Pence: Obama And Congress Should Focus On Jobs, Not Climate Change

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told reporters at a pen and pad session Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress should be focused on jobs and the economic recession, not climate change.

"House Republicans continue to believe that...jobs are the number one priority of the American people, and should be the number one priority of this Congress," Pence said.

According to a press release from Pence's office, the Republican leader believes President Obama should "address serious concerns before traveling to Copenhagen" for the United Nations global climate change summit.

"At the time of double-digit unemployment, the last thing our country needs is a jobs-killing cap and trade scheme on our families and small businesses by bureaucrats at the United Nations," the statement added.

In his remarks before reporters, Pence also said that if Obama enters the U.S. into a political agreement to reduce carbon emissions, U.S. small businesses would be at a "competitive disadvantage to those developing countries who have pledged to protect their growing economies from international carbon caps."

White House Gaggle With Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

By Victoria Jones - Talk Radio News Service

START Agreement
White House Press Secretary Gibbs opened the gaggle by saying that President Obama spoke with President Medvedev this morning from the White House to continue to make progress on a renewed START agreement that expires on December 5. In the likely event that negotiations are not concluded in the next 24 hours, there will be a joint statement from the two presidents outlining that the status quo will continue as the two make progress toward a renewed agreement.  Issues can probably be worked out with a little more time, Gibbs said. Gibbs said there are no face-to-face meetings planned anytime soon.

A joint statement by the two presidents has since been released.


November Jobs Numbers
Gibbs said the numbers today show that the nation continues to make much needed progress in getting the economy going again, and in getting the right trend going in terms of hiring. These numbers were the best numbers that have been released in 22 months. The two previous months’ numbers were revised downwards. The US is clearly moving in the right direction, Gibbs said. According to Gibbs, the Recovery Act got economic growth going again; Now there is positive movement in jobs. There will be bumps along the way. There will be ups and downs in this process. The President is pleased that we continue to move in the right direction.

Asked if there were any areas of concern, Gibbs said that the President would say that even though the number is less than it has been in 22 months, still 11,000 more people lost their jobs in November. That is too many. We have to return to an economy that is not just growing, but creating jobs. The President held a jobs summit at the White House yesterday, where he heard from CEOs, small businesses and others in the private sector. Today in Allentown, Pa. and in a speech on Tuesday, he will talk about some of his ideas for job growth. We are moving in the right direction, but there will be bumps along the way, said Gibbs.

Pakistan
Gibbs was asked whether the CIA’s expanded use of drones in Pakistan includes targets in Baluchistan. He replied that he respects the longstanding tradition of not talking about it.

Osama bin Laden
Gibbs was asked about a report that says that a Taliban detainee says that bin Laden was in Afghanistan earlier in the year. He refused to discuss it when asked if the US has independent intelligence on it. 

Economy
Gibbs said the President believes he has seen and heard good ideas from his economic team, based on discussions yesterday. He will outline some of what he supports going forward on Tuesday. It will not be the totality, but the President believes we must create an environment for job growth and job creation. Gibbs said there would not be another $787 billion stimulus plan. Using TARP money for job creation is being looked at. Asked whether the job package would be deficit neutral, Gibbs said he did not want to get ahead of that.

Gibbs said the President has asked to be as aggressive as we can be in ideas that will create jobs. If somebody has an idea to create jobs, the President is anxious to hear and look at it. There is not a political constraint on good job creating ideas. Gibbs hoped it would be true from both parties that good ideas create jobs.

In the speech on Tuesday, the President will outline specific ideas for creating jobs and creating an environment where hiring can happen. The President will talk to Congress about these ideas, and Gibbs added that there have already been some discussions with members of Congress.


NATO and Afghanistan
Asked whether the rules of engagement for NATO would be loosened as 7,000 more troops have been announced by NATO for Afghanistan, Gibbs said different countries would make some of those determinations. The US is extremely pleased by the continued cooperation and continued contribution that the international community is making to efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. 

