Obama: 'America needs towns like West'

President Obama pledged to the small Texas town still reeling from a catastrophic fertilizer plant explosion last week "the love and support and prayers of the nation" at a memorial service Thursday in Waco, Texas.

"For this state and for our country, these have been trying and difficult days. We gather here in Texas to mourn the men who went through fire, and all those who have been taken from us," Obama said. "While the eyes of the world may have been fixed on places far away, our hearts have been fixed here in times of tribulation."

A row of a dozen flag-draped coffins stood before the president as he spoke of the West, Texas, first responders who died as they fought the blaze.

"Our thoughts are with those that face a long road," Obama said. "The wounded, the heartbroken, the families who lost their homes and possessions."

But, the president said, he found inspiration in the small town that embodied American ideals of charity and selflessness in the aftermath of the deadly explosion.

"Instead of changing who you are, this tragedy has simply revealed who you've always been," Obama said.

"We need people who so love their neighbors as themselves that they're willing to lay down their lives for them," he continued. "America needs towns like West."

Obama also pledged that the support of the federal government would continue "even after the cameras leave."

"To the families and neighbors grappling with unbearable loss — you are not alone. You are not forgotten," Obama said.

Before arriving at the ceremony, the president surveyed the damage aboard Marine One, observing the 10-foot deep crater that now marks the site of the blast. Buildings and homes near the factory have been leveled, and emergency responders are just beginning what will be an extensive and costly cleanup.

The president came to Waco from Dallas, where in the morning he attended the dedication of former President George W. Bush's presidential library. Former Solicitor General Ken Starr, reading a statement from Bush, extended the former president's "heartfelt sympathies."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who spoke earlier, told families they should be inspired by "the spirit that drove those men we love."

"First responders know better than anyone that there's no such thing as a routine emergency," Perry said, "but it didn't slow them down as they raced toward that burning factory."

Following the memorial service, the president and first lady Michelle Obama plan to meet with the families and close friends of the firefighters lost in the explosion.

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Boehner: GOP needs better messaging

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/17/13 01:15 PM ET

The highest-ranking elected Republican thinks his party needs to articulate their message more effectively, not clean house of GOP leaders.

Asked if the party had grown “stale and moss covered” – in reference to a remark made by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) defended the GOP’s principles. 

“The issue with our party is pretty simple.  There's nothing wrong with the principles of our party,” said Boehner on ABC’s “This Week.”  “But Republicans have not done as an effective job as we should in terms of talking about our principles in terms that average people can appreciate.” 

Last week’s CPAC summit of prominent GOP and conservative activists highlighted many of the divisions in the party, as Republicans look to rebound after the devastating presidential and Senate losses in the 2012 election.

Boehner seized on the issue of “balancing the budget.”

“Balancing the budget, as an example would be good for American families. We've got to do a better job of helping people understand what our principles are in terms that they deal with every day,” Boehner said.

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Libya needs international assistance, not drone attacks

Two years to the day after the anti-Gadhafi uprisings began in Benghazi, the populace has again taken to the streets. This time they are protesting the new authorities failures to bring economic development and its prerequisite, security. Over the last two years, wide swathes of Libyan territory have been transformed into a non-governed space has indirectly facilitated the Islamist takeover in Mali and the attack by Al-Qaeda affiliates on Algeria’s In Amenas gas facility. If Libya is the fabled ‘gateway to Africa’, then the gate has been left wide open.

In today's Libya, heavy artillery and extremist militants flow across the country's porous borders with ease. Since the killing of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, Libya's extreme east is currently being monitored by American drones in search of jihadist training camps.

Barack Obama wisely pledged in his recent State of the Union address to help Libyans “provide for their own security” including cooperation on counterterrorism. However, should the promised “direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans” turn out to be code for conducting drone attacks on Libyan soil, then the president is on the verge of a catastrophic blunder which would irrevocably jeopardize vital American economic and strategic interests.

Libya urgently needs international assistance in building its institutions, especially the basic machinery of government and security. The Libyans have a friendly government, infinite money to spend on infrastructure projects, and they are actively soliciting Western assistance. Clearly, nation building – which the Libyans are even able and willing to fund themselves - would be far more effective than drone strikes at eliminating terrorist safe havens. It would be more cost effective as well.
 The drone infrastructure

Currently, U.S. surveillance drones focus on the Islamist hot spots in Eastern Libya (Derna, Benghazi, and the Green Mountains) due to the obsession with finding the perpetrators of the attack on the American mission which killed the Ambassador. Plans for a forthcoming U.S. unarmed drone base in Niger will make it operationally feasible to employ drones against militant extremists in Libya's southwestern region of Fezzan. This area is beginning to rival Yemen as one of the globe's premier ungoverned spaces and a site of heavy arms trafficking. If the use of drones in Libya should gradually switch from unarmed surveillance to armed attacks it would anger the heretofore friendly Libyan populace and likely incite revenge attacks against the West. In the wake of such attacks, Libyans would likely close ranks with the extremists in their midst and refuse Western capacity building assistance, which they otherwise support.
Life in a dangerous neighborhood

Instability in the Sahel can only undermine Libyan efforts to secure its borders. In retrospect, the attack against the In Amenas facility appears to be part of a broader strategy by al-Qaeda and its affiliates against energy facilities and Western interests in North Africa. Al-Qaeda affiliates are now involved in an undeclared war with Bamako, Algiers, and Tripoli for control of the Sahel.

