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Monday, December 19, 2011

Newt Gingrich Hurt By Negative Ads Ahead Of Iowa Caucus 2012


Newt Gingrich Iowa Caucus 2012
THOMAS BEAUMONT and SHANNON MCCAFFREY   12/19/11 10:01 PM ET


DAVENPORT, Iowa — More than $1 million in negative advertising – much of it bankrolled by Mitt Romney's allies – has eroded Newt Gingrich's standing in Iowa and thrown the Republican presidential race here wide open two weeks before the first votes.
The former House speaker's Iowa slide mirrors his newfound troubles nationally, and it has boosted Romney's confidence while fueling talk that libertarian-leaning Texas Rep. Ron Paul could pull off a win in the leadoff caucus state on Jan. 3.
"The only person who profits from Republican ads attacking other Republicans is Barack Obama and I think it is pretty reprehensible behavior on the part of some of the candidates," Gingrich said Monday as he arrived in Davenport, jabbing his opponents even as he insisted he was running an upbeat campaign.
Later, at an appearance in Hiawatha, Gingrich encouraged voters to demand that Romney and others take down the tough spots, saying that they "ought to be ashamed of themselves."
"If you see Romney, tell him to take them off the air,'" he told several hundred supporters.
Despite his chiding, attacks against him are all but certain to continue. For one, the Restore Our Future political action committee, made up of former Romney staffers from his failed 2008 bid, plans to spend $1.4 million more over the next two weeks, including on a new ad beginning Tuesday that's expected to be aimed at Gingrich. That would bring to roughly $3 million the amount spent by the group against Gingrich.
Aides for several campaigns competing against Gingrich as well as outside independent groups aligned with the candidates say their internal polls find that he has fallen over the last week from the top slot in Iowa. And a national Gallup poll released Monday found Gingrich's support plummeting: He had the backing of 26 percent of Republican voters nationally, down from 37 percent on Dec. 8. Romney's support was largely unchanged at 24 percent.
Gingrich's weakened position follows a barrage of advertising that cast him as a longtime Washington, D.C., power-broker. The ads, primarily financed by so-called super PACs, underscore the power of independent groups following a Supreme Court decision last year that allowed people, unions and corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money to outfits advocating the election or defeat of candidates. Since the ruling, groups have popped up to work on behalf of every serious Republican presidential candidate.
Gingrich said while campaigning in Iowa that any candidate faced with such a concentrated an attack will slip.
"You get enough negative ads without answering them, your numbers go down for a while," said Gingrich, who has tried to refrain from attacking his fellow Republicans. "I think the average Republican's going to be very unhappy with Republicans whose entire campaign is negative."
With the caucuses looming in two weeks, the race in Iowa is arguably anyone's to win. And the results here will shape the rest of the state-by-state march to the GOP nomination.
Gingrich has acknowledged that the onslaught has tested his pledge to keep his criticism focused on Democratic President Barack Obama.
The Republican rushed back to Iowa on Monday after a three-day absence for three days of campaigning before voters tune out this weekend for the Christmas holiday.
He told about 200 people in the garage of a security company in Davenport that he would launch a 44-stop Jobs and Prosperity tour before the caucuses, and use those events to answer any charges put out there. Gingrich, whose campaign nearly collapsed last summer, also acknowledged his Iowa organization lags behind. "There's no question, some candidates have been running for five or six years and have raised millions of dollars and they're better organized than I am."
But Gingrich has also been trying to catch up, and got some good news upon his return to Iowa.
Gingrich planned to announce Wednesday during a campaign stop in Des Moines the endorsement of Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen and New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O'Brien.
Gingrich has also redoubled his appeals to conservatives, who make up the base of the GOP, with sharp criticism of the judiciary, saying he would have the Justice Department instruct the U.S. Marshal service to arrest judges who ignore subpoenas to testify in Congress about their decisions. And he tried anew to end accusations he lobbied on behalf of troubled Freddie Mac or other organizations.
"We should have had a much more coherent answer," he said about charges that he earned a windfall from the federally backed mortgage giant.
He then offered his latest explanation, saying that his consulting firm, the Gingrich Group, was hired over a period of six years for strategic advice and he earned about $35,000 a year – "less than I got per speech." Gingrich said that when Freddie Mac was seeking a bailout in 2008, he told House Republicans "my position was to not give them money." Altogether, Gingrich's firm earned some $1.6 million from Freddie Mac.
As Gingrich tried to answer the criticism, Romney, his chief rival, was increasingly expressing optimism as he reveled in a series of endorsements from establishment GOP figures such as Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP nominee, early-state leaders like South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and newspapers including The Des Moines Register.
Romney joined those criticizing Gingrich's comments on judges, telling Fox News in an interview Monday that Gingrich's idea of sending authorities after judges was neither constitutional nor practical.
"Let me tell you, there are a lot of decisions by judges I vehemently disagree with," Romney said. "The solution to judges out of control is not to tear up the Constitution and say that the Congress of the United States becomes the now ultimate power in this country. ... In the Constitution, there is a method for removing a justice. There's also a method for reversing their decisions."
Paul, who has built arguably the largest get-out-the-vote organization in Iowa and has steadily been inching up in Iowa polls, spent the day in New Hampshire before returning to Iowa for a packed schedule later in the week. He's been on the air here with ads assailing Gingrich.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was among several conservatives canvassing Iowa in hopes of taking advantage of Gingrich's slide and mounting a late-game surge.
Another, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, was in the midst of a bus tour when he slapped at two strong-running candidates Monday over their past support of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout while visiting a pizza buffet in Manchester.
"This Wall Street bailout is the single biggest act of theft in American history," he said. "And, you know, Newt and Mitt, they both were for it. That's one of the reasons I say that if you really want an individual who is an outsider, someone who has not been engaged in part of that process, I hope you'll take a look at me."
Most of the money lent to the financial institutions has been repaid.
On her own bus tour of the state, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, looking to peel off Paul supporters, sought to sow doubt about Paul's opposition to pre-emptive military action in nations such as Iran and North Korea.
"Ron Paul would be a dangerous president," Bachmann said in Grundy Center. "He would have us ignore all of the warning signs of another brutal dictator who wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. I won't...The death of Kim Jung Il reminds us that we live in a dangerous world."
Gingrich, indirectly but unmistakably, went after Paul, too, for wanting to close U.S. military bases abroad and bring all or nearly troops home. "I stand apart from some of our candidates in believing we need a strong defense," Gingrich asserted.
That criticism aside, the vast majority of attacks over the past week have been against Gingrich, and not limited to television advertising.
An anonymous independent group calling itself Iowans for Christian Leadership is urging conservatives not to back Gingrich, in light of his two divorces and past marital infidelity. The group has issued fliers and posted a scathing online video aimed at Gingrich, but has not begun showing TV ads.
The pro-Romney group, meantime, has spent $1.1 million on Iowa advertising over the past two weeks with a spot referring to Gingrich's "baggage," including ethics charges that led to his departure from Congress.
Paul's campaign has also run an ad pointedly attacking Gingrich's work for Freddie Mac and his former support for a health care mandate, a position unpopular with conservatives. And Perry also has started to run ads against Gingrich.
All have painted Gingrich as a Washington insider who profited from his stature after leaving Congress more than a decade ago.
Paul is scaling back his advertising to $55,000 or so over the next two weeks but the pro-Romney super PAC is filling the void with roughly $1.4 million in ad time reserved for the rest of the Iowa campaign.
The group also is advertising in Florida, spending a modest amount, roughly $143,000 over two weeks. But the ad buy is significant because Florida, which holds its primary Jan. 31, is seen as a potential showdown for Romney and Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich throws the book at federal judges