An additional 7,000 troops is a hefty contribution on their part, Gibbs said, and the NATO Secretary General said he believes there are likely more to come.  That is a very positive development in helping us with the mission of combating the insurgency, as well as training the security force that will ultimately take responsibility for security of Afghanistan, said Gibbs.

Gibbs said that General McChrystal’s original equation did not include any NATO troops. One of the points of progress throughout the time period in which the President’s team analyzed the situation was to ensure that our international partners were continuing along our pathway with us. 

Gibbs said that the strategy that got the US into July 2011 is a number and a date that came from military planning at the Pentagon, based on their belief in what could be accomplished, given the strategy that the President would approve, in terms of incentivizing for the Afghans changes in their governance and corruption and an acceleration in their training. 

The full force is likely to get in by the end of next summer. This is a significant ramp up from what was originally proposed in General McChrystal’s assessment, which spread out deployment well into 2011.

Health Care
Gbbs was asked if a realistic date for a health care bill was closer to the State of the Union, given that it took four days to pass two amendments this week. He said he would not wiggle on the date. He said there has been a motion by the Democrats to post amendments on the internet, and Republicans objected. So there had been hours and days debating what the Republicans had wanted to be posted previously. At some point the American people understand there are people in this town to solve the problems people have, and there are people looking to continue to play the same old Washington political games that have gotten their party’s approval ratings a (low rating). If the bill passes, the President would be happy to sign it in Hawaii at a number of picturesque locations.

White House Gaggle With Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

By Victoria Jones - Talk Radio News Service

Afghanistan
Robert Gibbs said the President talked on Sunday afternoon by phone with Secretary Clinton, met last night at 5 pm at the Oval Office with Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, Gens. Cartwright and Petraeus, National Security Advisor General Jim Jones and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

The President communicated his final decision on the strategy, and issued orders on the strategy’s implementation. After that meeting in the Oval Office, the President held a similar meeting by secure video teleconference in the situation room with General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry in Afghanistan at 6 pm.

The President believes the situation in this region is a shared international challenge. Building on the work he has been doing in this regard, including productive calls last Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy, the President will be in close consultation with friends and allies throughout the day today.

The President spoke this morning with President Sarkozy. He will meet with Prime Minister Rudd and discuss our strategy moving forward as well as the economy and climate change. He will not ask for more troops from the Australians as they have increased their contributions throughout the spring to a level the US is quite pleased with. He spoke at noon with President Medvedev, and will speak at 1 pm over secure
video teleconference with Prime Minister Brown. Many of the calls will be to update leaders on the process that has gone into this. Conversations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Zardari will either happen later today or tomorrow. The President is not yet getting overly specific with foreign leaders as to the number of troops he will send.

Consultations with Congress will continue throughout today and tomorrow in the run up to the speech. The President continued to work through the weekend primarily with Ben Rhodes on tomorrow night’s West Point speech.

Tomorrow afternoon at 4.45 pm a bipartisan group - so far about 31 names, maybe more - will gather at the White House with leadership, as well as a number of the committees of jurisdiction. Today, tomorrow, and in this meeting there will be consultations with Congress on strategy.

Gibbs said the President and his team have ensured that there are benchmarks for progress, whether it is on the training or governance side.

Gibbs declined to respond to requests for troop number increases.

In tomorrow night’s speech, the President will reiterate the limits on our resources, both from a manpower perspective and budgetary perspective, and he will say this is not an open ended commitment. The goal of the strategy is to train an Afghan national security force comprised of the Afghan national army and police that can fight an unpopular insurgency in Afghanistan, so we can transfer that responsibility back to them. This is not open-ended.

A big part of this policy is ensuring that the Taliban in Afghanistan are not capable of providing a safe haven for al Qaeda that existed prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The President will discuss that in the importance of why we are there, Gibbs said.

Gibbs was asked if the President would talk about what success would look like in Afghanistan. He replied that he would go through why we are there, what this process brought about, and outline what he hopes to achieve there.

Gibbs was asked if the President would address human rights in Afghanistan, particularly the condition of women and girls, in his speech tomorrow night. He said that he would have to check the speech on that.