The French campaign has dispersed the most hardcore jihadist elements from their previous redoubts in Mali, but they are presently finding safe havens among the Sahara's other ungoverned spaces -- awaiting the appropriate moment to make their next move. February 8th's guerilla-style suicide attack in Gao is a possible indication of the tactics that appear to be spreading. Attacks like those at In Amenas or Gao lacked extensive preparation or a unified command and hence, even with good intelligence -- they are impossible to forecast or preempt. So long as Libya's southwestern border is an ungoverned space, it will be impossible to win a counterinsurgency campaign in the vast empty space of the Sahara. The logic of drone strikes to disturb terrorists in this area holds a certain appeal for an administration that has decimated al-Qaeda leadership in the Af-Pak region, yet it is the wrong policy choice. In the Sahel, fighting fire with fire is not the right strategy.

Only a stable and secure Libya will prevent the indefinite spread of this contagion and a likely series of attacks against North Africa's oil installations and drone counterattacks against terrorist training camps.
Finishing what we started in Libya

A succession of various threats in Benghazi over the past month have made it quite clear that foreign diplomats, NGOs, and investors will remain at risk in Libya so long as the authorities are unable to govern outside of the capital. There is a palpable fear that the General National Congress' February 6 decision approving the direct election of members of the constitutional assembly on a regional basis will lead towards federalism and the disintegration of the Libyan state. These worries are coming to a head as mass anti-government demonstrations are planned in Eastern Libya for Friday, February 15 -- the second anniversary of the Libyan revolution.

If Libyans and Westerners want to see a free, open, and democratic Libya capable of being part of the community of nations and a vital engine for growth in the global economy, they cannot let Libya drift towards lawlessness and separatism. Libya’s international partners, especially the U.S., Britain, and France need to complete their commitments to support Libya in establishing the rule of law, transitional justice, and security. To this end, the major Western and Arab powers unveiled a security plan in Paris on February 12 calling for European experts to train Libyan security forces and rebuild the military. Crucially, this effort has the backing of the EU, UN, Arab League, African Union and the government of Libya.
Time to deliver on training

Until now foreign training of the Libyan army, police, and border guards has been small in scale. Most training has largely been conducted outside of Libya, in Jordan and Turkey. The U.S. for its part has discussed possible training of around 400 military special forces, but has not yet committed to firm details about the program. These positive cooperation measures are incomplete steps upon which we must rapidly build.

The new Libyan security plan announced on February 12 moves the location of training inside Libya, calling for a two-year EU border security training program using civilian trainers starting in June 2013. This plan should aid in dismantling the dysfunctional, militia-dominated Supreme Security Committee and Libya Shield Force.
However, military, police, and border security training should only form part of a broad capacity building and vocational training package urgently needed to promote a stable and secure environment. This is the best way to get needed job skills to former fighters.
Libya should be a top-tier U.S. foreign policy priority

A broad multilateral effort to prevent Libya from becoming a failed state can only succeed with the U.S. as a key and proactive partner. Ignoring or attacking Libya with drones would be a truly counterproductive policy that would worsen the devastating effects of instability in North Africa and the Sahel perpetuating the downward spiral of violence, the loss of foreign investment, and the proliferation of weapons through ungoverned spaces. Instead of drone strikes, Secretary of State John Kerry should go to Libya as part of his first Middle Eastern trip. While there, he should unveil a vast training scheme to help build a new Libyan army and provide it with on the job training in border security. America must follow through on its commitments in order to cultivate a valuable regional partner in Libya and prevent the Sahel region from becoming the next Afghanistan.
Pack is a researcher of Middle Eastern History at Cambridge University and editor of The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post Qadhafi Future (Palgrave Macmillan Forthcoming June 2013)
Benotman is a senior analyst at the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank in London. He was previously a senior leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
Cook is Director of Research of Libya-Analysis.com.

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New York Times Pushes Obama On Climate: ‘He Needs To Do A Great Deal More Than…Foster A Conversation’

Many were disappointed after President Obama’s first post-election press conference when he talked about the urgency of climate change — and then immediately swept aside specifics for action in his second term.