December 19, 2011 |  5:37 pm
Gingrich
Is it possible that Newt Gingrich could win the Republican nomination without being able to win "Jeopardy!"?
"I’ll take Checks and Balances for a thousand, Alex."
 This branch of government trumps all the others.
"Alex, what is, 'Any branch I’m in charge of?' "
 BZZZZZT.
Gingrich has been saying on various news venues, that when a judge is "aggressively anti-American, aggressively anti-free speech and aggressively anti-religious -- that judge ought to not be on the bench." He’s advocating presidents ignore Supreme Court rulings if they think they interfere with their authority, arguing for Congress to subpoena judges to explain their rulings, and if need be, enlist federal marshals to force them to show up. If judges were acting "radically anti-American," he’d shut them down.
Whose idea of radical? Of un-American? Was Brown v. Board of Education radical and un-American because many Americans then thought otherwise?
On CBS' "Face the Nation," he’s invoked the "two out of three" playground rule -- if two branches of government don’t like it, the third branch had better suck it up.
The Constitution is a document that famously protects minority rights -- unless, as Gingrich would have it, that minority is the federal courts acting constitutionally to protect minority rights, against the tyranny of voters or a congressional majority.
If you think confirmation hearings are a spectacle now, wait until the senators and members of Congress of the majority party of the moment can summon federal judges via subpoena to account for themselves: the Republicans want the C-SPAN cameras going while hammering the justices to justify Roe v. Wade, the Democrats are ready for their closeups about Bush v. Gore and Citizens United.
That is the kind of spectacle for reality shows and banana republics, not for a constitutional democracy.
On Fox, Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales, two George W. Bush attorneys general  -- even two Bush attorneys general, some of you might be thinking --  deplored this as unsettling, and perhaps a "dishonest" use of Congress’ subpoena power, to use Mukasey’s word.
So what are the conclusions we have to choose from about Gingrich’s flaming federal judges?
Option one-- Does he know better and is cynically pandering to the anti-judiciary crowd, chumming for votes among the grandchildren of the people who drove around with "Impeach Earl Warren" bumper stickers on their Oldsmobiles?
Option two-- Has he in fact quaffed the "activist judges" Flavor-Aid? [I know Kool-Aid has become the trope, but it was Flavor-Aid that was served up as the mass-suicide cocktail at Jonestown; a reporter friend who covered the event brought back an empty Flavor-Aid packet with him.]
Option three -- Has Gingrich gone "imperial presidency" on us, after spending a little too much time in the Speaker’s chair and believing he can propose and dispose of the Constitution as he pleases?
Here’s your chance to vote. Maybe your last chance. Because if Gingrich keeps this up, you won’t be getting a chance to vote on him in any other venue -- like a ballot.

