders told him he needed to wear the medal, telling him is was a license to tell the story of his fallen comrades. \\\"So, that\\'s what I did,\\\" Workman said. </p><p>Staff Sgt. Erick Milllette, a U.S. Army combat patrol leader in Iraq, also suffers mental wounds. He survived nine direct hits by improvised explosive devices and is now an advocate for veterans overcoming PTS and traumatic brain injury. </p><p>After the eighth hit on his convoy during his time in Iraq, he asked for help. He was essentially told to toughen up and get back in the humvee. After the ninth explosion, and seeing more friends die, things changed in a bad way.   </p><p>\\\"On October second 2006 that ninth direct came,\\\" Millette said. \\\"It shattered my world and I started to build a prison inside my mind right there on the side of the road in Iraq.\\\" Millette said he couldn\\'t eat or sleep and would cry for no reason. He became angry and turned to alcohol.  \\\"I self-medicated. I\\'d get up in the morning and drink a case of beer and a half bottle of liquor, then nap and try to do it all over again.\\\" </p><p>Millette decided something had to change after he passed out from drinking with a loaded gun in his hand. \\\"It\\'s the only day I\\'ll ever say I am happy I abused alcohol. Because I wasn\\'t able to take my own life.\\\" </p><p>Millette said after seeking help he was given an equally depressing cocktail of prescription pills.  \\\"It was the same thing, just in a controlled environment,\\\" Millette said. Millette credits the nonprofit Wounded Warrior Project for saving his life. He said that during one of their sponsored retreats, a counselor helped him turn a corner.   </p><p>\\\"Since last November, I haven\\'t thought about suicide, and self medication is a thing of the past,\\\" Millette said. \\\"It\\'s gone.\\\" </p>"
250    },
251    {
252      "doc_id": "72",
253      "doc_html": "<h1>Annapolis Council talks of stripping mayor\\'s power after Republican elected</h1><p>Published November 11, 2013</p><p>Days after a Republican was elected mayor of Annapolis, City Council members say they will revisit legislation that would strip the mayor\\'s office of much of its power.</p><p>Democratic Alderman Ross Arnett of Ward 8 tells The Capital he will introduce a charter amendment to move Annapolis to a council-manager style of government. The city manager would report directly to the City Council, not the mayor.</p><p>Under Arnett\\'s legislation, the mayor\\'s post would be largely ceremonial. The mayor would retain a single vote on the council. Arnett says the change would stabilize the city\\'s management.</p><p>If the measure is approved, it would mean the Democratic-dominated council would be removing the powers of the first Republican mayor elected since 1997.</p><p>Last week, Republican Mike Pantelides defeated Democratic incumbent Josh Cohen</p>"
254    },
255    {
256      "doc_id": "73",
257      "doc_html": "<h1>It\\'s all in the (political) family for famous kids on midterm ballot</h1><p>By Jessica Taylor</p><p>A Bush, a Cheney, and a Carter will all be on the ballot next year, but this is no \\'80s flashback or stroll down memory lane.</p><p>In the 2014 midterm races, the children and grandchildren of former presidents and a vice president are all trying to make their own political names.</p><p>The latest addition to a growing list is Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, who announced Thursday he’s running for governor of Georgia. The Democratic state senator will try to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal.</p><p>Meanwhile, Liz Cheney -- the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney -- is challenging incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wy., in the Cowboy State’s GOP primary.</p><p>And while it’s not a federal race, George P. Bush -- the grandson of one president (George H.W. Bush), the nephew of another (George W. Bush), and the son of a former governor (Jeb Bush) -- is running for land commissioner in Texas.</p><p>They’re not the only ones whose surnames could help them in tough political campaigns. Three of the most vulnerable Democratic senators running for re-election next year -- Mark Begich in Alaska, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana and Mark Pryor in Arkansas -- all hail from famous political families in their states.</p><p>In West Virginia, moreover, Republicans are hoping for a similar advantage with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito -- the daughter of former Gov. Arch Moore -- as their likely nominee in the Senate race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller.</p><p>Then there’s Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who is making her first foray into politics after a working with several volunteer organizations. Like Carter, she has an uphill fight in the conservative Peach State, but with Republicans facing a divisive primary, Democrats smell an opening, especially if they can pull in some “Nunn Democrats.”</p><p>Across the border in Florida, Democrats are looking to another senatorial daughter in a competitive House seat. Gwen Graham -- daughter of Bob Graham, the former governor and senator -- is hoping to unseat GOP Rep. Steve Southerland in the Tallahassee district.</p><p>From Carter to Nunn to Graham, could it be a renaissance in the South for Democrats as they try to lean on some old names and save the current ones?</p><p>Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who has worked on several Southern races and counts Graham and Carter among clients this cycle, cautions that candidates can’t run on their names alone.</p><p>But for a party that’s taken it on the chin in the region they once dominated, a familiar name certainly does carry extra weight, Anzalone adds.</p><p>“It sends a signal, especially in the South, that people remember, and know if you’re in Louisiana what a \\'Landrieu Democrat\\' is. If you’re in Georgia and you say ’ a Carter Democrat,’ that differentiates you from a national Democrat or what’s going on in D.C.,” he said. “People understand if you’re a \\'Nunn Democrat,\\' you’re a pragmatist, you’re a moderate.”</p><p>Yet Republicans argue that the names won’t be enough in this current political climate.</p><p>“They can’t resuscitate the Democratic party of the 1970s -- no matter how many Democrats they trot out,” said GOP strategist Brad Todd. “Everybody loves a family reunion and a green bean casserole, but it’s only one day and it doesn’t last forever.”</p>"
258    },
259    {
260      "doc_id": "74",
261      "doc_html": "<h1>\\'What I\\'m trying to do is do my job\\': Ted Cruz makes late-night debut</h1><p>By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer</p><p>Sen. Ted Cruz made his first late-night TV appearance on Friday, discussing his growing national profile and reiterating his disapproval of the Obama administration\\'s Affordable Care Act. </p><p>No sooner had Cruz, 42, sat down on the couch on NBC\\'s \\\"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno\\\" than the host confronted the Tea Party favorite from Texas about his portrayal in the media as a controversial and polarizing figure.</p><p>\\\"I\\'ve been reading a lot about you lately, and they describe you as aggressive, arrogant and abrasive. Accurate?\\\" Leno asked. </p><p>Calm and poised, Cruz replied: \\\"I don’t know that you can believe everything you read. You know, what I’m trying to do is do my job. And occasionally people don’t like that.\\\"</p><p>Advertise | AdChoices</p><p>The senator, clad in a suit with no tie and sporting black leather cowboy boots for his late-night debut, said he felt \\\"incredibly privileged\\\" to be representing the 26 million people in his state, even as the country is facing \\\"huge challenges.\\\" </p><p>\\\"I think Americans are deeply frustrated that Washington is broken,\\\" Cruz said, adding that he believes the biggest divide is not between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, but between entrenched politicians in Washington and the American people.</p><p>\\\"What we’re doing right now isn\\'t working,\\\" he said, adding that the Obama administration\\'s big government policies are not creating jobs or economic growth.</p><p>\\\"Obamacare is killing jobs,\\\" Cruz said, referring to President Barack Obama\\'s signature health care law. It was the junior Texas senator\\'s 21-hour anti-Obamacare filibuster in late September and his many confrontations on the Hill with members of both parties that put him in the spotlight.</p><p>When asked by Leno why Texas, a state where 25 percent of people don’t have health care, would reject Obamacare, Cruz hit some familiar points.</p><p>\\\"It\\'s taking away a lot of people\\'s health insurance and, number two, because it\\'s killing jobs,\\\" said Cruz, one of the leaders of the Defund Obamacare movement in Congress.</p><p>When pressed on the issue of gay marriage, Cruz said it should be a matter deferred to each state.</p><p>\\\"I support marriage between one man and one woman,\\\" he said. \\\"But I also think it’s a question for the states. Some states have made decisions one way on gay marriage. Some states have made decisions the other way. And that’s the great thing about our Constitution, is different states can make different decisions depending on the values of their citizens.\\\"</p><p>Asked about recent anti-gay marriage comments in the news made by his father, Pastor Rafael Cruz, the senator said critics are better off attacking him, and not his dad.</p><p>\\\"Some folks have decided to try to go after him because they want to take some shots at me,\\\" Cruz said. \\\"But I think the critics are better off attacking me.\\\"</p><p>Cruz\\'s father immigrated from Cuba more than 50 years ago.</p><p>The senator added: \\\"My dad has been my hero my whole life.\\\" </p><p></p>"
262    },
263    {
264      "doc_id": "75",