Asked if there would be an embargoed copy of the speech made available to the press ahead of the speech, Gibbs said that at 7.30 tomorrow it was their hope to put out a full embargoed text.

Asked if there was a point at which they could just not afford the war anymore, Gibbs said from a broader perspective the President has many concerns about long term debt and the deficit. Throughout the next several weeks and into the next year and beyond, the President will continue to take steps to address fiscal responsibility. Health care costs are part of that fiscal responsibility. Getting the economy back in good health and creating jobs will also help the fiscal situation.

Pakistan
Gibbs said that throughout the campaign and his time here the President has been deeply engaged in improving our bilateral relationship with Pakistan, and ensuring we are working together to root out violent extremism.

Prime Minister Rudd Photo-Op
Gibbs was asked why there would not be a photo op with the press. Gibbs replied that there would be an official photo, to which the reporter pointed out that that was not the same. Gibbs said there would be two people in the photo.

Iran
Gibbs said that a number of the President’s forthcoming conversations with foreign leaders would involve discussing Iran. He said we have seen from the Board of Governors at the IAEA a clear statement from the international community in rebuke
to the activities of Iran. We have seen now purportedly the response of the Iranian government. The Iranians have clear responsibilities and obligations. Their failure to uphold these means that time is running out and failure to take those responsibilities seriously will result in further action.

Jobs Summit
Gibbs said the jobs summit is going ahead on Thursday. The President is eager to hear the private sector’s ideas and where they see the economy. It took extraordinary action at the beginning of the administration to get economic growth going, which has to happen before we can see job growth.

Asked what the real purpose was of having a community event to talk about jobs, Gibbs said they were happy to get ideas and suggestions from anybody. Wisdom is not the dominion of Washington.

Secret Service Investigation - Salahis
Gibbs said as best he knew the Secret Service continues to look into that situation, and when there is something complete, they will have it.

Big Brother: Alive And Well In Beijing

By Paul Brandus - Talk Radio News Service

Metal detectors. Visitors getting wanded. Backpacks and packages carefully screened. It’s awfully nice of the Chinese authorities to lay on all the extra security here at the Beijing Marriott while President Obama is in town.

They say it’s for our protection, we grizzled war correspondents who’ve survived Iraq, Afghanistan and other hellholes. I for one am scared to death here and appreciate the dainty young ladies with white gloves keeping the bad guys out of this plush oasis. Phew!

I sincerely doubt it’s for our benefit. More likely it’s to make it harder for us to conduct interviews with dissidents, rogue Chinese journalists and others who may have something to say that displeases the regime. We can certainly go out and meet these people in other locations, but the tight schedule we’re on makes it logistically very difficult to get away. Easier for them to come to us, hence the watchdogs downstairs. The authorities know how the game is played.

But Big Brother’s not just down in the lobby. He's right here in room 9055. He's blocked me from accessing Twitter and Facebook on my laptop (though they haven’t figured out how to keep me from tweeting on my BlackBerry). And even though this sparkling Marriott is high-tech from top to bottom, the phone on the desk makes some strange clicks whenever I make a call. Maybe it’s nothing, but it reminds me of trying to make phone calls when I worked in the Soviet Union during the bad old days of the KGB.

Indeed, China’s version of the KGB – which, by the way, I can’t seem to research on Google – has apparently been busy clamping down both before and during Obama’s visit. Agence France Presse reported earlier this week that authorities rounded up several dissidents and activists, fearing they could embarrass the leadership.

One person rounded up, says AFP, was a man named Zhao Lianhai, leader of an activist group of parents whose children were allegedly sickened by tainted milk. Zhao’s wife says he was “criminally detained for ‘provoking an incident’.” Another activist group, Human Rights in China, claims Zhao was handcuffed and taken away last week by police officers who also seized computers, a video camera and an address book.

Obama himself has made things easier for the authorities. He hasn’t met anyone who wasn’t prescreened. No free press advocates, no human rights groups, no political opposition. What about Tuesday’s “town hall” in Shanghai? Every student was carefully vetted for their reliability and prepped on how to behave.