Republicans Trade Cross-Dome Shots


Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
Congressional Republicans were in disarray today, with Speaker John Boehner  (Ohio) denying he ever agreed to a deal he commissioned Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to strike and the party’s rank and file taking cross-chamber intraparty potshots.
Republicans have come full circle from last week, when they seized the upper hand in messaging by accusing Senate Democrats of playing shutdown politics.
Now, instead of claiming victory on the payroll tax cut compromise and heading home, many House Republicans are attacking the 39 GOP Senators who voted for the agreement McConnell crafted with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — and the Kentucky Republican himself for striking it.
Mitch McConnell did an ineffective job negotiating with Harry Reid,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said. “They get distracted with their bingo night, so you can’t blame them for getting this one wrong. I totally disagree with them. I think they wimped out.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, especially those vulnerable in the 2012 cycle, began coming out against their House counterparts today, challenging the chamber to pass their bill.
“There is no reason to hold up the short-term extension while a more comprehensive deal is being worked out,” Sen. Dean Heller said. “What is playing out in Washington, D.C., this week is about political leverage, not about what’s good for the American people. Congress can work out a solution without stopping the payroll tax cut extension for the middle class, jeopardizing seniors’ access to health care or threatening unemployment insurance.”
It would be difficult for Congress to approve a conference report before the current payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and Medicare “doc-fix” provisions expire. It could take the Senate as many as nine days to appoint conferees because of potential procedural hurdles. And conferences usually take days for negotiators to reconcile positions.
House Republicans, nevertheless, contend their Senate counterparts are punting tough issues.
At a news conference today, several House GOP freshmen expressed their disdain for the Senate product and called for a full-year extension. Asked what they thought of the overwhelming Senate vote — it passed 89-10 Saturday — the first-term Republicans had one common sentiment: disappointment.
“To our colleagues in the Senate GOP, I’m very troubled by their actions that they took and they demonstrated with that 89-to-10 vote,” Rep. Tom Reed (N.Y.) said.
“This was a cop-out,” Rep. Allen West (Fla.) echoed. “I’m disappointed in them. I can’t understand why they would. It violates every pragmatic principle that we all stand for.”
Still, GOP Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Susan Collins (Maine) joined Heller in reiterating their support for the short-term deal.
Lugar, appearing on MSNBC, pointed to the stress in the House GOP Conference.
“Speaker Boehner is under enormous pressure. He’s gotten a lot of feedback from many Republicans who say, ‘We just don’t like it.’ As a matter of fact, many Republicans would say, ‘We don’t really want the extension of the unemployment compensation or the rest of it anyway,’” Lugar said. “But I’m hopeful that our majority, Republicans and Democrats today, will proceed because it seems to me this is best for the country as well as for all the individuals who are affected.”
The criticism from the Senate GOP rank and file seemed to indicate frustration from Members who believed or were led to believe — rightly or wrongly — Saturday that they were voting en masse on a bill designed to pass Congress and become law.
Several sources said that in the Senate Republican Conference meeting held Friday night in the Strom Thurmond Room near McConnell’s office suite, the Kentucky Senator had expressed confidence that the two-month plan would pass the House and everyone could go home to enjoy their holidays. There are photos and video footage of McConnell high-fiving Conference Vice Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.).
The question is whether that confidence came from conversations with Boehner or whether McConnell assumed that if the bill cleared with nearly 90 percent of the Senate’s support, it would have an easier route through the House. Sources familiar with the meeting indicated last week that McConnell had conveyed the support of Boehner and the House, though by today, aides were tight-lipped about the specifics of the closed-door meeting.
In a media availability meeting this morning, Boehner denied he ever supported the deal between Reid and McConnell — the result of a negotiating process the Speaker said he kick-started last week by indicating he “would not enter into negotiations with them until the Senate produced a bill,” he said.
McConnell’s office refused to comment on Boehner’s characterization of the talks between the two Republican leaders, saying they do not speak publicly about private meetings involving their boss.
The Republican tumult now has some House Democrats wondering why their colleagues effectively snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and opened themselves up to a new onslaught of attacks.
The McConnell-Reid deal skirted an added tax on millionaires that is repugnant to Republicans and would have forced President Barack Obama to decide on a Keystone XL pipeline project that pits environmentalists against unions — two pillars of the Democratic base.
“They got a lot of what they wanted. Keystone was huge. The president threatened to veto it,” one Democratic staffer said. “Now I think that our party leadership is going to beat the s--- out of them on taxes, on middle-class tax relief.”
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said her Caucus was prepared to support the two-month measure even though it was not the deal they would have preferred.
“The Speaker had said very clearly all along that Leader Reid should negotiate with Leader McConnell. This is the compromise,” the California Democrat said before meeting with the Democratic Caucus. “This isn’t the bill we were advocating; we want one year. This is the compromise. This is just moving the goal posts.”
Senate Democrats dug in on their position that they passed a reasonable, bipartisan bill as a two-month stop-gap measure to ensure that Americans’ benefits do not lapse.
In the face of calls for a conference committee between the Senate’s two-month bill and the House’s full-year bill the chamber passed last week, Democrats say that, as of now, they have no plans to appoint conferees.
Each Senate Democratic leader struck back within the past 24 hours, with Reid saying today that Republicans faced a take-it-or-leave-it choice.
“Senator McConnell and I negotiated a compromise at Speaker Boehner’s request. I will not re-open negotiations until the House follows through and passes this agreement that was negotiated by Republican leaders, and supported by 90 percent of the Senate,” Reid said in a statement.