265      "doc_html": "<h1>Obama pivots to economy, but health care woes persist</h1>\\n<p>Larry Downing</p><p>U.S. President Barack Obama talks about the importance of growing the U.S. economy while at the Port of New Orleans in Louisiana, November 8, 2013.</p><p>By Carrie Dann</p><p>Even as President Barack Obama tried to shift attention toward positive economic news, the woes of his health care rollout remained as he vowed to  “fix” implementation problems.</p><p>Speaking in New Orleans, President Obama tells the audience that no one\\'s been more frustrated than he is at the healthcare sign up website\\'s flawed performance.</p><p>A day after the president told NBC’s Chuck Todd in an exclusive interview that he is \\\"sorry\\\" some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Obama promised fixes to the system, specifically the program’s glitchy online portal.</p><p>\\\"I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don\\'t write code,\\\" he said of Healthcare.gov.</p><p>“We\\'re going to fix the website, because the insurance plans are there, they are good, and millions of Americans are already finding that they\\'ll gain better coverage for less cost and it\\'s the right thing to do,” he said from the Port of New Orleans.</p><p>“I know health care\\'s controversial, so, you know, there\\'s only going to be so much support we get on that on a bipartisan basis -- until it\\'s working really well, and then they\\'re going to stop calling it ‘Obamacare,’\\\" he joked.</p><p>In the NBC interview from the White House he said, “I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.\\\"</p><p>Also on Thursday, Obama continued to defend Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius, who faced a second tough grilling on Capitol Hill this week.</p><p>“Ultimately, the buck stops with me. You know, I\\'m the president. This is my team,” he said. “If it\\'s not working, it\\'s my job to get it fixed.”</p><p>Long-sought numbers indicating how many Americans have signed up for health insurance under the new law so far are expected to be released next week. Sebelius has predicted that those early enrollment will be “very low.”</p><p>The president was seeking to put the emphasis on the economy on a day when new data showed that employment surged by a net 204,000 jobs in October even as the unemployment rate rose to 7.3 percent. Those numbers exceeded analysts’ predictions of job creation after the lengthy government shutdown brought on by partisan disagreement over the health care law.</p><p>During an interview with Chuck Todd, the president talks about the health care failures and promises a fix is on the way.</p><p>“The unemployment rate still ticked up and we don\\'t yet know all the data for this -- this final quarter of the year, but it could be down because off what happened in Washington, “ he said. “Now that -- that makes no sense. These self-inflicted wounds don\\'t have to happen. They should not happen again. We should not be injuring ourselves every few months.”</p><p>Obama said there’s “no question” that the federal government shutdown hurt the nation’s job market.</p><p>He also called for more spending on big infrastructure projects, declaring, \\\"We should be building, not tearing things down.\\\"</p><p>“Rather than refighting the same old battles again and again and again, we should be fighting to make sure everybody who works hard in America, and hard right here in New Orleans, that they have a chance to get ahead. That\\'s what we should be focused on.”</p>"
266    },
267    {
268      "doc_id": "76",
269      "doc_html": "<h1>Senate approves gay rights legislation; bill faces bleak future in House</h1><p>By Carrie Dann and Kasie Hunt</p><p>The Senate approved historic legislation Thursday to expand workplace protections for gay, lesbian and transgender Americans. But the bill faces a bleak future in the GOP-led House.</p><p>The final vote was 64-32. Ten Republicans voted with all Democrats in favor of passage. </p><p>The Senate’s approval of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) comes after a failed attempt in 1996, when the bill -- championed by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts -- failed by a single vote.</p><p>Despite the bipartisan vote in the upper chamber, the legislation appears unlikely to get a vote in the House. Republican House Speaker John Boehner opposes the bill, saying through a spokesman this week that it would “increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs.”</p><p>A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said there are no plans for the House to take up the legislation.</p><p>\\\"The bill is currently not scheduled in the House,\\\" said spokesman Rory Cooper. \\\"I hope Majority Leader Reid soon addresses the dozens of House-passed bills that have been ignored in the Senate that create jobs, improve education and create opportunity while Americans struggle to find a good-paying job.\\\"</p><p>Senators Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin call on Speaker John Boehner to bring the Employment Non-Discrimination Act up for a vote at a news conference Thursday.</p><p>In a statement, President Barack Obama praised the Senate\\'s action, calling it a step towards \\\"realizing the rights and freedoms that are our birthright as Americans.\\\"</p><p>Before the final vote, Democratic supporters likened the bill to the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act and called on Boehner to bring it to a vote.</p><p>Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters that the GOP will be “sending their party straight to oblivion” if they refuse to bring the legislation up for a vote in the House.</p><p>Alluding to past political figures that stood in the way of discrimination-ending laws, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois warned Boehner to “think about their place in history today.”</p><p>Obama issued a similar criticism of the House, saying \\\"One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do.  Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it.\\\"</p><p>The Senate bill attracted some additional GOP support after Reid allowed amendments to further ensure that religious organizations -- along with the United States military -- would be exempted.</p><p>One amendment from Republican Rob Portman, R-Ohio, was adopted Wednesday by voice vote. That measure would prevent federal, state and local governments from retaliation against groups exempted from the new law.  </p><p>An amendment authored by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., which would have exempted groups that don’t primarily engage in religious work but have an affiliation with a particular faith, failed. </p>"
270    },
271    {
272      "doc_id": "77",
273      "doc_html": "<h1>\\'Stress tests\\' show Healthcare.gov was overloaded</h1><p>Although more than 3 million Americans who buy their own health insurance have received cancellations letters, Kathleen Sebelius rejected bipartisan calls to postpone part of the healthcare law. Peter Alexander reports.</p><p>By Frank Thorp</p><p>Internal documents obtained exclusively by NBC News reveal that \\\"stress tests\\\" done to a key component of Healthcare.gov the day before the website went live showed it could only handle 1100 users at once before it became overloaded.</p><p>\\\"Currently we are able to reach 1100 users before response time gets too high,\\\" the report says of a test done on Sept. 30. It added that website developer CGI Federal was \\\"making changes to configuration.\\\"</p><p>The internal documents, released by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, are titled the “ACA Daily Testing Bulletin,” and show a list of tests done by the contractor QSSI in the days surrounding the site’s roll-out.</p><p>Read the report here (.pdf)</p><p>QSSI has since been tasked by the Obama administration to lead the repairs needed on the website.</p><p>Also revealed in the documents is a “target” by contractors for the website to be able to handle “up to 10,000 concurrent users” in the first days after the launch. </p><p>That goal  was much lower than benchmarks expressed by the Obama administration, who said in a report in USA Today that they expected to have 50,000 to 60,000 concurrent users in the site’s first days.</p><p>The documents reiterate well-documented problems with the website that occurred after its initial rollout on Oct. 1.</p><p>Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for HHS, responded by saying “As we have said many times, there’s no question we wish we had done more testing,” and said that HHS is “now working around the clock to improve the consumer experience on HealthCare.gov.”</p><p>“One of the items we have ticked off our punch list is response times for page loads, which we have reduced dramatically from eight seconds to less than one second,” Peters said, “Moving forward, the team is focused on diagnosing and fixing every tech issue as it is identified.”</p><p>The White House has blamed the initial issues with Healthcare.gov on higher than expected traffic, and contractors have pointed towards late changes to the website’s workflow for the high number of users on Day One.</p><p>\\\"It appears that one of the reasons for the high concurrent volume at the registration system was a late decision requiring consumers to register for an account before they could browse for insurance products,\\\" QSSI’s Andrew Slavitt told a House Committee on Oct. 24.</p><p>Issues with the website continue to result in questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.</p><p>Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked Wednesday at a Senate hearing if a temporary shutdown of the site would be beneficial. Sebelius, who said they had identified “a couple of hundred functional fixes” that needed to be addressed, said a temporary shutdown wasn\\'t the answer.</p><p>“Given the fact that the various fixes, particularly the functionality fixes, the codes, have to be written in batches, it\\'s been advised that you don\\'t gain much from just taking the whole system down for a week, a couple of weeks,” Sebelius told the Senate Finance Committee, “It\\'s better to do this on an ongoing basis.”</p><p>Sebelius told the Committee that the Obama Administration would be releasing preliminary enrollment numbers next week, but warned that the numbers are  “going to be very low.”</p><p>Also Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is managing the rollout of Healthcare.gov, announced that a top official in charge of overseeing the website’s launch is stepping down. </p><p>Tony Trenkle, the Director of the Office of Information Services, will leave CMS for the private sector, an official for CMS confirmed to reporters today.  The official would not say whether Trenkle’s departure is related to the rollout of Healthcare.gov, but did say the decision to leave was his own.</p>"