Days after, White House press secretary Jay Carney shot down the prospects for a carbon tax by saying the Administration would “never propose” such a policy.

There doesn’t seem to be much urgency coming out of the White House.

In response, The New York Times is calling out the President for his plan to address climate change with a “conversation”:

Since his re-election, Mr. Obama has agreed to foster a “conversation” on climate change and an “education process” about long-term steps to address it. He needs to do a good deal more than that. Intellectually, Mr. Obama grasps the problem as well as anyone. The question is whether he will bring the powers of the presidency to bear on the problem.

Enlisting market forces in the fight against global warming by putting a price on carbon — through cap-and-trade or a direct tax — seems out of the question for this Congress. But there are weapons at Mr. Obama’s disposal that do not require Congressional approval and could go a long way to reducing emissions and reasserting America’s global leadership.

One imperative is to make sure that natural gas — which this nation has in abundance and which emits only half the carbon as coal — can be extracted without risk to drinking water or the atmosphere. This may require national legislation to replace the often porous state regulations. Another imperative is to invest not only in familiar alternative energy sources like wind and solar power, but also in basic research, next-generation nuclear plants and experimental technologies that could smooth the path to a low-carbon economy.

Mr. Obama’s most promising near-term strategy may be to invoke the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to limit emissions from stationary sources, chiefly power plants.

Indeed, the Administration deserves credit for passing numerous critical executive policies promoting vehicle efficiency, mercury standards, building efficiency standards, and renewable energy. And with Congress unable to act on climate policy, the importance of EPA regulations for global warming pollution is even greater in Obama’s second term. However, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in on her way out, opening up some uncertainty about leadership at the agency: The New York Times explains:

Any such regulations are likely to be strongly opposed by industry and will require real persistence on the administration’s part. If Mr. Obama takes this approach, he will certainly need a determined leader at E.P.A. to devise and carry out the rules. Lisa Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator who on Thursday announced her resignation after four productive years in one of the federal government’s most thankless jobs, was just such a leader.

She suffered setbacks — most notably the White House’s regrettable decision to overrule her science-based proposal to update national health standards for ozone, or smog. But she accomplished much, including tougher standards for power plant emissions of mercury and other air toxics, new health standards for soot, and, most important, her agency’s finding that carbon dioxide and five other gases that contribute to global warming constituted a danger to public health and could thus be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The New York Times piece fails to point out one of the most critical — and often ignored — pieces of climate policy. Creating new standards for power plants and building renewable energy is only one piece of the equation. In order to truly address carbon pollution, we must keep large amounts of coal, oil, and gas in the ground. According to the International Energy Agency, nearly two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves must stay underground in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. While the Obama Administration has done more than any other administration in history to promote alternative forms of energy, it has also shown a willingness to aggressively promote unchecked fossil fuel extraction.

In a recent Time Magazine interview, President Obama said that climate would be one of his top three priorities in his second term. So far, there aren’t many strong signals that the Administration has a coherent plan to actually back up those claims.

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Brave New Foundation Needs Some Brave New Basic Phone Training

Hanging Up 090 – Remedial Call Termination Procedures

Meet Jesse Lava, campaign director – campaign director – at Brave New Foundation: progressive, comedy savant, and first-time user of phones. If you’ve never heard of the man or the group, well, no surprise there. But they do exist, and they are hilarious.

Oh Jesse, you so crazy! They eat babies? YOU ARE A COMIC GENIUS! SOMEONE GET THIS MAN AN HBO SPECIAL RIGHT NOW!

The fake sincerity, the outburst of laughter releasing his obvious nervousness … you’d almost think it was a job interview or an audition or an 11 year old who just asked if your refrigerator was running. I’ll hand it to him, though; he did manage not to babble on about the Kochtopus or the Illuminati.

Tonight, Brave New Foundation is debuting a “documentary” titled Koch Brothers Exposed, which if the trailer is any indication, will consist in the main of accusations that the Kochs have lots of money, and that you should probably be upset about that. (George Soros could not be reached for comment.) You can read “sincere” Jesse discussing the premiere here. Just don’t bother trying to click on his link to the film, it doesn’t work. First day on the internet, too, one might assume.

The best part of the faux call above, for me at least, was the voice at the end suggesting they do a “second take” because “there was so much sirens? When you were talking?” Like, Oh. My. Gosh. For sure. As organized, bought-and-paid for fake grassroots harassment campaigns go, this one clearly needs a little more practice. I mean, if you’re going to be in the business of demonizing rich people for being involved in political causes, you might try starting out not being funded by Soros. Step two is to find people who know how to use things like, oh I don’t know, phones, the internet, English .. you know, starter tools.

By the way, if you’d like to fail to hang up on Brave New Foundation, you can reach them at 310-204-0448.

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