Senate negotiators reach deal on payroll tax cut extension

WASHINGTON -- Senate negotiators reached a deal Friday on a two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday, unemployment benefits and Medicare payments to doctors.
The deal, if approved by Congress, would require President Barack Obama to make a decision within 60 days whether to permit the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transfer oil from Canada oil sands to Gulf of Mexico refineries. The White House has resisted being forced into expediting a decision.
Key provisions of the deal:
  • Lasts for two months and costs about $40 billion.
  • Extends the payroll tax holiday at the current 4.2 percent.
  • Slight reform to unemployment benefits, but a Democratic Senate aide said the changes were "not nearly as draconian as the GOP wanted originally."
  • Fends off a 28 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
  • Pays for the extensions through higher transaction fees when folks use Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
  • Requires Obama to decide whether the pipeline is in the national interest.
Republicans liked the deal because of the mechanism for paying for it and because of the Keystone provision.
State Department warns GOP on pipeline fast-track attempt
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told NBC News on Friday night that he will vote for the bill, saying, "It’s the best they can do … Look I’m always in favor of longer-term permanent solutions, but this is as far we could get on their side. On the other hand, I think we have a pretty stable solution when it comes to the issue of the pipeline, and hopefully the president will make the right decision that it's in our national interest.”
The Senate will vote on the bill Saturday and is expected to pass it. The House could vote on it as early as Monday. The House could always do something called "unanimous consent" when the chair passes something if nobody disagrees. But a House GOP leadership aide told NBC News: "We have not signed off on anything -- and will not until we talk to our members."
It's expected that House Speaker John Boehner will let his members go on the record on this bill and the House will be called back into session to vote on it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged that the same fights would resurface.
“So we’ll be back discussing the same issues in a couple of months, but from our point of view we think the Keystone pipeline is a very important job-creating measure,” he told NBC News.



House punts on tax vote until Tuesday


The stalemate over how and whether to extend an expiring payroll tax cut will drag into Tuesday after House Republicans delayed a planned vote to reject a Senate bill to extend the tax holiday for two months.
House Republican leaders emerged following a meeting with rank-and-file members to say that the House would take up their votes on Tuesday. Lawmakers had planned to vote around 6:30 p.m. ET on Monday evening, but the 6 p.m. meeting of GOP lawmakers lasted longer than expected, over two hours.
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that the House Rules Committee, which sets the parameters for votes in the House, would meet tonight to set the stage for tomorrow's series of votes. Those Tuesday votes would include a measure to reject the Senate's two month extension, and instead instruct lawmakers to meet in a conference -- the formal process of resolving differences with legislation in the Senate.
"Our members do not want to just punt and do a two-month, short-term fix where we have to come back and do this again," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters at the Capitol.
House Republicans prefer legislation to extend the expiring tax cut by a whole year, and produced legislation to that effect. But Democrats in the Senate rejected that proposal because of some of the cuts used to offset the cost of the bill, which also includes an extension of unemployment insurance.
The House had been expected to vote early Tuesday morning after the preliminary vote was delayed. That plan was nixed, apparently with some political optics in mind.
"We also said we didn't like the idea of doing things in the dead of the night," House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy (CA) said.
If the House does manage to follow through on its promise to reject the Senate-passed bill, that move would do little to ostensibly advance any final agreement on payroll taxes. Democrats spent most of Monday explaining that they would not consider any yearlong extension until the House had passed the stopgap tax cut.
"I will not re-open negotiations until the House follows through and passes this agreement that was negotiated by Republican leaders, and supported by 90 percent of the Senate," Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said this afternoon in a statement.
They were joined by a small group of Senate Republicans who publicly urged their House counterparts to approve the two-month extension. The tax cut is set to expire on Dec. 31, meaning payroll taxes would go up on Jan. 1 barring some sort of deal.
Boehner downplayed any notion of discord among Republicans, refusing to say whether Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) had erred in expecting the House to pass the agreement McConnell had reached with Reid.
"The Senate did their job. They produced a bill," Boehner said. "And the House disagrees with it."

House passes $1T budget bill, avoids shutdown






The House has passed a $1 trillion-plus catch-all budget bill, but the drama is still going on in the Senate. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
Updated at 2:22 p.m. ET
The House has passed a $1 trillion-plus catchall budget bill paying for day-to-day budgets of 10 Cabinet departments and averting a government shutdown.
The 296-121 vote to approve the measure represented a rare moment of bipartisanship in a polarized Capitol. Lawmakers are also seeking compromise on separate legislation to renew jobless benefits and a cut in payroll taxes.
The vote sends the measure to the Senate, which was expected to pass it on Saturday.
The bill puts in place budget curbs mandated under an August pact between President Barack Obama and Congress. It trims spending for most domestic agencies and awards the Pentagon the smallest budget hike in recent memory. It pays for overseas military operations and a slew of programs ranging from border security to flood control to combating AIDS and famine in Africa.
Many provisions sought by House Republicans were dropped from the bill before its passage, and Democrats blocked a series of GOP assaults on Environmental Protection Agency regulations, though the agency's budget absorbed a cut of more than 3 percent.
GOP leaders did succeed in halting new rules requiring energy efficient light bulbs, delays in regulations of coal dust and eliminating federal funding of needle exchange programs.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, flanked by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, left, and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., briefs reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, after lawmakers from both political parties came together on an 11th-hour deal to keep the government from shutting down.
War costs would be $115 billion, a $43 billion cut from the previous year.
The bill chips away at the Pentagon budget, foreign aid and environmental spending but boosts funding for veterans programs. The Securities and Exchange Commission, responsible for enforcing new regulations under last year's financial overhaul, won a 10 percent budget increase, even as the tax-collecting IRS absorbed a more than 3 percent cut to its budget.
Popular education initiatives for special-needs children and disadvantaged schools were basically frozen, and Obama's cherished "Race to the Top" initiative, which provides grants to better-performing schools, would absorb a more than 20 percent cut. The maximum Pell grant for low-income college students would remain at $5,550, but only after major cost-cutting moves that would limit the number of semesters the grants may be received and make income eligibility standards more strict.