274    },
275    {
276      "doc_id": "78",
277      "doc_html": "<h1>Christie: Presidential frenzy \\'flattering,\\'  but I\\'m good with governor for now</h1>\\n<p>Rich Schultz</p><p>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie visits with students at Jose Marti Freshman Academy in Union City, N.J. Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013.</p><p>By Carrie Dann and Michael O\\'Brien</p><p>Chris Christie said Wednesday that he’s ignoring – for now – the fevered speculation about his presidential ambitions following a decisive re-election victory as a Republican in deep-blue New Jersey. But his words and actions suggested otherwise.</p><p>“It’s complimentary. It’s flattering and I have no problem with it,” Christie said at a press conference at a school on Wednesday. “But I want to be really clear about this: I have a job to do. I got re-elected to do a job last night, and that’s the job I’m going to do.”</p><p>Christie practically drank in the chatter about his White House chances, and used the event in a minority-heavy, Democratic corner of New Jersey to begin sketching out why he should be president.</p><p>In an exit poll, New Jersey voters favored Hillary Clinton over Chris Christie for president, one indication of the hurdles Christie may face if seeking broader national appeal. NBC\\'s Kelly O\\'Donnell reports.</p><p>In making his case, the governor said he had no plans to back off of the pugnacious style that helped fuel voters’ enthusiasm with him. But it’s a tactic that could wear thin in a presidential election.</p><p>“Fundamentally, I am not going to be changing who I am,” he said.  “The verdict from last night, at least in New Jersey, is that people like who I am and like how I govern.”</p><p>Christie spent much of his press conference reassuring members of the press that he could balance (and ignore) presidential speculation with his day-to-day responsibilities as governor. But the presidency seemed at the forefront of the Republican’s mind less than a day after he cruised to a 22-point victory over Democrat Barbara Buono.</p><p>Christie said that winning half of his state’s Hispanic vote (standing into contrast to Republicans’ dwindling numbers with Latinos in national elections) was one of his most gratifying accomplishments on Tuesday. He lashed out at Washington: “They ask for these big jobs then they go down there and hold their breath and don\\'t do their work.”</p><p>And Christie practically said that he already felt qualified to become president, even before he’s sworn into his second term as governor. “I think every day that you do a job like this one makes you a better executive,” he said. “You would think that would make me better-prepared to be president.”</p><p>Chris Christie\\'s crossover appeal was evident in his Tuesday victory. Charlie Cook discusses whether his charms will win over a national electorate in 2016.</p><p>If nothing else, Christie seemed extremely confident in his political skills and what they mean going forward. Whether his trademark New Jersey swagger would wear thin outside the Garden State is an open proposition.</p><p>Democrats likened Christie to a “late-night talk show host” in a conference call held in response to yesterday’s elections across the country.</p><p>“He won, I think, based on the force of his personality,” said Democratic National Committee communications director Mo Eilleithee. “I don\\'t think that\\'s transferrable to the party or other candidates, nor do I think that it\\'s sustainable.”</p><p>“Democrats aren’t alone in the stylistic criticism. “The secret sauce is that he’s like everybody’s next door neighbor,” influential South Carolina Republican Katon Dawson told NBC News last week. “Will they like him in South Carolina? The jury’s out on that.”</p><p> Christie’s free-wheeling persona was on display during his press conference, as he rolled his eyes at some reporters’ questions, and parried questions about his feelings toward same-sex marriage by explaining that he doesn’t get “weepy” at reading the wedding announcements of gay and lesbian couples in the Sunday New York Times.</p><p>The governor made clear, though, that he’s not about to go changing his trademark style should he wage a bid for the presidency.</p><p>“I\\'m not here to put on a show,” he added a bit later. “I\\'m here to win.”</p><p>The results in New Jersey and Virginia may shed light on the presidential race in 2016.</p><p> </p><p></p>"
278    },
279    {
280      "doc_id": "80",
281      "doc_html": "<h1>New York, Boston elects new mayors, and 9 other important elections around the country</h1><p>Steven Senne</p><p>Supporters in Boston celebrate returns that elected state Rep. Marty Walsh as the next mayor Tuesday night.</p><p>By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer</p><p>Governor\\'s races in Virginia and New Jersey highlighted Tuesday\\'s off-year elections, but voters across the U.S. decided several other contests that could have national implications.</p><p>For the first time in 20 years, Boston\\'s mayor won\\'t be Tom Menino, who chose not to run for a sixth term. State Rep. Marty Walsh, 46, edged City Council member John Connolly, 40, a fellow Democrat, after endorsements from numerous labor and minority activist groups helped him surge from almost 10 points down in the last month. Walsh took 52 percent of the vote .</p><p>In other races: </p><p>Mayors</p><p>Detroit: Mike Duggan, 54, the former head of the Detroit Medical Center, defeated Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, 58, with 55 percent of the vote to become Detroit\\'s first white mayor in four decades. He won\\'t have much authority : Detroit has declared bankruptcy and is run by a state-appointed emergency manager.</p><p>New York: Democratic Public Advocate Bill de Blasio , 52, soundly defeated Republican Joe Lhota, 59, who resigned as head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority to run for mayor. De Blasio, who will be the city\\'s first Democratic mayor since 1993, emerged from a crowded Democratic primary field after City Council President Christine Quinn and former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner fell by the wayside. He trounced Lhota by a margin of roughly 49 percentage points.</p><p>Other elections</p><p>Virginia: The state attorney general\\'s race was set for a recount early Wednesday as Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain, 51, was locked in a virtual dead heat with Democratic state Sen. Mark Herring, 52. The two fought a tight contest, with Democrats and outside groups pouring money into the race in an attempt to tie Obenshain to the floundering gubernatorial campaign of Republican Tea Party favorite Ken Cuccinelli. Obenshain and Herring were deadlocked at 50 percent each of more than 2.1 million cast Tuesday.</p><p>Alabama: The Republican runoff for a Dec. 7 special election in the 1st Congressional District was a proxy battle for the turmoil in the national party. Former state Sen. Bradley Byrne, 58, who defected from the Democratic Party in 1997 and had the backing of establishment Republicans and business groups, beat Dean Young, 49 — a Tea Party conservative who falsely said in an interview last week that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya — with 52 percent.</p><p>Ballot initiatives</p><p>Colorado: Voters passed a 25 percent tax on recreational marijuana beginning Jan. 1, when retailers being selling pot legally in the state, which was one of the first two (with Washington) to legalize it. Almost two-thirds of voters backed the measure.</p><p>11 rural counties in the northeastern corner of the state served a divided vote on a ballot initiative to start the process of seceding from Colorado to try to form a 51st state: North Colorado. Six counties voted against the idea, while five counties backed it. The secessionist movement was widely seen as more of a general protest than a viable option, because secession would also have to be approved at the state level and then by Congress.</p><p>New York: Voters approved a constitutional amendment that makes New York the largest state to allow Vegas-style casinos on non-Indian lands. Seven gaming palaces will be built around the state, including eventually in New York City.</p><p>Texas: Harris County voters defeated a referendum measure to turn the \\\"Eighth Wonder of the World\\\" — the now-crumbling Houston Astrodome — into a convention center, according to The Associated Press. The nation\\'s first domed stadium, which gave its name to AstroTurf, will likely be razed.</p><p>Washington: Major national grocery chains went all out to defeat a statewide initiative that would make Washington the first state to require labels for foods containing genetically modified ingredients. (Connecticut has already passed such a law, but it wouldn\\'t go into effect until other states pass similar measures.) The measure was trailing with 47 percent support in the first released results Tuesday night after opponents outspent backers by almost 3-to-1, arguing that the requirement would send food prices through the roof.</p><p>And in the city of SeaTac, south of Seattle, residents were backing a measure to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour — more than twice that national level — for many workers in and around Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In early returns, the higher wage had 54 percent support.</p>"
282    },
283    {
284      "doc_id": "82",