Even worse, the White House advance team considered, but rejected a meeting with political activists, only to drop it from the schedule due to time constraints, reports the New York Times. Yet Obama found time yesterday to stroll through the Forbidden City and today visits the Great Wall of China.

It’s the first time an American President has tacitly agreed to be muzzled here. In 1998, President Clinton went on state-run TV and angered his Chinese hosts by discussing human rights, the Dalai Lama and the still-taboo bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square. In 2002, President Bush talked about the importance of personal freedom and the rule of law. But for Obama’s visit, the White House didn’t insist on a national platform for the President, and the Chinese never offered him one.

Paul Brandus filed this report from Beijing

Human Rights, Iran, Clean Energy Top Obama Talks with China’s Hu

By Paul Brandus - Talk Radio News Service

It has been a very busy day for President Obama on his first and only full day in the Chinese capital.

After a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao got right down to business, hitting on every single subject of importance; “Every single one,” emphasized Jon Huntsman, the American Ambassador to the People’s Republic - Iran, North Korea, the global economy, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“We’re actually getting a little bit of traction” on these issues, claimed Huntsman, the former Republican Governor of Utah.

Observers have been speculating for weeks whether Obama, not known for being a confrontationist, would take up the issue of human rights with his hosts. It is a subject the President has avoided with Beijing, underscored by his recent decision not to meet with the Dalai Lama, the spritual leader of Tibet, for fear of offending the Chinese government. But Obama did, in fact, confront Hu, challenging him to protect the freedom of religion and the rights of ethnic minorities in the separatist region.

“The President was candid in describing human rights as a core, a fundamental, bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy,” said Jeff Bader, senior director of the National Security Council for Asian Affairs. “This was as direct a discussion on human rights as I've seen by any high-level visitor with the Chinese.”

But Obama apparently stopped short of saying Tibet should be allowed to break away, an omission regarded by some observers as a de facto acknowledgement with Beijing that Tibet is legally part of the People’s Republic.

As for Iran and its nuclear program, Obama - who warned over the weekend that time is running out for Tehran to come to the negotiating table in earnest - failed to get much support from Hu, according to Bader. Obama has said that if Tehran doesn’t meet the so-called P5+1 negotiators halfway by the end of the year, then tougher economic sanctions may be inevitable. The President has also refused to rule out the possible use of force against Iran.

It seems unlikely that China, which like the U.S. holds permanent veto power in the U.N. Security Council, would ever back tough new sanctions against Tehran barring a dramatic change in the status quo, Bader said.

“The President did talk to President Hu about the possibility… that we will not reach resolution of this issue and we may have to go to track two and greater pressure. I would not say that we got an answer today from the Chinese, nor did we expect one on the subject.”

Hu seems more concerned with neighboring North Korea, which tested a second nuclear device earlier this year and taunted neighbors, and the U.S., by test firing more missiles.

“From the Chinese perspective, North Korea is a more immediate problem and a more immediate security concern, so it's not surprising that they would place more emphasis on that.” Bader added.

On climate change, the U.S. and China will join forces to, among other things, speed up renewable energy programs, develop electric cars and clean coal technologies. But both Obama and Hu have tacitly acknowledged that next month’s long-awaited global climate conference in Denmark will not result in a treaty to curb carbon emissions, a setback to supporters of rolling back emissions. Washington and Beijing now view Copenhagen as just another step along the way towards meaningful action on curbing emissions, as opposed to the kind of sweeping action that supporters say is already dangerously overdue.

“They agreed that the issue of climate change can't wait,” claimed Deputy National Security Advisor Mike Froman, who said the joint efforts to develop new technologies represents “an important step forward on climate change.”

The President also squeezed in a bit of sightseeing today, ditching his suit for a distressed leather jacket before embarking on a tour of the Forbidden City. Wednesday, it’s off to the Great Wall of China, an hour’s drive northwest of Beijing. Mr. Obama then heads to South Korea, the final stop on his Asian tour. He’ll return to Washington on Thursday.

Paul Brandus filed this report from Beijing