Secret US-Taliban talks reach turning point

 

Diplomacy remains a long shot, officials acknowledge

 updated 1 hour 56 minutes ago
After 10 months of secret dialogue with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, senior U.S. officials say the talks have reached a critical juncture and they will soon know whether a breakthrough is possible, leading to peace talks whose ultimate goal is to end the Afghan war.
As part of the accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy, Reuters has learned, the United States is considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody.
It has asked representatives of the Taliban to match that confidence-building measure with some of their own. Those could include a denunciation of international terrorism and a public willingness to enter formal political talks with the government headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The officials acknowledged that the Afghanistan diplomacy, which has reached a delicate stage in recent weeks, remains a long shot. Among the complications: U.S. troops are drawing down and will be mostly gone by the end of 2014, potentially reducing the incentive for the Taliban to negotiate.
Still, the senior officials, all of whom insisted on anonymity to share new details of the mostly secret effort, suggested it has been a much larger piece of President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy than is publicly known.
U.S. officials have held about half a dozen meetings with their insurgent contacts, mostly in Germany and Doha with representatives of Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban's Quetta Shura, the officials said.
The stakes in the diplomatic effort could not be higher. Failure would likely condemn Afghanistan to continued conflict, perhaps even civil war, after NATO troops finish turning security over to Karzai's weak government by the end of 2014.
An image of the 9/11 attacks is projected above photos of soldiers on display from the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, during a ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the soldiers the unit has lost in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the attacks Sunday, Sept. 11, at Forward Operating Base Bostick in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
Success would mean a political end to the war and the possibility that parts of the Taliban - some hardliners seem likely to reject the talks - could be reconciled.
The effort is now at a pivot point.
"We imagine that we're on the edge of passing into the next phase. Which is actually deciding that we've got a viable channel and being in a position to deliver" on mutual confidence-building measures, said a senior U.S. official.
While some U.S.-Taliban contacts have been previously reported, the extent of the underlying diplomacy and the possible prisoner transfer have not been made public until now.
The reconciliation effort, which has already faced setbacks including a supposed Taliban envoy who turned out to be an imposter, faces hurdles on multiple fronts, the U.S. officials acknowledged.
They include splits within the Taliban; suspicion from Karzai and his advisers; and Pakistan's insistence on playing a major, even dominating, role in Afghanistan's future.
Obama will likely face criticism, including from Republican presidential candidates, for dealing with an insurgent group that has killed U.S. soldiers and advocates a strict Islamic form of government.
But U.S. officials say that the Afghan war, like others before it, will ultimately end in a negotiated settlement.
"The challenges are enormous," a second senior U.S. official acknowledged. "But if you're where we are ... you can't not try. You have to find out what's out there."
Next steps? If the effort advances, one of the next steps would be more public, unequivocal U.S. support for establishing a Taliban office outside of Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said they have told the Taliban they must not use that office for fundraising, propaganda or constructing a shadow government, but only to facilitate future negotiations that could eventually set the stage for the Taliban to reenter Afghan governance.
On Sunday, a senior member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council said the Taliban had indicated it was willing to open an office in an Islamic country.
US Army Specialist Justin Coletti of US Forces Afghanistan K-9 combat tracker team resting with Dasty, a Belgian Malinois at an airfield of Forward Operating Base Pasab following a five-hour overnight air assault mission with Bravo Company, 2-87 Infantry Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team in Maiwand district, Kandahar province. Dasty who has a rank of a Sergeant, is a military working dog trained to patrol and locate a target individual and is currently deployed in southern Afghanistan saving lives of coalition forces in its war against Taliban insurgents. (Romeo Gacad / AFP - Getty Images)