285      "doc_html": "<h1>A tale of two parties: Christie offers GOP roadmap to resurgence in 2016</h1><p>Kena Betancur / Getty Images</p><p>Chris Christie speaks at his election night event after winning a second term at the Asbury Park Convention Hall on Nov. 5, 2013.</p><p>By Michael O\\'Brien, Political Reporter</p><p>Gov. Chris Christie’s big re-election victory in New Jersey on Tuesday offered the GOP a roadmap toward revitalization in 2016 as the more uncompromising conservative, Ken Cuccinelli, suffered a narrow defeat in Virginia’s gubernatorial election .</p><p>Christie cruised to victory with an impressive coalition of New Jersey voters demonstrating crossover outside of the GOP that very few Republicans have shown in recent national elections.</p><p>His success stands in contrast to the contest in Virginia, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe bested state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican whom half of Virginia voters said was too conservative after he spent years cozying up to the Tea Party and its unflinching conservatism.</p><p>Though Cuccinelli managed a closer-than-expected showing against McAuliffe, his long history of social conservatism contributed to a poor showing with women voters, particularly those who support abortion rights.  And last month’s government shutdown, a strategy backed by fellow conservatives in Congress, almost certainly doomed Cuccinelli in vote-rich Northern Virginia – an area heavily dependent on federal spending.</p><p>Republicans nonetheless cheered Christie’s victory as an example of how a GOP candidate can achieve broad success without having to compromise on principle. Christie won women voters by 13 points over token Democratic opponent Barbara Buono, according to exit poll data; Cuccinelli lost women voters to McAuliffe by eight points.</p><p>A year removed from the 2012 presidential election, in which Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s poor performance with Hispanic voters prompted GOP soul-searching and hopes for immigration reform, Christie won almost almost half of New Jersey’s Hispanic vote. The governor also won almost one-in-five black voters, and almost a third of New Jersey Democratic voters.</p><p>NBC\\'s Kate Snow offers a one-minute recap of the Nov. 5 elections, which include Detroit\\'s first white mayor in 40 years, the pot tax in Colorado, and a failed measure to save Houston\\'s astrodome.</p><p>Christie’s sweeping victory offers Republicans a playbook for future electoral fortune even as national demographics continue to work against the party. More tantalizingly, the governor can point to his healthy margin of victory and crossover appeal as he makes his case to fellow Republicans as to why he should be the party’s presidential nominee come 2016.</p><p>“The biggest thing I\\'ve learned over the last four years about leadership is that leadership is much less about talking than it is about listening,” Christie said late Tuesday in a victory speech that seemed as dedicated toward fellow Garden Staters as a national audience. “I know that if we can do this in Trenton, N.J., maybe the folks in Washington, D.C., should tune in their TVs right now to see how it\\'s done.”</p><p>The message for Republicans from Virginia was sure to be less certain.</p><p>At first glance, Cuccinelli’s loss seems to raise fresh questions about the brand of take-no-prisoners conservatism championed by the attorney general. Cuccinelli’s made a name for himself as a steadfast opponent of “Obamacare,” but had also fought for restrictions on abortion rights and same-sex marriage throughout his career.</p><p>Terry McAuliffe talks about the challenges he will face as the next governor of Virginia.</p><p>Cuccinelli’s loss was far tighter, though, than most pre-election polling had suggested. And his core conservative backers are almost certain to second-guess what could have been for Cuccinelli had Republicans put more effort behind his campaign. Cuccinelli also closed out his campaign by describing it as a de-facto referendum on health care reform, prompting Republicans to ponder whether the line of attack was more effective than they had thought.</p><p>\\\"Despite being outspent by an unprecedented $15 million, this race came down to the wire because of Obamacare,” Cuccinelli maintained in a relatively unapologetic concession speech.</p><p>Republican elders will in coming days seize on Tuesday’s results as a validation of their caution for the GOP to improve its outreach to women and minorities, while adopting less harsh tones and a less confrontational approach to many issues. The party establishment also scored a key victory in a Republican primary runoff for a House seat in Alabama, where Bradley Byrne fended off Tea Party challenger Dean Young in a hotly-contested race.</p><p>During his victory speech, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talks about the \\\"scared mission\\\" of not leaving any New Jersey citizen behind, and how angry citizens across the US can look to see how a government can work.</p><p>Heading forward, Tuesday’s contests fell just short of the decisive outcome that would have promised to finally tame the Tea Party demons with which Republicans have wrestled with for the past four years.</p><p>That question might not be settled until 2016, if and when Christie – armed with his comfortable re-election tonight – can make his case to Republicans nationwide that electability and compromise should outweigh the hard-lined tactics that have driven the GOP’s numbers to all-time lows in public opinion polls.</p><p>“I know that, tonight, a dispirited America – angry with their dysfunctional government in Washington –looks to New Jersey to say, ‘Is what I think’s happening really happening? Are people really coming together?” Christie said toward the end of this speech.</p><p>Christie added: “Let me give the answer to everyone who is watching tonight: Under this government, our first job is to get the job done, and as long as I’m governor, that job will always, always be finished.”</p>"
286    },
287    {
288      "doc_id": "83",
289      "doc_html": "<h1>Democrat McAuliffe narrowly wins Virginia governor\\'s race</h1><p>Alex Brandon / AP</p><p>Supporters cheer as they watch the results on television at the election night party for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013, in Tysons Corner, Va.</p><p>By Carrie Dann and Andrew Rafferty</p><p>Democratic businessman Terry McAuliffe defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli to become Virginia\\'s next governor after a contentious race that was closer than many political watchers anticipated.</p><p>With nearly all the votes tallied late Tuesday, McAuliffe edged out Cuccinelli by about two percentage points, with libertarian Robert Sarvis receiving around seven percent of the vote as a third-party candidate.</p><p>Terry McAuliffe talks about the challenges he will face as the next governor of Virginia.</p><p>\\\"The truth is that this election was never a choice between Democrats and Republicans, it was a choice about whether Virginia would continue the mainstream bipartisan tradition that has served us so well over the last decade,\\\" he said.</p><p>Exit polls showed McAuliffe\\'s support among women and in the Democrat-leaning northern part of the state was enough to top the state\\'s attorney general in a race that had Cuccinelli fighting back against a litany of ads painting him as \\\"too extreme\\\" for the state\\'s moderate voters. However, voters cited the economy and health care as the issues most important to them, and Cuccinelli beat his Democratic rival in both categories, helping to keep the contest tight throughout Tuesday evening.</p><p>McAuliffe\\'s victory will have broad political implications for both parties. Republicans now face questions about a nominating process that produced a very conservative candidate in a state rapidly changing demographically. And for Democrats looking ahead to the 2016 presidential contest, the party now has a solid record of winning in this once-red state – not just in this gubernatorial race, but in the U.S Senate as well.</p><p>McAuliffe, a former political moneyman who failed to win the Democratic nomination for governor four years ago, received help from President Barack Obama as well as his good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, who made multiple campaign stops on his behalf. The presence of the former president and onetime secretary of state is not just about a longstanding friendship with McAuliffe – should Hillary Clinton decide to run for president, having the support of a governor in a crucial swing state could prove to be a strong asset.</p><p>Likewise, Cuccinelli received support from Republicans who may be eying a 2016 presidential run, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.</p><p>Cuccinelli had distinguished himself as a conservative stalwart during eight years as a state senator and most recently as attorney general. The Republican embraced the ascendant Tea Party movement early on, winning accolades from conservatives for his legal challenges to Obamacare, abortion rights laws and climate change research.</p><p>But Cuccinelli\\'s support for limiting abortion rights and a 2008 proposal that would have made it more difficult for women with children to obtain divorces helped McAuliffe make the case that the conservative was out of step with the state\\'s moderate voters. Virginians were inundated with ads that dubbed Cuccinelli \\\"too extreme for Virginia,\\\" a state which has become friendlier to Democrats in recent elections due to changing demographics.</p><p>Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli speaks to a crowd of supporters Tuesday after losing his bid to become the state\\'s next governor.</p><p>Exit polling showed more than half of all Virginia women voted for McAuliffe, and 67 percent of voters who believe abortion should be legal supported him.</p><p>Cuccinelli also contended with backlash over the October government shutdown, which affected federal workers who reside in Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs and throughout the state. Democrats attempted to tie Cuccinelli to Tea Party-affiliated pols and in for his part, the GOP contender pushed instead to make the election a referendum on Obama’s glitch-riddled health care rollout. Half of Virginians said Cuccinelli was too conservative, according to exit polling.</p><p>McAuliffe greatly outraised his GOP opponent handily, and Democratic allies poured $24 million to Cuccinelli’s $17 million in TV advertising, according to NBC\\'s First Read .</p><p>\\\"Despite being outspent by an unprecedented $15 million, this race came down to the wire because of Obamacare,\\\" Cuccinelli said in his concession speech.</p><p>Cuccinelli’s struggles to appeal to moderates stands in contrast to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the big-name Republican who breezed to a projected re-election in his blue home state Tuesday.</p><p>Also on Tuesday, State Sen. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, won the lieutenant governor\\'s race, while the attorney general\\'s race between Republican Mark Obenshain and Democrat Mark Herring was too close to call late Tuesday.</p>"
