President Barack Obama stumped Sunday for the Democratic candidate in Massachusetts’ knife-edge Senate election, saying that his legislative agenda depended on her winning.
The seat, which was occupied by Edward Kennedy for almost five decades before his death in August, was considered a Democratic stronghold. But candidate Martha Coakley finds herself struggling ahead of Tuesday’s vote against Republican opponent Scott Brown.
A win by Brown would strip the Democrats of their 60th Senate seat, meaning their majority was no longer big enough to easily override Republican opposition to Obama’s bitterly fought health care reforms and other major projects.
“A lot of these measures are going to rest on one vote in the United States Senate,” Obama told a noisy Coakley rally in Boston.
“That’s why the opponents of change and progress have been pouring money in,” he said. “They want to keep things as they are.”
US black leaders said Monday they had unreservedly forgiven Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for racially insensitive comments, adding it was time to focus on pressing policy issues.
Reid created a firestorm with remarks published in the just-released book “Game Change,” saying that Americans had warmed to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama because he was a “light-skinned” African-American with “no Negro dialect.”
Representative Barbara Lee, leader of the Congressional Black Congress, said Reid had phoned her over the weekend, and she had accepted his apology without qualms.
“He apologized for his unfortunate remarks concerning the president, and he understands the gravity of such remarks,” said Lee, who said it was time to move past the controversy.
Sen. Ben Nelson says the Senate health care bill isn’t perfect, but he voted to advance the proposal to help control costs.
The Nebraska Democrat issued a statement early Monday defending his vote, saying that while “change is never easy” it is needed in this case because so many are struggling to pay for health care. Nelson’s support was crucial — he provided the 60th vote Democrats needed to choke off a GOP filibuster. But he’s facing criticism from Republicans in his home state because of his support of the bill.
Nelson says he’s glad the health care bill doesn’t include a government-run health care plan, and it does include language to restrict taxpayer funding of abortions. Abortion foes say the bill’s language isn’t strong enough.
President Barack Obama and other world leaders took stalled climate talks into their own hands Friday, holding an emergency meeting to come up with a political agreement to salvage a conference marked by deep divisions between rich and poor countries.
But neither Obama nor Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered any new commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions as they addressed the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen. And Wen skipped the high-level meeting, sending an envoy instead.
With the talks in disarray Friday, many delegates had been looking toward China and the U.S. — the world’s two largest carbon polluters — to deepen their pledges to cut emissions to salvage a deal in Copenhagen.
“We are ready to get this done today but there has to be movement on all sides to recognize that is better for us to act rather than talk,” Obama said, insisting on a transparent way to monitor each nation’s pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Taking an important step on the thorny path to closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the White House plans to announce Tuesday that the government will acquire an underutilized state prison in rural Illinois to be the new home for a limited number of terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo. Administration officials as well as Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will make an official announcement at the White House.
US President Barack Obama on Thursday accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, paying tribute to activists who have taken on governments around the world while uncomfortably acknowledging his role as a leader at war.
Obama’s elevation to a pantheon of winners alongside the likes of Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King before he has even spent a year in office has sparked international criticism.
Obama said he received the award with “great humility” and acknowledged the “controversy” saying that next to “some of the giants of history who have received this prize my accomplishments are slight”.
He paid tribute to anti-government demonstrators in Iran, Myanamar and Zimbabwe and said the United States would always stand on the side of those who sought freedom.