But underscoring the fragile nature of the multi-sided diplomacy, Karzai on Wednesday announced he was recalling Afghanistan's ambassador to Qatar, after reports that nation was readying the opening of the Taliban office. Afghan officials complained they were left out of the loop.
On a possible transfer of Taliban prisoners long held at Guantanamo, U.S. officials stressed the move would be a 'national decision' made in consultation with the U.S. Congress. Obama is expected to soon sign into law the 2011 defense authorization bill that contains new provisions on detainee policy.
There are slightly fewer that 20 Afghan citizens at Guantanamo, according to various accountings. It is not known which ones might be transferred, nor what assurances the White House has that the Karzai government would keep them in its custody.
Guantanamo detainees have been released to foreign governments--and sometimes set free by them--before. But the transfer as part of a diplomatic negotiation appears unprecedented.
Ten years after the repressive Taliban government was toppled by its Afghan opponents and their Western backers, a hoped-for political settlement has become a centerpiece of the U.S. strategy to end a war that has killed nearly 3,000 foreign troops and cost the Pentagon alone $330 billion.
While Obama's decision to deploy an extra 30,000 troops in 2009-10 helped push the Taliban out of much of its southern heartland, the war is far from over. Militants remain able to slip in and out of lawless areas of Pakistan, where the Taliban's senior leadership is located.
Bold attacks from the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network have undermined the narrative of improving security and raised questions about how well an inexperienced Afghan military will be able to cope when foreign troops go home.
In that uncertain context, officials say that initial contacts with insurgent representatives since U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly embraced a diplomatic strategy in a February 18, 2011 speech have centered on establishing whether the Taliban was open to reconciliation, despite its pledge to continue its 'sacred jihad' against NATO and U.S. soldiers.
"The question has been to the Taliban, 'You have got a choice to make. Life's moving on," the second U.S. official said. "There's a substantial military campaign out there that will continue to do you substantial damage ... Are you prepared to go forward with some kind of reconciliation process?"
U.S. officials have met with Tayeb Agha, who was a secretary to Mullah Omar, and they have held one meeting arranged by Pakistan with Ibrahim Haqqani, a brother of the Haqqani network's founder. They have not shut the door to further meetings with the Haqqani group, which is blamed for a brazen attack this fall on the U.S. embassy in Kabul and which senior U.S. officials link closely to Pakistan's intelligence agency.
U.S. officials say they have kept Karzai informed of the process and have met with him before and after each encounter, but they declined to confirm whether representatives of his government are present at those meetings.
Evolving Taliban position? Officials now see themselves on the verge of reaching a second phase in the reconciliation process that, if successful, would clinch the confidence-building measures and allow them to move to a third stage in which the Afghan government and the Taliban would sit down together in talks facilitated by the United States.
U.S. Army Major General Daniel B. Allyn, commander of ISAF Regional Command (East) takes part during a memorial ceremony in Kunar province, July 7. Four U.S. Army soldiers, Lieutenant Dimitri Del Castillo, Staff Sergeant Nigel Kelly, Specialist Levi Nuncio and Specialist Kevin Hilaman, two Afghan National Army soldiers, an Afghan linguist and Agdar, a military sniffer dog died during operations in Kunar district in the last week of June 2011. (Baz Ratner / Reuters)

"That's why it's especially delicate -- because if we don't deliver the second phase, we don't get to the pay-dirt," the first senior U.S. official said.
Senior administration officials say that confidence-building measures must be implemented, not merely agreed to, before full-fledged political talks can begin. The sequence of such measures has not been determined, and they will ultimately be announced by Afghans, they say.
Underlying the intensive efforts of U.S. negotiators are fundamental questions about whether - and why - the Taliban would want to strike a peace deal with the Western-backed Karzai government.
U.S. officials stress that the 'end conditions' they want the Taliban to embrace -- renouncing violence, breaking with Al Qaida, and respecting the Afghan constitution -- are not preconditions to starting talks.
Encouraging trends on the Afghan battlefield - declining militant attacks, a thinning of the Taliban's mid-level leadership, the emergence of insurgent-on-insurgent violence -- are one reason why U.S. officials believe the Taliban may be more likely to engage in substantive talks than in the past.
They also cite what they see as an overlooked, subtle shift in the Taliban's position on reconciliation over the past year, based in part by statements from Mullah Omar marking Muslim holidays this year.
In July, the Taliban reiterated its long-standing position of rejecting any peace talks as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. In October, a senior Haqqani commander said the United States was insincere about peace in Afghanistan.
But U.S. officials say the Taliban no longer wants to be the global pariah it was in the 1990s. Some elements have suggested flexibility on issues of priority for the West, such as protecting rights for women and girls.
"That's one of the reasons why we think this is serious," a third senior U.S. official said.
Risky strategy
Yet as the process moves ahead, the idea of seeking a peace deal with an extremist movement is fraught with challenge.
At least one purported insurgent representative has turned out to be a fraud, highlighting the difficulty of vetting potential brokers in the shadowy world of the militants largely based in Pakistan.
And the initiative was dealt a major blow in September when former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who headed peace efforts for Karzai, was assassinated in an attack Afghanistan said originated in neighboring Pakistan.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden meets with U.S. troops in Maidan in Wardak province on Jan. 11. (Omar Sobhani / Reuters) 
 