290    },
291    {
292      "doc_id": "85",
293      "doc_html": "<h1>Christie storms to victory in N.J. governor\\'s race</h1><p>Mike Segar</p><p>Chris Christie gestures as he takes the stage with his family at his election night party in Asbury Park, N.J., Nov. 5, 2013.</p><p>By Carrie Dann, Political Reporter</p><p>New Jersey Governor Chris Christie easily won re-election Tuesday over Democrat Barbara Buono, launching the GOP star to another term in a deep-blue state and solidifying his status as a top-tier 2016 presidential candidate.</p><p>In a victory speech brimming with the cadence and optimistic rhetoric of a future presidential stump speech, Christie celebrated his “big, big win” and suggested  that his administration’s message of inclusion could offer lessons to the federal government.</p><p>\\\"I know that if we can do this in Trenton, N.J., maybe the folks in Washington, D.C., should tune in their TVs right now and see how it’s done,\\\" he said to an eruption of cheers from supporters.</p><p>\\\"Tonight, a dispirited America, angry with their dysfunctional government in Washington, looks to New Jersey to say \\'Is what I think happening really happening? Are people really coming together?\\'\\\" he added. </p><p>Excerpts from Gov. Christie\\'s victory speech.</p><p>With nearly 90 percent of the vote in, Christie held a definitive 60 percent to 38 percent lead over Buono.</p><p>Exit polls showed that he had garnered the support of voters well outside the traditional GOP base, winning a majority of women, about one-in-five black voters, half of Hispanics, and roughly 30 percent of self-described Democrats. Among the half of New Jersey voters who say they support the Obama-backed health care law, about three-in-10 selected Christie on their ballot. </p><p>Christie earned broad bipartisan support for his response to last year’s Superstorm Sandy and is known for his blunt political style. </p><p>Christie invoked the state’s resolve and unity in the wake of that storm Tuesday night, promising supporters he would “govern in the spirit of Sandy.” </p><p>Even while delivering a sweeping speech with frequent references to dysfunction in Washington, Christie pledged to keep working for the state that made him “the luckiest guy in the world.”</p><p>“I sought a second term to finish the job,” he said. “Now watch me do it.\\\"</p><p>Christie has developed a strong national profile since he defeated unpopular Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in 2010.</p><p>With broad support among groups the GOP has struggled with in recent national elections – women, independents, minorities and even conservative Democrats – Christie would head into 2016 with potential electability in states where the outlook for the GOP has traditionally been bleak.</p><p>(President Barack Obama defeated GOP nominee Mitt Romney in New Jersey by 17 points in 2012.)</p><p>In a statement, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus lauded Christie\\'s \\\"significant support among minority voters,\\\" calling it \\\"a testament to the success of his results-oriented leadership and an inclusive campaign.\\\"</p><p>Yet the same characteristics and positions that earned Christie support from a significant portion of the state’s Democrats have made some national conservatives wary.</p><p>The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that while Christie is viewed positively by most self-described conservatives, firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas – known for eschewing bipartisan compromise – earned notably higher marks from the GOP’s right flank.</p><p>Watch Christie\\'s entire victory speech.</p><p>Since the party’s more conservative wing plays a huge role in early nominating states like Iowa and South Carolina, Christie could face tough decisions on how to court the Tea Party without losing his centrist appeal. One particular episode from Christie’s first term is unlikely to fade from any primary campaign – his public embrace of Obama in the immediate aftermath of Sandy.   </p><p>For now, his first hurdle – re-election – was easily cleared.  Without statewide name recognition, Buono had little chance of competing with Christie’s fundraising ability and his stratospheric approval ratings, which remained high long after the superstorm battered the state.</p><p>Polls this week showed that almost one-in-four likely voters said they don’t know enough about the Democratic candidate to form an opinion.</p><p>In remarks after the race was called for Christie, Buono congratulated the governor on his win and told Democratic supporters they \\\"withstood the onslaught of betrayal from our own political party.”</p><p>Buono, who consistently trailed in polls by double digits, received comparatively little high-profile support from national Democrats during her campaign, unlike Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s more hotly contested gubernatorial contest.</p><p>“Let us never look back with regret. Let us not for a single moment allow one night to define what we did here or to deter us from  the momentum that we have built,” she said in her remarks. “There is so much work to do.”</p><p> </p><p></p>"
294    },
295    {
296      "doc_id": "88",
297      "doc_html": "<h1>Democrat McAuliffe narrowly wins Virginia governor\\'s race</h1><p>Alex Brandon</p><p>Supporters cheer as they watch the results on television at the election night party for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013, in Tysons Corner, Va.</p><p>By Carrie Dann and Andrew Rafferty</p><p>Democratic businessman Terry McAuliffe defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli to become Virginia\\'s next governor after a contentious race that was closer than many political watchers anticipated.</p><p>With nearly all the votes tallied late Tuesday, McAuliffe edged out Cuccinelli by about two percentage points, with libertarian Robert Sarvis receiving around seven percent of the vote as a third-party candidate.</p><p>Terry McAuliffe talks about the challenges he will face as the next governor of Virginia.</p><p>\\\"The truth is that this election was never a choice between Democrats and Republicans, it was a choice about whether Virginia would continue the mainstream bipartisan tradition that has served us so well over the last decade,\\\" he said.</p><p>Exit polls showed McAuliffe\\'s support among women and in the Democrat-leaning northern part of the state was enough to top the state\\'s attorney general in a race that had Cuccinelli fighting back against a litany of ads painting him as \\\"too extreme\\\" for the state\\'s moderate voters. However, voters cited the economy and health care as the issues most important to them, and Cuccinelli beat his Democratic rival in both categories, helping to keep the contest tight throughout Tuesday evening.</p><p>McAuliffe\\'s victory will have broad political implications for both parties. Republicans now face questions about a nominating process that produced a very conservative candidate in a state rapidly changing demographically. And for Democrats looking ahead to the 2016 presidential contest, the party now has a solid record of winning in this once-red state – not just in this gubernatorial race, but in the U.S Senate as well.</p><p>McAuliffe, a former political moneyman who failed to win the Democratic nomination for governor four years ago, received help from President Barack Obama as well as his good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, who made multiple campaign stops on his behalf. The presence of the former president and onetime secretary of state is not just about a longstanding friendship with McAuliffe – should Hillary Clinton decide to run for president, having the support of a governor in a crucial swing state could prove to be a strong asset.</p><p>Likewise, Cuccinelli received support from Republicans who may be eying a 2016 presidential run, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.</p><p>Cuccinelli had distinguished himself as a conservative stalwart during eight years as a state senator and most recently as attorney general. The Republican embraced the ascendant Tea Party movement early on, winning accolades from conservatives for his legal challenges to Obamacare, abortion rights laws and climate change research.</p><p>But Cuccinelli\\'s support for limiting abortion rights and a 2008 proposal that would have made it more difficult for women with children to obtain divorces helped McAuliffe make the case that the conservative was out of step with the state\\'s moderate voters. Virginians were inundated with ads that dubbed Cuccinelli \\\"too extreme for Virginia,\\\" a state which has become friendlier to Democrats in recent elections due to changing demographics.</p><p>Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli speaks to a crowd of supporters Tuesday after losing his bid to become the state\\'s next governor.</p><p>Exit polling showed more than half of all Virginia women voted for McAuliffe, and 67 percent of voters who believe abortion should be legal supported him.</p><p>Cuccinelli also contended with backlash over the October government shutdown, which affected federal workers who reside in Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs and throughout the state. Democrats attempted to tie Cuccinelli to Tea Party-affiliated pols and in for his part, the GOP contender pushed instead to make the election a referendum on Obama’s glitch-riddled health care rollout. Half of Virginians said Cuccinelli was too conservative, according to exit polling.</p><p>McAuliffe greatly outraised his GOP opponent handily, and Democratic allies poured $24 million to Cuccinelli’s $17 million in TV advertising, according to NBC\\'s First Read .</p><p>\\\"Despite being outspent by an unprecedented $15 million, this race came down to the wire because of Obamacare,\\\" Cuccinelli said in his concession speech.</p><p>Cuccinelli’s struggles to appeal to moderates stands in contrast to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the big-name Republican who breezed to a projected re-election in his blue home state Tuesday.</p><p>Also on Tuesday, State Sen. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, won the lieutenant governor\\'s race, while the attorney general\\'s race between Republican Mark Obenshain and Democrat Mark Herring was too close to call late Tuesday.</p>"
298    },
299    {
300      "doc_id": "96",
301      "doc_html": "<h1>It\\'s Election Day: From N.J. to Va., what contests to watch</h1>\\n<p>By Michael O\\'Brien, Political Reporter</p><p>Voters headed to the polls Tuesday for a series of off-year elections, including high-profile contests in Virginia and New Jersey that could offer nationally resonant lessons for Republicans and Democrats alike.</p><p>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is on the campaign trail for reelection, but some say the governor may be looking at a 2016 presidential bid.</p><p>New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is poised to win a second term, a rare feat for a Republican running in deep-blue New Jersey. In Virginia, an emerging swing state, longtime Democratic money-man Terry McAuliffe has built a steady lead over his deeply conservative opponent, GOP Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.</p><p>The two races have highlighted the GOP’s struggle to reconcile its establishment wing with its insurgent conservative class. A victory for McAuliffe would also add credibility to Democrats’ efforts to claim Virginia – once an unambiguous GOP foothold – as a toss-up state, if not Democratic-leaning.</p><p>Here\\'s the lowdown on Tuesday\\'s elections:</p><p>New Jersey: Gov. Chris Christie vs. Barbara Buono</p><p>Christie is cruising to re-election by fashioning himself as a relative centrist. He embraced President Barack Obama in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy just days before the 2012 presidential election, and had harsh words for fellow Republicans in Congress who held up relief money. The pugnacious governor has also resisted serving up some of the most strident attacks on Democrats favored by a number of other Republican luminaries.</p><p>New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says he is not concerned about a so-called lack of support from Tea Party Republicans during his reelection bid.</p><p>According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, Christie leads his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Barbara Buono, 61 percent to 33 percent among likely voters. The poll found that 64 percent of independents and 30 percent of Democrats back a second term for Christie.</p><p>A broad victory by Christie would also bolster a possible bid for the presidency in 2016. As a potential presidential candidate, Christie could point to his track record in winning over centrists, women and minority voters as part of a bid for the Republican nomination – much like George W. Bush did after his sweeping 1998 re-election as Texas governor.</p><p>Virginia: Terry McAuliffe vs. Ken Cuccinelli vs. Robert Sarvis</p><p>In contrast to Christie, Cuccinelli’s effort to appeal to centrists in the state has been inhibited by the litany of deeply conservative statements and legislative initiatives he’s spearheaded throughout his career.</p><p>Democrats have pummeled the state attorney general with ads about abortion rights, environmental issues and health care, especially for women. McAuliffe’s efforts to cast his opponent as an extremist have only been bolstered by some Virginia Republicans, who had either endorsed McAuliffe or spoken critically of Cuccinelli.</p><p>Early on, Republicans believed that negatively defining McAuliffe would be easy, especially given his longtime ties to the Clintons and several questionable business ventures, especially with the struggling GreenTech electric car company. But social issues and Cuccinelli’s conservatism became the dominant drag.</p><p>Sen. Marco Rubio and Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli talk Monday about Terry McAuliffe\\'s record on health care and the issues facing the next Virginia governor.</p><p>In the race’s closing days, Cuccinelli has tried to turn the race into a referendum on the president’s health-care plan, pointing to its shaky website rollout and individual plans being cancelled, but it looks to be too little too late.</p><p>A separate Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found McAuliffe ahead of Cuccinelli, 46 percent to 40 percent, among likely voters. Libertarian Robert Sarvis drew 8 percent. Independents are split between the two major candidates, but McAuliffe benefits from a 14-point advantage over Cuccinelli among likely women voters.</p><p>The downballot contests to watch for</p><p>While the contests in Virginia and New Jersey headlined Tuesday’s slate of elections, a series of mayoral contests and a special election to a vacant U.S. House seat formed the 2013 undercard. </p><p>In New York City, Bill de Blasio looks to be on the verge of becoming the first Democratic mayor since 1993. De Blasio took charge in the Democratic primary earlier this year after various contenders – City Council President Christine Quinn and former Rep. Anthony Weiner among them – flamed out. De Blasio also invigorated liberals with an unapologetically progressive campaign oriented toward re-orienting New York’s policies toward its poor and working class, and by opposing law enforcement tactics like “stop and frisk.” He owns a commanding lead over Republican challenger Joe Lhota in most polls.</p><p>In Alabama’s first congressional district, Tuesday’s run-off for the Republican nomination serves as the de-facto election in this deeply conservative Mobile district. The race has become another test of Republican establishment muscle versus Tea Party fervor. Most Washington Republicans and business groups have invested heavily on behalf of Bradley Byrne, an attorney and former state senator who switched to the GOP from the Democratic Party in 1997. But Tea Party activist Dean Young has stayed surprisingly competitive in the race, despite his strident views on gay rights and his (false) pronunciation in an interview last week that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya.</p><p>Bostonians are poised to pick their first new mayor in two decades, with the legendary Tom Menino not seeking re-election. City Councilor John Connolly had been edging state Rep. Marty Walsh for most of the race, but the most recent polls have shown it’s Walsh with the late momentum and a narrow lead, largely fueled by a surge in minority voters and a boost in spending from labor groups.</p><p>A bankrupt Detroit looks to pick its next mayor, who will be largely powerless, at least at first, with the city under control of a state-appointed emergency manager. Mike Duggan, the former head of the Detroit Medical Center, who had to wage a write-in campaign to just make it into Tuesday’s runoff after he was ruled ineligible for the primary ballot due to a residency issue, now looks like the heavy favorite over Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon. If he wins, Duggan would be the first white mayor of the heavily African-American Motor City since the early 1970s.</p><p>One bright hope for Republicans in Virginia could be in the state attorney general’s race, where Republican Mark Obenshain is locked in a tight contest with Democrat Mark Herring. GOP observers note Obenshain has run a more independent, and largely smarter, campaign than Cuccinelli and has the best chance of victory. But Democrats and outside groups, eyeing a sweep that hasn’t happened in nearly three decades, have poured money into tying Obenshain to Cuccinelli in the closing days.</p><p>In Washington state, voters will cast ballots on a ballot initiative that would require labeling foods containing genetically modified ingredients, which would become the first such law of its kind on the books in a state.</p><p>In Colorado, voters are weighing whether to approve a 25 percent tax on marijuana, the recreational consumption of which was legalized by voters last year.</p>"
302    },
303    {
304      "doc_id": "97",
305      "doc_html": "<h1>Maine gov candidate: Yes, I\\'m gay, \\'but why should it matter?\\'</h1><p>By Jessica Taylor</p><p>Maine Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud announced in an op-ed Monday that he is gay -- but that it shouldn\\'t matter as he runs for governor next year. </p><p>\\\"Once I jumped to an early lead in the polls, I knew it was only a matter of time before individuals and organizations intent on re-creating the uncertainty that led to our current governor’s election three years ago would start their attacks,\\\" Michaud writes in a column that appeared in the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald . \\\"So I wasn’t surprised to learn about the whisper campaigns, insinuations and push-polls some of the people opposed to my candidacy have been using to raise questions about my personal life. They want people to question whether I am gay. Allow me to save them the trouble with a simple, honest answer: \\'Yes I am. But why should it matter?\\'\\\"</p><p>Michaud\\'s announcement brings the number of openly gay members in the U.S. House to seven, and there are eight total openly gay legislators in Congress, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)</p><p>But if he wins in a year, Michaud would be the first openly gay candidate elected governor in history. In 2004, New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey announced he was gay, but the Democrat came out after his election. </p><p>The six-term Democratic congressman is currently the favorite to win his party\\'s nomination in the Pine Tree State, but he faces other hurdles in unseating Republican Gov. Paul LePage. The GOP incumbent only narrowly won a three-way contest in 2010, with Independent Eliot Cutler taking 36% to LePage\\'s 38%. Now, Cutler is running again, hoping to appeal to the state\\'s sizable unaffiliated bloc that helped Sen. Angus King win last year as an independent.</p><p>But, Democrats are afraid that Cutler could again play spoiler and hurt their chances at knocking off LePage, who has a history of controversial statements and style in the blue state. A  Critical Insights poll  from late September showed Michaud with a narrow three point lead over LePage, 33% to 30%, with Cutler taking 24%. </p><p>Michaud wrote that he didn\\'t plan to make his opponents\\' personal lives part of his campaign strategy -- and he hoped they wouldn\\'t make his an issue either. </p><p>\\\"That may seem like a big announcement to some people,\\\" he wrote of his coming out. \\\"For me, it’s just a part of who I am, as much as being a third-generation mill worker or a lifelong Mainer. One thing I do know is that it has nothing to do with my ability to lead the state of Maine.\\\"</p><p></p>"