Since then, Karzai has been more ambivalent about talks. He ruled out an early resumption in negotiations and said Afghanistan would talk only to Pakistan 'until we have an address for the Taliban.'
The dust-up over the unofficial Taliban office in Qatar, with a spokesman for Karzai stressing that Afghanistan must lead peace negotiations to end the war, suggests tensions in the U.S. and Afghan approaches to the peace process.
Speaking in an interview with CNN aired on Sunday, Karzai counseled caution in making sure that Taliban interlocutors are authentic -- and authentically seeking peace. The Rabbani killing, he said, was a demonstration of such difficulties and "brought us in a shock to the recognition that we were actually talking to nobody."
Critics of Obama's peace initiative are deeply skeptical of the Taliban's willingness to negotiate given that the West's intent to pull out most troops after 2014 would give insurgents a chance to reclaim lost territory or nudge the weak Kabul government toward collapse.
While the United States is expected to keep a modest military presence in Afghanistan beyond then, all of Obama's 'surge' troops will be home by next fall and the administration - looking to refocus on domestic priorities -- is already exploring further reductions.
Another reason to be circumspect is the potential spoiler role of Pakistan, which has so far resisted U.S. pressure to crack down on militants fueling violence in Afghanistan and to cooperate more closely with the U.S. military and diplomatic campaign there.
Such considerations make reconciliation a divisive initiative even within the Obama administration. Few officials describe themselves as optimists about the peace initiative; at the State Department, which is formally leading the talks, senior officials see the odds of brokering a successful agreement at only around 30 percent.
"There's a very real likelihood that these guys aren't serious ... which is why are continuing to prosecute all of the lines of effort here," the third senior U.S. official said. While NATO commanders promise they will keep up pressure on militants as the troop force shrinks, they are facing a tenacious insurgency in eastern Afghanistan that may prove even more challenging than the south.
Still, with Obama committed to withdrawing from Afghanistan, as the United States did last week from Iraq, the administration has few alternatives but to pursue what may well prove to be a quixotic quest for a deal.
"Wars end, and the end of wars have political consequences," the second official said. "You can either try to shape those, or someone does it to you."

Will younger Kim's aunt and uncle be North Korea puppet masters?





Kcna / AFP - Getty Images
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, left, and right-hand man Jang Song Taek inspect Mt. Ryongak Recreation Grounds in Pyongyang in this undated photo from the official Korea Central News Agency.

Many things about North Korea are a mystery, but this much is clear: The country’s heir-apparent -- 27-year-old Kim Jong Un -- lacks the job experience to run a nuclear-armed nation of 23 million people. But his elevation to "great successor" was only part of a transfer of power that left other key allies of his father, Kim Jong Il, in key positions around him.
For many Korea watchers, the most likely power behind the young leader is his uncle, Jang Song Taek, 65. Jang, who married into power by tying the knot with Kim Jong Il’s sister, survived 30 years of political ups and downs before emerging as right-hand man to Kim Jong Il.  
“My sense of Jang is that he is a really capable guy,” said Marcus Noland, an Asia expert and senior fellow for the Peterson Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “He may have bad ideas or bad motives, but if you look at his career, it’s clear that he has some kind of capability.”

Kim Jong Un has spent most of his time in North Korea, but he did study for a few years in an international school in Switzerland in the mid-1990s. Since being identified as successor in 2009, Jong Un's status has been plumped up through public appearances with his father, receiving the rank of general and having military orders issued in his name.
"Kim Jong Il picked the apple that didn't fall far from the tree," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He didn't select a successor who he believed would radically depart from his vision for North Korea."
Jang has credentials as a political survivor, observers say. He’s been exiled from the inner circle of power at least twice. The first occurred when he sought to marry Kim Kyung Hee, the younger sister of Kim Jong Il, over the opposition of Kim Il Sung — the "great leader" who died in 1994; he also disappeared from sight from about 2003-2006, purged for allegedly creating factions and maneuvering to seize power, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a website for military policy research.

Ultimately, however, Jang married Kyung Hee and eventually was elevated to be vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, a position that second in power behind the country’s supreme leader, now Kim Jong Un. He is also director of the State Development Bank. Some South Korean scholars believe that he was de facto leader during Kim Jong Il’s illness.
“In a way (Jang’s) biography reminds me of Deng Xiaoping’s,” said Noland, referring to the Chinese leader who became the de facto head of state after suffering multiple purges. “They keep throwing him to the countryside and he keeps coming back."


Kns / AFP - Getty Images
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's younger sister Kim Kyong Hee, left, attends the Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, in Sept. 2010. Kim Kyong Hee and her husband Jang Song Taek are considered influential players in the aftermath of Kim Jong Il''s death. 

Jang's relationship with Kyung Hee, Kim Jong Il's only living full sibling, is important. Kim Jong Il also has one half-sister and two half-brothers, born to his father’s second wife. But when he took the reins from his father, he evidently regarded these younger relations as a threat and dispatched them to obscure diplomatic outposts.
Kyung Hee, 65, despite a reputation for bullying everyone -- including  Kim Jong Il  -- has been visibly at his side several years, holding key positions in the Communist Party and the government. In September 2010 she and her nephew Jong Un both were given the rank of general in the military, confirming their status in the inner circle.
Whether Jang will pursue the path of protector, puppet master or rival remains to be seen. In the totalitarian system that has survived nearly 60 years in North Korea, the official version has little to do with reality.
"A lot depends on whether the power centers of the regime coalesce around Kim Jong Un, or see this period of uncertainty as an opportunity to change the balance of power internally," a U.S. official told NBC on background. "Those are very tricky calculations to make in an authoritarian society like North Korea."