306    },
307    {
308      "doc_id": "98",
309      "doc_html": "<h1>Delayed again: Maryland’s small-business health exchange will not open until April</h1><p>A couple weeks ago, when Maryland’s health department cancelled information sessions about the state’s already delayed small-business health insurance marketplace, we wondered whether the exchange was in jeopardy of a yet another delay.</p><p>State officials reassured us the site would still be ready in January.</p><p>It won’t be.</p><p>Maryland Health Benefits Exchange board members have revealed that the state’s new small-business exchange , which is meant to give employers access to more affordable and comprehensive health plans, will not be ready until April, six months after it was supposed to open in accordance with the Affordable Care Act.</p><p>“Maryland has a well-functioning small group market which offers the same prices as those that will be offered through the small group exchange,” the board members wrote in a memo posted online, noting that this second extension will “allow more time for testing and coordination over the next several months.”</p><p>Added Rebecca Pearce, the executive director of the exchange, “we are focusing our short-term strategy for success.”</p><p>Maryland was among a minority of states that elected to build their own health insurance exchanges, one for individual consumers and one for small employers, as required by the new health care law . Thirty-three states elected to use portals built and operated by the federal government.</p><p>Despite a few technical glitches, the state’s insurance exchange for individuals opened on time in October and the site has attracted more than 400,000 visitors, according to the board. But it has been a very different story for the employer marketplace.</p><p>Originally slated to open Oct. 1, Maryland officials announced this past spring that they would not be ready to launch the small-business side of the portal, commonly known as the SHOP exchange, until Jan. 1. Consequently, instead of offering plans that would begin coverage in January, as originally planned, the earliest the small-business plans would take effect would have been March.</p><p>Then, late last month, officials quietly nixed a series of workshops to educate employers about the exchange , raising suspicions that the site was headed for another delay. On Oct. 24, however, On Small Business asked Joshua M. Sharfstein, chairman of the exchange board, whether the site would still be ready for the scheduled launch in January.</p><p>“That is the current plan,” Sharfstein said at the time.</p><p>Now, the current plan is to open April 1, with coverage starting at the earliest in June. State health officials have repeatedly insisted that their top priority has been the individual exchange, which has forced them to push back the timeline for the small-business marketplace.</p><p>Still, it has been a rocky start for a state where, back in September, President Obama said the rollout was “going to be smoother in places like Maryland” than in those that defaulted to the federal exchange .</p><p>Instead, as Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown put it last month, “the state stumbled out of the gate.”</p><p></p>"
310    },
311    {
312      "doc_id": "99",
313      "doc_html": "<h1>Iranian musician kills 3, then himself</h1><p>An Iranian rock musician shot and killed three people, including two members of an indie band who had fled Tehran, and wounded a fourth man before killing himself in Brooklyn, authorities said Monday.</p><p>Victims Soroush and Arash Farazmand, who were brothers, were the guitarist and drummer in the Yellow Dogs, a band that formed in Iran’s capital and performed covertly before its members sought political asylum in the United States in 2010, their publicist Ashley Ayers said.</p><p>Their bodies were found early Monday in a house in the semi-industrial neighborhood of East Williamsburg, popular with musicians and artists, police said.</p><p>Ali Eskandarian, described by the band publicist as a friend who played music, was also killed. All three had gunshot wounds to the head or chest.</p><p>The shooter, Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie, was upset because he was kicked out of another indie band, Free Keys, last year in a dispute over money, police said. Rafie was found dead on the roof of the building with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. All of the musicians were in their 20s and 30s.</p>"
314    },
315    {
316      "doc_id": "100",
317      "doc_html": "<h1>The government’s human price scanners</h1><p>Matt McClain - As an “economic assistant” for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Caren Gaffney records prices for products and services of every kind. The information is complied for various economic measures, including the Consumer Price Index.</p><p>By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, E-mail the writer</p><p>On a brisk autumn morning, Caren Gaffney, a 50-something blonde with a French manicure, a Texas twang and a skeptical squint in her eyes, crouches down to inspect the underbelly of a gas pump in rural Virginia.</p><p>“Let me make sure I get this right,” Gaffney says, putting on her glasses as she peppers the manager with questions. “Okay, are there special prices on certain days? Do you pay more or less if you used a credit card? What about points from the store — can you count those toward gas? Is this minimum octane? Regular or unleaded?”</p><p>She enters all the information into the computer tablet wobbling in her arms.</p><p>Gaffney is a roving, often stealthy price checker with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of 428 “economic assistants,” or EAs, who fan out across every state, seven days a week, to record the prices of everything from guitars to guns, cribs to cremations, farmers-market apples to food-truck cupcakes.</p><p>It is a labor-intensive task, one that could seem like an anachronism in a high-tech age when anyone with a smartphone can scan a bar code and call up lists of products, prices and sales locations. And as the bureau looks for ways to modernize and go digital, this century-old job could be in jeopardy.</p><p>Gaffney is on the front lines of collecting confidential data that are ultimately compiled for some of the nation’s most important economic measures, including the consumer price index (CPI). The CPI affects income tax rates, Social Security benefits, school lunches and food stamps. Landlords, labor unions and lawyers often use the CPI to determine rent hikes, wage increases and the value of divorce settlements.</p><p>The prices she records also help inform some of the government’s most pressing economic debates, such as the Federal Reserve’s current discussions over whether its efforts to stimulate the economy are doing too much — or too little — to spur inflation .</p><p>On this recent day, Gaffney will be on the road for nearly eight hours in her beat-up 2003 Honda Pilot, driving across vast stretches of Virginia, from county to county, on a mission to hunt down prices of three American staples: gas, sugar and beer.</p><p>As Gaffney demonstrates at stop after stop, there’s more to price checking than tallying up numbers.</p><p>“A good EA is face to face with the product, is picking things up, is looking at every label,” she says. “The tiniest mistake can throw off the data. You have to be on your feet mentally.”</p><p>To ensure the integrity of the information, price checkers have to make sure they’re comparing not just apples with apples but also, for instance, organic Fuji apples with organic Fuji apples.</p><p>The job takes charm, because Gaffney has to be able to wheedle her way into some businesses and get the managers talking. It also requires her to be demanding, even persnickety, to make sure she gets the detailed answers she needs. (She recently found herself chasing a food truck through the streets of downtown Washington to check the price of its trendy sandwiches. Was it $6 with vegetables or without? What is the difference between gluten-free organic and just gluten-free?)</p>"
318    },
319    {
320      "doc_id": "101",
321      "doc_html": "<h1>Loopholes in Lindsey Graham’s Benghazi filibuster threat</h1><p>Think Sen. Lindsey Graham’s continued threat to hold up all of the White House’s nominees means the Senate won’t be voting on any of President Obama’s picks?</p><p>It might not be so simple.</p><p>Not that getting through the Senate has ever been a cakewalk for any of the White House’s job candidates, but there are folks who still could see floor votes, despite Graham’s warning that he would block all nominees until the White House makes available for congressional testimony the witnesses who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya. (A threat he doubled down on over the weekend, even after “60 Minutes” retracted the segment that inspired his plan.)</p><p>First of all, the South Carolina Republican’s threat apparently applies only to new nominees teed up for Senate action (or, in legislative parlance, “placed on the Executive Calendar”). There were plenty of otherwise noncontroversial names on that list as of Oct. 28, when Graham first issued the threat.</p><p>Since that date, the Senate has approved nominees including Richard Griffin to the National Labor Relations Board and Tom Wheeler and Michael O’Rielly to the Federal Communications Commission. And Graham said Sunday on CNN that he had also released his hold on two additional ambassador nominations, which means they could get floor votes, too.</p><p>Graham’s bluster notwithstanding, Senate Democrats already figured that the toxic partisan atmosphere meant many of Obama’s picks would need 60 votes to cut off any debate and win approval.