Besides Jang, there are other players who could pose a challenge to Jong Un’s rule, most notably in  the military.
There are other wild cards, such as Kim Jong Il’s former secretary and live-in girlfriend in his last years — 47-year-old Kim Ok — who some refer to as North Korea’s “first lady.”
Jong Un’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, born to the second of Kim Jong Ils’ three wives, was assumed to be heir to the "dear leader" at one point, but lost favor when he was arrested in Japan traveling on a false passport while trying to go to Disneyland with his son. He has been watching events in his home country from Macau.
“It’s like watching a family crime syndicate, like the Sopranos,” said Noland. “It’s a combination of brutality and dysfunctionality.”
“The problem is for (outsiders) is that it would be very hard to distinguish between a North Korea that Jong Un is ruling or one where he is just reigning,” he said. “It may be a few years before we have a clear picture.”
Robert Windrem, NBC News investigative producer for special projects, contributed to this report.


NASA / NOAA
This picture of Earth at night is based on 1994-1995 satellite data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System, which maps the location of permanent lights on the planet. The borders of North Korea are outlined in white, with Japan off to the right, China to the left and South Korea below.

This iconic "Earth at Night" picture is based on data gathered by military satellites in 1994-1995, just after Kim inherited power from his late father, Kim Il Sung. The darkness shows how much North Korea has lagged behind its neighbors — South Korea, China, Russia and Japan — in electrification and industrial development. Updates of the data sets show that there's been no change in North Korea's city-light situation between 1992 and 2009. Check out NASA's "Science on a Sphere" webpage for more about the "Earth at Night" satellite data project.


DigitalGlobe
This high-resolution satellite image from DigitalGlobe, acquired on Nov. 4, 2010, shows new construction at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear site. The building with a deep blue roof is thought to be a gas centrifuge plant.


A different kind of satellite project shows where North Korea has made progress during the dark age of Kim Jong Il: For years, the Institute for Science and International Security has been using satellite imagery to document the state of North Korea's nuclear program. Pictures acquired from orbit over the past couple of years show new construction at the country's Yongbyon nuclear center.
Here's a recent picture of the Yongbyon site from DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite imaging venture. ISIS says the blue roofs on a gas centrifuge plant and an adjoining building appear to be part of increased construction activity:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il dies at 69

He suffered massive heart attack, state news agency says 

NBC News and news services
updated 35 minutes ago


 
    developing story
    Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic longtime leader, has died of heart failure. He was 69.
    In a "special broadcast" Monday from the North Korean capital, state media said Kim died of a heart ailment on a train due to a "great mental and physical strain" on Dec. 17 during a "high intensity field inspection." It said an autopsy was done on Dec. 18 and "fully confirmed" the diagnosis.
    A spokesperson at the Unification Ministry confirmed to NBC News that Kim died on Saturday.
    Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008, but he had appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country carefully documented by state media. The communist country's "Dear Leader" — reputed to have had a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine — was believed to have had diabetes and heart disease.
    Story: 'Young general' seen poised to take over N. Korea dynasty
    "It is the biggest loss for the party ... and it is our people and nation's biggest sadness," an anchorwoman clad in black Korean traditional dress said in a voice choked with tears. She said the nation must "change our sadness to strength and overcome our difficulties."
    South Korean media, including Yonhap news agency, said South Korea put its military on "high alert" and President Lee Myung-bak convened a national security council meeting after the news of Kim's death. Officials couldn't immediately confirm the reports.
    President Barack Obama was monitoring reports of the death of the North Korean leader, the White House said Sunday night, adding that U.S. officials were in contact with allies in South Korea and Japan.
    "We remain committed to stability on the Korean peninsula, and to the freedom and security of our allies," the White House said in a statement.
    PhotoBlog: The life of Kim Jong Il The news came as North Korea prepared for a hereditary succession. Kim Jong Il inherited power after his father, revered North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, died in 1994
     
    North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (2nd L) and his youngest son Kim Jong-un (3rd R from Kim Jong-il) visit the cemetery for Chinese soldiers who died during the 1950-53 Korean War in Hoechang County, North Korea, Oct. 26, 2010, in this picture released by North Korea's official KCNA news agency. 
     Visit from Clinton
    Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, right, meets with Kim Jong Il, left front, in Pyongyang on Aug. 4, 2009. North Korea pardoned and released two detained U.S. journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, after the meeting. (AP)
     Toasting the U.S.
    Kim Jong Il toasts U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a dinner in Pyongyang in October 2000. The visit was part of an coordinated effort by Washington and its allies South Korea and Japan to end the country's isolation. (Chien-min Chung / AFP - Getty Images)
    1. The death of Kim Jong Il
      1. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, 69, has died
      2. 'Young general' seen poised to take over N. Korea
      3. US aid a step toward Korea nuclear talks
      4. PhotoBlog: The life of Kim Jong Il
      5. Even in death, details of Kim Jong Il's life elusive
    2. In September 2010, Kim Jong Il unveiled his third son, the twenty-something Kim Jong Un, as his successor, putting him in high-ranking posts.
    Traffic in the North Korean capital was moving as usual Monday, but people in the streets were in tears as they learned the news of Kim's death. A foreigner contacted at Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel said hotel staff were in tears.
    Asian stock markets moved lower amid the news, which raises the possibility of increased instability on the divided Korean peninsula.
    South Korea's Kospi index was down 3.9 percent at 1,767.89 and Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 percent to 8,331.00. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 2 percent to 17,929.66 and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2 percent to 2,178.75.
    The Associated Press contributed to this report.