</p><p>If he remains unsatisfied on the Benghazi probe, Graham could very well hold up some high-profile nominations, including Jeh Johnson to head the Department of Homeland Security and Janet Yellen to be the new Fed chief.</p><p>But even if he doesn’t get his witnesses, there appears to be some wiggle room.</p><p>Charity, far from home</p><p>Before fiscal cliff, before sequester, before debt ceiling, before the craziness on the Hill — the United States proudly sent billions of dollars a year abroad to help developing countries.</p><p>And, despite all the trauma, we still do.</p><p>But now it appears a bit of that money is trickling back. For example, Turkey’s Agency for Cooperation and Collaboration (TIKA) — that country’s Agency for International Development — is giving a $200,000 grant to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon , southeast of Portland.</p><p>The grant is to help build a water tank as part of an elementary-school construction project and help folks out there “meet their water needs for the next 10 years,” according to an invite we got to a reception Tuesday evening at the residence of our NATO ally Turkey’s ambassador, Namik Tan.</p><p>The reception is to celebrate the grant, the first ever to “an entity within the United States,” the invitation says. It also “highlights the dire development needs of America’s tribal lands.”</p><p>Not that other countries haven’t extended help to Americans after a natural disaster — the United Arab Emirates this year after the devastating tornadoes in Joplin, Mo., for one. (And there’s that free-oil program/propaganda stunt that Venezuela’s lefty government has been doing for low-income folks here in winter.)</p><p>And it should be noted that Turkey and Native Americans have long felt a kinship based on feelings of a shared ancestry.</p><p>But still . . .</p><p>Guess it’s time to find some worthy program out there to highlight the dire development needs of the Kurds?</p><p>Never say die</p><p>If Benjamin Franklin had run a political action committee, he might have said that nothing is certain but death, taxes and Federal Election Commission filings.</p><p>The agency tasked with overseeing campaign spending recently wrote to an Ohio-based organization called Friends of Charlie Wilson, telling the PAC that despite its request to shut down, it had to keep submitting filings.</p><p>One not-so-small problem with this picture?</p><p>The PAC’s namesake, former congressman Charlie Wilson (D-Ohio), died in April .</p><p>The FEC said the PAC couldn’t terminate, citing unspecified errors or omissions in its request to do so. “Failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above could result in an audit or enforcement action,” it warned.</p><p>But can you audit the dead?</p><p>But no Benjamin Gazi</p><p>More nominations from the White House: Last week, President Obama upped Neil Kornze, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), from deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management to director. Other picks included the Justice Department’s Caroline Diane Krass to be the CIA’s general counsel and Ericka Miller, an executive at the Education Trust, to be the Education Department\\'s assistant secretary for postsecondary education.</p>"
322    },
323    {
324      "doc_id": "102",
325      "doc_html": "<h1>Pharmacy bill set for test vote in Senate</h1><p>By Matthew Perrone,</p><p>A year after a meningitis outbreak from contaminated pain injections killed at least 64 people and sickened hundreds, Congress is ready to increase federal oversight over compounding pharmacies that custom-mix medications.</p><p>Before the bill reaches President Obama’s desk, it must clear a hurdle put in its path by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) in his effort to discredit the president’s health-care overhaul. A test vote is set for Tuesday evening.</p><p>Monday’s photos of the day</p><p>The legislation, passed by the House in September, also creates a national system for tracking prescription drugs from manufacturers to retail pharmacies, first through serial numbers on bottles and containers and later through electronic codes.</p><p>Although the bill enjoys nearly universal support in Congress, Vitter has objected to the Senate voting on it without first voting on his measure to make lawmakers disclose which of their aides are signing up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and which are instead being allowed to remain in the Federal Employee Benefit Program.</p><p>Vitter objects to an Obama administration decision this year allowing lawmakers to choose between the two programs for their aides, and directing the government to pick up three-fourths of the premium costs for members of Congress and their aides either way. Lawmakers must switch to coverage under the health-care law. Vitter’s insistence on ending the employer match this year prompted Senate Democrats to scuttle an energy bill. The issue arose again in last month’s fight over the government shutdown.</p><p>The compounding pharmacy bill is intended to avert a repeat of last year’s meningitis outbreak associated with the now-closed New England Compounding Center. Subsequent inspections found unsanitary conditions at the company’s plant in Framingham, Mass., including mold and standing water.</p><p>Contamination problems with compounded medicines have been reported for decades. But jurisdiction over them has been murky. Pharmacies are typically regulated through state boards, but the Food and Drug Administration regulates manufacturers of medicines.</p><p>The bill tries to sort out that legal gray area, which allowed the New England site and other pharmacies to skirt both state and federal regulations. The measure clarifies the FDA’s authority to shut down pharmacies that become so large they resemble manufacturers, but it doesn’t require those pharmacies to register with the agency, a step that would have subjected them to higher quality standards and inspections. Instead, pharmacies can volunteer to be regulated by the FDA as a sort of optional “stamp of approval.”</p><p>Still, public safety advocates who lobbied for the bill say it improves the status quo.</p><p>“It’s not as far reaching as some of the other proposals Congress considered over the past year, but it is an important step forward,” said Allan Couckell, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ medical group.</p><p>The FDA gets explicit authority under the bill to intervene when compounders are mass-producing medications without prescriptions or are compounding copies of widely available drugs. Compounding pharmacies can elect to register as “outsourcing facilities” subject to FDA oversight or continue to be regulated by state pharmacy boards.</p><p>The voluntary nature of a new class of pharmacies has drawn criticism from both safety advocates and compounding lobbyists, who are seldom on the same side of an issue.</p><p>The compounding industry’s chief lobbying group, the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, said the bill would not stop pharmacies like the one that caused last year’s outbreak, and would lead to more confusion over how compounders are regulated.</p><p>The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, a longtime critic of both the FDA and drug companies, said the bill should have required mandatory labels on compounded drugs warning that they have not been approved by the FDA.</p><p>About 7,500 pharmacies in the United States specialize in compounding medications, though many thousands more perform a small amount of compounding while also dispensing traditional prescription drugs. Compounded drugs account for an estimated 3 percent of all prescriptions filled.</p>"
326    },
327    {
328      "doc_id": "383",
329      "doc_html": "<h1>Senators urge tough U.S. review of Pfizer bid for AstraZeneca</h1><p>WASHINGTON - Six U.S. senators asked antitrust regulators to take a hard look at Pfizer Inc\\'s plan to buy rival AstraZeneca PLC if the two companies reach a deal, saying they had \\\"significant concerns\\\" about how the proposed transaction would affect consumers.</p><p>AstraZeneca, formed in 1999 from the merger of Sweden\\'s Astra and Britain\\'s Zeneca, has rejected a $106 billion offer from U.S. drugmaker Pfizer, but Pfizer has not given up and a possible deal has raised concerns in Europe and the United States.</p><p>\\\"Should a merger or acquisition ultimately be accepted by AstraZeneca, whether under the terms of that offer or any subsequent offer, we want to bring to your attention our significant concerns with the potentially harmful impact to consumers that would result,\\\" the senators said in a letter.</p><p>The senators, all Democrats, said that a 2009 deal by Pfizer to buy Wyeth Laboratories was followed by a Pfizer decision to close research and development sites.</p><p>\\\"Pfizer\\'s record of reducing efforts to innovate and bring new products to market following prior acquisitions is plain,\\\" the senators wrote to the top officials of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The two agencies share the job of enforcing antitrust law.</p><p>Pfizer took issue with this assertion, saying the lawmakers \\\"do not have all the facts about Pfizer\\'s R&D (research and development).\\\"</p><p>\\\"Since the integration of Wyeth, we have had good momentum in R&D with 13 drug approvals,\\\" the company said in a statement, noting that still more drugs were in the pipeline.</p><p>The lawmakers also criticized Pfizer for saying it wanted to merge with AstraZeneca to create a UK holding company with a UK tax domicile, while maintaining its operational headquarters in New York.</p><p>\\\"We view with skepticism any pro-competitive justification offered in support of this acquisition in light of Pfizer\\'s stated motivation for the transaction - avoidance of U.S. taxation,\\\" the lawmakers said.</p><p>The letter was signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Chris Coons of Delaware, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.</p><p>Pfizer said in response to the senators\\' comment on taxes that it expected discussions of a tax reform to continue.</p><p>\\\"Pfizer supports comprehensive tax reform that enhances the global competitiveness of U.S.-based companies operating internationally,\\\" the company said in its statement.</p>"
330    }
331  ]
332}